The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller Read online

  THE RING

  Copyright © 2020 by Vince Vogel

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  1

  Dorring wanted nothing more than to be just another man. A faceless drone, unrecognizable from the rest of civilization. It meant giving up his MI6 affiliated bank account, as the money was monitored by his ex-handler, Philip Foster. Dorring couldn’t let himself be monitored anymore. To disappear properly, he needed to untether himself from everything.

  It would mean having to earn money to live. That brought problems in itself to a man who wanted to vanish. Most jobs require a National Insurance Number. Tax reference. Your name, date of birth, address. A man can’t retreat from view like that.

  So Dorring needed to find paid employment that didn’t ask questions.

  That was how he ended up standing in a dusty cabin on the crest of a Somerset hill one summer Sunday. In front of him sat a man in overalls with the words Jordon’s Orchards printed in embroidered lettering across the left breast. His dirty boot heels stared up at Dorring as they balanced on top of a scratched to hell desk. Behind the man was a window looking out onto rolling hills and vales, all of it striped by neat rows of apple trees. The man’s name was Lloyd. He was the manager of the whole orchard. His left eye was missing. Dorring didn’t know how, but he gathered, by the way the flesh on that side of his face was badly mutilated, that it was from some terrible accident involving a machine. The eye was grown over with mottled, scarred skin and the man would scratch it every so often.

  “We don’t get many English. If you know what I mean,” Lloyd was saying as he leaned back in an office chair. “It’s mostly Bulgarians and Romanians. Some Slovakians. Most of them don’t speak English.”

  “That doesn’t bother me,” Dorring said back. “I’m not much of a talker anyway.”

  “You done this type of thing before?”

  “Yeah. I spent some time recently in France. Italy. Seville in Spain for the orange harvest.”

  Dorring was lying, but he wanted to give the impression of experience to the man. Assure Lloyd that he knew the deal. The deal being that farms like these rely heavily on large swaths of seasonal labor to pick the fruit. More often than not, they break almost every labor law in order to make the business as profitable as possible. They rely mostly on foreigners to do the work—foreigners unaware of their rights, or at least unwilling to fight for them. They’re usually kept in squalid conditions, living in dilapidated caravans not suitable for a dog. They’re usually worked more hours than is legally allowed. Usually they aren’t supplied the safety equipment which is their right. They’re often paid much less than they’re supposed to. These types of farms depend on foreigners who don’t complain. When an Englishman comes through the door, they’re suspicious. An Englishman typically knows his rights. Will scream for them. He could even be a mole from the Institute of Employment Rights. Therefore, Dorring was at pains to show that he too wouldn’t complain and was there for the same reasons as the foreign workers. Namely, to keep quiet and work until the season was finished when he would move on without complaint.

  “So you know the crack?” Lloyd said, cocking his remaining eye at Dorring.

  “I sure do,” Dorring replied.

  Lloyd nodded along to his thoughts for a moment while looking Dorring up and down. The Englishman stood before the open doorway, blocking out the sun, his large shadow swallowing the skinny farmworker and his desk up. A big man like him would come in handy, Lloyd thought. So long as he knew not to make trouble.

  “So you understand that the work is hard, the pay is shit and the living situation not the best?” the one-eyed man said.

  “Yeah,” Dorring replied.

  “You a traveler or something?”

  His eye was cocked and pointed at Dorring.

  “Yeah.”

  “A nomad,” Lloyd pronounced and he appeared to relax, leaning further back in the chair. “So you want a bit of work before moving on?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Dorring assured him. “A couple of months would be nice.”

  “You do well—big guy like you shouldn’t have any problems if you keep your head down—and you’ll last that long.”

  He stood up from the desk and came around to Dorring. Sticking out a hand covered in calluses and ground-in dirt, he said, “You’re hired.”

  Dorring took the hand and they shook. There was no paperwork and nothing to sign. His wages would be paid in cash at the end of each week. They worked a week in hand so there would be two weeks before first pay.

  “That gonna be cool?” the boss asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve got a little cash to get by till then.”

  “Good.”

  Lloyd nodded and led Dorring outside to a pickup. They got inside and were soon traveling down the narrow gorge of a road. It straddled several hills, going up and down like waves in a storm, and was bordered by tall grass verges that consumed the pickup on either side. It was a beautiful place and Dorring sat silently admiring it as they drove past fields and orchards.

  “We grow peaches in this part,” Lloyd said as they passed rows of the aforementioned fruit. “The sun’s real good for them, so we stick them up on top of the hills.”

