The Chatterslee Circle
By Jaine Fenn

“Run!” shouted Phil, but Astral was already sprinting towards the edge of the field, scrawny legs pumping and blond dreadlocks flying.

The dogs rounded the corner of the barn. There looked to be at least a dozen of them. Phil decided not to wait around and check. Ahead, Astral was half way to the fence. Despite his habitual lethargy and toast-rack physique, the boy could really run when it mattered. Must have had plenty of practice escaping irate farmers in his time as a New Age traveller.

For Phil, being chased off private land by dogs was a new experience, but terror gave him that extra burst of energy. He was carrying enough weight to make him an easier catch, and a tastier snack, than his companion.

Ahead, Astral vaulted the stile without breaking stride. Phil thought the sounds of pursuit were dying away. Or perhaps he was just getting faint due to the unaccustomed exertion. He forced himself to keep running. Still expecting to feel teeth ripping into his jeans at any moment, he hauled himself over the stile and collapsed onto the verge. Looking back through the fence he saw two mangy collies ambling up to the edge of the field. A third dog had given up the chase and was slinking back to the farmhouse. Well, they had sounded vicious enough.

“Shit. Astral,” Phil panted, “The next. . .the next time I say ‘Right then, we’ll be off then’ to a man holding a shotgun, we just leave: no questions, no hesitation, no wandering off. OK?”

Astral stood and looked around with his usual air of placid bewilderment. “Sure, mate. I’d have gone and checked it by myself, you know.”

The last dog padded up to the fence, gave a desultory growl then, duty done, sloped off.

Phil sat on the grass, wincing and massaging his side. “Yes, I know you would. In fact you did. I was most of the way down the drive before I spotted you.”

Astral waved his hands around with vague enthusiasm. “But it was the field, see? The actual field!”

Phil pulled himself upright on the stile. The pain was going away. That meant it was just stitch, not kidney damage. He glanced at the digital camera slung round Astral’s neck. Other than some grass stains on the bottom of the case, it looked fine. Though Astral had few talents which would be appreciated in modern society, he was a surprisingly good photographer, even if he had no concept of the cost and fragility of photographic equipment. Phil sighed, “Yes. It was a field. A field with a barbed wire fence and a sign saying ‘Trespassers will be Dealt With’.”

“No, not just a field. The Field.”

Phil took Astral's elbow and steered him away from the fence. They were still in full view of the Georgian farmhouse, with its Victorian owner and his Edwardian shotgun. “The field where the Circle was? Yes, I know. If you remember I specifically said we shouldn’t mention the Circle to Farmer Psycho. I’m sure he enjoyed the extra cash from the admission he charged last summer, but he made his attitude to the Unexplained clear enough in the papers. And the Chatterslee Circle was the best documented crop circle hoax in history. Even you’ve got to admit that. I mean, the blokes who did it took a reporter from the Daily Star out to another field and showed her how they’d done it!”

“Like we believe the media,” said Astral petulantly, shrugging free of Phil’s hold.

“Astral, old mate. I hate to break it to you, but we are the media.” Phil started down the road back towards the village. As the roads round here were not wide enough for a Volvo estate to pass a muck splattered tractor – a fact he knew from recent bitter experience - Phil had parked his newly dented car in the car park of the village church, next to the sign saying St Michael’s church. Historic fourteenth century nave. Teas on the lawn on Bank Holidays. Please give generously to maintain this Historic Building. Though he was in no position to give generously, he’d slipped fifty pence into the wooden collection box in case the locals were watching.

Astral ambled after him, “No, no, we’re not like the Establishment media. Not at all. We’re redressing the balance.”

Phil decided not to point out that the main difference between them and the woman from the Star was that she got paid every month. “In theory, yes. But as far as the respectable villagers of the charming village of Chatterslee are concerned, we’re here to listen to whatever they want to tell us. We’re not here to convince them that they live in ‘Weird Shit on the Wold’.” Though Astral approached paranormal investigation with all the rational caution of a Teletubby on speed, Phil took care to maintain a professional objectivity. Obviously not all unexplained phenomena – or U.P.s as Phil preferred to call them – were symptoms of things beyond mankind’s ken, so if he was ever going to find a genuine mystery amongst the superstition, misunderstandings and hoaxes, he needed to start from a skeptical viewpoint, and work towards belief. “We ask about the documented instances, and let them bring up anything else they want to tell us. Saying ‘Mind if we just check out the alien landing site?’ is not going to work. We’re dealing with closed minds here.”

