Wildwood (10 page)

‘Oh, I think you’ll find it is. I own this land now, and everything on it.
Everything
. The deeds are in my possession and if you want a look at a copy I shall be delighted to let you know the address of my solicitors. In fact I’m quite certain you and they will be in correspondence very shortly. You and your rent-a-mob are nothing more than trespassers.’

‘Bring it on.’ Ash looked contemptuous. ‘This is wildwood, Deverick; no one owns it. No one ever has. It’s never been under human dominion at any time in history. It belongs only to itself.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I butted in, shaking my head. Here at least I was sure of my ground. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re just wrong. There’s no wildwood left in England. Read your Rackham. It’s all been used and managed in some way at some time: firewood, charcoal, grazing or timber or shooting. The only reason
any
woodland in this country survives and hasn’t been cleared for fields is because it’s been useful in some other way.’

Ash’s light, fierce gaze rested on me. I felt my cheeks warm. Don’t you dare say a word about last night, I cried silently. Don’t you dare!

‘Not this one,’ was all he said.

‘I’m sure you’re right that it’s ancient woodland and it’s never been anything else,’ I added. I could understand why he was so passionate about Grange Wood; it was a wonderful place. ‘But it’s not wildwood. It can’t be.’

‘Listen to the expert, Ash.’ Michael was smiling coldly. ‘She knows what she’s talking about.’

‘Not about this place. Have you told her, Deverick? Told her what you’re planning?’

I felt a chill.

‘I’m planning,’ said Michael, ‘to get access to
my
land. And if I have to build a four-lane highway to do it, that’s what’ll be done.’

My own reaction to this must have shown on my face; Ash raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, don’t be saying that, Deverick. You’ll upset your friend here. Been keeping her out of the loop, have you? Not shown her your bulging development portfolio yet?’ His lip curled. ‘It’s not like you to be so … reserved.’

‘Hey,’ I warningly.

‘Ms Shearing is a most valued employee.’ Michael’s tone was so bland it made me wince. ‘She’s already been able to make a preliminary report on Grange Wood which I’m sure will be of inestimable assistance to me.’

‘I bet.’ Ash was deadpan but his next words were aimed at me, not Deverick: ‘You just can’t keep her out of the trees, can you?’

Despite myself I flushed. This whole confrontation was horrible. I was starting to wish the earth would open and swallow me up. No – I wanted it to swallow both of them instead. That would solve all my problems neatly. But Michael only shook his head, smiling a cold little smile.

‘Don’t piss me about, Ash. You’ve never won a fight with me yet, and you’re not going to win this one. You’re just going to get hurt. And I’m going to get exactly what I wanted all along.’

Ash bit his lip. ‘Really?’ He tapped the top of the gate. ‘Well, if you’re so sure, why don’t you hop over and come in for a stroll?’ He made a mocking wave at the landscape behind him. ‘Get your
shiny
new boots a bit muddy, why don’t you?’ His hazel eyes seemed almost vulpine. ‘See how you like the place, eh?’

I waited for Michael to stride triumphantly forwards. He folded his arms across his chest and didn’t move. The two men glared at each other, the derision fading away to something much darker. I was forgotten, invisible. The mob of activists at Ash’s back stood in total silence, not a muscle moving. The skin on my neck crawled as I watched them both. There was something going on here, some secret struggle that I knew nothing about, but I could feel the hostility and I was sure this was no joke. Their faces were set like stone. I was willing to bet at that moment that either man would willingly have seen the other dead. It made me feel queasy.

The rooks rose again and swept in circles above the treetops, making a racket like they were mourning the end of the world. For a moment the pulse at my temple became a lancing pain and I put my hand to my head. When I looked up again both men were stepping back, contemptuously, and I’d missed who’d blinked first.

‘Enjoy your rural idyll while you can,’ said Michael. ‘You know how this is going to end.’

I turned away with him. What else could I do? I stopped to look back over my shoulder though, and caught one last glimpse of Ash leaning on the gate, head bowed and hands knotted together. He raised his head and for a moment our eyes met. I thought, though I couldn’t be sure, that he looked despairing.

‘You know him?’ I asked, lengthening my stride to catch up.

‘I knew him years ago.’

Years? Michael made it sound an eternity. I couldn’t imagine he and Ash sharing any social circle. Apart from being of roughly similar ages I couldn’t think of anything they might have in common.

Which goes to show how wrong you can be.

