Trial by Trailer
The train thundered inexorably through the rolling counties of southern England. Beyond Exeter, they began a long climb through the Devonshire hills and fields, until they emerged onto the magnificent wilderness of Dartmoor. Rebecca was struck by the lonely grandeur of the heath land and stark rocky outcrops. Here clouds hung motionless over the land as if loath to move elsewhere, providing a vivid purple swathe over the moor.
‘A land of mystery, with stories to tell,’ she breathed to herself.
‘Bleak,’ said Drew sitting opposite.
‘Beautiful!’ she murmured, softly She smiled at a joke harking back to her first impressions of the wild grandeur of Scotland, but did not take her eyes from the view out of the window.
London was a far distant memory by the time the train pulled into Morbed Halt on the North Cornwall coast. The little station bore scant resemblance to the grandeur of Paddington. The only building was a small corrugated shack on one side of the line.
On either side of the track was a short wooden platform. The surroundings though, were spectacular. The rugged coastline stretched into the far distance in either direction, jagged cliffs gradually softening into black velvet. Closer by were sand dunes and the blue Atlantic Ocean. Waves pounded in onto a long, sandy beach in the late-afternoon light, spray soaring like shooting stars in the sunshine. Inland a steep, wooded slope led to majestic, craggy cliffs, beyond which green hills, trees and fields melted into the distance.
‘Blimey, there are parts of England almost as beautiful as Scotland,’ said Drew, standing behind Rebecca.
‘Yeah, but warmer and with half the rainfall,’ said Rebecca drily.
‘It’s a fair cop,’ Drew nodded.
‘Don’t you love the sea?’ Rebecca breathed deeply.
‘That salty smack is wonderful!’
As her gaze wandered along the shoreline, she noticed a solitary figure down at the water’s edge, clad in a long dark coat with a hood pulled up, billowing in the breeze.
It was to strike her later that he had his back to the sea and was staring straight at them.
The travellers made their way out into a narrow lane with the steep sides so characteristic of this part of the country. Birds sang merrily in the hedgerows. In the distance, a church clock was striking the quarter hour. They dropped their bags to the ground and stood looking at one another.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Rebecca.
‘How about a stroll along the beach?’
‘There’s a bus stop,’ said Drew, walking over to inspect a timetable.
‘Rupert says to catch the bus to Lonely Lane.’ Laura looked up from a crumpled note.
‘Lonely is right,’ said Rebecca.
‘Next bus ... tomorrow,’ read Drew, looking at his watch. ‘Home from home! Just like the Highlands. And I thought England was supposed to be civilised.’
‘Well he might have checked the timetable and co-ordinated bus times. This really is the sticks!’ scowled Laura, contemptuously.
Drew shook his head, his eyes twinkling. ‘Oh dear! Londoners! Shades of Rebecca McOwan in Scotland! Lost the minute you leave the great city. Let’s go this way. Maybe we’ll find a tube station and a McDonalds. Get your mobiles out! Let’s all like text our homies, innit!’
Just then the low, grinding throb of a diesel engine became faintly audible.
A muddy, green tractor appeared over the brow of the hill, heading down the lane towards them. The tractor was so wide and the lane so narrow that there could be no room for it to pass safely.
‘Surely it’s going to stop?’ asked Laura, concern entering her voice as the machine rumbled closer, acrid black smoke belching from a metal funnel.
The head of a lad of their own age appeared over the steering wheel, accompanied by a hand, waving merrily. He had floppy black hair and glasses and was shouting something incomprehensible, his voice drowned in the roar of the engine. In an ear-splitting screech, the brakes brought tractor and trailer to a shuddering halt inches from them, as they scurried up the bank in fright.
‘Rupert!’ Yelled Laura, her eyes blazing with anger.
‘You nearly flattened us! Should you even be driving that thing?’
‘Mm…not on the road, probably. Quick! Get in before we get caught. It’s only a few hundred yards up the lane and then we can cut across the fields.’
‘Rupert!’ Laura’s anger turned to horror. Drew could not help smiling at Rupert’s happy acknowledgement of his wrongdoing. Laura was ranting at him.
‘What if you get caught? This is against the law!’
‘Law, schmaw! I know, I know! No coppers for miles round here, though.’
Drew raised his eyebrows in amusement. This was not the nerdy behaviour he was expecting from Rupert Dewhurst-Hobb after hearing Laura and Rebecca’s description of him on the way down.
‘Jump in the back all of you. Quickly, now!’
‘Yes, Rupert, sir!’ Rebecca grasped the side of the trailer, pulling herself aboard.
‘Rebecca! Welcome to Cornwall! And you must be Drew. All aboard!’
‘Rupert! You can’t ask your guests to sit in the trailer. It’s filthy!’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Drew, swinging the bags on board. ‘Home from home for a Jock! We’re used to bedding down in the heather with deer droppings for a pillow and bog grass for our bedsheets.’
‘Really?’ Laura looked at him dubiously.
Drew grinned widely. Rebecca rolled her eyes as Laura blushed and smiled.
‘You got me. I’ve never been to Scotland.’
‘Probably wouldn’t make a huge difference … Don’t take it to heart. I’m still recovering from the fact that the streets of London aren’t paved with gold after all.’
‘Oh, you didn’t believe that, surely?’