“Sure, mate. I know that. I just got carried away.” Astral thrust his hands into the pockets of his frayed cargo pants and walked on in silence. Around them the English summer was at its fecund yet civilised height; the trees were as full and plump as children’s drawings, purple and yellow flower heads swayed in waist high grass and the air was thick with the scent of cut grass, pollen and environmentally dubious agro-chemicals.

Despite himself, Phil felt guilty. Astral was one of nature’s innocents, a person who, through a combination of natural inclination, unusual up-bringing and chemical self-enhancement, had concluded that the world was a wonderful, magical place. Phil hated disillusioning him, especially as Astral was one of his oldest friends. They’d been play mates on the north London estate where Phil had grown up until Astral’s gently barmy mother had decided to take her offspring with her to join the Peace Convoy. When they’d met up again at Stratford University on the media studies course five years ago, Phil had felt like he was discovering the long-lost little brother he’d never had. Or perhaps the long-lost little brother who had been replaced with an almost perfect copy by the faeries or aliens, because Astral’s naïve enthusiasm was truly otherworldly at times.

Despite, or perhaps because of, their differing worldviews, they had renewed their friendship. Astral promised never to slip mind-altering substances into Phil’s food or try and convince him to spend eight hours in a room full of pounding noise and flashing lights, and in return Phil never discussed computers, wargaming or his various failed relationships with the opposite sex. And though they approached the world of the Unexplained from opposite directions, they worked well together. Not well enough to make a living, but Phil still took the occasional contract as a games designer to top up his finances. He preferred not to speculate on how Astral got by.

“Tell you what. We’ll check out the ‘beast’ sighting then pop in the local hostelry for a pint before we follow up any more reports.”

Astral’s sulk evaporated instantly at the mention of a chance for intoxication. “Yeah. Great idea.” Phil often envied Astral’s lack of attention span. Words like “angst”, “mortgage” and “deadline” simply didn’t register with him.

After about fifty yards Astral paused, un-slung the camera, and started taking shots of the village nestled in its low valley, surrounded by cornfields ranging in colour from lush green to heavy gold. Phil leant against an ivy covered stone wall and wondered if he’d ever be able to afford to live in a place like this. Of course, he’d probably have to get married and find a job involving the pointless movement of large sums of money, not to mention shaving off his beard and pretending he wasn’t a socialist, but he could dream. His reverie was broken by a glimpse of a dark shape moving amongst the flint cottages.

“Astral,” he whispered, “Check that out, just coming up to the church.”

Astral pointed his camera, and Phil strained to get a closer look. He realised as soon as he had spoken that it was only a car, but the sleek black shape looked out of place in the English rural idyll.

Astral, with the uncharacteristic concentration he sometimes displayed when he was behind a camera, carried on recording the strange car’s progress until it disappeared into the maze of thatched roofs. Then he turned and walked back to Phil. “How about that, eh? MiBs.”

Phil frowned, “Well, I don’t know about Men in Black. But it was odd, yes.” Actually, anything out of the ordinary was a bonus. They had come here on the strength of a few reports of bizarre events and unexplained sightings collected from local newspapers by a friend who lived in Swindon and kept up an interest in the Unexplained to offset the tedium of living in one of the most boring towns in England. Up till now they had seen nothing remotely unusual.

They entered the village proper and set out across the central green. Curtains twitched in the surrounding cottages, but there was no sign of the mysterious black car. “What do you reckon, Astral? I’d say the pictures in the Salisbury Echo were taken from over there, by the church.”

Astral shrugged. While Phil gave all areas of investigation equal weight, Astral was biased towards the more off-the-wall U.P.s. Sightings of animals outside their natural habitat did not fill him with the enthusiasm that he showed for reports of alien abduction, spoon bending or disappearing genitalia.

Three cottages stood in a scenic huddle along one edge of the green. The middle one had honeysuckle climbing the arch over the porch. Phil set his face into a friendly smile and picked his way up the gravel path to the first cottage. Astral, canny enough to know how unwelcome his type was likely to be, hung back and tried to look inoffensive.

Phil’s smart rap on the wrought iron knocker was answered with suspicious speed by a heavily made-up woman in her late twenties.