‘He’s a bit of a prick,’ Michael added, laughing. ‘Tries to make out he’s some sort of green Gandhi. Fatuous Disneyfied drivel about living in harmony with the planet, not exploiting its resources, la la la. It’s all just envy and spite of course.’

Personally I suspected Michael Deverick rather enjoyed being an object of envy. ‘So is this really about Grange Wood,’ I dared to wonder; ‘or is it about you and him?’

Michael seemed to shake himself. ‘Neither,’ he replied. He opened his car door. ‘Stay away from him for the moment, though. I don’t expect you to run that gauntlet to try and get into the wood. They’ve probably got their wicker man ready and waiting for us.’

I nodded, relieved. ‘I’ll get back to the limes then.’

‘Get in. I’ll give you a lift.’

‘No.’ I set my shoulders. ‘Thanks, but I’ll walk over. I need the fresh air.’

4: A Woman Scorned

I STOOD AT
my kitchen window and looked at the gloom outside. At this time of year it really ought to have been light even this late in the evening but it had rained solidly for two days now; heavy summer rain thrown down from a sky green as an old bruise. Unable to work properly because kit was dangerously slippery and any vehicles just churned the grass areas to mud, Tony and Owen and I had been confined to the workshop in the old stable block, cleaning and sharpening and tuning every tool we owned. I was going stir-crazy.

Owen had been having trouble with his girlfriend and was grumbling about it. He was eighteen, a year older than her, and she wasn’t putting out. He’d solicited Tony’s opinion on the subject, which turned out to be, ‘If you’re in a relationship it’s the lass that’s in charge and the sooner you learn that the better, lad,’ followed by a wink at me and: ‘Isn’t that right, Avril?’

‘I can’t comment,’ I’d answered, waving my combi-spanner in a wise manner, ‘on the grounds it might incriminate me.’

Owen didn’t ask my advice, for which I was grateful because I had no idea why a seventeen-year-old girl wouldn’t want sex with him. If I’d been seventeen I’d have been all over Owen like a rash. Working five days a week on fairly heavy manual jobs, he was all lithe and deeply tanned muscle. His face was ordinary enough but his mousy hair was sun-bleached on top and more importantly he was a good-humoured boy. Working too long in his company made me feel distinctly twitchy. And just a little bit old.

I’d always had a healthy sexual appetite but this was by far the longest I’d been without a steady boyfriend and it was starting to wear on me. My dreams were full of faceless men with bludgeoning erections and I’d woken up practically every night since I’d moved into this cottage and reached for the slim pink vibrator I kept in the bedside drawer. The dragon dream had recurred too. God, I thought gloomily, I need a proper shag. I need to get out this weekend and get laid.

The rain finally overflowed the gutter above my window and ran out in a pale curtain. I thought of the environmental activists camping out in the woods and wondered what they were doing. Smoking dope and screwing like rabbits if they were lucky, or maybe just wedged in shoulder to shoulder in a foetid fug under leaky tarpaulins. Probably couldn’t even get a fire lit in this weather to make a brew. Poor sods. Coming to a decision I reached under the sink for my biggest vacuum flask. As I filled it with black coffee I remembered the Christmas cake in the pantry. I also added a bottle of sloe gin to the carrier bag, before donning my thickest set of waterproofs and squelching out into the rain.

Waterproof trousers are horrible to walk in. I’d brought a big rubber-clad torch but I kept my head down under my hood and almost the only thing I saw on the long walk over to the wood were the toes of my wellies poking out from under the frayed yellow rubber of the trouser–cuffs, and the only thing I heard was the rain. When I reached the gate I called out hopefully: ‘Anybody here? Hello?’

If they had anyone on watch they were doing a poor job. No lights showed among the trees and no one stirred. I didn’t want to appear to be invading their camp but several more shouts produced the same lack of response, so I clambered laboriously over the gate, barely able to swing my rubberised legs high enough, and slithered down the far side. I tramped up to the
nearest
vaguely teepee-shaped bivvy and shone my torch on it. ‘Anyone home?’

It was much less well-constructed than I remembered, just a cone of plastic sheeting really. I lifted the flap and looked inside. There wasn’t a groundsheet. Weeds still grew from the earth. The only sign of human occupation was a roughly humanoid form made of dead brambles tied together with orange plastic baling twine. I blinked, nonplussed. ‘OK,’ I muttered, as rainwater ran dripped off the end of my nose.

