Quantrill and the Goldfish

Quantrill first appeared in the village the Tuesday night before Christmas. I know it was a Tuesday, because we were in the pub, playing cards. The usual group--Blister, Wickie, Jim the milkman. Barton and me--playing our usual game, nine-card brag. Nothing extravagant, mind you; a couple of pounds in the ashtray, winner take all and buy the next round. That's the way we normally play. A few of the wives and girlfriends sat by the fire, gossiping, teasing old Jim about his new theory that eating turkey makes you go deaf.

I had just turned in my hand when Quantrill came in--no use betting when a low flush and a pair of fours are the strongest cards you've got, not when someone has already laid three jacks, as Barton had, scooping the pot for the fourth time that evening. We were all moaning about his luck when the door flung open and the man Quantrill burst into the place, dressed as though it was the height of summer, with a shirt open all the way down his hairy barrel chest, a pair of tropical-weight trousers and yellow suede shoes crusted with dried mud.

None of us had ever seen him before. We get thousands of visitors in the summer months--they come for the forest and the beach--but from late September to early June, the village is pretty quiet, which is the way most of us like it. So the arrival of a stranger out of season is something of an event; not one to be celebrated, you understand, but an event that we're inclined to notice and talk about, especially if the stranger looks a bit of a nut case, as this one did.

Naturally, we ignored him. To begin with, he was older than all of us--except for Jim, of course--by about 25 years or so, which would have made him around 50. I suppose. He had one of those red, bulging faces with the small bloodshot glaring eyes that you "sometimes get from drinking too much, and he was drunk, all right; anyone could see that.

Now, we've all been blind pissed at one time or another in the pub, fair enough, but we don't like it when people from outside get like that. It's upsetting--I can't explain why--but it's got something to do with the fact that The Bell is our pub; it's the place where, after our houses and work, we spend much of our spare time, and we like it to be orderly, predictable. When you get some drunken stranger barging in, dressed for the Riviera with the ground frozen harder than concrete, you have a threat on your hands, and the only sensible thing to do is ignore him and hope he won't turn out to be a bloody nuisance. If he does, you tread on him.

This Quantrill fellow just stood in the door, looking like a man who couldn't decide whether to come in or go out again. We carried on with the game, paying no attention, but my seat faced the door and I saw his expression change when he looked over at the fire, where the women sat. Diane. Barton's wife, that's who he was looking at.

Course, you never knew Diane, but you'd remember if you'd ever seen her. She was some beautiful, boy, always was, even when she was small. "That little Diane's got a face and a half on her, han't it?" my dad said to a mate of his once when he didn't know I was listening. Had this thick, straight hair, she did, a darkish-brown color with a coppery gleam when it caught the light. She used to twirl a lock of it with two fingers, winding it slowly around them and brushing the end across her lips.

You, not knowing her, might have thought she was putting on an act. but she wasn't. It was what she did when she was thinking--she'd tell you that if you asked. "I'm just having a think," she'd say. She was never a big talker, mind, so you rarely knew what she was thinking.

Barton called her Goldfish, because he said she had a mouth like one. but I never saw it. Always liked the shape myself, the way the lips turned down at the corners. Made her look sad except when she smiled or laughed, and she did her share of both.

I don't mind admitting I fancied her when we were all growing up. Chased her into Clay Smoker's stables one year, summertime it was, when a gang of us were larking around after a party. Got her down on the hay and tried to kiss her. but she wasn't having any of that. Gave me a right stinger across the chops, she did.

I suppose we all fancied her at one time or another--it was only natural with her looks--but we got over it in the end. I stopped noticing her years ago. noticing her in that way. I mean. Besides, she never really looked at anyone except Barton, though he didn't seem to see anything special about her. I bet he never chased her into any stable; he wasn't that sort. Dogs, guns and birds, that's my mate Barton. Before they got married, me and him were sitting by the marshes one night, waiting for the ducks to come in from sea, and I tried to get him to talk about her. but he just grunted and whistled his dog. Then, when we got older, he married her and that was that. Once that happened, she was just Goldfish, Barton's wife.