Phil held up his press card and went into what he thought of as ‘polite official mode’, “Good afternoon. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we’re investigating some unusual occurrences in the area and we wondered if you might have seen anything.”

She squinted at the card. “Such as?”

“Well, specifically, we wondered if you might have seen a large tawny coloured cat.”

She looked dubious. “A cat? We’ve got a ginger tom. But. . .are you selling something?”

“No, not at all. A large cat – much larger than any domestic breed – was sighted just over there.” Phil pointed across the green towards the church. “The first sighting was about eighteen months ago. It made the local papers.” Phil put the fact that the reports hadn’t made the Nationals down to the lack of a suitably colourful name. The “Wiltshire Wildcat” just didn’t have the shock value of the “Beast of Bodmin” or the “Surrey Puma”.

“No. We only moved in last spring. Are you sure you’re not selling something?”

He knew he was on to a loser. Resisting the temptation to say “No, ma’am, we’re journalists”, he stepped back and said. “No. Well, thank-you for your time.”

There was no answer at the honeysuckle cottage.

At the next one, whose name plate announced it to be “Ye Old Forge”, the door was opened by a wizened old woman reeking of gin and lavender. Her glance shuttled between him and Astral as he introduced himself. She waited until he’d finished speaking then said, “Go away you filthy hippies,” in a cut-glass BBC accent, and slammed the door.

Phil suggested that now might be a good time to hit the pub.

The car park of the Queen’s Head held a couple of mud-splattered land rovers, half a dozen third-hand Jaguars and Rovers, a well maintained green MG sports car and one immaculate black BMW. Astral elbowed him in the ribs and nodded at the BMW. He had to agree that it might well have been the vehicle they’d seen earlier.

Inside, the small bar sported the obligatory low wooden beams and agricultural equipment impaled on the walls plus a chalk board menu offering such traditional English fare as Thai Green Chicken with Sautéed Lemon Noodles or Terrene of Mediterranean Vegetables with Chick Pea and Garlic Couscous. Three tweed clad old codgers looked up from their dominos to scowl in unison as Phil and Astral walked in, but the majority of lunchtime punters were office workers out from Swindon for an extended Friday lunch or dubious tryst with a co-worker. The largest table was occupied by a group of individuals of military bearing wearing improbably smart suits. It seemed safe to assume that they were the people with the black BMW.

Phil ordered a half of bitter and an overpriced ham sandwich. Astral, for whom food was an occasional vice, said he was “fine with the cider”. Phil had to agree that it looked like a meal in itself.

They settled down at a scrubbed wooden table under prints of unrealistically proportioned race horses. By mutual consent they chose a spot with a good view of the Men in Suits, who just finishing their lunch.

“Whoa,” said Astral a little too loudly, “These MiBs aren’t all Men!”

Phil had noticed. What was the correct term? Woman in Black? Didn’t sound quite right. But whatever the jargon was, she was seriously cute.

Helen pushed her plate away, took a sip of orange juice and resisted the temptation to look at her watch. Down the far end of the table Barry Vickers was recounting an oh-so-hilarious tale of rain at the eighteenth hole to Nigel and James while Mike Frost and Andy Belcher discussed United’s chances this Saturday. Hey guys, anyone remembered why you’re here? Of course they had. They were here to “see her off”. And weren’t they all glad to see the back of the token woman.

Nigel, for whom golf and football took a distant second to more horizontal entertainments, was looking the most relieved. He was even laughing at old Vickers’ jokes. Bastard. She should have told his wife. Then again, she doubted it would have made any difference. Helen’s impression of the old cow from the Christmas do was that she was perfectly willing to overlook her husband’s frequent infidelities in return for the social status and financial security of being married to a high ranking officer in British Intelligence.

Helen decided her mother might have been right last month when, with uncharacteristic insight brought on by too much sherry, she’d said that Helen’s problem was that the last part of a man she looked at was his conscience. Still, she would probably have left anyway, even without having joined the ranks of Nigel’s discarded conquests. She’d had enough of dealing with men who never looked higher than her chest when assessing her assets.

