Read Online Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch - Free Book Online Page B

down.
    ‘Let’s hope their saucer runs on diesel, then,’ said Dominic. ‘Otherwise I think they’re going to be a bit disappointed.’
    I used an app on my phone to get a GPS fix on our location and then I suggested that we head back to the Nissan before calling it in.
    ‘How are we going to explain what we were doing here?’ asked Dominic as he crawled back out of the rhododendrons. I said he could blame it on me doing my due diligence. ‘I thought that was the plan.’
    Dominic admitted that this was true, but still wanted to know what I was going to say.
    ‘Tell them that I wanted to check on a World War Two military installation,’ I said. It wasn’t that much of a stretch. The foundations had been the right dimensions for a standard hut and had been made from the poor quality ‘economy concrete’ used for throwing up pillboxes and air raid shelters in a hurry. In the scramble that followed the fall of France in 1940 a lot of sites had just fallen off the bureaucratic radar.
    ‘Is that part of your brief, then?’ asked Dominic.
    ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘There are all sorts of secrets from back then.’
    We pushed our way out of the bracken and back onto the path. It was getting hotter and I could smell the warm resin scent of the trees around me. Potentia silvestris , Polidori called the power derived from a forest, the power from whence sprang the antlered gods of Celtic myth, Lemus, Cernunnos and Herne the Hunted – although probably not the last one.
    ‘Who uses this path?’ I asked.
    ‘Dog walkers,’ said Dominic.
    ‘Ramblers,’ said Stan.
    ‘Tourists,’ said Dominic, and explained that it was part of the Mortimer Trail, which stretched from Ludlow in the North East, along the ridge that overlooked Rushpool, down into Aymestrey where it crossed the River Lugg and then up to Wigmore, famed in song and story as the ancestral seat of the Mortimer Family. Dominic was a bit hazy about who the Mortimers were, beyond them being powerful Marcher Lords during the middle ages and getting seriously involved in the War of the Roses.
    ‘We did do them in school,’ he said. ‘But I’ve forgotten most of it.’
    The trail was popular with casual ramblers because of its relative ease and the number of excellent pubs along the route.
    ‘And ufologists,’ said Stan.
    ‘Bit of a hotspot,’ said Dominic.
    ‘Window area,’ said Stan.
    There having been a spate of sightings ten years previously, including lights in the sky, cars mysteriously breaking down and a cattle molestation, although Dominic admitted that there might have been an alternative explanation for the last.
    ‘We used to have UFO parties,’ said Dominic, in which apparently there was the traditional drinking of the cheap cider, bouts of vomiting and occasional snogging – hopefully not in that order.
    ‘Ever had a close encounter?’ I asked Stan before I could stop myself.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Stan. ‘But I don’t like to talk about it.’
    We reached where we’d parked the Nissan Technical. Dominic offered Stan a lift but she said she was fine walking home. She lived with her family on the other side of the ridge near somewhere called Yatton. I watched as she lurched off down the track, making the occasional zigzag and halting every so often to get her bearings.
    ‘She went headfirst into a tree,’ said Dominic. ‘Spent six months in hospital. The doctors were amazed she walked out on her own feet – everything after that is a bonus.’
    Yeah, I thought, that’s a mate you’re going to go to the wall for.
    Despite Dominic having parked it partially in the shade, a gust of hot foetid air struck us in the face when we opened the Nissan’s doors. Underneath the aroma of dried shit I could smell rotting vegetables and half- melted plastic.
    ‘Christ, Dominic, what does your boyfriend do for a living?’
    ‘He’s a farmer,’ said Dominic, as if that explained everything.
    We decided to leave the Nissan with the doors open to