Death Under a Little Sky

DEATH UNDER A LITTLE SKYStig Abell CopyrightHarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.ukFirst published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023 Copyright © Stig Abell 2023 Jacket design by Emily Langford © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Jacket photographs: © David Baker/Trevillion Images, © Silas Manhood/Trevillion Images (sky and birds) and Shutterstock.com (bare branches, front cover)Author photograph © Chris McAndrew Stig Abell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008517014Ebook Edition © April 2023 ISBN: 9780008517038Version: 2023-03-13 DedicationTo Nadine, my partner in crime,and in everything else. EpigraphReason thus with life:If I do lose thee, I do lose a thingThat none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,Servile to all the skyey influences,That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death’s fool;For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shunAnd yet runn’st toward him still.William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 3, Scene 1 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationEpigraphMapPrologueBeginningsHomeCrooked houseWild swimmingThe lie of the landA cry in the darkContact RoutineBonesLegaciesBridgingIn the fireCold caseBreakfast and deathEarly autumnDarwin’s wormsA case of identityCuttingsFilingsRain dayThe cider house rulesSearchingDiary of a nobodyCold comfort farmA morbid taste for bonesMaking the caseSaunaWashed upShoppedGone fishingPolice proceduralWeedChickensNight thoughtsSheepResurrectionStoriesOn the roadChickens part 2Acts of black nightSauna part 2RenunciationCold comfort farm part 2Small townWild swimming part 2The lady in the lakeTimelinesHeavy weatherScoopDigging inCrayfishNo country for young womenDown by the waterAfternoon assaultChickens part 3Filings part 2Double actEndingsBeginnings part 2EpilogueAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorAbout the Publisher Map PROLOGUEIt is a long way, as the heron flies, between lights in this part of the countryside. There is much silence and gloom in between, though the air is never completely still. Things rustle and murmur; creatures slink and scurry. Not just animals, but the occasional human too. The expanse is too forgiving for those with malign intent, and you can disappear into the twilit softness with great, alarming ease.A woman stands atop old and crumbling stairs. There is pain in her eyes, but not fear, not quite yet. In a few moments, she will be crumpled on the ground below; the drama and striving, the passion and the pain of her life over. She has been watched all evening. In fact, she has often struggled to evade attention over the last few years, to find peace even in the wideness around her. It is hard to separate some of the nearby men from the land itself. They work it – as she does – and it sticks to them, the smell of soil and growth and decay. She is surrounded; they are camouflaged. She strokes the downy hair on her arms, as a few goosebumps pimple her skin. The breeze is rising, she feels high in the sky.She wonders if he is nearby, crouched furtive deep in a shadowy recess, watching and plotting. It is, sometimes, unbearable to imagine it. Her life here has been hard; she is an outsider, an invasive species. And yet she has found moments of solace in the thick land and silvery waters, in the sights and sounds of a natural world completely heedless of her needful fears. She has even found companionship with people on occasion. A friendly smile, an evening of carefree conversation. But also constraint and fear. Dark, glowering eyes following her home, the physical threat of a man’s unforgiving bulk. Not just one man, but several. A group, a gathering; a rape of men like a murder of crows. She had coped, and struggled, and made herself small, got herself lost in the open spaces. And then the blow had fallen, the cataclysm, the catastrophe. Elsewhere, a man sits in his home. He doesn’t love technology, but has become more adept with his camera over time: he used to have a darkroom, the sickly sweet toxicity of chemicals filling his nostrils and stinging his eyes, as the objects of his attention loomed back into ghostly existence. Now he is downloading images onto a computer, the screen-light dancing on a face that has been creased and hardened by the elements. He wonders if the people close to him know what is in his mind all of the time, the relentless throbbing of his senses, the things he is thinking when he stares at them. Of course they don’t know, otherwise they would have stopped him. He looks out of his window to check he is not being seen. Somewhere else, two men meet by an old tree. Their cars are parked apart on the lane nearby, facing in opposite directions. The exchange is brief: two bags change hands, one of cash, one of product. They barely speak. They know that silence and security is essential. They cannot leave loose ends.Lights flicker on in far apart houses. If you could swoop, quiet as a bat, and peer in through windows you would see family life in all its forms. The laughter between mother and daughter as bedtime approaches. The awkward stiffness between husband and wife who have run out of things to say to each other, and sit restless and aloof. The widow lost in front of a television screen. Two grown-up brothers who should have left home in pursuit of separate lives, but have been imprisoned by their own lack of ambition, their vitality