Flies – Chapter 2

For the size of it, Langside had three public houses. He decided to visit the largest of these, The Hunting Lodge. This was a two-floored establishment on the only other main road in the village. It was set just up from the fork on the road that led to High Street on one side and Broom Street on the other.

Layton like pubs for various reasons. One was that they were good sources of information, and the other that he enjoyed a good drink himself. He was not averse to buying drinks for the locals wherever he went and this tended to make him popular too and where drink flows so does conversation, facts that he stored in his capacious brain to write down later. Now with the recorder he could actually make notes as he went along, if not too obviously. In his early days he had often astonished fellow journalists. “I was there, but I didn’t get half of that.”

Th Hunting Lodge was one of those anomalies. It had been created in the English style with a mock-tudor half-timbered upper half slightly jutting out from the rest of the structure. Even the roof was tiled in a dark grey slate uncommon in the parts where the tended to favour the colour red.

It was four in the afternoon when he arrived, and as he expected a few of the local worthies were already propping up the bar. He felt a strange qualm as he entered the muted interior. These men, six of them, dotted out a bar area cluttered with otherwise empty seats and tables, might well have known his mother and father. Well at least there was little chance that any of them would recognise HIM. He went up to the bar. This was a real ale pub and the choice of beers was impressive for such a rural location: Speckled Hen, Bishop’s Finger, Dark Island, Piddle Through The Leaves and some with ridiculous names he had never heard of. He settled for a pint of Dark Island and summoned the barman, an elderly personage who was perusing the ‘Daily Record,’ to serve him.

The other occupants of the bar had studiously ignored him, but then neither were they taking to each other. This was a pub that often received weekend visitors who looked and behaved like this one. Southerners in expensive clothes who drank the beer and the local colour then buggared off.

“Pint of Dark,” asked Layton cheerfully. He would not ask the barman to serve him right away. There had to be an element of psychology about the event.

“As I live and breathe, young Layton Muir,” said a voice at his elbow.

Layton turned and stared. An elderly man had been hunched over his pint at the bar as Layton arrived. The producer had ignored him for the moment but now was struck to his very being by an event he had not expected at that moment – a familiar voice.

He turned as the barman began gurgling the pint of dark, warmish liquid into the glass, only to find himself confronted by one of his childhood heroes.

“Mr Maddern?” He stared at John Maddern teacher, the man who had encouraged him to take off into the big world in the first place.

“You came back. I knew you would – eventually. There is a tide in the affairs of all men which taken at the flood leads ever onwards.”

“Shakeaspeare.”

“In McBeth, just before he turns into a one-man killing man machine. But the quote is germane to your presence here.”

It all flooded back to him. Maddern had not been a teacher in the traditional sense. He had been what they called a ‘community worker’. This was not exactly an area of urban ghetto deprivation, but in the early seventies the government had recognised that country areas like this had suffered a high degree of rural poverty.

To counter this they had put money into country resources. The reason for the poverty was simple – youth. No-one brought up in Langside wanted to be there. The area lacked jobs, houses and potential partners. To get these one had to head for the big places like Dumfries or Carlisle or even (gasp) live and work in Glasgow.

The demographics were stark. If the trend was not reversed, by the turn of the century Langside would be well on the way to becoming a ghost village.

One of the more comic turns this supposed regeneration took was a youth drama initiative. It had been called ‘LADI’ – they were fond of acronyms in the youth projects – which stood for Langside Amateur Dramatics Initiative. Meetings had been held in the community halls beside the post office and Layton, aged fourteen, still remembered how, at the urging of his less adventurous friends, he had used a black magic marker to deface the sign outside the hall from ‘LADI’ to ‘LADIES’. Thus implying that this was a public toilet for the female sex.

He remembered how he had been caught.

He had just finished altering the sign when a heavy had clamped down on his left shoulder and he had turned to face Mr Maddern. Despite his lack of consideration for signs, even then Layton was no coward. (He had proven this later, he thought wryly, for no man who has had three wives can be a coward.)

He had expected one or two responses. Either the drama teacher would clip him on the ear and send him on his way or would start giving him a rowdy lecture about defacing other people’s property.

Maddern did neither. He eyed Layton, who stood in a fight or flight pose, and invited him in for a glass of lemonade.

“Things are a little slack around here,” he admitted wryly.

Fighting against the desire then to call Maddern and old queer – anyone over 30 was old to him then – Layton had found himself going in, mesmerised by a very blue pair of eyes set in a young-old face.

