The Fall

3

Ben Middleton made his last check of the evening. He strolled round the kennels, murmuring gently to the dogs that were his paying guests, reassuring them that their owners still loved them and that they would soon return from holiday to take them home.

Ben was 60 years old, short, stocky, with a full head of baby-fine blond hair and with big, baby-blue eyes to match. He was a kindly man, well liked by his staff.

He ambled slowly along the gravel paths that linked the kennel buildings. The dusk air was warm, still. Swarms of midges hovered above the lawns. The 50 or so dogs were settling down for the night, making barely a sound as they turned round and round on their beds as their ancestors had done for the past 20 million years before them.

Ben paused to gaze back at the house of honey-coloured stone. It looked warm and comfortable in the last lingering rays of sunlight and he found himself relishing the prospect of sitting in front of the television with a glass of wine and his own dogs sleeping at his feet.

Already the light sensors had tripped the power on the big sign on the gable end wall. Bold letters spelt out the name of the business to which he, Ben Middleton, had devoted his life:

For a moment or so, he dead-headed flowers in the hanging baskets that hung on the wall of what had once been the old barn.

Two years earlier he’d had the barn’s hayloft converted to a records office, but Mrs Newton, whom he employed as a secretary, flatly refused to use it. Perhaps he should have seen something like it coming, because Mrs Newton moonlighted as a clairvoyant, holding ‘readings’ at her home in Casterton.

‘What’s wrong with the office, Mrs Newton?’ he’d asked her politely. ‘Is it the stairs?’

‘What do you take me for, Ben Middleton? A geriatric? No, of course it isn’t the stairs.’

‘But the—’

‘I could manage twice as many stairs as that, thank you very much.’

‘But it seems such a comfortable-looking—’

‘No… well, you see, Ben, the building has bad vibes.’

‘Bad vibes?’

‘Yes, something happened there that wasn’t quite right.’

‘Oh, a death?’ Ben Middleton knew of her part-time clairvoyant work. He nodded good-naturedly. He’d seen enough of a dog’s sixth sense not to disbelieve in the paranormal entirely.

‘Oh, no.’ Mrs Newton had looked the old barn over with wide, knowing eyes. ‘Not a death. But when I’m alone in the office, especially when it’s getting dark on winter’s afternoons, I can hear noises.’

‘Noises?’

‘Yes, banging, sawing, hammering, shouting as if a whole army of people is working.’

‘Well, this was a working farm once, so I imagine farmhands and the like would have worked in the barn to repair ploughshares and—’

‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that. These people are working because their lives depend on it. Oh, I get so cold, Ben, when I hear it. It’s like an icy hand just gets a-hold of me. I can hardly breathe, I shiver from head to foot, and do you know why?’

‘No. Why, Mrs Newton?’

‘Fear. Pure fear. Not mine, but theirs. The people who are working in the barn are terrified for their lives. Something horrible has happened to them and they’re working, working, working. Because they know if they don’t finish whatever it is they’re doing they’ll be… well…’ She took a breath. ‘They’ll suffer in a way that doesn’t bear mentioning.’

‘Perseverance is a very old farm. I understand it was occupied by Cromwell’s forces after the battle of—’

‘No, I don’t see that, Ben.’

‘What do you see, Mrs Newton?’

‘That’s what’s so strange. It’s all so confused. I see people dressed in old-fashioned clothes, oh, Victorian, I suppose, and they’re shouting, shouting; it’s not anger, it’s through fear and urgency. Hurry, hurry, hurry! And I hear this hammering sound going on and on. You know, Ben, I think that—’

‘Now, now, Mrs Newton, don’t go upsetting yourself. Why don’t we move the records office back into the annexe? I know it’s a little on the small—’

‘Oh, will you, Ben? Thank you. You know, that’s such a weight off my mind.’

‘Ah, we must keep our staff happy, Mrs Newton. You know the dogs react to our emotions. If we’re unhappy or ill at ease then it’s so easy for them to go off their food and begin to pine.’

And that’s how the conversation went. Mrs Newton got what she wanted.

Ben Middleton moved the furniture back to the annexe. After the third trip up to the hayloft he murmured to himself, ‘Bad vibes, my foot. It’s the stairs, after all.’

