Taking Pity by David Mark Page B

pigeon shoot. We wouldn’t look up. Didn’t this night, neither. Just heard a few shots. That was that. Sounded close, but sound carries on flat land like this, so we didn’t think nothing of it.”
    “You were all at home?”
    “No, just me and Mam. Dad will have been in Patrington having a pint or two. That’s why I was a bit surprised to hear the knock at the door. Big Davey. Standing there all soaked through and white as a sheet. I thought something had happened to Dad. Felt faint, I did. But then he got his words out. Said there had been an accident. Or worse. Bodies, up by the church. He wasn’t making any sense. I got him a drink of water and then he said John Glass had told him to go phone for help. He remembered Dad telling him we had a phone. Had a piece of paper with a number on it. He was gabbling, and a right mess, but we showed him where the phone was and I got my boots and coat while he phoned the police or the ambulance or whoever it was. Then he was begging us for a drink and we had to give him some of Dad’s best bottle.”
    McAvoy continues to write. Looks up and nods, telling her she can go on.
    “He said he didn’t want to go back there. But I told him he couldn’t stay. Told him he needed to sort himself out and show me what was going on. I bullied him out the door. I don’t really know what was going through my mind. I suppose I thought somebody had had an accident with a gun. Shot themselves or a friend. Anton wasn’t due back, but he had surprised me once or twice by wangling a lift from somebody, and maybe I was getting panicky that he’d taken a shortcut across somebody’s land and scared the landlord into firing a warning shot. I don’t know. But Davey drove us back to the church. Snow was falling heavy by then. Coming down thick. John Glass was waiting at the gate of the church. He had Daft Pete with him. Had him tied to the gate with his tie, if you can imagine that. Hadn’t brought his cuffs, had he? Had to tie him up with his own tie! Next thing, John’s telling me not to go into the churchyard. Says there are bodies in there. He’s looking like death, and there’s a shotgun leaning up against a gravestone and it’s too dark for me to see anything, but first thing I asked him was who it was. He looked all shaken up and scared. I mean, he was a policeman and all that, but he hadn’t been prepared for anything like what he saw. And he came out with it all of a sudden. He recognized the clothes. Was the Winn family. Man, wife, and two bairns.”
    McAvoy finds his right leg jiggling as he writes. Has to slow his breathing as he scrawls blue ink on the page. Feels like he can see the whole scene in front of him. Can smell gunpowder, blood, and snow.
    “I asked what Daft Pete was doing there,” says Audrey, her face flushed. “Why he was tied up. I don’t know why I asked, really. Looking back, it seems obvious. But I was in such shock that I was gabbling too, like Big Davey. I asked Pete if he was okay. If he’d been hurt. He didn’t reply. Just looked on like a dead fish.”
    “You thought Pete might have been a victim?”
    “It didn’t cross my mind he was the one who’d done it. He was just a big daft lump. Everybody knew Daft Pete. He was a bit of an odd one, but it never seemed there was any harm in him. So when John Glass told me Pete was under arrest for killing them all and that he’d just confessed, my feet just went from under me. Was a night I’ll never forget. Wasn’t long before it was all ambulances and blue lights and coppers asking questions and tires getting stuck in the mud. But in that moment, it was just the four of us and it didn’t seem real.”
    McAvoy pauses. Rubs a big hand over his face.
    “What did you know of Peter Coles before that night?”
    Audrey shrugs. “He lived in one of the other farm cottages with his gran. His mum had been a silly, flighty soul who kept falling in love with every bloke who showed an interest. Went off with