He found in the hall, seated on folding chairs with tubular steel edges, only two other young people. One was a boy nicknamed ‘Bugsy,’ not it is feared because he reminded them of a famous gangster, but because his head often contained a variety of human lice and he had once infected the entire class.

The other was a blonde girl called Mandy Orr whom he had fancied from afar at school. They were both holding booklets in which plays had been published.

“Do you read well?” Maddern had asked. Mainly because of the girl, Layton answered that he did. And the surprising truth was that he could. If these wassocks could do it then so could he. He had a rich, sonorous voice he often used to command his gang, and he loved reading adventure stories.

The play in the books was called ‘Deadly Poison,’ and was a humorous piece someone called Pertwee. That was the name of the man who played Doctor Who in the early seventies, so this was another connection he made. He took the red-striped booklet and joined in. At the back of his mind he came to mock, but he stayed to act.

It was as if the structure of the play, the delivery of the words and the reception of the other people filled a need in him, and later, when he left Langside, it was the words of Maddern that helped him on his way.

They shook hands and Layton could not help noticing how old Maddern had become, his handshake was weak and there was a slight tremor about him.

“But you were gone, Mr Maddern, I tried to trace you 15 years ago and you had left long since, even then.”

“Yes. I had to go where the work was. My task here was deemed a failure – and too expensive to boot – so I was forced to relocate to the lights of the big city.”

“Glasgow?”

“New York. I had connections with the Method people.”

“But you decided to come back?”

“Something told me I would want to retire here. I never felt at home in any city. It was fine for teaching anti0social young men and women to emote using psychodrama and JM Synge, but it was no good as a place to live. Which brings me to the main question, why are YOU here?”

“Before that I want a little celebration. Barman, I’ve just met an old friend. Drinks all round.”

The mood of those in the bar perked up noticeably at this, although no-one actually thanked him. It took a lot to buy these old hands.

“So why did I come back? Just for a little nostalgia, that’s all.”

“Did you happen to notice that the Bowmain riding stable have been sent out for their afternoon hack?” Asked Maddern. “Because what you just said ranks with what the horses have left lying on the road.”

Layton grinned. “I never was very good at fooling you.”

“Most people want to be fooled. They’re too lazy to make it any other way, but Hemmingway said every writer should have an inbuilt bullshit detector. He was right but he should have added that this also applied to inner city drama tutors.”

“I suppose I’m here for a reason I don’t really want to divulge.”

Maddern stood up. He was shorter than Layton remembered and thickly built rasther than fat. “Come with me,” he said, and sailed off with his pint into the snug over to the left of, and behind the bar. This was an enclosed space with only two tables and four seats. Ideal for a game of draughts, dominoes or even a private conversation, and seemed dangerously crowded even with just the two of them in there.

Maddern wasted no time once they were both comfortably seated. Maddern pointed a nicotine-stained forefinger at him. “You ain’t here fur the good o’ yer health boyo.”

“Nice language for a classically trained actor,” said Layton, smiling to diffuse the rancour.

“Listen, thise old farts out there wouldn’t know much about you, Half of them think Sky tv is what you get when you take a portable tv out when you’re having a barbecue. But I know you and I keep my finger on the pulse of what’s popular.”

“For God’s sake, if you’ve been keeping an eye on my career why didn’t you get in touch with me, tell me how you were getting on?”

“No.lad. Stupid an bullish as it seems, I always wanted to make my own way in the world.”

“I wouldn’t have patronised you. Not YOU.”

“Aye well, it’s water under the bridge.” The old man ruminated for a moment. “Stillm you’ve shown ‘em a couple of times with those mysteries of theirs. Psychic tv was it? You showed what an expert could do even in this digital age.”

“When it comes right down to it. Most of the tricks are simple. It’s amazing what you can do with smoke, mirrors, darkness and a few thin wires.”

“Well those mediums met their match in you.”

“I received death threats over that programme you know.”

“What were they going to do? Send Madame Arcati’s ghost to strangle you in bed?”

“No, it was heavy duty. They sent young men with knuckle dusters to teach me how to keep my mouth shut. Very profitable game is the old psychic racket you know.”

“So what happened?”

Layton smiled at what was now a distant memory. “Let’s just say I sussed out their little ambush and I dusted THEM with a little help from my team.”