The next bender was no better. It turned out to be nothing more than some black plastic bin bags draped over a shrub, and contained only another scarecrow, this one made of wadded bracken. After that I found another, swinging in a makeshift climbing harness from a tree, like a corpse hung in chains. I was starting to feel confused and finding the life-sized scarecrows really quite creepy. It was a relief when my light picked out movement among the trunks and Ash came stomping down the slope, a canvas tarp draped over his head and shoulders and a fluorescent lantern in one hand. My smile wasn’t feigned. ‘I did shout.’

‘I was asleep. What are you doing here?’ he asked, reasonably enough.

‘I brought you lot some cake. Where is everyone?’

He frowned. ‘They’ll be here if they’re needed. At a moment’s notice.
Cake
?’

‘It’s a Christmas cake my mum made for me,’ I explained, presenting the carrier bag. ‘But she forgot I don’t like walnuts much so I’ve been saving it until I threw a party at my place or something, and then I thought you guys might like it. It’ll be fine; fruit cake keeps really well and she makes them with brandy.’ I was aware that I was gabbling a bit. ‘There’s a bottle of home-made sloe gin too, and some coffee.’ I blinked raindrops from my eyes.

‘Coffee.’ He was looking at me like I was mad. ‘You made me coffee?’

‘The weather’s that bad and I thought you must be miserable …’ I shivered as a stray drop found its way down the back of my neck. His expression was making an uncomfortable situation worse. I decided to get to the point. ‘Look, you’ve got it wrong, you know. I’m not your enemy.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not.’ I sounded sharper than I’d intended. ‘I don’t know what it is you think Michael’s planning or what it is he’s done that pisses you off so much, but I’m not here to cut down the wood. I’m a gardener. I’m on your side, as much as I can be. I love the bloody trees as much as you lot.’ I looked around, remembering that there was no sign of any others. ‘They’ve gone off to the pub and left you, have they?’ My shoulders sagged. ‘Well, you’d better take the cake.’ I thrust the bag towards him.

Ash seemed to find speaking difficult. ‘You think I’d trust you?’

‘You think I’d poison a cake?’ I countered, disgusted.

‘I think Deverick might.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

‘Well, perhaps not. But only because it would be a bit obvious. Do you know him well?’

‘Not really.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘He’s a manipulative bastard.’ That wasn’t the whole truth, but it would do. Ash surprised me by laughing.

‘Oh, you noticed that, did you?’

I pulled a face. ‘Anyway, Michael didn’t make the cake, my mum did. And I made the sloe gin last year.’ I pulled it from the bag. ‘Want me to prove it’s safe?’ I twisted off the cap and tilted the bottle to my lips, taking a good obvious glug. Rain washed
my
upturned face but I hardly felt it as the warmth of the spirit hit my throat and the distilled flavour of autumn hedges engulfed me like an embrace. ‘See,’ I said, gasping slightly, ‘it’s fine.’ I passed him the bottle. He took it from my hand and put it to his lips, never taking his eyes off my face, as if he were answering some challenge.

I grinned.

‘Very nice. Avril, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve been asking around?’

‘I talked to a gardener. Older man. He said you were his boss.’

I shrugged and nodded. The gin had roared straight to my head.

‘Do you know what it is that Deverick’s doing here?’

‘No.’

‘Then be careful. He’s using you, Avril. In ways you can’t even imagine.’

‘You what?’

‘Did he tell you what happened to the men he sent into Grange Wood before you?’

I shook my head.

‘The first one died. Ask him.’ Ash took the bag from my hand. ‘Thanks. If Deverick did send it, tell him I’ve got a bezoar and he’s wasting his time.’

‘What the hell’s a bezoar?’

Ash smiled enigmatically ‘Just tell him.’ His attention switched to the darkness behind me. ‘You came out after dusk after what happened the other day? Do you remember what I told you?’ When I didn’t respond he added sharply, ‘Bull Peter?’

‘I wasn’t just imagining him then?’ I said weakly, trying to make it a joke.

‘That’d be one hell of an imagination you have.’

‘I brought a big torch.’ The alcohol was making my cheeks burn.

He looked me over thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got guts.’

It seemed a dismissal. He watched as I retreated to the gate and climbed over, doing my best to look dignified. Only when I was safely on the other side did the disappointment hit me. It was getting on for really dark now, I was on my own again and not even bribery could thaw the attitude of the best-looking man within miles.