When the police investigated the mysterious disappearance of the goats they had nothing to go on. The chief said it was very unusual not to have anything at all, particularly when the case involved goats. He explained that usually goats leave behind evidence of themselves, that an awful smell was one thing, and loads of stuff having been chewed to bits another. He suggested that perhaps the goats had been hijacked and airlifted by airborne goat-jackers. That had happened recently to some sheep somewhere up North. The people of the village decided this was a very possible possibility, although some had their doubts, and amongst themselves they referred to the mystery as “The Mystery of the Disappearing Goats”, which is now what everyone calls it.
The police took statements from a lot of people, as is their wont. These included the steeplejack, who from his perch high among the clouds can see most of what goes on everywhere but only when he is at work, and the watchmaker, who has time for everyone and for everything, and the television repairman, who has seen the inside of almost every house in the village. But most people did not, and do not, know anything. What passes as knowledge in the average head is not really knowledge at all, it is only dream and suggestion and, in the case of what people know about goats and their whereabouts, very often it is not much more than mythology. Indeed, it is generally considered best to adopt a sceptical attitude regarding anything people claim to know, especially when it concerns goats.
In the middle of a night not many days after the goats disappeared, there was a tremendous racket come from the field where the goats should have been. It was such a racket that nobody in the village dared get out of bed to find out the cause. Oh no, said Mrs. Higgins, waking up her husband, Mr. Higgins, so that he could enjoy the noise too. It’s probably those bloody scarecrows been out on the piss again, said Mr. Higgins, and he turned over and went back to sleep. The next day a few of the villagers compared it to lots of invisible goats all being very boisterous at the same time, but only a few. Others settled for describing it as a bloody goddam racket. Two deaf people had slept through it all, and had nothing to contribute to the conversation. But it had been pretty spooky, and remains unexplained.
By the time Spring came in during late March and early April the police had given up their meagre efforts and filed away their file on the mystery, and almost everyone else had forgotten all about the goats and turned their attention to other kinds of disappearing livestock e.g. chickens and yak. All, that is, except the now out-of-work goatherd. As he sat at home in his tiny cottage that had once smelled of goats but now smelled of disappeared goats, which is not so much a smell but more the indelible odour of absence, the goatherd wondered what would become of him. He had been in and around goats all his life. Goats were all he knew. The only language he could speak with any fluency was goat. Without goats he was nothing. His world, as far as he could see, was at an end. At midnight, as the village sleeps, the only person still awake is the goatherd, for he cannot sleep, what with the worry of it all.
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Conrad Titmuss
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