Mind you. you'd sometimes see her from a distance, up to her waist in a field of barley or riding her bike down the lane, a slim, long-legged girl, with that mane of dark hair over her eyes. And for a moment, before you recognized her, you might have had the same kind of look on your face that I saw on Quantrill's that night in The Hell.

Bloody Quantrill! I don't think she even noticed him when he came in. She was miles away, twirling her hair, having a think. And he just stood at the door, staring at her. Then he walked over to the bar, nodding at us lot at the table, and banged on the counter with an ashtray.

"Two bottles of champagne," he said m a loud, rasping voice. "French. None of that sparkling Australian muck."

Normally, John, the landlord at The Bell, would have told him to shove off. Nobody uses that tone in the pub if he hopes to get served, and John, who's been known to leap over the counter and sort out three drunken fishermen at once, isn't the kind of man to tolerate rude customers. But on this occasion, he just lifted an eyebrow, ducked into the back loom and brought out the champagne without a word. Quantrill told him to keep the change and bring out a dozen glasses. Then he walked over to our table, as confident as you please, and sat at the empty place next to me.

"I trust that you have no objection to my joining you," he said, screwing up his mouth into something resembling a smile and giving me a faceful of whiskey fumes. "I expect we'll all be seeing a lot of each other in future, and I do like to get acquainted with my neighbors. I'm Edward Quantrill. Unless my lawyers ruin the negotiations, I shall be moving into Sir Gervais Lincoln's house in the new year. I'd like you to have a drink with me."

Of course, we'd heard his name when the news came through about the Lincolns' selling out, but until that night, the new owner had been a mystery figure. Now it seemed that he was a loony, too, judging by his manner and his peculiar speech; but, as I said, he was drunk, though I had no doubt that even if he was sober, he'd still be a loony. A man who's just bought one of the biggest and oldest estates in the county doesn't walk into the village pub and treat the locals to champagne. If you looked at the records, you'd find that the Lincolns have owned their land for 700 years. But no Lincoln ever set foot in the pub m my lifetime, and neither did their gamekeepers.

I suppose most of the village lads have known what its like to be chased by a Lincoln keeper, with a couple of bursting lungs, a shotgun and a bag of pheasants working against them. Only the night before Quantrill showed up, me and Barton had to run like hell--striding out, we call it--after we'd been sighted in the woods. Someone must have seen our light when we were picking out the roosting birds in the trees by the back lane.

My dad always said we had it easy while Sir Gervais Lincoln was running the place, because the old boy cared more about keeping the holiday people oil his land than he cared about poachers. He once dumped a load of poultry droppings on a camping site in the middle of July, and for years afterward, we used to call him Sir Chickenshit. Funny old boy, he was; used to go shooting dressed in an Italian-silk suit and ballet shoes. Now he was gone, monocle and all, and we had a new man to deal with. Watching Quantrill's bursting red face, I wondered if he knew he was buying champagne for the biggest poacher in the district--my mate Barton--and a few lesser heroes in the same line of work.

We don't get champagne too often, so when Quantrill opened both bottles and told us to help ourselves, we didn't hang about.

"Your health," he said in his House of Lords voice. A couple of the girls giggled. "That's what I like to see!" he shouted, rubbing his bare chest. "Decent people enjoying themselves. The salt of the earth! I salute you!" And he actually brought his hand to his temple in a parade-ground quiver.

"What about you, my dear lady?" he said, tipping the bottle over an empty glass and cocking his head at Goldlish. "A little sparkly for the sparkling lady? Some bubbles in my lady's bubble container?"

Goldfish looked at Barton, who shrugged a "Why not?" gesture and grinned, flushed with his winnings and by the mixture of champagne with several pints of brown ale. Quantrill turned to him and raised a glass.

"Your wife? I congratulate you, sir. I had a wife who was almost as beautiful, but she ran off with my accountant. Good bloody riddance to her. Cunt!"

He shouted for more champagne. "And anything else these good people would like," he said. "Brandy, whiskey, gin--my treat, landlord." He wiped the dribble off his chin and upended the second bottle into his mouth.

