The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

The Turnip Farm Allan Guthrie

Lester closed the gate, stepped into the field, wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Sweat glistened in the creases of his skin. He wiped his hands, front and back, on the legs of his dungarees.

It was only five o’clock but already Lester could tell it was going to be a hot one. Yep, by doodly, he’d better do it now rather than chance it later during the heat of the day.

Decision made, he felt his dangle stir. He gazed at the dozens of rows of turnips poking through the soil like a field of breasts, round and firm and ripe, and his dangle stirred some more.

He glanced around. Nothing moved apart from a couple of crows gliding in the thermals above the barn. Back in the cottage, everyone was still asleep.

Lester dropped to his knees, reached down, brushed surface dirt off a pair of fine wee beauties and placed them in the palms of his hands. He grasped them tightly, pressed against their fullness, and relaxed. Pressed and relaxed. As he kneaded the turnips, his breathing grew faster. He shifted, leaned forward, squeezed and stroked and tugged and nipped. He drew circles with his thumbs on the skin of the turnips, whispering, “Like this? Oh, yeah.” He squeezed and stroked again until his fingers were tired and the muscles in his thighs burned.

“Use my mouth? Okay.”

He lay on his stomach and wrapped his lips around the sweet, bare turnip flesh, and sucked and licked and nibbled, first one turnip and then the other, until the earth beneath him moaned.

“You want me to touch you there? In a minute.” He liked to tease.

When his lips were numb and his tongue was raw, he gently placed his fingers between the turnips and traced a line in the soil towards his belly, stopping only when he felt the earth under his fingers part. He prodded and pushed until his fingers sank inside a delicious softness, the soil still moist from yesterday’s spurts of rain. His fingers stiffened and he thrust them deep into the welcoming shaft that wrapped around his skin, clinging to him as he probed deeper and deeper, his fingers throbbing like over-excited hearts about to explode.

He was about to unzip himself when something caught his eye. He squinted. It was Sheena, his tractor, the shiny jealous ring of her exhaust pipe glinting in the sun. This is where his fumble with the turnips ended. Sheena wanted him inside her. She wanted him to ride her hard and fast, up and down the field, in and out of the turnips, harder and faster, engine roaring and screaming, until she shuddered, finally, to a furious climax, and came to rest by the gate, spent.

That’s what he did most mornings and he’d have done it again today if his oldest brother, Anne, hadn’t shouted at him from Mum’s bedroom window, “Lester, come up here. We’ve got a problem.”

It was still early, and Lester was surprised that Anne was up, but he saw right away when he stepped into Mum’s bedroom that she hadn’t budged from her usual position. Lester couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her out of bed. When their dad had got ill, she’d watched them move him into the barn, and then she’d sunk between the covers and stayed there.

Lester supposed she must have got up to go to the bathroom now and then, but he’d never seen her do it. And she didn’t have to get up to eat cause Lester’s youngest brother, Bamber, brought her food that he’d caught himself in his traps and prepared in the kitchen. He wasn’t a bad cook, but all he’d cook was meat. Lester liked to prepare the vegetables, but the rest of the family were often reluctant to let him. They’d seen what he’d done with a carrot once, a long thick one. Walked in on him on his back on the table with his pants down and his legs in the air. Wasn’t his fault. He was only human, with human desires.

Mum was in bed but she was awake. Sitting up, propped up against the pillows. Petey, one of Lester’s other brothers, had his back to her, facing the wall, and his body shook under the covers. Made a change that the pair of them weren’t curled up together. They were always giggling. Lester used to giggle too, but not for a while.

Dad would have been mad if he’d seen them, Mum and Petey. He was mad when he saw his friend, Alf, between the sheets with Mum. He’d shot Alf and then fed him to the pigs. Course, they didn’t have the pigs any longer, not since animal welfare had visited. Lester missed the pigs. He liked how they snuffled and squealed and how sometimes they looked like they were smiling.

Anne stroked his beard and looked round the room.

“What’s going on?” Lester said.

Petey snuffled.

“Waiting on Bamber,” Anne said.

“Want me to fetch him?” Lester said.

Anne shook his head. “He knows we’re meeting here. We’ll wait.”

They waited, fidgeting, listening to Petey’s slavering sobbing noises.

When Bamber finally appeared an hour or so later, he was carrying a tray with steaming plates of food on it. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “But I thought you might be hungry.”

They all tucked in, except for Petey, who ignored everybody and groaned now and then. Mum had Petey’s, along with her own.