She glanced round the lounge bar where, as usual, the locals and office workers were politely ignoring the “boys from the bunker”. Except those two. They weren’t the usual clientele. The skinny one looked like the sort you saw being arrested on anti-Globalisation demos on TV. The other one. . .the word ‘geek’ would have perhaps been accurate, but cruel. He wasn’t her type, but then again, her normal type invariably turned out to be lying, callous bastards. And he had a lovely smile, open and self-effacing. He looked away quickly, his cheeks colouring, and rummaged in the large document bag on the seat next to him. His friend seemed to be trying to attract his attention back to Helen and her colleagues, but he got out a large map and, after fighting with it for a few seconds, laid it flat on the table. He and his mate were soon absorbed.

“Though I’m not the pro you are Barry, I usually manage to make a birdie, don’t I, Helen?”

She looked over to see Nigel smirking at her from the far end of the table. Sex and golf, both games of conquest for him, and in both cases he wasn’t half as good as he thought he was. Before her brain had caught up she heard herself respond, “Shame you can’t extend your form to a regular hole in one!” Amazed at having managed to find the response Nigel deserved, Helen stood and excused herself. As she passed the table with the two alternative types the scrawny one made an unconvincing attempt to watch her whilst seeming to check out the bar décor. His friend glanced at him, looked exasperated, then flashed Helen a small apologetic smile. Here was a man whose conscience was probably as clean as Nigel’s shirts.

When she emerged from the ladies they’d gone back to their map. As she crossed the room there was a lull in the background conversations and she heard the nice one telling his friend, with an earnest patience. “No here. The fish fall was here.”

Aha. So that was why they were here. Hmm. Helen smiled to herself. Yes. Why not? It wasn’t like she had anything to lose. In a few hours she’d be free of that chauvinistic, bureaucratic, cynical purgatory.

Her unexpected show of independence seemed to have put a damper on her colleagues’ lunchtime jolly, and no-one made a move to get the next round on her return. With much hmmphing and comments about noses back to grindstones, they reached for their jackets. Helen hung back, hoping that her increasing sense of euphoric mischief didn’t show on her face. Unlikely – as usual, they were ignoring her. In the car park, she muttered something about forgetting her purse and darted back into the bar. Before she had the chance to lose her nerve she walked up to the visitors’ table, looked the sweet geeky one in the eye and said, “The B345, lay-by opposite the turning to Wilmslow Chase. Eight p.m. tonight. Right?”

Her last sight of them before the door swung shut was a picture of open mouthed astonishment.

“That was fantastic,” breathed Astral as they left the pub.

Phil had to agree. She wasn’t pretty as such, but she had the loveliest dark brown eyes. . .

“We’ve got a genuine lead from a MiB! I mean WiB. Fantastic.”

“Er, yes.”

Astral stopped, looked his friend in the eye and said with rare insight, “You fancy her, don’t you?”

“Well, no. I mean yes. She could be very helpful in our investigations.”

Astral clapped him on the shoulder. “Go for it, my man. Go for it. Just make sure you get the full brain dump on what’s going on while you’re at it.”

Phil sighed. “That’s what makes working with you such a pleasure Astral. Your professionalism. Right, let’s check out the rest of the reports.” His intellectual desire for the Truth was currently taking a back seat to simpler yearnings, but if they weren’t thorough they’d only miss something. Besides, he needed to keep Astral out of trouble till this evening.

They started by checking out the two remaining reports of crop circles.

The first farm, an ugly modern building whose yard contained more cow shit than Phil had ever seen in one place, appeared deserted. Phil, trying to breath through his mouth to avoid the smell, managed to restrain Astral from “having a poke round the back”.

At the second farm, a smaller, older building about half a mile out of the village, the door was answered by a gaunt looking youth who, whilst he didn’t look overly friendly, was at least unarmed. From the corner of his eye Phil saw Astral’s nostrils flare; yep, he could smell it too. Probably grew his own. Where better than on a farm?

The youth took them out to the field where the circle had occurred, giving a laconic commentary as they walked up the track. Yeah, there were loads of circles around the village; yeah, he’d seen strange lights in the sky; yeah, loads of weird stuff happened round here - did they know about the herring? Phil assured him that they were going to investigate the herring. He was torn between relief that they’d finally found someone who came from the same planet as him and a growing certainty that crop-circle hoaxing was just the kind of thing this stoner would do to while away the long summer evenings. Astral, encouraged by finding what he would call ‘a cool person’, got out his dowsing rods. Phil let him wander round for a while – dowsing, like ghosts and crypto-zoology, were something that Phil placed in the category of “might be something to this” – but when Astral started to steer the conversation towards the best fertiliser to use on your homegrown Phil suggested it was time to move on.

