The Farm Read online

  The Farm

  Stuart Carter

  Copyright © 2017 Stuart Carter

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1976292638

  ISBN-13: 978-1976292637

  To Charlotte,

  for always making me want to achieve more.

  The Farm

  Daylight had barely arrived, but John had already been at work for an hour. That was how life was on the farm. Long hours and hard work. He loved it. Years ago he had left the farm, gone to university, graduated and got himself an office job. If things had worked out differently with Clara he might still be there now, but when they split up he had decided that the life he was living was not right for him. He left work each day and there was a different set of numbers on a spreadsheet, countless e-mails in his outbox, but no real sense of having achieved something. It was a comfortable existence, but it felt pointless. Without the relationship tying him to the city it had felt like an easy decision to move back to his parent’s farm in Norfolk.

  John loved what he was doing. Every day there was a sense of purpose, and the results of his labours were plainly visible. Knowing that someday all of the land that he could see would belong to him added to his motivation. Farmers did not seem to get the respect that he felt they deserved in Britain, but he knew that they were the most important workers in the country. Without someone producing the essential food supplies nothing else could happen. People would soon forget about the numbers on their spreadsheets if there was no breakfast on the table.

  He was daydreaming as he ploughed the fields. A few too many beers had been consumed in the local the previous night and he was feeling the effects. His love for the job had struggled to overcome the fatigue that morning. It had been alright as he was seeing to the chickens, but now that he was bouncing along in the tractor he felt rough. He was glad that driving in straight lines didn’t take too much brain power, but he would have preferred to not be driving. His preferences did not change what needed to be done, so he was getting on with it. His mind was elsewhere though.

  It was too late to do anything by the time that he noticed the ragged figure lurching towards the tractor. John hit him head on, and knew that the man had gone straight under the tractor, and must have ended up in the plough bit before he could bring the vehicle to a halt. John sat for a moment in shock, then leapt from the vehicle to see what had happened to the man he had just hit. He assumed the worst. It was soon confirmed as he saw that the man’s head had gone straight under one of the wheels. Even if the soft earth had made that survivable, the plough had finished the job. The man was, without a doubt, dead. For a few minutes John could do nothing but stare at the corpse in disbelief. Eventually he shook himself out of it enough to call his dad.

  Following parental instructions, John did not move and waited for the police and an ambulance. He had told his dad that the man was dead, but he had called one anyway. On the phone his dad had sounded very calm and collected, as if this was just an everyday occurrence. The response was not a surprise to John, who had seen the man meet all manner of crises with an outward appearance of complete calm. That was why his first instinct was, and always would be, to call his father. What was going on behind the façade he would never know, but he was certain that a calm, reasoned response would be the result of his call.

  The police took a long time to arrive. They were in a pretty rural location, but given the nature of the event John had expected a quick response. The ambulance was even slower, but he put that down to the hopelessness of the casualty. He assumed that his dad, in the call, had made clear that there was no hope for survival, and they were being summoned as a formality rather than with any expectation that a life could be saved. In his mind they would rightly have prioritised any case over this one. The police response was a surprise.

  After quarter of an hour his dad reached him. John was still standing watching the body, hating looking at it, but unable to pull his eyes away. There had been nothing for him to do but wait and stare. A few crows had taken an interest in the corpse which he had chased away. Otherwise nothing moved. His dad took a look at the body that remained beneath the plough bit and swore quietly. He looked up at his son and asked what happened.

  Before he could answer they saw the blue lights of an approaching police car. The field was not suitable to drive across by car, so they stopped by the road and got out. They were about a quarter of a mile from the incident and had to walk the rest of the way. Father and son started walking across to meet them half way. As they walked, rather than following up his previous question, the elder of the two asked,

  “I don’t recognize the fellow on the ground there. Do you?”

  “Never seen him before.” John answered.

  “Can’t be from around here. If he was we’d know him. What was he doing in the middle of our field?”

  The question seemed rhetorical, so John didn’t answer it. They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, until they reached the approaching police officers. As they met, John’s dad said,

  “Hi. I’m Matthew Wood. This is my son John.” He held out a hand like this was a casual social event. One of the officers took it.

  “I’m Sergeant Cooper. This is Constable Andrews.”

  Without another word they turned and started walking back towards the tractor. John couldn’t help noticing that the two officers looked exhausted. Their complexions were grey, and both had bags under their eyes. In these parts he assumed that a potential murder case was rare, but they did not seem to be treating it as something out of the ordinary. Even if they were at the end of a long shift he would have expected them to show some signs of excitement at the case in front of them. He was obviously not the only one to notice this. As they walked he heard his father ask, “Busy night?”

  “I don’t know what has come over everyone today.” Sergeant Cooper answered. “We should have knocked off three hours ago, but we’re absolutely swamped with calls at the moment. Everyone has been called in to work, but we still can’t keep up. I’ve been in this station for eight years, and never seen anything like it.”