But then the barn was a peculiar place. When he’d been clearing the accumulated dirt from the stone floor the previous year he’d found a coin. It had been buried under a thick concrete-like mud. Delighted, he’d hurried away to clean it, wondering if it might be a Victorian sovereign or some such treasure. After carefully soaping it with washing-up liquid and rinsing it under the tap, he’d dabbed it dry with kitchen roll.

The coin was blackened with age. He began to speculate that it might be part of some highwayman’s horde from centuries earlier.

Moments later he’d held the coin under the kitchen light and scrutinised it closely. Forehead wrinkling, he managed to make out the date. At first he’d read it as 1897… then 1797.

‘Oh?’ he’d said, surprised, as he used his thumbnail to scrape away a spot of dirt. ‘1997?’ The coin was nothing more than a ten-pence piece minted a couple of years earlier. All that work, too. He blew out his cheeks. Why, it looked as if the thing had been buried there a century, never mind a few months. Surmising that the mud in the barn possessed powerful ageing properties he’d dropped the coin into the PDSA collection box and thought nothing more about it.

With it all but dark now, Ben walked back to the house. Once inside he locked the doors, then checked that the CCTV monitors were working.

He fully appreciated that the people who boarded their dogs here at Perseverance Farm wanted to know their animals would be safe as well as having heated kennels, individual outdoor runs and the like. Ben was happy to reassure them. His establishment boasted closed-circuit television surveillance that he could monitor from a bank of screens in his living room in the farmhouse.

He poured a glass of wine, then stood with a black Labrador pup under one arm and watched the four TV screens for a moment. Three showed high-level views of the kennel buildings, the fourth covered the area just outside the front door at eye level.

‘All shipshape and Bristol fashion,’ Bell announced.

From there he went to the sofa. His other three dogs had already claimed the hearthrug.

For an hour he watched television. The Labrador pup curled up in his lap slept soundly.

Ben wasn’t particularly interested in what the television had to offer. That night it just happened to be a crusty detective with a permanently sour expression who was on the trail of a murderer in San Francisco. If anything, Ben simply enjoyed being part of his pack at rest. He sensed some kind of mystic link between himself and the dogs. They – and he included himself – weren’t individuals as such, but each was part of a whole. If one dog was disturbed by a noise, all would lift their heads, Ben included, look round for a moment, then, when all were satisfied nothing was amiss, they’d relax once more.

He sipped his wine.

The TV detective ate doughnuts in a seedy diner while claiming that although his methods weren’t orthodox they got results.

Ben’s attention wandered to the framed photograph of his great-grandfather on the wall. Harry Middleton had battled childhood illness to become a successful solicitor, justice of the peace and alderman. Unusually for a product of the Victorian age, Harry Middleton had despised any kind of cruelty to animals. More than once he’d torn the whips from horsemen who had been beating their animals and broken the instruments of brutality over his knee. Later in life, he’d retired from the legal profession to set up a stud farm and dog-breeding business. Gradually, over the years, it had evolved into what it was today, a thriving boarding kennel.

For Ben Middleton no saint stood nearer to the Almighty than his great-grandfather Harry Middleton.

Ben allowed his eyelids to droop. His drowsy breathing synchronised with that of the dogs.

At a little after 11 he suddenly snapped awake. The dogs had lifted their heads and were looking round, eyes bright. Even though he’d slept, by some miracle the glass still stayed upright in his hand.

For a moment Ben wondered what had disturbed the dogs. He couldn’t hear anything. The dogs in the kennels weren’t barking.

He looked round the room. Everything was in its place. Then he turned to the curtained window. A brilliant white light shone through it.

Something had triggered the security lighting.

Placing the glass on the table, but still carrying the puppy, he walked quickly to the CCTV monitors. He had a sneaking suspicion what he would see. Often he’d watch the monitors and see a fox slinking along the paths between the kennels. Of course, the dogs couldn’t get out and the fox couldn’t get in. Still, there would be pandemonium as all those domestic pets scented for the first time in their lives an animal from the wild. Ben thought there must be something exciting and provocative about that scent, because the dogs would bark like mad.

Ben screwed up his eyes at each colour monitor in turn. Beneath the brilliant lights the paths gleamed whitely. Moths attracted to the lamps darted in and out like specks of fire.

But there was no sly old fox.

Occasionally, however, there would be a dog-owner returning home late from the airport who’d decide to call in en route. Strictly speaking, clients had to collect animals during office hours, but Ben appreciated that some people missed their pets so much they just couldn’t wait. Ben understood the emotion well enough. The idea of being away from his own dogs for two days – never mind two whole weeks – was nothing less than nightmarish to him.