The walk back to the village was uncomfortable in the late afternoon heat, and they looked longingly at the locked doors of the pub before heading into the relative coolness of the village shop, where Phil browsed the notice board and bought a copy of the parish magazine while Astral went through the chilled drinks cabinet in a vain search for a drink without artificial additives. A flick through the magazine showed a complete lack of reports of strange disappearances and cattle mutilations.

It was time to move on to the most well documented U.P. after the Chatterslee circle itself: the rain of fish. ‘Herring Terrace’ as the Salisbury Echo had dubbed it, was a row of brick and flint cottages with red tiled roofs and long narrow gardens.

There was no answer at the first cottage. Cottage number two was occupied by a stressed out looking woman with half a dozen pre-school kids running riot in the low-beamed living room behind her. Though she heard them out Phil got the impression she wasn’t really listening, and only kept the door open as something to lean on. She seemed to think that they had come to view the house. When Phil looked baffled she pointed to the ‘For Sale’ sign hidden in a rose bush. Phil explained that they were not here to buy a house; she rolled her eyes, and closed the door.

Her immediate neighbour was a gentleman who was old enough to wear his flat cap indoors. He welcomed them into his home, which appeared to have been unchanged since the end of the Second World War, and offered them tea. He knew about the fish, yes, but he’d been visiting his daughter when the incident occurred. Would they like to see a picture of his daughter? Phil, carefully polite, made the mistake of saying he would. It took them the best part of an hour to escape from Mr Flat Cap. The only extra information they managed to glean were a couple of improbable and unoriginal ghost stories, but Phil consoled himself that he had livened up a lonely old man’s life for a while.

The occupants of the next two cottages were out, for which Phil was guiltily grateful: time was getting on, and he didn’t want to be late for the meeting with the Woman in Black.

The door on the final cottage was opened by a woman in her sixties. From her expression Phil expected a reception similar to the senior citizen on the green; when Phil introduced himself she narrowed her eyes and asked suspiciously, “Which paper did you say you were from?”

Astral, who had remained dutifully silent throughout Phil's pitch, said chirpily, “The Daily Mail.”

Phil tried not to stare at his companion. Astral never ceased to amaze him.

Mrs Suspicious, presumably believing that no-one could lie about something so sacred, smiled and invited them in. Though she didn’t know anything about the lights in the sky, and was firmly convinced that all crop circles were the result of Young Farmers on Drugs, she had actually been sitting in her garden on the day that several hundred herring had fallen from a clear sky over the terrace. Most unusual, she said. Made a real mess of her husband’s dahlias. And the smell! But, she had decided to keep a couple, in case they were needed for “evidence”. For or against what she didn’t say. She led them down to a huge chest freezer in her cellar, and from under the prime joints of British beef she produced a small bundle wrapped, unsurprisingly, in a copy of the Daily Mail.

Inside were two small silver fish, one intact, the other with an unpleasantly mashed head and missing tail. She offered to let them have the fish, for a small consideration, but Phil declined, though he got Astral to snap a picture of the beasties with a promise that she’d get a mention in their article. Not exactly a lie; he just didn’t mention where the article was likely to appear.

As they left Mrs Daily Mail’s immaculate house the sun was just touching down on the edge of the hills, and Phil, distracted by thoughts of short tight skirts and dark brown eyes was considering calling it a day and making their way to the rendezvous. But he made a point of following all leads, no matter how unsavoury or ridiculous, so they made their way across the village the Old Rectory.

The building was a Victorian edifice with an immaculate garden, and Phil’s heart sank when the door was opened by a middle aged gentlemen who looked to be the rector himself. Phil gave his speech, extra polite. The man looked perplexed, and he said he hadn’t witnessed any strange lights, or animals, or unusual rains. Astral, emboldened by his success at the last house, again ignored Phil’s standing order to let him do the talking and said, sotto voice, “Ask him about the bras.” The clergyman blushed, muttered something inaudible and retreated into the house. His wife, with generous bosom and floral apron, appeared from a door down the hall a couple of moments later and inquired politely, “Yes?”