  The road traveled into shaded woodland. Lloyd pulled off down a dirt track that entered the trees. They bumbled along some three hundred yards until the woods opened out and Dorring spotted the first of the caravans. There was a double decker bus, hidden amongst the trees, and he saw people moving about in it. The red paint was mostly covered over in scratches, graffiti and green moss. The wheels were missing and inside, he spotted bunk beds. In other places, people stood or sat on the porches of dilapidated caravans that looked as though they’d grown out of the dirt. As the pickup meandered slowly past, they eyed it carefully. Children were playing outside. A soccer game was stopped and the little faces gazed at the men in the pickup until it had passed and they could resume the match.

  At the end of the lot, they came to a caravan that was parked well away from the others. It stood at the end of a dirt cul-de-sac underneath a giant oak tree. Moss covered it and the thing didn’t look big enough for one man, let alone two, even though Dorring was told that he would be sharing with another.

  “The old man what live here,” Lloyd said as they pulled up, “is the only other English we got. I thought it’d be nice havin’ a bit o’ company.”

  He didn’t add anything to this. Dorring assumed he
meant because they’d be able to converse in their native language. Or maybe he meant that Dorring might not want to share with anyone belonging to a nation other than his own. Lloyd appeared to presume that Dorring was either monolingual or a xenophobe. Most likely both.

  Lloyd knocked on the door of the caravan and waited. There was no answer.

  “He might be asleep,” the one-eyed man said upon turning to Dorring.

  He went to a window and peered inside. A threadbare net curtain covered the view. Cupping a hand over his eye, Lloyd pressed his face to the pane.

  “He ain’t in,” he eventually muttered. Coming away from the window and pointing his thumb backwards over his shoulder at the caravan, he added, “He’s cookin’ something. Got it boilin’ on the pot. Probably out somewhere huntin’.” He paused and shifted his feet in the dirt, gazing down at his boots as he did. Looking back up, he went on. “I probably should’ve said something on the way over. See,” he whispered this next part and came closer to Dorring, “old Otis—that’s the bloke what you’re gonna share with—well, Otis is a good ol’ boy. You should remember that. Been here a long time and a good worker. But he has his ways. Can be a little touchy at times. You get me?”

  “I think so.”

  The door to the caravan was unlocked. Lloyd let his new worker into it and then stood outside at the door. This was obviously due to it being a push for two men to be standing within the cramped space at once. Heck, it was a push for one man. Dorring had to stoop to stand, his shoulders pressed to the curve of the ceiling.

  “It’s a bit cozy,” Lloyd said without any note of irony in his voice. “But you’ll get used to it.”

  He made it sound like Dorring would be here forever. Or at least that’s how Dorring took it. He stood surveying the mess he’d gotten himself into with a look of bewilderment. The air was filled with steam and the stench of boiling rabbit. He knew the smell, as he’d eaten the critter himself many times. The pot was on a single gas hob, the metal lid rattling away like the hi-hat on a drum kit. As for the space, it was around ten feet in length and six wide. It was intended as a two berth, but Dorring guessed the intentions had been for a couple clinging to each other for dear life. At one end, two beds stood lengthways against each wall. They were no wider than two feet each, with a similar sized gap in the middle, and Dorring realized his shoulder would hang off one edge. As for the other, it would be pressed against the narrow fiberglass wall. He imagined rolling one way and falling out, or rolling the other and breaking through the wafer thin wall.

  “You like the decor?” Lloyd asked from outside the door.

  Dorring hadn’t even taken it in. He’d been too busy viewing the desperate proportions of the place through a look gradually moving from bewilderment to disgust. Now he took in the decor and was astounded that it was only now making an impression. Because almost every surface and shelf was covered in some animal caught and frozen in the despairs of its former life. For the man who lived in this cave of a place was clearly a fan of taxidermy.

  The long body of a stoat, its red furred back and white belly gleaming in the sunshine that flooded through the open door, stood fixed to a log hanging by wire from a wall, its sharp needle-like teeth on show and leaving an impression on Dorring that he wasn’t welcome. Other animals attempted to see the intruder off. A badger with hulking great shoulders had its own snarling face pointed to the door as it stood guard on a shelf. There was a fox perched above the cupboard toilet. It looked ready to pounce down and attack him. A hawk was nesting above the center of the two beds on a small log that was nailed to the wall. Glancing at its sharp talons, Dorring spotted a stuffed mouse. Even a hare had a vicious look to him as he stood on a small coffee table, leaning back on his hind legs with his forelegs presented like a Victorian bareknuckle boxer’s fists.

  “Otis did them all hisself,” Lloyd pointed out.

  “They’re lovely,” Dorring replied in a blank tone.

