Picture You Dead

12

Tuesday, 24 September

The crow was old, not long for this world. Like himself. Crows were lucky, Archie Goff reflected; their hair didn’t turn grey the way his had long ago – it was now nearly white. Not that he was vain or had much to be vain about, with his ageing, beat-up face. Isabella told him affectionately he looked like a scarecrow that had been left out in too many storms.

But at least, unlike this bird, his time wasn’t up, not just yet. Not, please God, for a while yet.

The words he’d read last time he was in prison came to mind. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

And he had a big promise to keep. To his daughter, to pay for her studies through veterinary college. Ironic, Archie Goff reflected, looking down at the bird sitting, almost resigned, in a trap, that Kayleigh was studying to learn how to keep animals alive and he was paying for it by killing birds. But only crows. Nasty creatures that murdered chicks and ducklings. They were both bullies and thieves. But hey, who was he to moralize?

That was the thought he held, bending his gangly, increasingly creaky frame down, on the edge of the woods, dark and deep, as he removed the creature from the trap he’d baited the day before. It barely resisted as he placed it in the cardboard box, the top punched with air holes. There was food in the box, some strips of chicken, and a foil tray of water. Then he placed it in the bottom of his large sack, alongside the brick. ‘Enjoy your last supper, pal,’ he said, feeling sorry for the creature. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t really like killing anything. But needs must.

There had never been a shortage of crows and never a shortage of country houses to burgle in these past forty-five years, to supply him with a living. Mostly a good one but sometimes less so. But all careers had their ups and downs, didn’t they?

His times in prisons had been the downs, when he’d missed out on many of the important years when his kids were growing up, and when all three of his marriages had fallen apart. Prison itself was OK: the electricity was paid for, there was television in the cells and the grub was all right. And he had his mates, especially on those stretches when he was fortunate enough to be sent to his second home, as he jokingly called it, the local Sussex big house, Lewes Prison.

But now Archie was tired of the game. He wanted to settle down with his new love, beautiful Isabella from Cape Town, a lab technician whose hobby was belly dancing. She genuinely loved him, despite knowing his background, and he was crazy about her.

All he needed was a couple of good jobs. Maybe just one, if tonight panned out the way he hoped. And he was long enough in the tooth to know how not to get caught, these days.

Hope Manor.

Archie smiled. There was the sign right there in the name!

He checked his watch. Coming up to 4 p.m. It would be a long wait for darkness, but he didn’t mind, he loved being in the woods, surrounded by nature and all the beautiful trees, many of which had been around long before he’d been born and would still be here decades, maybe even centuries, after he was gone. He was happy to wait, he had time.

As the Irishman he’d once shared a cell with told him, When the Good Lord made time, he made plenty of the stuff.