This started as A Moment but quickly got so out of hand that it effectively became a short story. People are always asking me about what happened with the River Lugg after Peter and Beverley’s foray into its waters in Foxglove Summer—I’m glad you asked…
I knew it was a mistake to have the Teme family at the wedding. Not that we invited them exactly, but we’d been warned that a visit was a possibility so I’d factored them into my contingency seating plan. I put them on the table separating my immediate family from Victor’s family. We had a big marquee courtesy of the Young Farmers and so had plenty of room. That’s one of the advantages of marrying a farmer—there’s plenty of space for a marquee and parking on your own land. I also made sure that they shared the table with Peter, Nightingale and Beverley. This is what we call, in the Job, intelligence led contingency forward planning.
‘Or what us farmers call the next six months,’ said Victor, but I forgave him because he was having trouble with his poly tunnels.
Between the Teme family, my family, and Victor’s friends up from London, I reckon the only reason the wedding went as smoothly as it did was because at least a quarter of the guests were police officers in full uniform. Including a couple of senior ones that had obviously been told to attend by their community access focus groups with a view to improving West Mercia Police’s profile amongst the LGBTQ community.
To be fair, their presence kept the junior ranks in line who, since they weren’t allowed to be rowdy, kept a lid on everyone else. So the wedding went remarkably smoothly, apart from the one incident with Aunty Leda and that rogue swan and I’ve promised never to tell anyone about that.
The Teme sisters turned up in what Beverley assured me was their finest. Miss Tefeidiad wore a dress—an honour, Beverley told me—in pale yellow linen with a square cut neckline, a slim gold necklace and heavy-looking gold bracelets depicting intertwined snakes on each wrist. Her eldest daughter, Corve, came in sensible country tweeds and her youngest, Lilly, in full black goth regalia topped by a half a ton of silver jewellery—most of it stuck through parts of her body.
Anyway, we made it through the speeches, including the one by Victor’s best man Tarquin—who claimed to be looking forward to following Victor’s example and ‘rusticating’ himself once his city career was finished. This went down about as well as you can imagine with my family and the three quarters of my colleagues who don’t harbour big city dreams. Since every pub and café in the county aspires to, or at least dreams of, earning a Michelin star, the food was of course fabulous and Victor had made a special point of showcasing his almost organic meat and veg. There was a noticeable drop in conversational volume as everyone dug in and we were all feeling suitably merry when the band started up.
Choosing the music had proved a long and complex operation where Victor and I were forced to consider the complex intersection of rural and urban, policing and farming, mundane and mystical tastes. So, how we ended up with Late September, Ludlow’s one and only Earth, Wind & Fire tribute band I will never know. They dress like Motörhead but sing like the Motor City and, occasionally, Boney M. At our request they opened their set with their famous cover version of ‘Rasputin’ that goes on for eleven minutes.
Once the ice was sufficiently broken so that everyone below the rank of Chief Superintendent felt free to dance, I grabbed the closest non-alcoholic drink and staggered over to a chair next to Peter.
‘That’s not a bad sound,’ he said.
We sat watching Victor and Beverley groove for a bit and then Peter asked me if I’d noticed anything unusual about the River Lugg recently. Victor’s farm is bounded by the Lugg on its west side and Peter, inexplicably, always asks about it when we chat.
‘Why are you so interested in the Lugg?’ I asked.
Miss Tefeidiad, who was sitting at the same table, took notice and leaned in.
‘Yes, Peter love,’ she said. ‘Why are you so interested?’
Peter gave her a dark look and sighed.
‘There was…’ he hesitated, ‘an event.’
‘Is that what we’re calling it now?’ said Corve, returning with a third slice of cake. ‘I bet that’s not what Bev calls it.’
I never did find out what Peter’s interest in the Lugg was—although now that when it’s too late, I have my theories—because Victor dragged me out to dance and after that we go so drunk that we didn’t have sex until late the next morning.
* * *
A year later Victor and I were walking, somewhat unsteadily, home from the Mortimer Cross Arms when we ran into the foxes.
