Read Online Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke by Peter Benson - Free Book Online

half-past midnight?”
    “Mr Evans asked me to check the herd. The cows.”
    “Mr Evans, your boss?”
    “Yes.”
    “And why did he do that?”
    “We always check them last thing. Make sure none have got out.”
    “So you went to check the cows, and then what did you do?”
    “I saw lights in the woods. Torches.”
    “How did you know they were torches?”
    “There were beams of light. It was obvious,” and I told them about the voices and the screams, the shadowed sentries and the deeper, wooded shadows.
    Pollock asked these questions in a slow and kindly way. He was a thin man with ginger hair and a clean, close-shaved face. When I say he asked questions in a kindly way I only mean that: the rest of him bothered me. I thought he could most likely turn in a second and turn badly, switch to meanness and trouble, and use his little fists to put a bruise somewhere that wouldn’t show but would hurt. His eyes were small and green, and he didn’t blink, and as he listened to me he sat still and quiet, like a monk. And all the time the other policeman, Brown, sat back and watched me, until at the end he leant forwards, rubbed his chin in a thoughtful way and said, “And that’s your story?”
    “It is.”
    “And you’re telling us everything?”
    “Yes. Of course. Why?”
    “Just a feeling, Elliot. You know. Sometimes I get a feeling. In my waters.”
    “I told it like it was.”
    “And you didn’t recognize the body when you found it? You’d never seen the man before?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “You don’t think so? That’s not what you said half an hour ago.” Brown leant forwards again. He was less disguised than Pollock, more upfront and obvious. He hadn’t looked after himself as well as his friend, and was starting to pork out. His face was jowly and his lips were fat, and his eyes were beginning to do that thing that eyes do when they get old. They were watery and distracted, maybe like they’d seen too much for one life and wanted to go home.
    “Well you know…” I said.
    “No, I don’t know. You’ll have to explain.”
    “Maybe I saw him in the pub or something.”
    “Maybe you saw him in the pub or something?”
    “Yes. Or the shop.”
    “Or the shop?”
    “Yes.”
    “Which shop?”
    “The post office. In Greenham.”
    “Well which was it – the pub or the shop?”
    I was very tired, and felt the words drop from my mouth. There was nothing I could do to stop them. “The pub,” I said, without thinking.
    “So now you had seen him before?”
    “Maybe.”
    Brown leant towards me. He rubbed his eyes, but it didn’t make them any better. He smelt of coffee and cigarettes and damp wool. “Elliot, Elliot. Maybe… maybe not. Definitely, definitely not. You need to tell me the truth.”
    “I’m tired.”
    “So are we.”
    “Would you like a coffee?” said Pollock. I wasn’t sure if he meant it, but I said, “Yes please.”
    “Sugar?”
    “One big one.”
    “Coming up…”
    Brown leant forwards and said, “Interview suspended 11:16, 17th August 1976,” and clicked the tape recorder off. Pollock came back with the coffee, put it on the table and said, “Smoke?” I shook my head. “Mind if we do?” I shook my head again, and for the next ten minutes we sat in silence in a growing cloud of smoke, and I felt the world lighten and haze and fade. A buzzing started in my ears, and my eyes watered. When they finished their cigarettes and turned the recorder on again, I was swimming in a world of half-remembered stuff that swirled between the first site of the plants in the hoop house, the sound of the dead man’s voice, the sight of the dead man’s eyes, the hanging plants in the garage, the hanging man in the wood, the creak of the rope, the sleeping cows, my sleeping eyes, the smell of my caravan, the hippies in the pub, Mr Evans in his vest. “Elliot?”
    “Elliot?”
    “Elliot?”
    I snapped back. “Sorry. I was gone.”
    “Interview resumed 11:31, 17th