"I like Christmas, and I like you, " he said. "Used to have chaps like you under my command in Korea. Bloody good men, all of them--none of your fancy, longhaired nancy boys on my ship."

We had, of course, given up the game of brag and were feeling warm and clever by then and nowhere near as drunk as Quantrill. He pulled out a bunch of five-pound notes from his pocket; there must have been several hundred pounds in the roll.

"I like you," he said. "I want to give you all a present," and he stared into my eyes like some religious maniac and gave me one of his fivers. I was getting live of those in my pay packet every week, so you'll understand why I slipped it in my pocket without a second thought.

"And you, lovely lady," he said, giving the next one to Goldfish. She threw it on the fire, where it burned black and crumpled into ashes that floated up the chimney. Quantrill squinted at her. "That's remarkable," he said. "Don't you care about money?"

She shrugged. "You don't," she said. "Why should anyone else? I don't want your stupid money, you silly old bugger."

Barton looked sick but said nothing. Five pounds to him meant nearly six boxes of 12-bore cartridges.

Quantrill shook his head, like a man with water in his ears, and stuffed the roll of notes back into his trousers. "I like that, a beauty with spirit. You're a very fortunate young man," he said, squeezing Barton's arm across the table. "Good woman you've got there. Quite marvelous."

He stood up and peered out of the window. "Better get home," he said and lurched out of the pub, leaving the door wide-open. From where I sat, I saw him piss against the wall outside and then climb into the back of a Bentley. A chauffeur wrapped a blanket around his knees.

"Come on, you funny bitch," Barton said to Goldfish, "let's go home." •

•

A month passed before we saw Quantrill again. In the meantime, Barton had been out poaching like a demon, bringing home pheasants, partridge, woodcock, snipe, mallard, teal, hares--anything he could get his sights on. I went with him a few times, but I didn't have his nerve. Once a week was enough for me, and anyway, I didn't go shooting for the money, not like Barton. I ate what I caught or gave it away, but he sold his birds to butchers and a few posh restaurants in nearby towns.

"That Quantrill won't be so fast with his fivers and champagne next time," Barton said one night when he came back with a full bag. "I reckon I've got about a month before he gets himself sorted out and organizes his keepers. He's sacked most of the old lot, all but Tom Foreman, and Tom's a good old boy. He doesn't leave the house if it's raining. By the time the great Mr. Q. knows what he's doing, there'll be so few birds left, he won't need any bloody keepers."

When we next saw Quantrill in the pub, he looked more like the country gent--tweed suit and a new pair of green Wellington boots--and he was sober. He shook hands with me and Barton as if we were a couple of prime ministers, then he asked very politely if he could buy us a drink. Barton wouldn't hear of it--he insisted on buying the round. Haifa pint (continued on page 192) Quantrill and the Goldfish(continued from page 86) of lager was all Quantrill wanted.

"Why don't you come up to the house?" he said after the first sip. "You can bring your lady wife, and we'll have a late supper. I'll get Jeffries to take you home in the car."

I held back, looking at Barton, who usually took the lead in this kind of thing. "We'll have two double Scotches here, please, John," Quantrill said, not waiting for an answer. Half an hour and another Scotch later, we're driving up the village street in Quantrill's Bentley, with a chauffeur--not a local man but a geezer with a bent nose and a London accent who called us sir.

It wasn't like being in a car, with all that walnut and shiny glass. Thick carpet, soft beige material over the roof--and the smell of leather! "I could get used to this if I forced myself," Barton said. Quantrill handed out cigars and showed us how to light them. Bloody great things they were, too. He just sat in the corner, puffing away and not saying much.

We parked as close as we could get to Barton's cottage, and the two of us went inside to fetch Goldfish. She was bending over the table, making new curtains. He made her jump by pinching her on the bum, then he whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. "Oh, all right, but we can't be all night."

"Nag, nag, nag," Barton said, winking at me. He was feeling full of himself, you could see that! "It'll be a laugh, driving around in the old bugger's Bentley. Anyway, you won't mind him so much this time. He's not drunk, not like before."

"I still think there's something wrong with him," she said. "What's he want with us? Buying all that champagne, giving his money away. Now we're driving out to his house in the middle of the night."

