The Wood Beyond

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Part Three: Polygon

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Part Four: Wanwood

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Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading

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By Reginald Hill (#litres_trial_promo)

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PROLOGUE (#uca644583-6410-5fab-b00f-e2d9704fd38c)

Monday morning, start of a new week, air bright as ice in a crystal glass, brandy-gold sun pouring from delft-blue sky, the old bracken glowing on the rolling moors, the trees still pied with their unblasted leaves, the pastures still green with their unmuddied grass, as October runs into November and thinks it’s September still.

Edgar Wield drove slowly out of Enscombe, slowly because on mornings like this what you were driving through was far more important than where you were driving to, and also because during the short time he’d been living in the village he’d learned that only a fool assumed that the narrow roads ran clear further than the next bend.

His caution was rewarded when he eased round a corner and found George Creed shepherding the stragglers of a flock of sheep through a gate into a field set up with holding pens. The sight made him smile at the echo of his first sighting of Creed doing much the same task on this very road. Since then they’d become both neighbours and friends.

‘’Morning, George, fine-looking beasts,’ he called through his open window.

Domicile entitled him to this pretension of expertise, though he wasn’t altogether sure whether the term beasts could legitimately be applied to sheep as well as cattle.

‘’Morning, Edgar,’ said Creed. ‘Happen they’ll do. Sounds daft, but I’ll be sorry to see them go.’

‘They’re off then?’ said Wield now taking in the significance of the pens.

‘Aye, folk have got to eat, that’s what farming’s all about. But the older I get, the more it bothers me, selling off what I’ve bred up. Don’t be saying owt of this down in the Morris else they’ll be thinking I’m going soft in the head!’