  At this point they reached the scene of the latest crime. Both of the police officers scrutinised the scene. The victim was obviously dead. The hole in the skull negated any need to check for vital signs.

  “Who was driving the tractor?” Corporal Andrews asked.

  “I was.” John answered.

  Andrews nodded and walked a loop around the crime scene trying to take in every detail.

  “We are going to have to take you in to the station for questioning,” Cooper informed him. John nodded. It was expected. Andrews took some pictures, but they did not disturb the site. He then walked back towards the car. Cooper looked slightly embarrassed as he explained,

  “As I said a few minutes ago, the force is a bit over stretched at the moment. We have asked for some support from the neighbouring regions, but for now we don’t have anyone to deal with this. Andrews will be remaining here to make there is no disturbance to the crime scene.” Indicating in John’s direction he added, “I’ll be taking you into the police station for questioning. Hopefully in the next few hours normal procedures will be back in place, but I warn you that the station was not what it should be when I left it.”

  John was relieved by the attitude of the officers. He had never been arrested before, and had feared that he would be assumed a cold blooded killer given the body that was underneath his tractor. He hoped that it would be seen as the accident that it was. The man had come from nowhere and walked straight into his path. If he had been fully alert he didn’t think that he would have been able to do anything to avoid the collision given the lumbering nature of a heavy weight tractor, but he could not be sure. He was torn with guilt and confusion about how this sit
uation had come about, but had never intended to hurt anyone and was grateful that they seemed to understand that.

  The arrestor and arrestee walked away from the scene, leaving Matthew Wood looking on awkwardly as Corporal Andrews surrounded the tractor and its underlying corpse with police tape. After a couple of minutes it occurred to the farmer to offer the policeman something to drink. He suggested tea, which was accepted, with a request for milk and three sugars. The look of gratitude on the younger man’s face was disproportionate to the offer that had been made, and Matt wondered if this was a reflection of how tough a shift it had been for Andrews. He did not look like he could have been in the force long, so it was hard to judge what it would take to put him out of his depth. That he was struggling then could have meant anything.

  Matt was worried about his son as he walked back towards the house. The wider struggle in the police ranks didn’t concern him much. There was no denying that his son had run down and killed a man with the tractor. He couldn’t understand how it could have happened. The thing didn’t move fast, as hundreds of drivers could testify from being stuck behind it on the roads. He wondered if it was some strange form of suicide. Whatever had happened, John should have been alert enough to avoid the collision. Ploughing was monotonous, and it was easy to daydream, but you were always moving slow enough to react unless someone came running straight for you while you were watching the furrows. The fact that his son had been out drinking the night before could be used against him if the police chose to prosecute for causing death through negligent driving. He was still worrying about this as he returned to the waiting police officer and gave him a flask of tea and some biscuits. He didn’t stop to chat, leaving Andrews gratefully devouring his provisions.

  John and Sergeant Cooper drove in silence, John in the back behind a protective screen. He hadn’t been cuffed given his lack of resistance to the arrest. As they travelled the few miles to the station John saw no sign of what had left the police so overstretched. The countryside looked peaceful. The livestock they passed were eating, resting or reproducing as they should be. Fields were being made ready to plant the cereals that made up the bulk of the produce in the area, along with the other side line crops. They passed a bus and a few parents making the school run, and other cars taking commuters to work. He noticed quite a few of the latter slowing sharply as they recognized the police car, but Cooper paid no attention to them. Traffic control was obviously low on his list of concerns at that time.

  When they got to the station the strain on the force was apparent. As John was led into the front desk he saw another arrestee who had been cuffed and was struggling violently. Two officers were controlling him, but were struggling to avoid his repeated attempts to bite them. He watched as Cooper pulled a Taser from his belt, and instructed the two officers to step back on his mark. On his signal the two leapt clear of the prisoner and Cooper fired on him. The burst of high voltage electricity had its effect, knocking the target to the floor. The two officers who had been wrestling with this prisoner leapt back into action and dragged him to a cell which had been left open for him. By the time both had got clear of the cell and closed the door the prisoner was already back on his feet and charging at the barrier between him and the officers.

  John looked away from that scene, and back at Cooper, who was looking disdainfully at the weapon in his hand. “He shouldn’t have been able to move a muscle for at least half an hour after that burst. Damn thing can’t be working properly. That could get someone killed.”

  “It’s not the Taser,” one of the other officers said, looking relieved to be clear of the man now punching at the reinforced glass window of his cell. “We hit him twice just to get the cuffs on him, and a lot of the guys seem to be having the same problem. After a couple of seconds it’s like nothing’s happened.”

  “A couple of seconds from one of these and I felt like I’d been in a training session with Rocky Balboa. I was moving like an old man for days. And he’s like that after three hits?”

  Behind the desk there was a man who did not look old enough to have started shaving. He hadn’t known what to do while his fellow officers were struggling, and looked lost now.

  “Shouldn’t we have taken his belt and shoes off him and logged his belongings?” he asked.

  “Feel free to go and get them from him,” was spat back at him from one of the arresting officers, who was already developing a black eye from a collision with the man’s shoulder.