"It's only ten o'clock."

"Well."

She got in and sat next to Quantrill, who moved over to make room.

"The lady with the perfect mouth," he said. "I'm delighted that you could join us."

"Home, James," said Barton.

•

The Lincoln place--I never did get used to thinking of it as Quantrill's--is about four miles from our village. A big, chilly-looking house with a dry moat around it, standing in open park land at the end of a half-mile driveway. We used to go there to sing carols with the Sunday school. Some winters, we'd have a brass band with us, playing nice and soft, everyone wearing gloves and breathing out little clouds under the light at the kitchen door. Old Lincoln's housekeeper, Gladys, used to give us mince pies and mugs of cocoa. "Not too loud," she'd say. "Sir Gervais is working on his insects." I bet the old boy would have had a fit if he could have seen us the night we went there with Quantrill.

All the lights were on, curtains wide-open, a couple of dogs barking somewhere inside. We went up the steps and through the big studded door at the front into an entrance hall that was bigger than any house I'm ever likely to live in. Quantrill showed us into an even larger room where there was a huge fire going and told us to make ourselves comfortable while he went to use the telephone. Barton pretended to be one of those tour guides at a stately home, making jokes about dungeons and jewels, but I wasn't really listening.

You can laugh at the rich if you like--we've all done it--but when you get close to them and see how they live, the things they take for granted, it soon wipes the smile off your face. I don't know why this should be, but it is, and it's not just jealousy, either; it's something else.

It's unsettling. I suppose if you thought about it too much, it would make you feel dirty and stupid, so I try not to think about it. Anyway, without rich people, who'd pay the rest of us? That's what my old mum used to say, and she should know after a lifetime with my dad, who never had ninepence in his pocket that he didn't owe to someone else.

So I could understand why Barton was making jokes. He was just nervous. We're used to being in houses where you can smell food cooking in the next room, with the TV or the radio on and a clothes rack with the washing drying in front of the fire. This place was more like a museum, with the pictures on the walls and the dark-green-velvet curtains from the floor to the ceiling. Me and Goldfish didn't talk, we whispered, while Barton kept up his tour-guide act.

"Over here, we have the fireplace. As you can see, this comes in handy for roasting an ox when we're feeling a bit peckish."

"He'll hear you," Goldfish said, annoyed.

"Fuck him; he's a wanker."

"Don't."

"Well, he is; he must be."

"Just because he's got money?"

"No, Because he's a wanker."

"We didn't have to come. You could have said no."

That was when Quantrill came back into the room, rubbing his hands and beaming all over his face.

"The first order of business is to have a drink," he said. "Any requests? Come on, don't be shy; we're well supplied."

Barton caught my eye and leered.

•

I can't say I remember everything that happened during the next four or five hours, but we got through a few bottles, boy. Barton tried the lot--six kinds of whiskey, white and dark rum, brandy, gin, vodka and that sweet green stuff in the long bottles. Christ, he was some sick. Passed right out once, then started again when he woke up. Quantrill just kept giving him more and saying things like how pleased he was to meet a man who could hold his drink.

"I can't hold it, but I can bloody well swallow it," Barton said, and they both roared with laughter. I didn't drink as much as they did; neither did Goldfish. She just sat there, not talking very much, looking at the fire and twirling her hair.

Quantrill got more and more drunk and talked a load of old tripe about how much he liked us and how pleased he was to call us his friends, which made Barton laugh so hard, he was nearly sick again. At about two in the morning, Quantrill got up and took a three-foot-long copper hunting horn from the wall next to the fireplace and blew a great blast on it. The door opened a moment later and a tall, dead-looking man in a dark pinstripe suit came in. His lips hardly moved when he spoke.

"You rang, sir?"

Quantrill didn't even look up. "Indian rain dance, Russell. Over here, man, where we can all see you."

Russell walked to the center of the carpet, closed his eyes, lifted his arms above his head and began to dance. A slow, writhing sort of movement, hopping delicately from one foot to another, chanting and groaning like some old medicine man in a wigwam. I couldn't look; it was too embarrassing. Quantrill didn't watch, either; he was staring at Goldfish, who lay back in the corner of the sofa, tapping a glass against her teeth. Barton was curled up next to her, snoring.

