The Kill Call. Stephen Booth
allow another a horse box to pass. A late-comer, since the rest of the hunt had already assembled and scattered across the fields.
‘Before the Hunting Act, we did have a lot of violent confrontations between sabs and hunt supporters,’ said Inspector Redfearn. ‘More than we do now. The Eden Valley Hunt was unpopular, and it attracted a lot of protests. Sabs travelled hundreds of miles to be here.’
‘Have you always been on hunt duty?’
‘No, but it comes round regularly. Ironically, the turn-out for the hunt has increased since the ban. Their support is booming. On the other hand, the anti-hunt groups lost a lot of members, people who thought the battle was over when the act came in. Now there’s just the hardcore left, and they have to try that much harder to make their presence felt.’
‘And are the saboteurs local?’ asked Fry.
‘We think we’ve got three different groups today. Our own local group we see quite regularly, and they’re generally peaceful. The trouble makers seem to come from other parts of the country, and they’re of a rather more aggressive nature. It generally starts with the foot followers being given grief, then someone gets spat at, a girl’s pony gets sprayed with an unidentified substance. It can take less aggro than that for incidents to kick off big time.’
‘The Eden Valley don’t hunt foxes now, though,’ said Fry.
‘Their official policy is to observe the law. But you know there are exemptions under the Act.’
‘Of course. I heard your briefing.’
‘Well, even if they don’t catch foxes any more, their opposition still turn out. Only now some of them call themselves “hunt monitors” and they’re armed with video cameras, aiming to catch infringements of the law. We never condone vigilante groups, no matter what their cause, so we watch the sabs carefully.’
Fry nodded. She didn’t know who her victim was, yet she already seemed to have an array of potential witnesses, suspects and associates, all milling around the landscape having what passed for fun in these parts. Well, as much fun as you could have in the rain.
A lone rider cantered down the road, a woman in a red coat who dug her knees into her horse’s flanks to turn it as she approached them. The mare trotted over the last few yards of wet grass, hooves thumping on the soft ground, steam spurting from its nostrils.
The rider’s boots and jodhpurs were splattered with mud and her face was red from exertion and the cold air.
‘What’s the problem, Inspector?’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Fry,’ said Redfearn. ‘She’s investigating a suspicious death in this area.’
‘I saw the activity across the way. Thought your people had just got lost.’
‘This is Mrs Forbes,’ Redfearn told Fry. ‘Joint master of the Eden Valley Hunt.’
Fry didn’t think she’d ever been quite so near to a horse before. She knew absolutely nothing about them, except that they bit at one end and kicked at the other.
She explained to Mrs Forbes what she wanted. As she spoke, the rider looked down at her with an expression she’d seen on the faces of the hunt supporters when the saboteurs got too close. An unmistakable hint of contempt, probably just the instinct of the mounted person looking down from a great height on the lowly pedestrian.
‘You think any of our members might know something about this?’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘What nonsense.’
‘If we could just speak to the people –’
‘I can’t allow you to speak to anyone. It’s just some mad story made up by those antis.’
Fry could feel the horse’s breath blowing from its nostrils in warm jets. She suspected that the animal regarded him with much more benevolence than its owner did.
‘One way or another, I’ll speak to your huntsman, and anyone else who was in this area at around eight thirty this morning,’ said Fry. ‘If you prefer, we can stop the hunt altogether while we do that.’
Beside her, Redfearn cleared his throat nervously, but said nothing. Mrs Forbes stared from one to the other, her hands gripping the reins tightly, as if it was her horse that was on the verge of getting out of control, rather than her own reactions.
‘Do what you like,’ she said finally. ‘Who is this person who got himself killed?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
Mrs Forbes snorted, and pulled at her reins. ‘I’ll give Widdowson instructions.’
Fry watched her go, the mare’s tail flicking from side to side as if bothered by invisible flies.
‘Widdowson?’ she said.
‘The huntsman,’ said Redfearn.
The inspector’s radio crackled, and he listened for a moment.
‘This body of yours, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Did I understand that he died some time this morning?’
‘About eight thirty. Why?’
‘Funny thing, that’s all. One of my officers is reporting that some of the sabs got a bit over-excited. They said they heard three long, wavering notes on a hunting horn. It sounded to them like the signal that calls in the hounds to kill the fox, or the terrier men to dig him out. That got them all worked up. But it was too early, the hunt hadn’t even moved off. So I think they must have been mistaken.’
Fry had lost interest, but tried to appear polite. ‘Well, thank you for your co-operation, Inspector.’
Redfearn looked offended. ‘Well, I just thought you should know. In case it was relevant that some of the sabs say they heard the kill call.’
Fry turned back. ‘The what?’
‘That’s the name of it,’ said the inspector. ‘Three long, wavering notes. It’s known as the kill call.’
A few minutes later, Diane Fry was sitting in her car and fuming. She had gone barely a few yards out of the gateway before she met the entire hunt coming back from the direction of Birchlow. Horses, dogs, people in Land Rovers and vans, others trailing behind on foot. It was a complete carnival.
Traffic was brought to a halt at a crossroads on the A623 while the hunt went by. As the horses passed, the sudden clattering of hooves on tarmac was uncomfortably loud inside the Peugeot. For a few minutes it completely drowned out the mutter of her idling engine and even the efforts of Annie Lennox, who was hurling Songs of Mass Destruction at her from the CD player. As the hunt pressed around the car, a powerful whiff of sweating horse crept in through the driver’s window, followed by a rich aroma of saddles, cotton jodhpurs and manure.
Many of the mounted hunt supporters seemed to be young girls, wearing their hard hats and pony-club complexions, bright-eyed and eager for a twenty-mile hack. What was really amazing, though, was that there were still so many middle-aged businessmen who sat comfortably on horseback. Surely most members of the business community had never been nearer to a horse than the grandstand at Uttoxeter race course, or the counter of the betting shop in Clappergate, depending on their degree of commercial success.
But the joint master, Mrs Forbes, looked confident and well in control of her mount as she led the main body of the hunt. A long tail of riders was still making its way across a field from the direction of Foolow, kicking up clods of dirt as they cantered towards the road.
One particularly large horse came a little too close to the Peugeot for comfort. Its rear end swung round and it began to prance sideways, edging nearer to the car until the muscles of its haunches were almost pressed against the window, twitching and glistening in the rain. The sweating hindquarters were level with Fry’s face,