Lindy (Part 1)

Parked crookedly, his battered Ford obstructs the country lane outside my cottage. Should a tractor or cattle truck come along, we shall have problems. My husband, Derrick, would’ve fumed at such disregard, rushed out to confront the “damn fool” and made everything worse: But Derrick is dead, so there will be no shouting or red-faced gnashing of teeth today.

The driver, the gentleman now striding towards my cottage, is not half as confident as he wishes to appear. His blue shirt and purple tie are jarringly mis-matched, the kind of faux pas a wife corrects.

A single man, married young and navigating a messy middle-aged divorce. I see all this with perfect clarity, like a home movie of his tattered life is playing out in my mind’s eye. Are there children? A boy named Sean or Simon, aged 9? Yes, narrowed eyes staring up at his father with the same naked contempt his mother perfected. The boy knows who to blame for the chaos enveloping his life and this man knows it too.

Let’s call him Steve, yes, Steve has never hit the boy. But sometimes, on those long weekend visits when he struggles to fill the time with activities and treats, he has thought about it.

Steve is aware I can see him, which is why he’s taken credentials from his pocket with such a flourish, hoping a flutter of panic will take residence in my throat as the doorbell rings.

I rise slowly, gingerly, careful not to aggravate the arthritis in my ankles, but pleased to make him wait. When I open the door, he’s already brandishing the Warwickshire Constabulary badge, like a proud child at show and tell.

“Detective Steve Tasker,” he says, “Lindy? Lindy Sanderson is it?”

“It is, Detective.”

He puts away the badge and waits for me to ask my worrisome questions, to invite him in.

I smile my sweetest smile.

“May I?” He gestures towards the door.

I had hoped to avoid this, but his shoulder is already angled into the doorway. Standing my ground would only lead to contact, which neither of us would enjoy. I step aside, close the door and follow him into the living room.

Detective Tasker is not a man who likes to be challenged, I think, certainly not by elderly women who wear paisley slippers and home-knitted cardigans which have seen better days. There is no advantage in souring his mood. I shall play the game, for a while.

He settles in the living room as I make tea in the adjoining kitchen.

“Lovely place you have here,” he says.

He is judging my home, presuming himself qualified.

“Yes, an old cottage. Incredibly old.” I say, “Can’t stand new places, can you? Like those poky flats they built on the edge of Shipston.”

The furrow of his brow tells me I’ve hit the mark. He is sure I cannot know where he lives, nor see the cardboard boxes full of belongings still littering the unhomely box he moved into just a few weeks ago.

And yet, and yet. He tilts his head, staring at me, a kernel of doubt already wheedling into his subconscious.

I sit the tray on the coffee table.

He takes out a notebook.

“So,” he says, “you’ll be wondering why I’m here.”

“I am.” my voice is light, innocent.

“Well, it’s about the march the other day.”

“The march?”

“The thing. The festival thing where you all march around the village.”

I chuckle. “Oh detective, that’s not a march.”

“What do you call it?”

“We were ‘beating the bounds.’”

“That’s it. I forgot the name.”

“An important local tradition.” My tone admonishing now, “They say it’s been done here since William the Conqueror, perhaps before.”

“Uh huh.”

The detective is not imaginative, nor a student of history. He spends most of his free time online, checking his ex-wife’s social media accounts, looking for information on her new partner. He fantasises about arranging police colleagues to harass the man, of damaging his reputation with a trumped-up investigation. No. Steve does not want to know the details of our village ways. It is satisfying to disappoint him.

“We walk the boundary of the parish,” I continue, “and honour its borders by tapping or ‘beating’ the ground with sticks and shrubbery. It is a fun, light-hearted affair.”

He shuffles in his seat. “Yes, well, we had a report about it. Something to be investigated.”

“A report? About what?”

“Let me explain, Mrs Sanderson.”

He flips through the pages of his notebook, “What follows is a statement from an attendee at the mar.. the beating of the bounds.”

