Read Online The Honours by Tim Clare - Free Book Online

walked to a spot close to the pheasant, which had just righted itself again. He took a final drag on his cigarette, tossed it into the mud. After glancing around the field, he crouched and pulled a wooden peg out of the ground. He began barrelling his fists. The pheasant toppled like a drunk. Wheat parted around the bird as it skidded towards him. She heard it slap its wings against the dirt, making throttled protests. It stopped at his feet. He took it and held it to his chest. The pheasant looked around making small, soft noises. He ran a hand over its plumage as if smoothing the creases out of a favourite dressing gown. With the slight grimace of someone opening a jam jar, he wrung its neck.
    She flinched, despite herself. The old man made a noise through his clenched teeth.
    The boy eased a fishhook from the pheasant’s beak. He fed the bird into a canvas bag, along with the spooled fishing line. He collected some stray feathers, lit another cigarette and walked off, whistling.
    The old man took his hand from her mouth.
    â€˜Well, I’ll be,’ he whispered. ‘I only hired him three weeks ago, the cheeky . . . ’ He glanced around at the hedge. He began shuffling backwards. Grunting, he lifted himself onto one knee, placed both palms against his thigh and hoisted his other leg up. He took a moment to catch his breath, then waited for Delphine to stand.
    They brushed themselves down. He picked wet leaves from the wispy remnants of his hair. She found something grey-green and foul-smelling on her skirt. A gust of wind made the elms purr.
    He dragged a sleeve across his nose, snorted.
    â€˜Even?’
    â€˜I’m sorry?’
    He extended a palm.
    â€˜Henry Garforth,’ he said. ‘Head Keeper of the Alderberen Estate.’
    Delphine eyed his hand. It was a knot of contradictions: huge and callused, bony and quivering. The liver-spotted webbing between his fingers hung like dust sheets over a defunct exhibit. A thick white scar ran from his wrist to the pad of his thumb.
    She held out her hand; his swallowed it. His skin was pumice-rough.
    â€˜Delphine Venner,’ she said as he pumped her arm.
    â€˜Right,’ he said, letting go, ‘and now the formalities are out the way, you can bugger off back to Pigg.’
    â€˜I’m not from the village.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜I live at the Hall.’
    A grot of black mud clung to his eyebrow. It dipped as he frowned.
    â€˜Don’t be silly.’
    â€˜I live with my mother in the east wing, in the room with the butterfly paintings.’ She started walking back and forth along an invisible tightrope. ‘We’ve been here two weeks, well, a week and six days actually. My father is coming on Saturday. He’s a famous painter. He killed five men. Germans.’
    â€˜You should be in school.’
    â€˜Don’t go to school.’
    â€˜Why ever not?’
    â€˜They said I tried to start a fire but I didn’t, and they said I tied up Eleanor Wethercroft in the boiler room and left her there overnight, which I did,’ she said, without looking up.
    â€˜Ah,’ said Mr Garforth. He stooped and picked up his shotgun.
    â€˜What are you going to do about that man?’ she said.
    â€˜You mean young Mr Gillow?’
    Delphine wobbled, her hands out for balance. ‘The one who fished the pheasant.’
    â€˜Well . . . ’ he kneaded his chin with thumb and forefinger, ‘I suppose I’ll give him a chance to mention it when I see him tomorrow. Perhaps he stumbled across someone else’s mischief, decided to put the bird out its misery. If he doesn’t mention it, that’s poaching. He’ll be out on his ear.’ Whipping a handkerchief from his pocket, he started rubbing down the shotgun. ‘Now come on, off with you.’
    She stepped off the imaginary tightrope and watched him clean. He glanced up. ‘That’s a ripe-looking bruise you’re