‘Laura! No, he didn’t! You’ll get used to him.’ Rebecca dropped her bag on Drew’s outstretched foot and smiled sweetly at his wince of pain. ‘And you behave,’ she muttered aside to Drew. ‘Laura may be ever so slightly ditsy, but she is my best friend and I love her.’
‘Blonde,’ said Drew, nodding.
‘Got a bit of a hair-ism thing going on, have we?’ asked Rebecca wryly.
‘Shaved off your ginger locks, now blonde jokes?’
They barely had time to sit down before the tractor lurched forward. Rupert turned through a narrow gateway into a grassy field and began to execute a hair-raising about turn. With a violent crash of gears and grinding of metal, they bounded back onto the road and he aimed the vehicle back up the hill. The trees and undergrowth closed in tightly on either side of the narrow lane, occasionally lashing the sides of the tractor.
‘Is any part of this county flat?’ winced Rebecca, hanging on for dear life as they plunged down a steep drop into another of a seemingly endless series of hills and little valleys. They passed occasional cottages and a beautiful church tucked away next to a noisy stream.
Rebecca closed her eyes, praying they would not meet anything coming in the opposite direction.
‘Driven before, have you?’ Drew had to shout to be heard above the engine.
‘Er, no, actually,’ answered Rupert. There was a pause for a second and then he turned to Drew with a manic grin. ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’
The ride on the tractor trailer was nerve-wracking. Rupert had not fully mastered either speed or direction, both fundamental to the art of driving. He was shouting at the top of his voice, trying to explain something that none of the others could hear, and paying rather less attention to where he was going than he should. It was fortunate that the sleepy, rural lanes were deserted, since steering was a haphazard, often late afterthought. When finally the machine skidded to a juddering halt in the yard outside a large farmhouse, his passengers were rather grateful. They emerged gingerly from the trailer, nursing bruises and bumps to various parts of their anatomies.
‘Everybody in one piece?’ asked Rupert gaily. He was greeted with a selection of scowls and grunts. ‘Ah, sorry! Haven’t quite got it mastered yet!’
‘Take some lessons and a test first,’ suggested Drew, feeling his lower back and wincing.
‘I stink,’ announced Laura, sniffing her clothing and wrinkling her nose in distaste.
‘Bit like your boyfriend’s driving,’ added Rebecca, looking around. ‘So, Rupert, where are we?’
‘Five Muskets farm, Lonely Lane, Morbed,’ Rupert answered cheerfully. His high spirits seemed indomitable. He made a wide and dramatic sweep with his arm, indicating the farmhouse and surrounding buildings. ‘Home to the Dewhurst-Hobbs since the time of Queen Anne. It’s owned by my Uncle Gaston and Aunt Guinevere, the Gee Gees as we call them.’
‘Do they have manes and eat lumps of sugar?’ asked Rebecca, still rubbing bruises from the journey.
‘You have some fine names in your family, Rupe, if you don’t mind me saying,’ said Drew. ‘Must be a bit of an elocution lesson when you all get together.’
Rupert gave a snort of laughter. It was an extraordinary noise and took Rebecca and Drew by surprise.
‘I say, you two are really awfully good!’ he said, snorting again.
‘Most people probably think we’re a bit lah-di-dah, what with Grandpa owning the manor but I think we improve on acquaintance.’
‘So why the name Five Muskets?’ asked Drew, picking up as many of the bags as he could.
‘Five Muskets Moor was where the militia would execute bad guys. Firing squads were always five muskets but only four of them loaded, so nobody would know who had fired the actual deadly shot…’
His audience grimaced in distaste at this surprising detail.
‘There’s a path over the back where they used to lead the condemned man called Deadman’s Road … Anyway, come and meet everyone! Mum is here. Her fiancé John Sky, my step-father to be – or so he thinks – is away to pick up the solicitor, Rockford Baverstock. Not back until this evening. So it’s not all bad news…’
‘Baverstock?’ Rebecca frowned. ‘Isn’t that the name of somebody in that stuff you sent me? I remember! The local historian in the paper.’
‘His brother, I think,’ replied Rupert. ‘It’s all families and stuff down here. Everybody knows everybody else … and their business.’ He led them towards the main house, followed by Drew. Rebecca hung back a few yards to catch Laura’s arm before they went inside.
‘Wow! What a cool house!’ she said, pointing up the hill to a big old house, perched majestically on the top of some steep cliffs.
‘Rupert’s Grandfather’s house, Morbed Manor. Quite something, isn’t it?’
‘Like the Bates Motel,’ said Drew, approvingly. The other two looked at him blankly.
‘What? You’ve never seen ‘Psycho’?’
Rebecca shook her head in resignation and turned back to Laura. ‘So, I take it Rupert isn’t too keen on his soon-to-be stepfather?’
‘Let’s just say they don’t get on,’ whispered Laura. ‘Definitely an acquired taste … which I too have yet to acquire.’
‘And just how do you deal with that laugh?’ Rebecca wore a pained expression.
‘Yes, bit of a surprise the first time I heard it!’ smiled Laura. ‘He is different, though, isn’t he, when you get to know him?’ She looked hopefully at her friend.
‘Yes,’ Rebecca replied, her eyes widening. ‘He’s different all right!’