“Very good,” Lester said to Bamber. Rabbit. Would have been better with potatoes, though. Potatoes in their skins. Lester enjoyed peeling the skin back and nuzzling the exposed potato underneath.

After Lester had finished licking his plate, he turned to Anne. “What did you want us all here for?” he asked.

Anne rose to his full height of six foot eight and bit his lip. “Mum,” he said. “You better tell Lester and Bamber the news.”

Mum looked a little worried. Her hair looked even wispier than usual and her bald patch seemed larger. She looked more worried when the bed began to shake with Petey’s sobs. She slid down the bed and out of sight under the covers.

Anne sighed. “It’s Dunlop.” Dunlop was their nearest neighbour. He lived four miles away, called himself a farmer but he just rented out his land and lived off the proceeds. Didn’t even own his own tractor. “He’s asked her to marry him.”

Lester felt the undigested meat in his stomach come alive. He looked at Bamber and Bamber shook his head sadly. “No,” Lester said. “She can’t, by doodly. Dunlop’s not right in the head.” He’d never been the same since Ruby, his daughter, got her tongue pierced. After the accident, Dunlop had started to talk to himself, not like normal folk, but whole conversations. And not just one side either as if he was talking to an imaginary friend. With Dunlop, you got both sides.

“Mum,” Anne said. He walked over to the bed, prodded the figure huddled under the covers where her head might be. “Mum. Tell them.”

“I’ll tell them,” Petey yelled, throwing off the bedclothes, and rolling out of bed with his fence post that hadn’t left his side for nigh on four years now. “I’ll tell them,” he repeated, his dangle waggling as he shook the post. “She only went and said yes.”

“But she can’t,” Lester said. “Mum, you can’t. What about Dad?”

“Why don’t we go ask him?” Bamber suggested.

Dad lived in the barn. Well, most of him did. When he’d taken ill a while back, he’d cut off one of his arms and a foot with a machete. Anne had said measles could do that to you, but Lester wasn’t convinced it was measles.

Anne had patched him up pretty good, anyway, and you could hardly tell the arm had been sewn on again. Pup, the dog, had got to the foot, though, and eaten most of it. Bamber had given what was left to the girl who lived in the cupboard under the stairs to play with and Pup ran away soon afterwards and hadn’t been seen since.

Dad hardly spoke these days. All a bit of a trauma for him. He just sat in his chair in the middle of the barn, head slumped to the side, jaw hanging open. They’d tied him to the chair for his own protection. Didn’t want him trying to hurt himself again.

“I think he might be dead,” Bamber said.

Anne smacked Bamber with the back of his hand.

“Ow,” Bamber said. “I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t,” Anne said. “He’s clearly not dead.”

“He looks dead, that’s all I’m saying.”

“What happens to dead people, Bamber?”

“I don’t know,” Bamber said. “They stop moving?”

“And?”

“They stop breathing?”

“And?”

“I don’t know.”

“They go to Heaven,” Lester said.

“Exactly,” Anne said. “And where’s Dad? Right here.”

“So he can’t be dead,” Lester said. “Right?”

“But when we had the pigs,” Bamber said, “they didn’t go anywhere when they died.”

“Cause they’re pigs,” Anne said. “Pigs don’t go to Heaven, stupid.” Petey rubbed his eyes. “Mum can’t marry Dunlop if Dad’s not dead.”

“That’s right.”

Petey smiled. “So that means everything’s okay.”

“Far from it,” Anne said. “If Dunlop and Mum are planning on getting married, it can only mean one thing.”

They all looked at him, waiting.

He coughed, stretched, coughed again. “They’re planning on killing Dad.”

“Wow,” Lester said.

“Mum wouldn’t do that,” Petey said, clutching his fence post to his chest.

“No,” Lester said. “But Dunlop would. Lightning strikes your daughter’s tongue stud and kills her, it’s sure to drive you batty. And batty people get up to all sorts of evil.”

“So what are we going to do?” Anne said.

They were silent for a moment. Then Bamber spoke up. “I have an idea,” he said. “How about we hire a hitman?”

“Brilliant,” Anne said. “Anybody know any hitmen?”

Anne and Lester went into the village the next day and asked around. Bit of a wasted journey, since nobody at the post office or the shop was able to help. Lester suggested they try the pub.

There were six people inside, not including them or Domenic, the barman, who’d left home a few years ago when he was still called Susan. He asked how Mum and Dad were and Lester asked if he could see Domenic’s Teflon rod again that he slipped inside his dangle to make it stiff, and Domenic showed him, and then they ran out of conversation. So Anne and Lester played some darts while they knocked back a few pints.

