By now I could see no more than a hundred yards in any direction. It was a stupid idea to ride deeper into this valley which I didn’t know at all. If the fog got any thicker I’d have trouble finding my way around. The complete absence of signposting made me wonder whether the signs that were taken down in 1940 to confuse an invading Jerry had ever gone up again. The lanes were just wide enough for a tractor around here so I pootled slowly along, having no desire to become embedded in the back of some farm machinery. After a while a turn-off came into view on the left, an unmade road that led downhill and looked slippery. It was. But the Norton coped admirably with the wet, rutted track that curved down steeply between hedgerows. I only caught glimpses of sheep in the fields on either side, sitting about in dripping, dispirited huddles. I didn’t want to depress them any further so refrained from shouting the traditional ‘Mint sauce!’ at them. I was too busy trying to keep the bike steady anyway. When I finally reached the bottom I was confronted by a stand of trees, a stream and no bridge. The lane disappeared into the stream and reappeared on the other side. In other words, a ford. It wasn’t exactly a raging torrent but after a week of nearly solid rainfall this was no babbling brook either. There was no easy way of telling how deep it was at the centre without walking right in. Fallen leaves from the mixed bit of woodland the stream bisected here had been churned into slippery mush by heavy tyres. That was the trouble with the countryside: most of it was built with four-wheel-drives in mind. I had one-wheel-drive but just didn’t fancy turning round so I pointed the Norton at a likely-looking spot in the brook, put it in first and opened the throttle wide. The rear wheel raced, eventually found some grip and propelled the bike forward. Before I knew it I was completely drenched in icy water and plastered with mud. The engine sputtered and died on reaching the other side of the stream, probably feeling it had done enough by getting me across. I wheeled the bike to a tree where I could leave it leaning and draining, feeling quite a bit like leaning and draining myself. I knew it would be hopeless trying to restart the engine straight away. Having stuck my helmet on the handlebars I set off on foot. If the scribbly map was right then the path that led through this narrow band of trees would lead directly to Grumpy Hollow and ‘the Stone woman’, as Jack Fryer put it.
With no engine running the sudden noise reduction made me aware of the many sounds that are drowned by motorized transport: the rushing of the stream over its stony bed; the dripping of moisture from the fog-laden trees; the odd dispirited moan of a sheep or lowing of a cow in the distance; the squelching of water inside my boots and the growling of my stomach. I stomped along what was now just a muddy track, though the water-filled ruts showed that cars did come down here. The track lost the stream after a while and the trees were thinning out. It became even quieter. Another fifty yards and the track widened into a rutted quagmire. Bits of assorted fencing were ineffectually leaning this way and that. What had once been a wooden five-bar gate was mouldering in the weeds. Asquare sign tied with garden twine to the one surviving and otherwise unoccupied gatepost read PRIVATE KEEP OUT. A smaller, handwritten sign underneath proclaimed DANGER, POISONOUS PLANTS. This just had to be the entrance to Grumpy Hollow. Here the land fell away to a shallow bowl into which the mist had settled — or was this where they made the stuff? — and out of it rose solitary trees and the roofs of various structures. This then was Stone’s herb farm, although ‘farm’ seemed too grand a word for such a ramshackle affair. I couldn’t see a living soul. It was far too foggy and boggy and wet. I was hungry and thirsty. And wet and muddy. And just how poisonous were these plants anyway? I took a few unenthusiastic steps through what remained of the gate and sniffed the stagnant air. Something came flying out of the gloom. It missed my head by a few inches and slammed into the mud somewhere behind me. I turned around to see what it might have been when another missile sailed past, close enough for me to feel the air move. I looked all round but in the gloom and mist couldn’t see anyone. A scarecrow poked its unmoving head out of the mist, there were muckheaps, water tanks, sheds and all sorts. Another missile landed near me. ‘Hey, stop that!’ I protested ineffectively in a to-whom-it-may-concern fashion. Ineffectively, since the next missile hit me squarely on the right knee. ‘Ow! All right already, I get the message!’ Rubbing my knee with one hand and waving the other in surrender I hobbled back through the gate. A last vindictive missile landed near me. I picked it up. It was a small apple. Not exactly lethal but a hard enough object when thrown with enough force. When I got back to the ford I washed the mud off it and took a bite. Not only was it hard enough to threaten my dental work but it was so sour it made me shudder. My assailant hadn’t wasted any dessert apples on me. I spat it out, plonked the helmet back on my head and for five minutes worked up a sweat pumping the kick-starter on the Norton. When it finally fired up I thought it a very cheerful sound. This time I managed to cross the stream without drowning the engine and I rode out of the valley before the fog could swallow me up.
Chapter Nine
A good cook always starts by putting the kettle on. Anyone hoping to be a good cook should also first grapple with mud-encrusted laces, drop squelching boots in the hall, hang leather jacket over a chair near the stove, stuff wet and filthy jeans into the washing machine, divest himself of any remaining items of clothing, letting them drop to the floor en route to the bathroom, then stand under a hot and generous shower groaning and spluttering until the General Decrepitude Index sinks back to acceptable levels. Next, dry off leisurely in a warm and draught-free room. Clothing self in comfortable and well-cut attire, freshly laundered and ironed, preferably by someone else, nicely rounds off the process. Now fully restored, cook should reenter the steamy kitchen where by now the kettle has boiled completely dry and sits crackling and growling like an evil thing on the stove.
A good cook refills white-hot kettle at the sink, accompanied by much banging and steam, yet a minimum of burns and swearing, then returns it to the heat. A good cook is now ready for a drink. More than ready.
From the kitchen window I could see that up in the studio the lights were on, which probably meant that Annis was still whirling about there. The sitting room, I noticed with relief, was as messy as ever. I banked up the fire and went to tackle the current famine.
Something simple. I quickly chopped an onion, a few sticks of celery and a red pepper, chucked them in a pot and covered them with a ladle of stock. While that was bubbling I furnished myself with a bottle of Pilsner Urquell; my Existential Fear Factor responded nicely by dropping a few notches. My Accumulated Guilt Quotient on the other hand remained dangerously high. It had hardly been an afternoon of great achievements. My riding about in Lam Valley had been little more than a diversion. It had certainly contributed nothing towards freeing Jill’s son and I had dug up no great revelations concerning Dead Guy Albert in the back of my DS. That there was some despair amongst farmers after BSE and the disastrously handled Foot and Mouth ‘crisis’ was hardly news to me either. Jack Fryer’s kitchen had given a fair impression of a pit of despair but unless Albert turned out to be an employee of the Rural Payments Agency I couldn’t see any connection. Yet I had no choice. I had to find an explanation of how the body got into my car. I couldn’t help Jill while in police custody.
Grumpy Hollow had been more of a surprise. It had probably just been local kids, feeling safely hidden in the mist, taking a few pot shots at a stranger. Either that or the Stone woman was the silent violent type. Yet since I’d clearly been trespassing, a few well-aimed apples lobbed through the mist wasn’t exactly a disproportionate reaction either. Airborne fruit or not, I would have to go back there. Preferably on a day when I could see it coming.