He reads, “This is what she said: ‘We were out on the walk, just like every year. Lovely sunny day, kids all having a wonderful time. Some people banging drums, some bashing the pathway with their sticks. There was a good turnout. Must have been two hundred people, near enough every person in the village. The Sanderson woman, from the cottage on the edge of Treddington, she walked at the back, just like she always does. Insists on it.  I happened to turn and saw her veer off the path. Never seen anyone do that before, least of all an old woman. It was near the river, up the hill a bit.  I was the only one to see her go. She ducked off into the trees. I was concerned, doesn’t move very well, see. Shouldn’t be going into the trees with all those roots and holes to fall over. So, I followed.”

I had known the woman saw me, followed me. But not that she would have the temerity, the rudeness to report me to the police. The Mother enables me to see many things. Not all.

I’ll have words with Sharon Fennicombe. Not now, of course. I’ll wait a few years, until this little storm-in-a-teacup has concluded. Bide my time, bump into her as she walks her dog near Fell Mill. My fury is illuminating, it creates a window in my mind, allowing me to see this future scene with astounding clarity.  It is not a suggestion, but a demand.

Fennicombe will be found floating face down in the Stour along with her filthy dog. People will say she entered the water to save the mut. They won’t talk about what I did to her insides because that will not fit their little story.

“Can I interrupt, Detective?”

“Please do.” he says, teeth clenching.

“Ms Fennicombe, your source, is known for her flights of fancy. You’ll have been told she spent time in a special hospital.”

“I didn’t say who made the report.”

“You didn’t need to. I saw her.”

“So, this did happen.” He holds up his notebook. “You confirm it?”

I see his forlorn personal life doesn’t make him a complete fool.

“She followed me. That is true. What follows, I’m sure is fanciful.”

“Well, why don’t we hear about it, and then I can ask you some questions.” He smiles, please to be patronising me.  It is what he came here for.

He reads again: “The old woman went into an enclosure of trees where the ground falls away into a ditch. She seemed to be looking for something, took her time, peering.  Eventually, she seemed satisfied that she’s in the right spot and then starts moaning and groaning and waving her hands around.  The sounds!” Here the detective adds a high-pitched flourish to his voice, as if he were delivering Sharon’s lines as a trained actor.

He continues, louder, more confident than before, “You wouldn’t have thought that noise could come out of an old woman. Sometimes they were like words, sometimes not.  But it was no language I could understand.”

“Detective, I assure you that…”

But he holds up his finger and talks over me, continuing to read the account.

“And that’s when I saw it, it was there and then it was gone. She made a sign with her hand and then said something else, something that almost sounded like English, but not quite. I swear on my life it was there. A boy, a teenager. Slip of a lad, all dirty and miserable looking. Moving his arms and legs about like he was trying to climb out of the ditch, but he couldn’t move. His mouth was open like he was screaming, but no sound came out. 

The detective skips on a couple pages in his notes, then concludes the account.

“What she did next was the worst bit. She took out a knife, a great big kitchen knife it was, the type you use to carve beef, and she swung it at the boy, caught him on the throat and then came the blood.  It was everywhere, spilling out onto the ground.”

I start to laugh. First, just a chuckle, but I can feel it building in my chest, rolling out of me in great waves.  Before I know it, I’m letting out big booming groans of merriment.

“What’s funny, Mrs Sanderson?”

“You!” I say, catching my breath, “Wasting your time, coming out here to talk to me about this nonsense.  Haven’t you got any actual crime to be investigating? Sharon Fennicombe is ready for the funny farm, and everyone knows it.”

He shakes his head. “It just so happened it was me who took her statement. The usual duty officer was off that day, so I got stuck listening to her. There was something very plausible about her account. I took down the statement and then sent her on her way, but it stuck in my head ever since. Such a strange story to tell, with no obvious benefit in lying.”

“To the insane, sharing their fancies is the benefit.”

He ignores me. “So, the next day I called her up and asked her to meet me, out there in the field, near to the woods.”

I can’t help but purse my lips.

“I asked her to show me precisely where it happened.” He continued, “and, on a hunch, I brought a spade. Can you guess what happened next, Mrs Sanderson?”

“I can’t.”  My face betrays nothing, my smile still firmly in place.

“I dug a hole.  Right in the spot where our complainant said she’d seen you slash the throat of a teenage boy.  I kept on, went deep. And would you believe it?  I finally hit something hard. Dug around it. Got down on my hands and knees and pulled it out.