“Y’see? That was years ago. I KNOW you’re not back here on a nostalgia trip, and your doctor ain’t exactly prescribing this as a place of rest.”

“I heard – rumours – that’s all I can say. You know me, I was working on my latest mystery buster when I heard the news.”

“What were you working on?”

“Ho something to do with Devil worship in high places.”

“Ah see, ever the canny one, eh? Don’t ask questions and you’ll get no lies.”

“That’s right. It’s because if this proves to be a damp squib I can go right back to the drawing board.”

“So how did you hear?”

“You know what investigative journalism – which is basically what I do spiced up with a touch of mysticism – is like. I have contacts in every town and city so that if anything weird or unusual happens I can be on to it straight away.”

“And may I ask who your contact is in this area?”

“You might as well know, although I wouldn’t tell everyone. I can trust you, I hope - I’ll come clean – it’s the village postmistress.”

“Helena? But she’s off her work now – nervous stress or something, Big Pat’s filling in, lazy old bastard. But he always was.”

“She sent my team a letter about what she had seen. Did it the same day, before the clampdown.”

“Clampdown?”

Layton leaned forward and his whole attitude was quietly menacing. “We might be old friends, but don’t try playing games with me. Just tell me what you know or go back to being my old mentor and I’ll take you on that level and never ask you again.”

Maddern shook his head, but he was smiling.

“Well well. The cub grew into a great big tiger. Do you know the expressiona bout a can of worms?”

“I’ve even opened a few myself.”

“Well the story is that an old pervert killed three others about his age then committed suicide in a public place.”

“So, what’s the REAL truth, the story behind the story,” asked Layton, leaning forward and becoming very still.

“The real story is that she found four elderly people – even older than me – who had been killed by a creature or creatures unknown.”

“And did she say anything about what had caused it all?”

“Truth is, I’m getting all this second hand. Helena got on her bike and went to the cottage hospitals to see their medic Dr Bannerman and promptly burst into hysterics.”

“He told you her story?”

“We’re old friends, he drinks in here of an evening and he was badly shaken.”

“I must go an see him.”

“Well if you do its got nothing to do with me.”

“Anyway what about his professional ethics?”

“Helana wasn’t his patient. I don’t think the Hippocratic oath applies to being told a story by a young woman who bursts into your office.”

“Did she notice anything else at the scene of the deaths?”

“Nothing, except the patient was all tattered and torn. The Doctor decided ti check out her story and it was he who discovered the other three victims, I don’t think he had seen anything like that in the hospital or his life before. They ahd mostly been sucked dry of blood you see and some of the meat had been eaten off the more exposed parts of their bodies. In fact it downright upset him, and if you can upset a surgeon then you’re on to something bad.”

“And after that?”

“Well she must have sat in his office and wrote the letter you received, because shortly after she was sedated and given a room at the hospital. She’s out now, but still badly shaken. She’s not talking to anyone.”

“So what happened to the corpses?”

“Oh they’re still at the hospital. Doctor Bannerman has a small morgue there – only a limited number of patients die at Lanside Hospital every year, but when they do there’s a post-mortem. Well his morgue is full now.”

“I think you’ve told me enough to get started Mr Maddern,” said Layton, finishing his pint.

“John, call me John, Layton. I’ll get you one.”

“No, I think I’ll strike while the iron is hit.” Maddrn half-rose in concern. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you name out of it.”

“It’s not that that worries me. Just look out for yourself, that’s all. I’ve led a long life and I know pure evil when I come across it.”

“Look, I want to get on this right away, but I need to see you again to mull over old times. Where do you live?”

“Down by the River Ouse, on the left bank, at the lowest level of the village, ‘Dunroamin’ cottage.”

“Then we’ll meet in the next couple of days. When are you in?”

“Most evenings. During the day I walk and come in here, drink and think of the failure my life has been.”

“Then I’ll see you one night soon,” promised Layton, ignoring the unexpected surge of self-pity.

He shook hands again with his former mentor, noting once more how weak the old man’s grip was.

As Layton moved to the entrance of the snug Maddrn called him back.

“Oh, and one more thing. The woman said that the ground near the pervert was littered with a dozen or so dead insects.”

“Insects?”

“Flies, she thought. They must have been attracted by the dead man. Big things too, must have been an outdoor variety.”

“Why were they dead?”

“No-one knows – when the medics came to take away the corpses the flies had already baked into the ground under the heat of the sun.