After an hour or so, one of the blokes at the table nearest them challenged Anne to a game.

Lester let them get on with it, went to empty his bladder.

There was a guy in the toilet with a monkey. “Hello,” the guy said.

“Hello,” Lester said.

“I hear you’re looking for a hitman.”

“Hang on,” Lester said. “I’ll go fetch my brother.”

The hitman followed them back to the farm in his Mini.

“Nice guy,” Lester said.

Anne grunted.

“Don’t you think he looks like Mum with a moustache?” Lester said.

Anne grunted again.

“What’s the matter?” Lester asked.

“That monkey,” Anne said. “Don’t trust it.”

Lester grabbed Bamber out of the kitchen, dragged Petey out of Mum’s bed, and led them to the barn where the hitman was pointing at the monkey who’d jumped on to Dad’s lap.

“I’ve killed over a thousand people,” the hitman was saying. “I should know when someone’s dead.”

“You would think so,” Anne said. “Makes me doubt your thingumabobs.”

“My what?”

“You know. Makes me doubt you can do what you say you can do.”

“I’ve never been doubted,” the hitman said. “I take great exception to that comment. Your father’s definitely dead.”

Anne smacked him with the back of his hand.

“Ow,” he said.

“Watch your monkey,” Lester said.

The monkey had been playing with Dad’s flies. Pulling the zip down, and chattering, pulling it back up, chattering. He’d pulled it down again, grinned and stuck his little fist inside.

Lester said, “He’s going too far.”

The hitman rubbed his cheek, looked at the monkey and yelled at it. It yanked its hand out of Dad’s pants and leapt on to the floor and scurried away into the corner, out of sight behind the large freezer that Dad used to climb inside when the weather was too warm.

“He’s not dead,” Anne said.

“Right,” the hitman said, still rubbing his cheek. “I want ten grand. Half now, half later.”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “We’re a bit strapped.”

“Eight, then.”

“Well...”

“Six.”

“I don’t know...”

“Five?”

“Okay,” Anne said. “How about we give you a hundred and fifty quid now and the rest when it’s done.”

“What do you think?” the hitman said, looking over to the monkey.

The monkey jumped on top of the freezer, screeched, then chattered its way over to the hitman and whispered something in his ear.

“It’s a deal,” the hitman said.

They all shook hands with the hitman. And then they all shook hands with the monkey. And then they all shook hands with each other.

Then they stood around, looking at one another and shuffling their feet.

The hitman said, after a while, “So where’s my down payment?”

“Go fetch the cheque book,” Anne told Bamber.

“I want cash,” the hitman said.

“Don’t have any,” Anne said. “Leave cash lying around this place, one of these fellas’d nick it soon as look at it.”

That wasn’t true. But what was true was that they didn’t have much money. They had heavy loan repayments, and it was hard to make a living growing turnips, in any case.

Bamber left to fetch the cheque book.

“So you’ve done a thousand hits?” Lester said.

“Yep. At least.”

“You and the monkey?”

“Yep. Well, he’s probably done more than me.”

“Yeah?” Anne said.

“I just go along to help, usually,” the hitman said. “He’s the one who pulls the trigger. In fact, I’ve never actually killed anyone. No need. He’s happy to do the dirty work.”

“Isn’t he scared of the noise?” Petey asked.

“Nah,” the hitman said. “He uses a .22. Delicate little piece. Sounds no louder than a cap gun.” He looked at his watch. “We have to go soon.”

“Another job?”

“Nah. Got my dance class tonight.”

“You dance?”

“Oh, yeah.” He showed them. Nifty piece of footwork ending up with a 360-degree turn. The monkey applauded, so they joined in. “You want to see some more?”

An hour later and the hitman had well and truly missed his dance class. But he seemed happy enough that he’d had the chance to entertain them and he’d forgotten about (or forgiven) the slap on the cheek. And the truth was, he was extremely good at dancing. All that spinning around and never once getting dizzy. Apparently, so he told them, it was all in the way you twisted your head to the side, focused on a particular spot, and let your body turn.

Like Petey had said, if the hitman was as good at killing people as he was at dancing, Dunlop didn’t stand a chance.

Anne wrote the hitman his cheque and handed it over.

“If you don’t cough up the rest when I’m done,” the hitman said, “I’ll have that fine-looking tractor I saw out in the turnip field.”

Lester stiffened. Nobody was getting their hands on his tractor. “You’ll get the money,” he said. “When are you going to do it?”