"That's enough," Quantrill said, waving his hand. "Bring us four scampi and chips."

Russell gave a little bow, said, "Very good, sir" and left.

"Does he always do that?" Goldfish asked.

"Only when told," Quantrill said. "Special occasions, like tonight."

I swear that the dinner arrived within five minutes, lots of it and piping hot. Quantrill looked well pleased with himself, said he had some new kind of gadget that cooked food instantly--something to do with microwaves.

Barton sat up at that. "What's this about microbes?" he said. "Is that what we're eating, fucking microbes?" Then he passed out again. We couldn't wake him.

I was all for going home when we'd finished--so was Goldfish--but Quantrill ordered coffee and then insisted that we drink a brandy before he would agree to call the chauffeur to drive us back. He tried to make a joke of it, saying he'd kidnaped us and things like that, but you could tell he just wanted to have his way and that was all there was to it.

"That don't seem fair on your driver, waking him up at three in the morning to drive us home," Goldfish said.

Quantrill lit another cigar. "That's what he gets paid for," he said. "He expects to be woken up; he's used to it."

He hunched forward in his chair and struggled to pull something out of his pocket, keeping his eyes on Goldfish, just staring at her. I might as well have been somewhere else for all the attention he paid to me. His hand came out with a thick roll of bank notes, thicker than the one he'd taken out in the pub that time.

"Not again," Goldfish said.

He wagged a finger. "Please. I've told you before how much I like you; I merely wish to prove it. Who's first?"

Well, in the pub it was different; I hadn't thought twice about taking his money, but now, in his house, I felt different about it. I wanted it, but I didn't want to take it.

"I'll count to five," Quantrill said. "Then it goes into the fire."

The three of us sat there, saying nothing, Quantrill holding his head on one side, his face glistening in the reflection of the flames.

"One, two, three, four--no takers?--five." And he tossed the bundle of money--fives, tens and 20s, it was--into the fireplace. Some of it floated up the chimney, some of it burst into flame, but the heaviest wad fell into the ash pile and sank.

"I'll get Jeffries to bring the car to the front," he said and left the room.

"How much do you reckon it was?" Goldfish asked.

"Christ knows. A thousand. Two, maybe. You saw it, all those bloody twenties."

We half dragged Barton out to the car, said good night to Quantrill, who was waiting at the front door, and drove off. "Can't hold it, but can bloody well swallow it," Barton said and passed out again, with his head in his wife's lap. Goldfish leaned her cheek against the window.

"He's one of those people who likes taking over, isn't he?" she said.

"We haven't got anything worth taking over."

"No, I suppose we haven't." She yawned and stroked Barton's face. "That's true. Look at him; he doesn't even know what he missed."

•

That was the last I saw of Quantrill for weeks, and to be honest, the next time was too soon. We told everyone what had happened at his house, but I don't think anyone believed it, and you can't blame them.

"I'd have taken the lot if I'd been awake," Barton grumbled. "I'd have been so busy spending it, the stupid bastard would probably have saved himself a couple of hundred pheasants. It'll be different next time we go there."

But there wasn't a next time, and though that seemed to irritate Barton, Goldfish didn't mind in the least. In fact, the topic of Quantrill and his money seemed to get on her nerves.

"It's all show," she said. "When he's found out what's what around here, he'll be just the same as the Lincolns. You won't see him set foot in the village then, flashing his money in your face."

"We should have taken it," I said.

"You and your should haves," she said. "You're as bright as Barton--he wakes up in the night talking about should have done this and should have done that. It's a bit late for should have."

With the end of the game season approaching, Barton was out in the woods and marshes every hour he could spare, before and after work. I went out with him a couple of times, and we walked where we pleased, never once catching sight of a gamekeeper. They seemed to have disappeared. Then I met Barton in the street one morning, and he gave me the news.

"Quantrill's got the keepers back," he said. "He got rid of the old boys and brought in new ones. He's given them walkie-talkies and a couple of Land Rovers. Blister says he's starting a war against poachers. He wants to lay in new stocks of birds and turn the land over to some big shooting syndicate."

