Those Who Lie: the gripping new thriller you won’t be able to stop talking about. Diane Jeffrey
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He really wanted me to take over the farm.’
‘And you definitely won’t?’
They sat down side by side on a bench in the Centre’s garden. The sun was shining and Will unzipped his jacket. They could see Josephine sitting on a bench a few metres away from them. Her book was open on her lap but her head was bowed low, and Emily assumed she was sleeping rather than reading. The moors rolled out in front of them, green dotted white with sheep, as far as the horizon.
‘As you know, Em, I want to be a vet. I got good grades in my mocks. I want to get out of Devon and live in a big city.’
Will was sitting close to her, on her right. Emily noticed him looking at the bandage on her right arm. She tugged down the sleeve of her jumper to cover her wrist. She could see that he wanted to ask her about her wounds, but she didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I can understand your dad being disappointed, though,’ she said quickly. ‘You were so helpful to him on the farm. Hey, do you remember lambing together?’
‘Of course!’ Will smiled. He started humming the melody to Stealers Wheel’s Stuck in the middle with you. Now it was Emily’s turn to smile. Will began to describe their experience of that spring, but Emily tuned out. Closing her eyes and offering her face to the sun, she relived the event for herself.
~
It was a sunny day in March of the previous year when Emily, Will and Amanda stepped off the school bus.
‘Em, would you like to come and see the newborn lambs?’ Will asked, loosening his school tie.
‘Yes, please!’
‘Well, go and get changed into some old clothes and put on your wellies. I’ll meet you at my dad’s farm in ten minutes.’
Will did not extend the invitation to Amanda.
Amanda and Will had been best friends for years, but recently they hadn’t so much as said hello to each other. Emily didn’t understand why. They’d fallen out on the day Emily’s cat, Smokey, had been found dead – run over, her father had said, its head severed from its body. Amanda said Will hadn’t been supportive. Maybe that was why they’d rowed.
Later that evening, Will’s dad had turned up, rather irate, on their doorstep. Emily remembered him and her own father shouting at each other, but she hadn’t been able to make out the words despite their raised voices. Graham stormed into Amanda’s bedroom as soon as Mr Huxtable had left. Emily heard him say: ‘Explain yourself, young lady!’ but then the door slammed shut behind her father and Emily overheard no more of the conversation.
When Emily had asked her about it the next day, Amanda was evasive. She’d muttered something about having to take the rap for Will.
On arriving at the farm, Emily gazed in awe at about a dozen tiny creatures as they suckled from their mothers and wobbled around on unsteady legs. Will told her that many of them had been born only yesterday. He was feeding what seemed to be the smallest lamb in a pen with heating lamps when Emily tiptoed into the barn.
‘No need to be scared,’ he said. ‘Come here and give the bottle to this lamb. It was born earlier today and its mother died. It needs to be fed colostrum.’
‘What’s colostrum?’ Emily asked as Will gently transferred the bottle to her hands.
‘It’s a mother’s first milk. It gives the baby vitamins and antibodies. We keep cow colostrum frozen for orphan lambs. It happens sometimes. We’ll find another mother for this little thing later.’ The lamb sucked greedily and noisily at the teat, and the liquid soon disappeared. ‘Dad has taken the cows for milking,’ Will continued. ‘I need to go and check on a ewe having a difficult labour.’
Will led the way to another pen. He sucked in his breath when he saw that the ewe’s lamb was presenting its head, but his voice was even.
‘This lamb is not in the right birthing position, Em,’ Will explained. ‘I’m going to need your help. There’s no time to fetch the vet now. Or my dad for that matter.’
‘OK,’ said Emily, unsure. ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘For now, I just want you to hold the ewe and keep her as still and as calm as possible.’ He placed his hands on Emily’s shoulders and guided her to the front of the sheep, then placed her hands on either side of the ewe. Then she watched Will as he carefully felt and prodded the animal’s belly. ‘She’s expecting twins,’ he said.
He poured something that smelt like disinfectant onto his hands followed by a liquid that made his hands glisten. Lubricant, Emily supposed.
‘The lamb should come out with its feet under its chin, and that’s not the case,’ Will said as he carefully knotted a thin piece of cord around the lamb’s head, which he then proceeded to push gently.
Emily observed Will. He was frowning and puffing. He was clearly having difficulty.
‘This is hard!’ he commented unnecessarily. ‘The ewe is pushing the lamb to get her out, and I’m trying to push it back in!’
After a few seconds, he grunted in satisfaction and knelt down on one knee. ‘Phew!’
Emily kept her eyes on Will. Poking his tongue out in concentration, he repositioned the lamb inside the ewe. His blond hair was quite long at the front and it flopped down over his eyes. He tried unsuccessfully to blow it away. Keeping one of her hands firmly on the sheep’s side as Will had shown her, Emily stroked the ewe with her other hand.
A few minutes later, Will said, ‘OK, there should be a bit more room to manoeuvre now. Are you all right there, Em?’
Emily nodded. She was amazed at his cool competence.
‘Em, I think it would be easier if the ewe was on her back. That way, we’ll have gravity on our side. Can you give me a hand?’
Together they laid the ewe on her side, and then rolled her onto her back. Will talked Emily softly through each step. Then his hands disappeared inside the ewe again and finally emerged holding the lamb’s two little legs. Its nose and head followed. Will tied another piece of rope around the legs.
‘Nearly done,’ he said, smiling now. ‘This is the easy bit.’ He gently pulled as the ewe pushed, and the lamb slipped out in one go. ‘Come here, Em,’ he said, his smile even wider as he removed the ties. ‘Grab some straw and rub the lamb to get her blood circulating properly.’
Emily did as she was instructed. She saw the lamb’s belly rising and falling. It was breathing.
‘It’s going to be fine now,’ Will said. His hands felt the second lamb inside the ewe. ‘This one’s in a good position,’ he said. ‘We can leave the ewe to get on with it when she’s ready.’
Will’s high spirits were contagious and Emily found herself mirroring his smile. He started to sing and dance around the pen. ‘Stuck in the middle of a ewe.’ Then he laughed.
‘Is that even a real song?’ Emily asked, which only served to make Will laugh more.
‘Not quite,’ he replied. ‘The title is Stuck in the middle with you.’ Emily laughed too as she got the pun.
‘I hope you don’t want to be a singer when you grow up, Will,’ she joked. ‘I don’t know the song, but it sounds terribly out of tune.’
‘No,’ Will chuckled, ‘I want to be a vet. How about you, Em? What do you want to be when you grow up?’
‘Happy,’ Emily replied.
‘That’s a good goal,’ Will said, his smile slipping slightly.
‘Who sings that song anyway?’
‘I have no idea. It was part of the soundtrack to the film Reservoir Dogs.’
‘Have you seen that film?’