Phil realised he had backed himself into corner, “We were, erm, investigating unusual occurrences and we, ahem, understand there was an. . .underwear related incident here.”

To Phil’s surprise she smiled and said in a broad Wiltshire accent. “Oh, you mean the bras!” and proceeded to recount, with an entirely straight face, how for three consecutive mornings last month, she had noticed women’s brassieres draped over the back hedge. She seemed happy to answer questions, and Astral, obviously enjoying himself, took the opportunity to ask such useful questions as “How Many?” “What Size?” and “Frilly or plain?”. Phil let him get on with it for a while, but pointedly glanced at his watch when Astral, his face on the verge of breaking into a full smirk, asked if there had been any matching panties.

By the time they’d escaped the clergyman’s wife and walked back to the car it was quarter to eight. Phil reminded himself that she might not turn up, and Astral, ever prone to paranoia, mused that she might be an official representative of The Authorities. But there was no question of not getting to the rendezvous as fast as possible, even if that meant breaking the local speed limit. They tore up the side of the valley towards a dark skyline broken by intermittent patches of woodland on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

They arrived with two minutes to spare. The lay-by was in a stretch of road running between open fields overhung with occasional trees. They waited five minutes, and then got out for a look around. The darkness was complete now, and the fields beyond the trees had faded into the gloom. Phil was just about to suggest they call it a night when he spotted a pair of headlights approaching. They turned out to belong to the green MG they’d seen in the pub car park earlier. The sole occupant was their Woman in Black. She parked up behind Phil’s Volvo and lowered her window. Phil and Astral went over.

The woman was still wearing her suit, and looked uncomfortable, but one corner of her mouth twitched into a half smile as Phil leaned in to speak to her.

“Hi,” said Phil, a little lamely.

“Hullo.” She looked ahead, then frowned and turned to meet his eyes. “You’re not recording this, are you? I’m sure you understand that I’m talking off the record.”

“Er, yes.”

“Is that ‘yes’ as in you’re taping this conversation?”

“No, I mean it’s ‘Yes I understand’. I’m not recording this. I don’t record stuff without asking.”

“Good. I thought you looked too nice to work for a tabloid.”

“Er, Thanks.”

“Well. Believe it or not – and I don’t necessarily expect you will - you’ve stumbled onto a genuine conspiracy.”

“Great,” breathed Astral.

“As I’m sure you know, a lot of the land round here is Ministry of Defence. A few years ago some grunts on exercise shot a small mountain lion. It probably escaped from a zoo or circus. The officer that followed it up never found out the full story. But he did find out that there had been sightings of a big cat from the vicinity of Chatterslee village. And yet the locals, even those who had apparently made the original reports, seemed to be in denial. He was in psy-ops – that’s military psychology to you – and realising how easily the villagers dismissed what turned out to be a genuine incident gave him an idea. Just how much could you challenge the average insular Brit’s view of reality before they cracked? He sold it to his CO, also mentioning the opportunity to test new technology, and they went for it. Project Oblivious has been in place for two years now. And, rather depressingly, not one of the residents of Chatterslee has tried to investigate why so many odd things happen around their village. No one has, really. Until you two came along.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling us that your lot, the military, did all the weird stuff?”

She was starting to sound more relaxed. “Well, not all. Like I said, we aren’t sure where the mountain lion came from. And the Chatterslee circle was a hoax, of course. Actually that was a godsend, as it convinced the locals that anything odd must be explainable. Which was true, of course, but we wanted to see how far we could push them before they started to question their assumptions.”

“What about the other circles?” Astral asked. Crop circles featured high in his Weird Shit Top Ten.

“Hoaxes too. Not that we witnessed them all, but they were generally a lot simpler than the one that got a centre page spread on the Daily Star, and there’s not much else to do around here, is there?”

Astral, his voice shaky, continued, “And the UFOs?”

“The lights in the sky? A couple of test flights for classified aircraft kitted out with non standard lights, and some laser technology. Sorry.” She flashed Astral a sympathetic grin over Phil’s shoulder.

“Oh”.

“Presumably you had nothing to do with the local ghost tales?” Phil asked.

She laughed. “Find me a village that doesn’t have a ghost story!”

She had a lovely laugh. If he’d met her under other circumstances. . .no, he must be professional. He might never get another chance like this. “And the herring?”