  Turning his eyes from the ferocious beasts, he alighted his sight on other things. Things that contrasted greatly with the fierce looks of the beasts. Photographs of people. They were smiling. And their smiles shone out of the dark gaps between the animals like sunshine though gaps in clouds. All the photographs were of the same three people. Bearded man. Smiling woman with long black hair. Little blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl, ranging in age from an infant to around four or five years old. A young family standing together beneath trees or beside lakes or paddling in rivers or playing on the sand of a beach or in front of a stone cottage with a thatched roof. A dog shared the space with them in many of the photographs. Young sheep dog. Often held within the little blonde girl’s arms. Dorring traced the chronology of their smiling faces. The woman was in a hospital bed holding a baby in her arms, her rosy-cheeked face looking down at the child with the graceful pride of a new mother. Then the toddler was standing between the pair in a blue dress, a tiara perched upon the crown of blonde hair that glistened in the sunlight. She held onto their hands as she balanced between them, her chunky little pink legs bowing beneath her. The dog emerged on a slightly later photo and the toddler held the little black and white puppy as proudly as her mother had held her. Then she was a little older, smiling gleefully on a bicycle. Proud father stood behind as she took her first ride. Dorring gathered that the bearded man was his new mate.

  “Well, I better be goin’,” Lloyd said, making Dorring turn to him from the photos. “Work starts tomorrow mornin’ at five. Old Otis will show you everything.”

  Dorring watched him get back into the pickup and leave. Several people, who stood about ten yards away, followed the pickup off the camp with their eyes. Once it was gone, they slowly swiveled their necks so that they eyed Dorring instead. He nodded, but they didn’t nod back. So he shrugged it off and closed the door on them.

  2

  About an hour later, Dorring sat at a sun-bleached, wooden table the color of bone. The smell and heat of the boiling pot had become unbearable and he’d been forced to leave the caravan. Around the back was a small garden with a vegetable patch and chicken coop. In the shade of the oak and the caravan stood the table and chairs. It looked out over a meadow bordered by trees.

  Dorring heard someone enter the caravan and guessed it to be his new housemate. So he got up and went around the front.

  Coming to the window, he was surprised to see not an old man, but instead an old woman. She was bent over the hob, seeing to the rabbits. As he stood by the open door, she turned from the pot and almost jumped through the ceiling upon finding the large figure of Dorring blocking out the sun.

  “Dumnezeule!” she exclaimed gently, placing her hand flat on her chest and crossing herself with the other.

  “Esti roman?” he said in her language.

  “Si tu?” she said back.

  “No,” he replied in Romanian. “But I speak it.”

  “Your accent is strange. Where are you from?”

  “Here,” Dorring said, widening his arms to take in his surroundings.

  “An Englishman who speaks Romanian. A first, I must admit.”

  For a few seconds, they stood gazing at each other across the threshold. In that time, Dorring took her in. She was short and plump. Around sixty, if he had to guess. Her long, gray hair was tied back in a plaited ponytail. A strip of it fell from her fringe and lay upon a rosy cheek. Her eyes were dark green and felt warm like a patch of sunlight on a timid sea.

  “You are looking for Otis?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “Not quite. I’m going to be staying with him.”

  “Ah!” she said. “You’re a new laborer. Another rarity for an Englishman. Most of your fellow countrymen wouldn’t come anywhere near a place like this.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not most.”

  She smiled at him.

  “You like rabbit?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “No.”

  “Then you will have a
piece of the pie I am going to make. There’s more than enough.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome. What is your name?”

  “Dorring.”

  “Sounds Scandinavian. Are you part Swedish?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I guess the blond hair gives the impression.”

  “I guess.”

  “Would you like to know my name?”

  She asked in such a way that Dorring gathered she found it rude that he had not already asked.

  “Of course,” he said with a smile.

  “It is Maria.”

  “Then I’m pleased to meet you, Maria.”

  “Likewise, Dorring.”

  She turned back to the pot and checked its contents before replacing the lid.

  Turning back to him, she asked, “Have you met Otis yet?”

  “No. Lloyd only brought me here a few hours ago.”

  “Did he tell you anything about him?”

  “He said he was a little cranky. Nothing too bad.”

  “He’s a good man. Otis.”

  It was the second time someone had called him a good man.

  “Lloyd told me,” he said.

  “But you should be on your toes around him. Don’t upset him. He is not an easily forgiving man.”

  “I’ll try not to upset him.”

  “Good.” She appeared reassured and turned back to the pot. “You like his place?” she said as she bent over it.

  “Yes. Nothing better than sharing your home with so many critters.”

  “They’re his family, you could say.”

  “What about the ones in the photos?”

  She didn’t reply and Dorring got the impression the question had unsettled her.

  “They’re no longer here,” she eventually said in a faint voice.

  “I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “It’s okay. But try not to ask Otis about them too much. Or at all if you can help it. He surrounds himself with his old family, but won’t talk about them. Not even to those closest.”