“Don't you ever drive anymore?” asked Aleister as they left Wyldston for the gloom of the night time countryside. He needed the windscreen wipers on full to clear the deluge that was still falling. Other cars were few and far between, their lights creating pinpoints of colour in the otherwise monochrome landscape.
“It's my day off, I took the bus with Holly for a change,” said Sean. “Left here, up towards Shipford.”
Aleister obeyed, turning off the main road onto an unlit country road lined with tall hedgerows either side. He flicked the headlights onto full beam.
“You never liked driving,” he muttered, blinking quickly to clear his eyes, which still felt heavy from lack of sleep.
“Still don't,” said Sean. He was staring out of the window, though Aleister had no idea what he could be looking for. The world was a mass of shadows due to the heavy cloud cover, so much so that Aleister could almost believe that there was nothing out there except the road, the hedges and the endless rain.
“This must be near to...”
“The Webb farm. Yes, I know,” said Sean, tapping his fingers on the dashboard nervously. Aleister couldn't be a hundred percent sure but from the slope of the road it seemed they were circling the base of the hill that the Webb farm was situated upon. It was certainly the only hill this close to town, apart from The Knuckle which was several miles in the other direction.
“It should be just to the... left,” said Sean quietly as they turned the corner. Aleister saw the police lights before he saw the buildings, cold blue flashing over the wet brickwork of the walls either side of the entrance. As they drove closer he saw that there were two police cars, one to the side of the road – parked hastily onto the grassy verge – and one just inside the farm itself, with its headlights revealing two uniformed officers engaged in a heated discussion with an obviously distraught woman. She was screaming at them, oblivious to the fact that her clothes were soaked through as she stood in the gravel forecourt in front of the large sprawling house behind her. One of the policemen shone a torch towards Aleister's car and approached them as they pulled up. Sean was the first out of the car.
“Detective Inspector, they told us you were heading our way,” said the policeman by way of greeting. He was a tall man in his mid-thirties, with pale skin drawn tightly over his skull. He seemed anxious, casting his torch to his left and right at regular intervals.
“Detective Chief Inspector,” said Sean, pulling his coat around his shoulders. Aleister got out of the car and pulled his hat from the back seat, a dark grey fedora with a scuffed edge. The rain started to draw a dark pattern on its cloth as soon as he put it on his head. He also reached for his large heavy duty torch, which was a must on night investigations. It wasn't as reliable as the ones he'd used to use on the force, but it was a lot heavier and had come in useful as a method of self-defence once or twice.
“My mistake. I'm Sergeant Rowe, that's Constable Harper,” said the policeman. He tensed his shoulders suddenly as he seemed to spot something behind Aleister, before relaxing again.
“What exactly is going on here?” asked Sean, walking towards the house. “Can't we take this inside?”
“You're welcome to try...” said the Harper, a shorter man with broad shoulders who was having to physically hold the woman back, though where exactly she wanted to run wasn't obvious at the moment. Apart from the buildings that surrounded the forecourt there was only trees and a large open horse riding ground. As Aleister approached, he could hear a little more clearly what the woman was screaming. She was writhing in harper's arms like a distressed animal, her blonde hair whipping back and forth above her middle aged features. Her voice echoed around them, reverberating off the garages and stables that stood along the other edges of the gravel.
“I can find him, let me find him!” Her voice was a shrill screech as she reached up and made to scrape her fingernails across Harper's rain soaked face. He managed to grab her wrist and admirably kept himself from yelling expletives at her.
“We're doing you a favour, whoever did for your horses is still out there. Just bloody... hold still.”
“Her husband is missing too,” said Rowe by way of explanation. He joined Harper, lifting the woman bodily and starting to manoeuvre her towards the house.
“More details, please,” said Sean, his face creasing with concern at the plight of the woman.
“Inspector Abrahams is in the stables, he'll fill you in,” said Rowe, as they finally disappeared inside, with Rowe kicking the door shut for good measure.
“Abrahams... Jesus. What's he doing back here? It's closer to Wyldston than Northbridge.”
Rowe shrugged. “He was already here when we got here. Maybe she called Northbridge direct and they passed it to us.”
“Well, we still need to see this, though I could do without seeing him. Coming?” asked Sean, hunching his shoulders as he headed towards the stables. The lights were on inside the large building and even from this distance Aleister could already see the tell-tale streaks of crimson on the insides of the windows that signified blood, more blood...
Aleister nodded. It wasn't proper police protocol, although he knew he would have tried to stay with Sean anyway, at least until any potential danger had passed, simply out of habit, a habit long forgotten. In a way he was just glad the old man wanted him there. He was so focussed on unravelling the case that he didn't even register the name that had just been mentioned...
The inside of the stable wasn't much of an escape from the rain outside, rather a descent into hell. The twisted, mangled remains of three horses lay bent and broken in their stalls, with bloody pockmarks spreading in trails over the floor and walls, that sickening pattern that had become so familiar throughout the Webb house. Another police officer was bent over one of the huge bodies, doing his best to examine it. He looked up when he heard the door open, frowning at the torrent of rain that came with them.
“Keep that shut please, I'm trying to preserve the crime scene,” he said carefully, his small eyes scrutinizing them. “McKiernan, isn't it? And Ward. It's been a long time.”
Aleister realised he'd seen those features before, the last time with barely concealed satisfaction playing over them as Aleister had left the force before he had. Smooth skin despite his age of mid-forties, curling chestnut hair, dark eyes, sharp features that gave him the appearance of some sort of human predator... Abrahams, the Sergeant who had been at the centre of a corruption scandal but had somehow slithered out of it unscathed whilst all the others had fallen. And now he was an Inspector, somehow even getting himself a promotion after everything that had happened...
“We can catch up later over hot chocolate. Just give me the details,” said Sean brusquely. Abrahams looked over at Aleister, a glint in his eye.
“Sub-contracting out to private eyes now?” he said, standing up and wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
“Details,” said Sean again firmly, his teeth grinding together.
“All business. All right. They died of blood loss, pure and simple. Lacerations are present around the mouth and nose but nothing large enough to account for it. That's it, all we've got. There was no forced entry though, the shed was unlocked. The key is still in the padlock over there.”
Abrahams' face was a mask of indifference but for a moment the air seemed alight with tension, as if some hidden subtext or battle of wills were under way. Sean was still grinding his teeth, his eyes locked on the man. Eventually he nodded and turned away. Abrahams smiled, ever so slightly.
“I'll see you later...”