Not normal foxes, mind you, but the big talking buggers that introduced themselves to me the month after Peter, Beverley and I rescued the missing Rushpool kids. Since then they’ve been tipping me off about everything from tractor thefts to county line drug deals. And in return I scrupulously enforce the Hunting Act (2004) which outlaws hunting with hounds. And feed them custard doughnuts from Morrisons.
We were crossing the bridge by the mill when one of them jumped up on the parapet and cried—‘All hail Dominic Croft, hail to thee Constable of the West Mercia Police.’
It was lucky I was too sloshed to whack it with my baton. I was about to tell it to piss off when a second jumped onto the parapet next to it.
‘All hail Dominic,’ it cried. ‘Hail to thee Detective Sergeant.’
By that time Victor and I had sussed what was going on, so we waited, swaying slightly, for the third fox. Who arrived late—scampering along the parapet to join its mates. Who tutted loudly.
‘Sorry,’ it said and then, louder, ‘All hail Inspector Croft—Geographic Commander Northern Herefordshire hereafter.’
‘You let them watch the Fassbender again,’ I said to Victor ‘Didn’t you?’
‘You were on lates,’ he said. ‘And they promised to be good.’
‘Hail Dominic and Victor,’ the foxes chorused, ‘soon to be blessed above all other minor landowners in Herefordshire and the wider border regions.’
‘What?’ said Victor.
‘Congratulations,’ said the first fox.
I asked for what, which seemed to confuse the foxes.
‘Nothing special happened this evening?’ asked the second fox.
Victor gave this some thought.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘the mushroom wellington was particularly fine.’
The foxes exchanged looks and the first one coughed.
‘Sorry about this,’ it said. ‘Nothing to worry about, see you around.’
Then they scarpered.
‘You said it was tonight,’ we heard one fox say as they vanished into the darkness.
‘I thought it was tonight,’ said a voice in the distance.
‘Obviously it isn’t,’ said the fox now much further away. ‘Is it?’
We waited in a silence for a couple of minutes.
‘How drunk are we?’ asked Victor.
‘Not that drunk,’ I said, and with that we went home.
Nothing else happened after that, and since I was off shift the next day I lay in our big ‘genuine farmhouse style’ brass bed until the late hour of eight AM when Victor, who’d got up at five, called me on my mobile.
‘Can you come down to the set aside field? ’ he said. ‘The one by the river.’
* * *
Victor has a set aside area which he has kept, despite the fact that the EU policy that set it up has been defunct for over a decade. The boundaries of several fields have been set back from the path of the River Lugg, creating a strip of uncultivated land varying between three to five metres wide. There insects buzz, amphibians croak and flowers, or possibly weeds, bloom. To give the rest of the fauna a look in, the talking foxes have agreed not to hunt there—the custard doughnuts are the price for that.
Victor says the new straight boundaries make the fields easier to work and he thinks there are voles living in the riverbank, although currently we haven’t spotted one yet.
What we could spot was the naked child poking around the muddy bank with a stick. He was a boy, aged about two, pale skinned with a shaggy mop of black hair and, when he looked our way, blue eyes. He looked well fed and, apart from the mud, well cared for. He gave us both a little wave before turning away to squat down and dig the soft earth around a tree root.
I had a bad feeling about this—particularly when I remembered the foxes being accidentally prophetic the evening before.
‘What should we do?’ asked Victor.
‘Let’s keep an eye on him while I make a few phone calls,’ I said.
The boy seemed perfectly content to poke around where he was while I called up control to see if there were any missing children reported and asked to be informed if any were in the next few hours.
I looked up to find that the boy had dug a worm out of the soil and was holding it up to show us. Once he was sure he had our attention he dangled the worm over his open mouth and made as if to eat it.
I’m from a big country family with uncounted nieces and nephews who I’ve been ‘volunteered’ to babysit over the years so I know a teasing bluff when I see it, but Victor was an only child.
‘Don’t eat that,’ he said and scrambled down the bank and plucked the worm out of the boy’s hands. ‘We need those to maintain the soil matrix.’
The boy immediately threw his arms around Victor’s neck, forcing him to pick him up.
‘So where did you come from then?’ asked Victor.
The boy solemnly stretched out an arm and pointed towards the middle of the river.
