The Red Herring Read Online Free
Author: Sally Spencer
man stepped forward. âYouâre wrong,â he said. âYouâre so very, very, wrong.â
Three
T here was nothing unusual about the way in which Jed Buckley started the next day. He was up before dawn, as he always was in October, and by the time the farming report was due to come on the wireless he was, right on schedule, sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of ham and eggs and a cup of tea in front of him. It was then that things started to go
abnormally
, because instead of the expected farming report he found himself listening to a BBC announcer talking, in a flat, unemotional voice, about the Cuban missile crisis.
Buckley, like most of the other farmers he knew, had never thought much about politics. When the government had told him it was necessary to go and fight the Germans, he had gone â with little enthusiasm, but without complaint. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer periodically raised the duty on agricultural fuel, he merely shrugged and told himself that the folk in London would never really understand the hardships of farming. But this, he recognised, was different. This was just about as serious as things ever got.
He no longer had any appetite for his food, and took the remains of it to the barn, where he tipped it into one of the buckets of pig swill he had mixed up the night before. That done, he picked up the buckets and made his way across the farmyard towards the sty.
It was when he was halfway across the yard that he realised something was wrong, though it took him a few more steps to work out exactly what that something was. Though there was a clamour from the sty, as there always was this close to feeding time, the clamour on that particular morning was not directed towards him â the bringer of food â but seemed to be focused on the
inside
of the sty, instead.
Buckley wondered what could have brought about this change in their behaviour. Perhaps the pigs, some of the more sensitive of the farmyard animals, had picked up on the general tension in the air, he thought. Perhaps, though they could never be expected to understand the concept of a nuclear holocaust, they had still managed to grasp the concept that existence was teetering on the edge of oblivion.
He passed the cowshed, and heard his Herefords lowing. Somewhere to his left, his prize bantam cock was crowing loudly, to proclaim his power over his feathered concubines. One of the dogs barked. One of the cats slunk stealthily behind the tractor in search of unsuspecting prey. But there was no sign of the pigsâ pink snouts poking out over the top of the fence as they stood on their hind legs and urged him on.
He reached the sty, and looked over into the pen. The pigs were not jostling around their trough, but instead stood in a tight bunch in the centre of the pen. Buckley puzzled over what was making them act so strangely. Then one of the sows shifted position â and he saw what was, undoubtedly, a human leg.
The pails clattered to the ground, spilling the swill everywhere. The farmer pulled back the bolt on the gate and rushed into the pen, waving his arms and shouting almost hysterically.
The pigs squealed, but were reluctant to give ground. Buckley, screaming at the top of his voice now, lashed out with his foot. The fat porkers grunted in protest, but finally retreated to the edges of the pen.
The farmer looked down in horror. There was a woman in the frozen mud â a woman with long red hair. A piece of cord was wrapped tightly around her neck, and she was unquestionably dead. He didnât think he knew her, but it was impossible to say for sure, because the pigs had been working on her for some time â and now all that was left of her face was bits of bone and gristle.
DCI Woodend watched the covered stretcher being manoeuvred into the back of the ambulance, then lit up what
should
have been his second or third Capstan Full Strength of the morning, but was probably closer
Three
T here was nothing unusual about the way in which Jed Buckley started the next day. He was up before dawn, as he always was in October, and by the time the farming report was due to come on the wireless he was, right on schedule, sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of ham and eggs and a cup of tea in front of him. It was then that things started to go
abnormally
, because instead of the expected farming report he found himself listening to a BBC announcer talking, in a flat, unemotional voice, about the Cuban missile crisis.
Buckley, like most of the other farmers he knew, had never thought much about politics. When the government had told him it was necessary to go and fight the Germans, he had gone â with little enthusiasm, but without complaint. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer periodically raised the duty on agricultural fuel, he merely shrugged and told himself that the folk in London would never really understand the hardships of farming. But this, he recognised, was different. This was just about as serious as things ever got.
He no longer had any appetite for his food, and took the remains of it to the barn, where he tipped it into one of the buckets of pig swill he had mixed up the night before. That done, he picked up the buckets and made his way across the farmyard towards the sty.
It was when he was halfway across the yard that he realised something was wrong, though it took him a few more steps to work out exactly what that something was. Though there was a clamour from the sty, as there always was this close to feeding time, the clamour on that particular morning was not directed towards him â the bringer of food â but seemed to be focused on the
inside
of the sty, instead.
Buckley wondered what could have brought about this change in their behaviour. Perhaps the pigs, some of the more sensitive of the farmyard animals, had picked up on the general tension in the air, he thought. Perhaps, though they could never be expected to understand the concept of a nuclear holocaust, they had still managed to grasp the concept that existence was teetering on the edge of oblivion.
He passed the cowshed, and heard his Herefords lowing. Somewhere to his left, his prize bantam cock was crowing loudly, to proclaim his power over his feathered concubines. One of the dogs barked. One of the cats slunk stealthily behind the tractor in search of unsuspecting prey. But there was no sign of the pigsâ pink snouts poking out over the top of the fence as they stood on their hind legs and urged him on.
He reached the sty, and looked over into the pen. The pigs were not jostling around their trough, but instead stood in a tight bunch in the centre of the pen. Buckley puzzled over what was making them act so strangely. Then one of the sows shifted position â and he saw what was, undoubtedly, a human leg.
The pails clattered to the ground, spilling the swill everywhere. The farmer pulled back the bolt on the gate and rushed into the pen, waving his arms and shouting almost hysterically.
The pigs squealed, but were reluctant to give ground. Buckley, screaming at the top of his voice now, lashed out with his foot. The fat porkers grunted in protest, but finally retreated to the edges of the pen.
The farmer looked down in horror. There was a woman in the frozen mud â a woman with long red hair. A piece of cord was wrapped tightly around her neck, and she was unquestionably dead. He didnât think he knew her, but it was impossible to say for sure, because the pigs had been working on her for some time â and now all that was left of her face was bits of bone and gristle.
DCI Woodend watched the covered stretcher being manoeuvred into the back of the ambulance, then lit up what
should
have been his second or third Capstan Full Strength of the morning, but was probably closer
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