COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2007 by Brian Ball

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC.

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      CHAPTER 1

      The jagged outline of the castellations and crenellations of the eighteenth-century iron-master’s former mansion that was now the clubhouse, if not the glory, of Wolvers Hall, could just be discerned. It lay in the distance, through the towering stand of ancient elms that fringed the putting green, from where Arthur Root stood on the seventeenth tee. He marvelled at his good fortune. Tee, and tea, that was the way his thoughts ran.

      And yet. Was it all too good to last?

      Maybe, thought Root, much later, he was too much exposed at that time to the aura of someone who was near him and who had been in the thick of blood and violence and despair, someone he cared for.

      There were others who experienced premonitions of what would come to bloody the scene, shatter the prospect and mock the idyll; yet who paid them heed on a day of such Autumnal promise? Some of the members did. And the staff who served them.

      Angie Knight, for one, had put aside any deeper if not finer feelings she might have felt. She had long since decided that golf was no longer for her.

      A full-bodied woman of thirty-eight, childless by choice, still pretty and with fine tapering ankles, she knew that she was a gift to men. Willingly given, too. Just now the tall, square-bodied chisel-faced recently appointed professional was to benefit from her revived and urgent needs. “Mick?”

      His car was in the lot, the big Lagonda, bright blue, canvas hood down, the bonnet cool to her touch. She could smell the leather and the lingering aroma of his last cigar mingling with a hint of Aramis.

      “Mick!”

      Angie tried to calm herself. Was this latest involvement to last?

      * * * *

      Out beyond the bounds of the club, an old man and a dog were looking hard at a grove of long-since coppiced willows around a stone-built farm with the roof fallen in. Small, brown forms swarmed over the ruin.

      Fred, peering through the John Deere’s screen, old and angry with himself, gave the horn a mournful blast, then berated the huge, skinny bag of bones that had won him quite a few quid over the years out at the dog track Thrybergh way. “You could have gone an’ nipped ’em. I didn’t see ’em come. Brown little buggers. Must be foreign-like. Did you catch gold on skinny lad’s neck, ’Itler? Who’d be a sodding greenkeeper? Never a minute’s peace.”

      * * * *

      Peace and contentment were fine, Root decided, but there was a slow foursome in front: patience was a necessity right now. Most coppering was not dissimilar in that. So, wait. The wait lengthened, and the quiet calm of the early September day was gone.

      “Big blade,” said his young playing companion.

      “Has to be. Lot of earth to shift.”

      The levelling of Anglers Kop was not halfway accomplished.

      Back to tea. Tea would be good, he thought. Tea and crumpets, brought by the steward’s stunning new blonde-haired find and everyone’s favourite waitress, Josie, a local girl who had a laugh like a drain, as they said in that part of the world, and also an eye for brisk young fellows like wide-shouldered Gary Brand, who stood beside the tee now waiting for him to drive down the bright sunlit fairway with his powerful, steady swing and coolly judged placement.

      * * * *

      By chance, Josie Marsden’s keen young eyes had picked out a gap in the chestnuts that would have been a photographer’s ideal frame for the seventeenth; it had given her a perfect view of Gary’s tall figure. She found a quiet corner: keyed the number and told her mate at the cake shop in Gritmarsh just how she felt on seeing that tall, crew-cut and bronzed newly returned soldier. “I had to rush in, I’d’ve had the old biddies gawping, past it, them, and well you know how it takes you—I fancied him something rotten, Eileen. What? Yes, course! Ooh, slag!”

      The two old women that Josie considered past it looked out over the course, but could see little of the back six holes. Not for them a glimpse of the tensions developing on the two penultimate holes. Both knew, however, that Alice’s partner was due back at the clubhouse soon.

      “Your Ted looks well,” advanced Alice’s large, sparkling-eyed arthritic friend Ivy. “Considering. How’s his angina?”

      “He’s champion,” asserted Alice, hoping it was so. There were depths to her partner she could not quite see into. “And his heart’s in good standing, as it should be. On my bill, please.”

      Josie, still joyous from using up the last of the credit on her mobile, had come to clear up. Her skin glowed in the sunlight. She smiled with delight as she went.

      “Saw her eyeing up that young lad with Arthur Root”, said Ivy, turning swiftly to the next item. “Who would he be then, Alice? Seems a decent sort. Well set. Looks lively, too. Yes?”

      Josie had already determined that she would find out.

      * * * *

      Gary had not seen her. Golf was all: for now.

      “Two hundred and ten yards, as usual,” he said. “Wish I could place them like you, just steady, all grooved like down a rifle barrel, nothing flash or smash, fairish height and no hook or drift. Steady old Arthur. Good ’un, always was, always will be, there when you need him, that’s what mum says. Just you watch our Arthur and you’ll soon forget that nasty business over there.”

      He talked too much, of course, but it was understandable.

      Nervy. That would be his recent service in Basra.

      “Great swing, Arthur, I mean it. It’s not a long backswing, just like Mick Summers says when he’s trying to stop me jerking the wood round my neck like a tennis racquet. Slow and steady. Never seen you hook, not once.”

      To add to Root’s irritation, the JCB driver chose that moment to rev his engine, sending the decibel-rate soaring. He glanced over to the gaudy yellow earth-mover. The blade gouged forward massively. Soil flowed. And still his wife’s favourite friend’s lad rattled on.

      “Never a fade you didn’t want either. As for a hook—”

      “Gary, learn this,” growled Arthur Root. “Don’t use that word again! You do not tell a man on the tee that he won’t hook. Ever! I don’t want my swing analysing by anyone, especially a lad I’m putting up for full membership. And that won’t happen till the flag goes up again, Gary. So concentrate on ingratiating yourself with everyone, me most of all, got it? Right?”

      “I was only—”

      “Right, lad?”

      Gary maintained a discreet silence. Root watched as he placed the yellow plastic peg carefully, seat the oldish Titleist in the cup—then, jobless, membership-aspirant and shell-shocked Gary hit a belter way past Arthur Root’s usual length off the tee. He was a natural with a club, as he had proved to be with weaponry.

      “You don’t want that one back, Gary,” Root managed to get out encouragingly, if still a bit close-mouthed.

      “Lucky,” said Gary. “Only one I’ve hit on the sweet spot this round.”

      They progressed down the fairway in company, but each deep in thought. Root realised he was drifting. Work filtered through. There was the cannabis he suspected to be ready for the local market somewhere in his area. Skunk. That was it, nasty word. Could the local kids be using? Were pushers sidling up to the teenagers streaming out of the local comp? On my patch? But that wasn’t Root’s only worry. It seemed likely as Root had painfully learned from far too many close encounters with domestic tribulation, that with Gary fresh home, he and his mum had a problem.

      But