"That's the end of us, then," I said.

"You must be joking. They're all new men--what do they know about the place? We'll be all right; we'll just have to be careful, like we were before. You're coming tonight, aren't you?"

I shook my head. "I'm going to lay off for a while. He's up to something. If I was you, I'd stay away, too. You know what happens if you get picked up again."

Last time he went to court for poaching, Barton was told by the judge that if he came back again, he'd lose his shotgun permit for life and he'd get nine months into the bargain. I didn't want to stand with him in the dock when that sort of punishment was flying around. It might prove contagious.

"Let's take Goldfish to the pictures," I said.

"Can't, boy, not tonight. I've promised three brace to Ransome's first thing tomorrow."

I spent the evening in the pub. Goldfish was there with one of her cousins. Over the talk, you could plainly hear shooting from somewhere near the cliffs--double barrels, fired almost simultaneously, typical Barton style.

"Someone's having a go," Blister said. "Wonder who, as if we didn't know."

"Shut your noise," Goldfish said, nervous as always when Barton was out where he shouldn't be.

Just before closing time, Barton came to the pub and stood at the open door, gesturing for us to come outside. We followed him to the corner at the lane; he was limping, and his face was bleeding from bramble scratches. "Don't want those nosy sods listening," he said.

"You got caught, didn't you," Goldfish said and began to cry. Barton put an arm around her shoulders and told us what had happened.

"One moment, it was all dark," he said. "I was in the middle of the sugar-beet field. There was a dozen men there, shining lights in my eyes. I just panicked; I thought the buggers were going to shoot me, so I ran for the gap in the hedge--you know, that opening by the split oak--but there were two more just inside the woods, and they grabbed me. They took the birds and the gun, and that was that. Quantrill was there."

"Quantrill?"

"Slimy bastard. Gave me some load of old balls about taking his hospitality under his own roof and not being content with that, stealing his property, too. Told me he knew all along I was shooting oh his land, but he'd been hoping I'd give it up. 'You've got yourself into hot water, my lad,' he says. 'Trespassing; poaching at night, taking game without a license.' He wants me to go to his house after work tomorrow."

"Maybe he's going to let you off."

Barton shook his head. "Not a chance. You should have seen his face--he was loving it. He looked at me like I was a slug." He gave Goldfish a squeeze. "Let's go home, love."

We walked up the lane toward their house.

"He must just want to give you a warning," I said. "They don't let you go when they catch you like that. They have to get the police in then and there, bring charges and have you arrested."

Goldfish was still crying when we reached their gate.

"Tell me something I don't know," Barton said. "Quantrill said he was going to leave all that until tomorrow. Said there's no point in getting the police out of bed to deal with some hooligan poacher. He knows exactly what he's doing. I expect I'll find out when I see him."

I had to drive over to the central post office in the county capital the next day and didn't get back to the village until late. Barton was at home. Goldfish sat by the fire, very quiet, staring into the coal flames. "He's in the kitchen," she said. He came out eating a thick slice of bread and dripping.

"Did she tell you what Quantrill said?"

"No."

"He says he'll forget the whole thing and let me go on one condition."

"What's that?"

"Goldfish."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Simple. He wants to jump the wife."

"Don't bugger about; what did the man say?"

"I'm telling you. He said I'd taken something of his that wasn't mine, and he wanted something of mine. I asked him what, and he said, 'Your wife--just for a loan, nothing permanent.' "

"What's he want her for?"

"Why do you think, you fucking yokel?" Barton wiped his mouth. "He's serious, boy. He says if she's not there by nine tonight, he'll call the police."

"But if you tell them what he said, they'll lock him up so fast his feet won't touch the ground."

"They're bound to believe me, aren't they, with my record."

"What will you do?"

"One thing I don't want is to lose my gun permit and go inside for nine months. If I can't walk out at night with the dog and the gun, I might as well be dead."

"What about you?" I asked Goldfish. She didn't reply.

"I'm leaving it up to her," Barton said. "If she won't go along with it, there's nothing I can do."