  “What the Fuck is going on today?” Cooper asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’ve got three guys in hospital being treated for serious bite wounds, and another six in the hospital trying to contain an outbreak of violence there. The switchboard is going mental, and there aren’t enough of us to deal with a half of it. The chief is about ready to authorise the use of firearms for all officers. This is Norfolk, not fucking London.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Cooper. “I did not sign up for this.

  “And what’s this one in for?” the black eyed officer asked, referring to John. “He doesn’t look dangerous.”

  “He ran someone down with his tractor,” Cooper answered. Is there a cell we can put him in until this all quietens down a bit?”

  “Not unless you want him to share with that psycho. That’s the last of our cells.”

  “We can lock him in one of the interrogation rooms,” the boy behind the desk offered.

  “Good idea. You get on with it,” Cooper directed back at him. Turning to the other two officers he said, “I guess we are needed out there. Today I would suggest that strength in numbers would be a good idea. How about we stick together until some reinforcements arrive, or people stop acting bat shit crazy.” Neither argued, so they went out to their two cars and headed out to the next call.

  Birstall Laboratory – 5 Days Earlier.

  There were two main reasons why the Birstall Laboratory was kept highly secret. Firstly, it was one of the biggest animal testing facilities in the country, using everything from goldfish to Chimpanzees in its research. All such facilities were kept as out of view as possible to prevent the intervention of protest groups. Secondly, it was working with some extremely dangerous organisms, and pushing the boundaries of the available science, and often the results of their work was unpredictable and highly undesirable.

  The scientists who were working there were confident that most people would be supportive of the various aims of their research. Extending life spans and eradicating disease. Boosting cognitive functions. Increasing crop yields. Generally improving on the work of Mother Nature. They also knew that some of the techniques and the materials at their disposal would horrify most people. They had everything that a tabloid writer could dream of to create a scare story. The big buzz words like Anthrax, Smallpox, Genetic Modification, Avian Flu, Cloning, Rabies, Bubonic Plague. All were available at Birstall, and so much more that wouldn’t be recognized by anyone who hadn’t studied the relevant sciences. They were on the brink of a number of ground breaking discoveries, but also on the brink of being shut down if the Press became aware of what they were doing and could spin a scare store and rile the public.

  Hannah had been working there for nearly a year, and still knew very little about what was being researched in the lab. Aside from the project that her team were working on, and the resources necessary to progress with this research, nothing was revealed. When she was talking to people outside of her team she was not allowed to discuss what they were doing, and likewise they told her nothing about their work. Only those high up in the organization knew the broader picture. If strands of work from different teams could benefit each other they shared the information, and coordinated the direction of work as necessary, otherwise it was carried out independently.

  She had been recruited on the completion of her Ph.D., and remained the most junior member of her team, which was working on a way to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s. There was a lot of routine, repetitive work in her role, which cou
ld easily have been carried out by someone without her education, but she guessed that would be the same in any job, and here she was contributing to something that could drastically improve millions of lives. Eleven months in she was still really pleased with her job.

  That day Hannah was carrying out tests on a type of flesh eating fungus which preyed upon carpenter ants in the jungles of Thailand. This fungus exercised some remarkably precise control on the behaviour of the ants it infected and consumed, allowing it to spread its spores to new hosts. The ant was directed to a specific location that favoured the fungal growth, outside of the ants’ normal habitat, where it was made to clamp its jaws onto the underside of a leaf, where it would hang, while it was slowly consumed from within. Eventually the ant burst open spreading spores across the ground below it to infect the next bunch of ants. It was a pretty horrible organism, but they believed that they could isolate and manipulate strands of DNA from this fungus which would be useful to their research. Like so many of the nasty things that the lab had on hand, the potency that made this dangerous, to the ants at least, in this case, was what could be manipulated to serve a purpose more benevolent to humanity. She knew that this wouldn’t be understood by everyone, so no one she knew outside of the lab knew what she was really doing other than researching a cure for Alzheimer’s.

  It had been a normal day, with most of the brain work being done by the computers. She carried out her work accurately and efficiently, observing all safety protocols. Even though there was nothing dangerous to humans in the vicinity, any slip could cost her the job. No mistakes were permitted anywhere in the building when it came to safety. It was treated the same where she was working as in the labs where they were using smallpox or rabies.

  The diligence of the scientists was not matched by the security forces that protected the buildings. They were not aware of what they were protecting, assuming it was just another corporate head-quarters. Most of the guys on the ground thought of this posting as easy, but dull work. They saw no reason why the place would be targeted by anyone. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and no one who hadn’t been there seemed to know that it existed. Unbeknown to anyone, a small terrorist cell had spotted the huge area of buildings via google maps, and had taken an interest in what they were there for. They correctly guessed that it was something important, even if they didn’t know its actual purpose. A few days watching the facility was enough to pick out gaps in the security that was in place. It looked a much better target than anything they could hope to get close to in the major cities.