I sighed and made the phone call I’d been putting off.
* * *
We got back to the farmhouse and found an ancient blue Land Rover parked in the yard. Inside, sitting round our kitchen table, were Miss Tefeidiad and her daughters, Corve and Lilly. They’d helped themselves to my Hobnobs I noticed but had made a big enough pot of tea for everyone.
‘Let’s be having you then,’ said Miss Tefeidiad and reached out to pluck the child from Victor’s arms. She handled him with brusque competence, checking fingers, toes, limbs and teeth in much the same way I’ve seen Victor check a lamb.
‘Seems to be all there,’ she said, and dumped him on a startled Corve.
‘Whatever should we do with him?’ said Corve.
‘Isn’t he your responsibility?’ I asked.
‘Well technically, maybe,’ said Corve gingerly passing the boy to Lilly. ‘This is a bit of a turn-up for us. In the old days we’d just let him get on with it.’
‘Get on with what?’ asked Victor.
‘Being alive,’ said Corve. ‘It’s not as if he’s in any danger from animals and the like, and back then the people would know well enough to leave him be.’
‘Not like now,’ said Miss Tefeidiad. ‘These days he could be hit by a car or run over by a combine harvester.’
‘And I’m not sure I even remember how to be a parent,’ said Corve. ‘We’re far too ancient and set in our ways. Aren’t we Lilly?’
‘Hmnnn,’ said Lilly and passed the baby to Victor.
‘Perhaps we should call Peter,’ I said. ‘This sounds like something the Folly would handle.’
‘I don’t see why we should be running to London every time we have a little problem up here,’ said Miss Tefeidiad with a sniff. ‘We’ve been solving our own problems for thousands of years—even if things have become complicated of late.’
‘Social services, then,’ I said.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Miss Tefeidiad.
‘But he needs to be adopted,’ said Lilly. ‘That’s the modern way.’
‘If you say so,’ said her mother.
I looked over to where Victor had plonked the boy down on the table and was making farting noises to keep him amused.
‘He’ll have to go to school,’ said Corve.
‘I don’t see why,’ said Miss Tefeidiad, ‘I can’t be doing with all this education.’
‘He’ll be able to make friends,’ said Lilly. ‘And blend in and move in a mysterious way.’
‘You don’t need an education to move in a mysterious way,’ muttered Miss Tefeidiad.
‘What we need is a nice local couple,’ said Corve.
Ah, I thought, here it comes.
‘I taught myself how to move in a mysterious way,’ Miss Tefeidiad continued muttering.
‘Childless for preference,’ said Lilly.
‘I don’t see why we have to be mysterious in any case.’
‘Good, solid respectable people,’ said Corve.
‘We never had to be respectable in the old days.’
‘Pillars of the community,’ said Lilly and winked at me.
‘People had to be respectable to us.’
‘With the appropriate level of resources,’ said Corve.
‘Newly married perhaps,’ said Lilly, and all three mothers and daughters turned as one to smile at us.
‘No,’ I said, but I knew it was probably too late.
‘How much influence will he have?’ asked Victor.
‘Influence on what?’ asked Lilly.
‘The weather, soil structure, lamb survival rates,’ said Victor and I wondered, not for the first time, whether all farmers become obsessed or if only obsessive people become farmers.
Corve hesitated.
‘Oh, tons of influence,’ said Lilly quickly. ‘Where his feet pass crops will grow, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘And we’re not without influence ourselves,’ said Miss Tefeidiad.
‘Yeah,’ said Corve, ‘We’d help out.’
‘We’d be like his fairy godmothers,’ said Lilly.
Victor caught my eye and raised an eyebrow.
Hail Dominic and Victor, the foxes had hailed us, soon to be blessed above all other minor landowners in Herefordshire and the wider border regions. The little bastards could have given us more of a warning.
‘He seems like a good little chap,’ said Victor.
‘Victor,’ I said slowly. ‘He’s the god of the River Lugg.’
‘Good. He can help with the drainage then,’ said Victor.
‘And with a pair of fine upstanding men like you for parents,’ said Miss Tefeidiad, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’
At which point the baby Lugg peed on the table.