"You should have smashed his face in," I said.

"And then get done for attempted murder and go away for twenty years. That's clever."

"What's the time?" Goldfish said.

"Just after eight."

"I'll get ready."

Barton wouldn't look at me while she was out of the room. We could hear her moving about upstairs and running some water in the bathroom.

"His car's going to be parked outside the village at quarter to nine," he said. He sounded as if he had something stuck in his throat. "Maybe you could give her a lift in your van."

Goldfish came down wearing a long skirt, one she had made that winter, and a white blouse with puffy sleeves. She looked bloody gorgeous, boy, but I'm damned if I knew what was going through her mind. I thought Barton would come to the door with us, but he didn't; he stayed in his chair and said nothing when we left. Neither did she. I mumbled something about seeing him later, then we went out and got into the van.

She had some kind of scent on, or maybe it was soap, but it smelled sweet and faint, like flowers in a big room. I didn't dare look at her, didn't know what to say. It's funny, the things you think when you don't know what to think. The only thing that came to my mind was something my dad used to say. "Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, there is no answer, none at all." And a lot of help that was.

"There's the car," she said. "I'll walk the rest of the way."

It was parked on the grass verge with its lights on, just past the last house on the road, near the village signpost.

She got out, and I watched her in my lights. The chauffeur with the bent nose opened the door and she climbed in, picking up her skirt so that I saw a gleam of leg and the curve of her backside as she stepped into the back. The Bentley turned around in the road, and I watched its rear lights dwindle in the darkness, disappearing into the hollows and then coming up the other side until they reached the road junction and vanished behind the trees. Even then, I could still see the headlights sweeping through the bare branches, lighting up the night sky at the crest of the hill nearly two miles away.

No, I didn't know what to think, but I'll tell you this: It must have smelled good in that car, what with the leather seats and her scent.

•

I never heard what happened that night, but you don't always need the details to know the story. Barton rarely went to the pub over the next couple of weeks, Goldfish didn't go at all, and when I went to their place, the back door, which was always open, would be locked and nobody would answer. Then I caught him one evening calling his dog from the window, so he had to open up. He unbolted the door and stood on the back step, making it plain that he didn't want me to go inside.

I've known Barton as long as I can remember knowing anyone, but I never saw him the way he was that day, edgy and distant, holding himself in and not meeting my eye. I didn't stay long. He told me that Quantrill had not pressed charges, hadn't even called in the police. Yes, he still went out shooting, but the weather had been a bit quiet for it. You need a blustery wind, preferably with rain, for an ideal night's shooting--it muffles the gun, gives you better cover and makes it harder for the keepers. While he'd been waiting for the weather to break, he'd been putting in some overtime at the builders' where he worked, and was too busy for the pub. Too busy for me, he meant.

"How's the missus?" I said.

"She's at her mother's. The old man's had another operation."

He was glad when I said I had to go; he could hardly wait to close and lock the door. I couldn't help noticing that there was no smell of cooking, which was unusual, because there was generally something on their stove, some big stew simmering away for days on end. Now the place smelled flat and cold.

About a month later, I had to drive the van to London to pick up some spares for the engineers. I've been to the city only once in my life and that was on a bus passing through, so, having a few hours to kill while the load was sorted and packed, I took a walk around the West End to look at the shops. I went into a gunmakers' in Mayfair and bought a shooter's diary for Barton--half price, because it was March--then I walked along Bond Street, which was full of shiny cars and foreign people.

I saw the Bentley at a traffic light. Quantrill and Goldfish were in the back, cuddling and laughing. I only caught a quick glimpse--didn't want to look, really. I hardly recognized her with the make-up and the fur coat--she didn't look like the same girl--but it was her, all right. Then the light changed and they drove on. They didn't see me.

I went straight to Barton's when I got home and hammered on the door until he opened it.

"I saw Goldfish with Quantrill in London today," I said.

"Don't tell the bloody world." I thought he was going to wallop me one. "Come in and keep your voice down or that old cow next door will broadcast it all over the place."

The house was filthy; the curtains were pulled tight and were held down with newspapers and magazines. There were dirty plates and mugs half-full of tea on the dresser and in the sink. Barton didn't seem to notice it.