He turned his attention to the monitor that showed the area around the front door.

Again it revealed nothing more than flitting moths, ornamental shrubs and the low hedge that bordered the front garden.

He thumbed the button that activated the intercom.

‘Hello? he said. The speaker beside the front door would carry his voice into the front garden.

He listened for an apologetic, ‘We’re sorry to trouble you so late, but we wondered if we could collect…’ The sentence would be rounded off with a dog’s name.

But there was no answering voice.

‘Hello?’ he repeated. ‘Can I help you?’

He listened for the sound of a voice, or at least footsteps on the gravel path.

Nothing.

But he had begun to hear barking coming from the kennels. Already, his own dogs were standing, ears pointing, muscles tense.

‘Now, now, now, what’s all this, then?’

He studied the front-door monitor, thinking he’d caught a faint sound.

He cocked his head to one side in unconscious imitation of his dogs.

At first he thought static had affected the speaker.

He could hear a faint sizzling. It was almost the same sound as sand being drizzled onto paper.

Strange.

The speaker had never done that before.

Maybe there was going to be a thunderstorm?

But, come to think of it, it was more of a hiss than a sizzle. Wait…

He glimpsed a shadow on the path. Expectantly, he waited for a figure to appear, but the shadow receded again, almost as if whoever had cast it had retreated into the bushes.

Now this is odd, he told himself. Most odd indeed.

He still cocked his head to one side as that sizzling (or hissing) sound receded.

Wait a minute, he told himself. Now he did see a shape at the edge of the monitor screen that hadn’t been there before. Perhaps he was seeing a shoulder or part of a head in extreme close-up. Certainly an indistinct bulk.

He scratched his head. ‘Hello. This is Perseverance Farm Boarding Kennels. Can I help you at all, please?’

He leaned forward, holding the puppy close to his chest. Carefully, he studied the screen from a distance of a few inches.

Then a bizarre thing happened.

Shocked, he recoiled from the screen as an image suddenly filled it.

For a moment he stared at it. It didn’t make sense.

He blinked. He was looking at what appeared to be a nest full of blackbird chicks. He saw the open beaks, the fluffy bodies. All were chirping noisily as if agitated.

‘The cruel devils,’ Ben said at last, shocked. Not only cruel but deeply perverse.

He realised now what was happening. Someone had taken a bird’s nest that was full of chicks and had held it just inches from the security camera lens by the front door.

What on Earth were they playing at? The chicks would die within an hour or so of being disturbed like that.

Ben didn’t hesitate now. Still clutching the puppy, he hurried out of the living room, closing the door behind him; then he scuttled along the hallway to the front door.

‘Monstrous, monstrous,’ he muttered to himself, sweeping back the bolts.

As he turned the key he suddenly paused. He realised what else he’d seen on the monitor screen. Now that didn’t make sense at all. The clutch of chicks had filled the screen. But there had been something else. He fancied he’d seen a pair of eyes, too.

But these had been human eyes. As if they’d peered into the camera through holes in the nest.

But then another thought struck him, one that was quite macabre.

Or had a pair of eyes been put into the nest that had then been held up to the camera lens?

The puppy whimpered.

‘There, there, Toby. We’ll put a stop to all this.’

He swung open the door.

The security lamp’s brilliant light washed through the garden. He screwed up his eyes against the glare.

There was no-one there now.

But perhaps they’d dropped the nest full of chicks somewhere close by? He couldn’t leave them to die.

The sound of barking dogs echoed across the garden.

He stepped onto the path. There, a peculiar smell reached his nostrils. He sniffed the air. Now that’s peculiar, he told himself. Riding roughshod over the delicate perfume of the night-scented stock in the flower beds was the pungent odour of wet wool. The same kind of smell an old pullover left in the rain would make. Frowning, he peered into the bushes.

At that moment he heard the sizzling sound again. It was surprisingly loud. As if a whole stream of sand was cascading onto newspaper.

Suddenly the dogs’ barking became frenzied. Ben Middleton recognised the warning note that sharpened the sound, and that sent a whole wave of shivers running through his body.

To his left the bushes parted.

He turned in shock to look; his muscles snapped taut, making the puppy yelp in his arms.

And then, when Ben Middleton saw what would take his life, he screamed.