Three Mile Drove, Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO
Tim Mcpherson saw the sign of the Fox and Hounds pub glimmering in the gathering darkness and felt a surge of relief, on days such as this it offered an inviting prospect, a proverbial port in a storm.
He pulled into the car park, then jumped out of his car and secured it, before playing hopscotch around the puddles that had formed on the tarmac surface. He grimaced as the wind lashed needles of rain across his face like scores of tiny stinging insects. For a day and a half now, the elements had besieged the fenland, turning the dykes into furious free flowing rivers, threatening to burst out of their channels and flood the already sodden roads and fields.
Perhaps it was pure coincidence that the heavens had opened just as he'd begun his journey to Three Mile Drove yesterday, and that they hadn't abated since, but that they should precede the most foul discovery of his life seemed to his superstitious mind to have been a portent of worse things to come.
Mcpherson, though of Scottish descent was none the less a fenman through and through. His ancestors had settled in the area as long ago as the mid - eighteenth century, and despite the benefit of a good formal education he was as superstitious as the rest of them.
He bent his lean frame into the wind and headed for the shelter and hospitality of the lounge bar, shaking the rain from his coat as he reached the porch. The pub stood on an isolated stretch of road between Ely and Littleport, from where, if you turned right at the cross-roads which lay just beyond it, you would reach the village of Bramble Dyke, not so far from where he'd made his grisly find the previous day.
It was the time of day that dubiously divided late afternoon from early evening, and the floral carpeted, crescent shaped lounge contained only a few customers. He suspected they had been driven to sanctuary by the depressive conditions, let's face it, they were enough to drive anybody to drink. These kind of conditions seemed to give the area all the charm of a frontier wilderness in deepest winter, an outpost where only the oppressed were flung to pay for their trivial sins.
But Mcpherson's visit to the pub wasn't dictated by a spur of the moment whim or by the prospect of seeking an alcoholic remedial, even though he needed to pass it on his journey home. Now, as he wiped his brow, Mcpherson's eyes swept across the bar to the far side, where at the furthest part of the curve a dark haired young woman dressed in denims sat on a stool, engaged in casual conversation with the young barman.
Her broad face opened into a wide mouthed smile as she saw Mcpherson approach. She slapped a hand invitingly on the vacant wooden stool beside her and laid her scotch on the bar. 'Tim, sit down and reveal all. What mystery can I help you to solve?'
Mcpherson smiled, but already he felt himself reddening. He could blame it on the effects of the elements if she wasn't so damned perceptive. Sometimes he could almost feel that attractive shrewd face reading his mind and it made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. But then, he sought her help when he needed it and she didn't need her unusual gifts to discern that much.
She smiled again in the face of his silence and glanced at the barman, 'Come on Tim, what will you have, I can see you're in no mood for your normal half.'
'It'll have to be, I can't afford to get caught out, you know that.' He flicked his eyes across the counter, watching as the barman moved away and levered the hand pump, then turned his face fully towards her, his voice low and concerned, 'I was called out to a reported sighting of a missing child yesterday lunchtime, as usual it was a false alarm, but what I found in its place shocked me to the core.' He sighed, more of a groan really, his eyes returning to the barman as he topped up the glass and brought it to him.
'Thanks.' With a quick nod of the head he took his drink, guiding her away from the stool to a seat by a bay window, pulling the curtain across as if seeking comfort, 'I
can only try to describe what I saw, it was like something out of a nineteenth century horror film, but it was right here, just outside Bramble Dyke.'
Mcpherson began his account of the incident and thought he saw her face drop at the outset. Great, she wasn't going to believe him. She wasn't going to believe how he had encountered the wretched, ugly, deformed children who could hardly speak a recognisable word, who spoke in their own language of squeals and whimpers and inhuman cries and lived amongst discarded garbage, rotten flesh and bones, and who when his back was turned and his stomach erupted, had fled the place so silently he hadn't heard them go. The bones hadn't been human, he knew that. They were the decaying carcasses of pigs and goats, the skeletons of hares and rabbits, all contributing to the obnoxious smell, the stifling odour that had caused him to vomit while the children, or whatever they were, had escaped. To where, he hadn't a clue
His mobile phone wouldn't function, perhaps it was the conditions. He'd been forced to search out the nearest phone box and that meant a drive to the village, through the pools of water that had partly submerged the uneven drove in places, through the waterlogged lane which connected to the main street, before finally placing his call requesting a back - up team with forensic capability to assess the full implications of what he'd found.
Only, when they had joined him at the phone box and they returned to the drove approximately an hour later, they found nothing. Just an empty property and an odious smell. Nothing more.
He could perceive her now as she could perceive him, her face had an unusually worried look. So he was stressed out, overdoing things, he'd taken one case too many. Let the others do their share for once. Take a break.
He'd known her for years this woman; this clever attractive woman who had made her home in the fens, even though she might have made it anywhere. How she came to be here he had never found out, she had never said and he had never asked. Her probing mind had helped him solve incidents in the past and had helped him gain respect and praise from the constabulary.
But not this time. This time he knew it was more than a touch too far. He shouldn't have bothered her.
She was regarding him now. The smile had gone, the humour had left it, leaving the serious side of her nature. She was regarding him carefully, studying him even. Edgar Allen Poe eat your heart out. This is the twentieth century after all, live in it. Don't be afraid to admit that you're ill. The mind turns inward when it's in trouble and in doing so it conjures up fantasies. Seek help. Seek professional guidance, only don't seek it from me, you're beyond my help.
That was what she was thinking.
'I know it sounds over the top,' he said before she could demoralise him, reaching forward and clutching his glass as if it contained not liquid but solid gold, 'but I saw it with my own eyes and I haven't a shred of evidence, not the slightest explanation for it.'
'I trust your judgement Tim,' she said gently, her brown eyes taking a while to meet his, before regarding him anxiously, 'if you saw this thing - these creatures - then I believe you. But how can I help you ?'
Mcpherson blinked, surprised by her reaction. He'd convinced himself she didn't believe him, he was sure she would inwardly ridicule him. Maybe she did, but it didn't seem that way now. But how could she help him?
The truth was that without evidence nobody could.
'You've lived here for years, you associate with everybody, relate to anybody. You're a nurse and a damned good one I reckon. If there was anything unusual taking place wouldn't you have a whim?'
He thought her face flushed at his question, but maybe he was too uptight in his own mind.
'I can't know everything Tim, even in a small community such as this.' She gulped the rest of her drink, which he thought unusual for her.
'Will you have another?' Tim asked.
'No thanks.' Sighing, Claire rose to her feet. Mcpherson thought she looked jaded all of a sudden, but in his own current state of mind he couldn't be sure of that.
She'd started to leave but stopped in her tracks, returning to the table and placing a hand on his shoulder. 'As an afterthought Tim, you might talk to David Endleberry, he knows more than anybody about what's going on in the community. Not much escapes him.'
Mcpherson smiled and nodded as she walked out. What she'd said had been true, David Endleberry, the village parson was involved with all aspects of the local community, and he was regarded as the natural head of the community. But doubts persisted within him, was she suggesting him as a helpful source in investigating what he'd told her he'd seen, or because she thought that in his current state of mind he needed professional guidance?