"She's been seeing him since that night he sent the car. Stays away for days sometimes, says she's working for him. Look at this." He pulled out a drawer in the kitchen table. Stuffed with money, it was. "It's her pay. There's about four hundred pounds in there. She left a note under the door today. He's taking her to Spain next weekend."

"Why don't you stop her? Give her a good hiding, boy."

"Grow up, will you? She's having the time of her life."

"Couldn't you go and see him, then?"

"I've done that! He says I've got a choice: Either stay off his land for good or let things go the way they are now. He knows I'm still shooting. His keepers could have had me a dozen times. They just laugh in my face when they see me in the woods."

"You could stop shooting."

"I fucking won't--I'll stop when I can't walk no more. Anyway, it's not just the shooting, it never was just the shooting." He flicked through the diary I'd bought in London, but he wasn't looking at the pages. For a moment, he seemed almost cheerful, like the old Barton; then he said: "Do you remember a few weeks ago when everything froze after that rain?"

I did; it was hellish cold, staying-in weather.

"I went over to the Long Wood that night, just me and the dog. I didn't take the gun. You should have been there. Full moon, no clouds. All the tree branches were covered with ice, looked like glass, they did. Quiet. Like a church. Even the dog stopped panting. Then the breeze got up, just a light one, and the whole wood started chiming. Bloody magic, it was, and I thought, This is what I want, nothing's better than this, nothing could be."

"Not even your wife?"

He threw the diary onto the table. "Don't make me laugh. She can go out and fuck the Russian army, far as I'm concerned."

"But you've got to do something, boy," I said. "Look at this place-look at you, you're driving yourself up the wall. What's a couple of pheasants compared to your wife? If you packed it in now and stopped shooting, Quantrill couldn't do a thing about that night he caught you--he's left it too late."

"It's not the bloody pheasants!" he shouted. "It's none of that, it's just-walking about, on my own. It's like your own world; it's not like life."

"We could always take the van and drive somewhere else. There's other places to shoot."

"Sure. Take the precious van on the two nights a week they let you keep it. Great. What's the point if you can't walk to the place on your own feet? Quantrill! He's got no right to all of that. It's my land more than it's his. I've always walked on it. He don't care about it, he just paid for it."

We sat without speaking for a few minutes. There was a photograph of Goldfish and Barton over the fireplace, with a sprig of dried mistletoe on the frame. The television droned and mumbled in the corner of the room.

"What are you going to do, then?"

"On a good week, I make thirty-five pounds after taxes. What do you want me to do, buy him out?"

He went to the door with me when I left. I didn't feel like the pub, so I went home. Between the gusts of wind and rain that rattled the windows, I could hear shooting from the woods. It sounded like an artillery barrage.

•

The night Quantrill and Goldfish came back from Spain, Barton was waiting behind one of the elms on the driveway that leads to the Lincoln house. I got the full story from a detective who came into the village when it was all over. The police reckon that Barton stopped the car by firing point-blank at the chauffeur, killing him outright. They say Quantrill tried to lock the door from the inside, but Barton fired through the window and got him with the second barrel. He must have reloaded before he killed Goldfish.

After finishing with the car, Barton walked up to the house, where he was met by Russell, the butler chap, who had come out to see what all the noise was about. Barton pushed past him and went to the room where Quantrill had burned his money. They say he used two boxes--50 cartridges--on the furniture. Then he left the house and ran across the grounds, disappearing into the woods. They got him in the Long Wood the next day; a police marksman brought him down with a bullet through the neck and another through the brain, but by then, Barton had killed two gamekeepers.

The Lincoln place went up for sale after a couple of months. There were rumors about new owners. Old Harry said Arabs, someone else said it was a bunch of religious fanatics from America, and a company from the Midlands cut down the best part of the Long Wood and built a mass-produced chicken factory. But nobody's moved into the house yet, even after all these years.

I still go down to The Bell for a pint now and again, but it's like everything else, boy, it's all changed. Maybe you'd like the place if you'd never been there before, but I remember it how it was, and it's nothing like it used to be.