The landscape which dissolved out of the dawn the next morning transpired to be flat and muddy. Across the road beneath my window was a stream, then reed beds and beyond those a beach and the sea. A pretty Victorian lighthouse with a bell-shaped roof and a wrought iron balcony
Despite the cold, I enjoyed an agreeable walk in the sun. I passed the small quay, noticing several boats from the previous day, gone. Out fishing while the weather stayed fine, I thought. Life must go on in defiance of the accident.
I kept going, following the path I took into the community the day before. The farmland on either side of the way. A fence set back from the trail on one side, and when I reached the entrance, I paused. I leaned on the gate, looking out into the pasture. Ewe's, all grouped together in a clump, so they resembled a cloud on the damp turf. They drifted across the fields, eating the grass as they went.
I detected some lame creatures in the flock, and on closer inspection, whitening blisters on the coronary band showed. Split open, making the hair wet, culminating in bacterial infection.
"DEFRA slaughtering them tomorrow!"
A voice said from behind me.
I started with surprise and turned. The woman in her late middle-age, with hair still clinging to some brown in among the grey. She wore a green waxed jacket and jeans. Her face weathered, beaten, but kindly, with laughter lines rather than wrinkles. She held out a hand, and we shook.
"Alana Belle."
I gave her my name, and we chatted for several minutes, finding the woman a pleasant and friendly company. I glossed over why I visited Suffolk and mentioned the local vet's death. I said I assumed this posed problems.
Alana glanced away.
"Poor David."
She sighed.
"So sudden."
She blinked, wiped her eye with the back of a gloved hand.
"How did the livestock catch foot-and-mouth?"
"The National Farmers Union believes the most likely because the virus leaked from poorly maintained drains at the laboratory over on the cape and spilled onto the farms on sludge continued tractors and lorries."
"No justification in this day and age."
"The Government intends to compensate me, and the NFU president told me, but what happened, incredible and indefensible. At the press-conference, the representative from the place judged wastewater containing the live bacteria entered the drainage pipework, later leaking out and contaminating the surrounding soil."
"The HSE carry out an investigation?"
"Yes, in their communique, they stated tiny quantities of foot and mouth, which caused an outbreak in 1967 -- and no longer exists outside laboratories -- started the excretion process from the facility. The location uses the bacterium for research, which, although permissible under biosecurity rules, the sewage system is in substandard repair, with pipes cracked with manhole covers unsealed."
"Any leak of the disease spread via mud on the tyres or under-bodies of machines at the site, after the heavy rain."
"The monitoring of vehicles inadequate, and the inquiry uncovered they drove along the lane adjoining my farm. My herd of cattle assessed positive for the strain days later."
For the first time, Alana Belle assessed me with suspicion.
"If I talk to the media, I will lose my compensation payments."
"No. Not the press. A birdwatcher."
Alana laughed, and I shrugged my shoulders.
"Don't seem the type of person who would sit around all day watching birds."
"What do I appear like?"
"Police? Army? Fit and healthy, and a presence which doesn't say birder."
I smiled.
"Sorry to be a disappointment."
"Binoculars?"
"In my room at the pub, I thought a delightful walk before lunch, and find the nearest hide and spend some time looking across at the spit."
Her expression remained uneasy, as we talked for a few minutes more before Alana excused herself. The woman marched with purpose across the field, called to her sheep as she went. The animals didn't care.
I started along the route, heading back to the open moorland. Without the fog, the heath, expansive, empty, and free. The previous afternoon, with the mist, the atmosphere closed, oppressive, and stifling.
What a difference a bit of sunshine made, I thought as I reached the top of the shallow bank and gazed down the other side of the gentle hill. I stood for a moment, taking in the view.
A wooded area off to one side. In the background, the cliffs, and further out, the sea. Somewhere in the distance, beyond the coastline, the smudge of the shingle breakwater and the DEFRA complex.
I turned to check back the way I came. The village, too far away now. I figured out the somewhat ordered layout of Alana Belle's farmyard. The track which worked its way between them and between the trees and me, a figure approached.
I found it fascinating in watching the figure slowly growing larger as he strode up the slope towards me. Once the figure was fifty yards away did I realized who it was.
Gavin Hoyte.