With this, the detective reaches down to the rucksack next to his foot, opens the top and reaches in.  Of course, I know what is in the bag, but I should have realised before. An object of such power, such importance, should demand my attention.  Am I waning?  Is this a sign of my demise?

Out it comes, a plastic evidence bag containing a fragile, broken down brainpan and skeletal face. The skull, still speckled with the dirt in which it was buried, is large, but not fully sized, reflecting the age of the boy to whom it belonged.  

The detective smiles, his nose wrinkling unpleasantly. “Tell me what you know about this, Mrs Sanderson?”

A decision. A crossroads. Do I demur or shall I play the detective at his own game? It would be easy to bat this off. He has nothing but bones and the ramblings of a chaotic mind.  

But there is more at play, more than meets the eye.

“Why are you here, Steven?” I ask.

A small gap opens between his lips, bearing yellowed teeth.  He dislikes “Steven”.  That’s what his mother called him when she was angry. He recovers quickly with an expression of mock offence, pouting. “I think that’s obvious.” He shakes the bag and the boy’s skull jiggles unhappily.

“I have some questions for you,” I say, “Why am I not at the police station, being interviewed by you and your colleagues in a windowless room, my words recorded for posterity?”

“I felt it would be excessive to…”

“No, no, no. You have procedures. You have rules. Yet, you come here alone with an uncleaned skull in a plastic bag.” I chuckle again.

He pulls himself up in his chair. “You’ve been watching too many police dramas on TV, Mrs Sanderson.”

I ignore him. “That,” I point at the bag, “should be in a police laboratory.  And you should not be here alone. Tell me I’m wrong.”

He sits back in his chair and puffs out his cheeks.

I grin, exultant. “So, you’re here for something else. Some secrets, perhaps, for your own purposes.”

He takes his time. In a way, this is what he wanted, this turn in the conversation, but he was supposed to be in control, not me. Eventually, he says, “It’s true what they say about you, isn’t it?  It’s not just village gossip, it’s true.”

“What do they say, detective?”

“That you’re not to be crossed. There are consequences to being on the wrong side of Lindy Sanderson. Also, nobody is sure how old you are. People get confused with their memories of you.  Some swear you were an old woman when they were children.”

“Oh, I had no idea I was such a celebrity!” I clap my hands and my would-be interrogator grimaces. “Come on then, out with it. What are you after?”

He places a finger on his mouth and taps his lips. “Tell me what this is?” he lifts the bag again, “Tell me what you are, and then I’ll know I can trust you.”

It is a novelty, that’s for sure. All these years, centuries, hiding the truth, and now, suddenly, a chance to spill the beans to this compromised, flawed man.  Why do it?  Then again, why not?

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I will make trouble for you Mrs Sanderson, trouble which I know a secretive person like yourself will not welcome.”

I nod then beckon with my long fingers toward the bag. He hesitates, but finally passes it over to me. I unfasten it and gently, carefully lift it out. “Godwin Cuthbert” I say, “He was a good boy, but too curious. He understood my nature before they’d invented a name for it.”

“When? How long ago?”

I smile, “A long time, detective. So long. But let’s not be side-tracked. Godwin is one of The Seven. The first to be planted.”

“The Seven?”

“Seven sacrifices. Seven bodies planted in the land. Hearts and minds given over to Her, The Mother. A gift. A guarantee of sanctuary, for me, within the bounds of the parish.” I leave this final word dripping with irony.

He narrows his eyes; is about to say he doesn’t understand or doesn’t believe me, but thinks better of it.

I go on, “She came in the night when I was a young girl. Told me my purpose in life, told me how to do it. ‘Plant seven,’ The Mother said, ‘plant them deep and I will grant you understanding and protection that only few possess.’”

“Who is The Mother?”

“Who do you think?” I give him a wink. “I tricked them. The people of this village, such a long time ago.  I told them to beat the bounds to honour god, as if it were some holy rite. I did not tell them about the Seven, did not tell them about Her.”

“And this gives you understanding? Powers?”  There is a hunger in his expression which reminds me of poor, curious Godwin.

“It comes and goes, but I see so much of you, Steven. It is becoming clearer, even as we speak, l already know what you want. You naughty, naughty boy.”

He stares, unable to say it aloud. But it is there, in his heart. He is so weak.

“There is a way it can be done,” I say, and beckon him closer.