The Drowning Ground by James Marrison Read Free Book Online

We weren’t there for long. Felt like I was trespassing with him up – although’ – Fernsby wagged his finger in the air at me as if I were about to contradict him – ‘Frank’s got absolutely no right to stop us walking on that hill.’
    For some reason Fernsby started to laugh. It was a hearty laugh, or at least it was to begin with. But it brought on an alarming and drawn-out coughing fit, which ended in an ominously wet rattle. When it was all over, Fernsby, somewhat defiantly, lit his cigarette with a plastic lighter, breathed in and let it hang jauntily from his lower lip.
    â€˜Of course,’ he said, ‘I did make sure I stuck to the path. You saw that charming sign he put up, I suppose?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, ‘pretty hard to miss.’
    â€˜He absolutely hated our walking on his field. Resented it. He tried for years to keep us off. Ploughed over the footpath. Padlocked the gate shut. Knocked down the stile one year, even put a bull in another year to scare us off. Mean bugger it was too,’ Fernsby said with some admiration before adding, ‘Didn’t do him an ounce of good, though. Public right of way on Meon Hill, and the people round here know it. We set the council on him in the end.’ Fernsby said this almost as if he regretted it.
    â€˜And you saw nobody else? No other dog-walkers. Nobody at all in the field? It was just you and Frank Hurst?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And when you went first into the field – when you crossed the stile – did you see a van parked out there? A white van?’
    Fernsby shook his head. ‘A white van. Why?’
    â€˜A man was seen arguing with Hurst up on the field. Around 3.00, we think. But you’re saying that by the time you walked into the field the man was gone? And there was no sign of this van?’
    â€˜There was no van,’ Fernsby said firmly. ‘And there was nobody else up there either. It was just Frank up there. And me.’
    â€˜All right, so when you saw him up there working, did you give him a wave perhaps? Go to say hello?’
    Fernsby snorted as if I had said something ridiculous. ‘No, I certainly did not.’
    That was about right. Hurst had kept pretty much to himself. I couldn’t say that I blamed him. The majority of people who had seen him working in his field yesterday afternoon had taken him for some lowly odd-job man sent by the council to clean the place up on their behalf. Almost all of the dog-walkers who regularly used Meon Hill, and there were a surprisingly large number of them, had a strange tendency to talk about the place as if they owned it or as if it were part of a state-run park and not just a right of way through someone else’s private property. All day I had rather pointlessly, I realized, been feeling increasingly indignant on the dead man’s behalf.
    Fernsby was watching me with a sly smile, as if he had just remembered something amusing. ‘You ever meet him?’ he asked.
    I nodded. ‘Yes, I met him. Around five years ago.’
    â€˜So you’ll know all about his wife. It was the second one he buried, you know?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘I know all about that.’
    Fernsby was still smiling at me; I wondered if he expected me to go into all the grisly details for him. His sudden streak of cheery sadism was unexpected and unsettling. ‘I know exactly what happened to his second wife, Mr Fernsby, and to his first one too,’ I said coldly. ‘But how did Frank Hurst look to you yesterday?’
    Fernsby’s smile vanished. ‘What do you mean, how did he look?’
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘did he look nervous, perhaps, or anxious? Did he seem to be looking for someone, or did he seem to be waiting for someone?’
    Fernsby thought it over. ‘It was a bit of a surprise to see him there, actually. I hadn’t seen him for years. I don’t