The hitman looked at his watch. “Well,” he said. “I’ve no other plans for the rest of the night.”

“What are we going to do?” Lester asked, after he’d gone. “He’ll be back for his money later.”

“What do you mean?” Anne asked.

“We don’t have any. He’ll take my tractor.”

“It’s not yours,” Bamber said. “It belongs to all of us.”

“He’s not getting it,” Lester said.

Anne stroked his beard. “I don’t know that we have any choice.”

Lester went back in the house and knocked on the door of the cupboard under the stairs.

The girl who lived in there opened it. She was about nine, wore clothes that were far too big for her, the sleeves of her jumper hanging over her wrists, trouser legs flapping over her feet.

“What?” she said.

“I want to borrow your shotgun,” Lester said.

She tilted her head, licked her lips. “Why?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What’re you going to do with it?”

“Please just let me borrow it.”

She stood there, hands on her hips. “You know what happened the last time I leant it to someone.”

That was the time Dad had found Alf in bed with Mum.

“So?” Lester said.

“You going to shoot someone too?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

Lester stared at her. “But this guy, he’s going to take my tractor,” he said.

“Oh,” the girl said. “Oh, dear.” She pouted. “That’s probably for the best, don’t you think?” Then she swivelled on the balls of her feet and closed the door.

When the hitman returned, about eleven, he was covered in blood, and alone. They all went out to meet him. He climbed out of his Mini and they all wandered over to the barn together.

“Is it done?” Anne asked, once they were inside.

“Crazy coot, that Dunlop,” the hitman said. “You people never told me. Just kept talking to himself.”

“Is he dead?” Petey asked.

The hitman was out of breath. He held up a hand, then said, “Yeah.”

“Where’s the monkey?” Bamber asked.

Lester was glad Bamber had asked. He wanted to know too but was afraid of what the answer might be.

“Didn’t make it,” the hitman said, lowering his eyes. “Dunlop did something to him. He said, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Oh, I’ve come to kill you.’ ‘That’s nice. Why?’ ‘I don’t know, it’s what I do.’ ‘But you’re a monkey.’ ‘And?’ ‘You shouldn’t be shooting people. In fact, you shouldn’t be talking like this.’ ‘I’ll talk how I like,’ the monkey said. And fired his first shot. Wide. The second got Dunlop in the leg. Dunlop said, ‘You’re a freak of nature.’ ‘I’m a monkey.’ ‘A monkey freak.’ The third shot got Dunlop between the eyes and that was him. But the monkey wasn’t finished. He looked at me and I told him no, he wasn’t a freak, but he didn’t believe me. He put the gun in his mouth and squeezed the trigger. That’s how I got covered in all this crap.”

“Bit of a mess, right enough,” Anne said.

“Sorry about your monkey,” Bamber told him.

“Never mind that,” the hitman said. “Where’s my money?”

Anne ran a hand through his hair, looked at Lester. Then away. “Don’t have it. You’ll have to take the tractor.”

“Fine,” he said.

But it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine at all.

Lester lunged towards Petey. Grabbed the fence post from him and swung it down, two-handed, on the hitman’s head. There was a thunk and the hitman reeled. Lester whacked him again. And again. The hitman dropped to his knees and groaned. Lester hit him again. Kept pounding his skull with the fence post.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

When Lester’s arms hurt too much, he stopped.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Then Petey said, “Can I have it back?”

Lester held out the fence post. It was covered in blood, and bits of hair and scalp were stuck to it.

Petey started to cry.

Lester said, “He’s not getting my tractor.”

“No,” Anne said. “He’s not.”

Anne took the hitman’s arms and Bamber took his legs and they carried him over to the freezer. Lester helped them lift him inside.

When they closed the lid, it was as if nothing had changed.

“You okay?” Anne asked.

Lester got up at 4.30 the next morning. He washed, brushed his teeth, dressed, and was outside by 4.45. The sky was cloudy and drops of rain fell on his face.

In the field, the turnips poked through the soil like rows of naked scalps. He didn’t want to touch them. Didn’t want to go anywhere near them.

He tiptoed through the field towards his tractor. He opened the door, climbed inside the cab.

He sat there, shaking.

Then he got out again and ran back into the house. He stopped outside the cupboard under the stairs and thought about asking the girl once again if he could borrow her shotgun. But he walked on, upstairs, into his mum’s bedroom where he took his clothes off and climbed into bed beside her and Petey.

Mum woke up, stroked his hair.

Birds chirped, Petey snored, and his mum kept stroking his hair.

Lester thought he might stay here for a long, long time.