“The boys had a high-altitude precision guidance system which needed testing. Given that the fall was isolated to an area of less than four hundred square feet, they considered the test a success.”

“OK,” Phil hesitated, but he needed to be thorough. “How about the bras?”

“Ah yes, the bras. One of the other divisions wanted to test their new stealth suits, and they wanted an observable way of recording the success of the, well, penetration. A signal or sign.” She sighed. “You’d be amazed at how juvenile the average military male is.”

No, thought Phil, I wouldn’t be amazed. Just vindicated. “Um, I’m probably going to regret asking, why are you telling us all this?”

“Because I’ve recently found myself to have a stubborn streak of morality, and I’m sick of deception. You might not think that’s a particularly good reason, but it’s the truth.”

“It’s a great reason.” He believed her. “But won’t you get in trouble? I mean, I assume you’re involved in this Project Oblivious.”

She sighed. “Not any more. I’ve left. Besides, I’m afraid no-one is likely to believe you. Project Oblivious only succeeded in proving that people believe what they want to believe, regardless of evidence. But thank-you for your concern.”

That didn’t sound like sarcasm. That sounded more like an invitation. “Er. Listen, can I, erm, ask you something?”

“Sure.”

What was the worst that could happen? She could roll up the window and drive off over his foot. An acceptable risk, Phil decided. “Would you be willing to give me a way of contacting you? I mean, assuming you’re no longer in the military, and you’d be willing to discuss your experiences further. Perhaps we could meet up again, somewhere a little less open.”

She frowned, and Phil braced himself. Then she said, “OK.” She rummaged in the handbag on the seat next to her, got out a pen and paper and wrote down a number. “My mobile number. Good point about this being open. I don’t want to fuel your paranoia, but my ex-colleagues did notice you this afternoon, so it might be an idea if you didn’t hang around longer than you need to.”

“Er, yes. Sure. Can I, um, give you my number.”

“Why not?”

She waited while he tore off the bottom of her note, scrabbled around for a pen, and wrote his mobile number down. She was definitely smiling at him.

She took the paper and slipped it into her handbag. “Well, it’s been. . .cathartic talking to you. Thanks.”

Phil stepped back, “Be seeing you.”

“Quite possibly.”

Phil lead a downcast Astral back to the car. “Well, you’ve got to admit that this was real conspiracy,” he said as he started the engine.

Astral grunted. “Yeah, a conspiracy to prove that people are idiots. Already knew that.” He smiled wanly, “Still, she was a babe. And she definitely liked you.”

“You reckon?” Phil still didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“Oh yes. I could feel the vibes. You two are going to make it, I’m sure.”

“Thanks Astral.” Even when he was on the rebound from having his view of the Fundamental Strangeness of Reality challenged Astral was a good mate. He hoped he was right about their attractive informant. Getting to the bottom of the mystery was satisfying in it’s way, but he could understand Astral’s disappointment at discovering such a mundane and deniable explanation. Still, it hadn’t been a complete waste of time. He wondered what her name was. Well, give it a couple of days and maybe he’d phone the number on the piece of paper in his pocket, and find out.

Helen watched the Volvo’s single working tail-light recede down the lane. Nothing would come of it, of course. The story lacked the sex and corruption angle the mainstream media craved. But she’d done the right thing in telling them. She felt better about herself than she had for months. And it didn’t do any harm that she’d also got the phone number of a not-entirely-unattractive man with half a brain and a whole soul.

She turned the key. Nothing happened. The engine was dead. Bugger. And the evening had been going so well.

Movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look over her shoulder. There was someone in the field next to the lay-by. A light. Someone with a torch? Her heart rate quickened. Her ex-colleagues? No, they’d bring a car. And besides, they had no idea what she’d done, and probably wouldn’t care anyway, despite her warnings to the investigators. Must be a farmer. Two farmers. There were two lights now.

But no people. The field was empty.

Two small silvery lights, hovering low over the field. There was no obvious source; the lights just hung there. A third light blinked into existence. Helen watched, more fascinated than afraid, as the first light started to move. It began to sweep around the field in a low lazy arc. In its wake the stalks of corn bent low to sit in a perfect ninety degree angle. The movement was sedate, like a dance. The second light joined it. Then the third, weaving and shimmering through the still night air.

She reached for her phone.

The End

Story copyright Jaine Fenn, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com