It no longer mattered. Numb, he wondered when it really ever had.
The location narrowed down, and Gordon tilted his head, a lopsided grin winged up. ‘You have got to be kidding me. Those old cronies? How do you expect them to protect you?’
With studied care, Gordon made his way over to the collection of firearms, smaller than he’d had for years, but elite, rare, precious.
He made his selection and left behind the business he’d built from zero with single-minded determination and focus, pouring heart and soul into it over the years, believing it meant everything and realising it meant nothing. It no longer held any meaning. Nothing did.
He paused in the doorway of the main room where Phil Hutchinson stood over a broken down machine, his face a blotchy red under the fine sheen of sweat.
Gordon blew out a disgusted breath.
They no longer needed instruction from him.
He left it as he arrived.
With nothing.
42
Tuesday 21 April 1410 hours
‘Ethel. Do you remember me? DS Jenna Morgan from the other night.’
Ethel’s wizened face crinkled in a sour smile. ‘I’m old, not stupid, of course I remember you.’ She nodded at Mason. ‘You too. DC, wasn’t it? Just a constable.’
Without taking offence, Mason grinned at her. ‘Yes, Mrs Crawford.’
‘Ellis, if I remember right.’
Nothing wrong with the old girl’s memory and a lesson learnt for Jenna.
‘I haven’t met this one though.’ She craned her neck to look way up at Ryan.
‘DC Ryan Downey, Mrs Crawford.’ He smiled at her as she gawped at him with her hands on her hips.
‘You’ll want a nice cup of tea then if you’ve come to interview us.’
‘Cup of tea would be lovely, Ethel.’ Jenna moved deeper into the kitchen to allow the other two in. ‘But we’ve not come to interview you.’
Stiff-legged, Mr Crawford came through a wooden door Jenna hadn’t noticed previously as it blended in smoothly with the wooden panelling, giving the impression it was a cupboard.
‘Afternoon, I expect you’ve been busy.’ Mr Crawford stuck his little finger in his ear and gave it a waggle. ‘You’ll be wanting a cup of tea.’
Jenna smiled.
‘Kettle’s already on, Mr Crawford.’ Ethel turned to reach fine china teacups down from the cupboard above her head. ‘Take a seat. You’re not on parade, you know.’
In deference to their age and slower pace, they each pulled out one of the heavy oak chairs and sat around the enormous kitchen table. Jenna reached out for the piece of paper Mason had with the triangulated point of the phone.
‘Ethel, Mr Crawford. We’ve got some information that a phone belonging to Poppy Lawrence may be in the vicinity.’
‘Oh, that poor baby. What a nasty man her father was.’ Ethel poured boiling water on the loose tea leaves she’d scooped into a large teapot and then turned. ‘Why would her phone be here?’
Jenna stretched her spine as she sat upright in the old chair. ‘We don’t know, Ethel, but we’d like to be able to check, if you don’t mind.’
‘We don’t mind do we, Mr Crawford?’
‘No. Have your cup of tea, then carry on.’
‘Thank you.’ Jenna suspected nothing came between Mr Crawford and his cup of tea.
As Mr Crawford settled himself at the table, Jenna pushed the paper towards him. ‘You have a lot of barns, Mr Crawford.’
‘We do. It used to be a real working farm at one time. Beef farming, we did most of our working lives, but mad cow disease came along and put a bit of a hole in it. Then foot and mouth. Last few years, Ethel and me, we’ve been getting on a little, find it’s not as easy as it used to be. I dunna want to be up at the crack of dawn any more.’
She couldn’t blame him.
‘The farm’s got a little run-down.’ It was an understatement, but she wasn’t there to judge.
She touched her fingertip to the paper. ‘It indicates that the phone was last switched on around here.’
Mr Crawford took his time taking a pair of glasses from the pocket of his plaid shirt and positioning them just so on his nose. He studied the paper for a long moment. ‘Well that’s this ’ere shed.’ He raised his head to look out of the window. ‘Shouldn’t take thee much to find owt in there. It’s empty.’
‘Excellent.’ Desperate to move, Jenna glanced at Ethel and considered whether she needed to ask permission to leave the table.
‘Off you go.’ Ethel caught her gaze. ‘Mr Crawford will take you and you’ll be back just in time for your tea to be drinkable.’
Relieved, Jenna pushed back from the table as Mr Crawford grumbled. ‘It had better be quick, I’m bloody parched.’
Ethel clipped the little teacups down in front of Mason and Ryan. ‘You won’t need to go. It’ll be a quick job. As Mr Crawford said, it’s empty.’ She peered over at Jenna with a sweet smile. ‘You go and find that phone now, we’ll wait right here.’
43
Tuesday 21 April 1445 hours
Empty was precisely the word to describe the small, windowless brick shed, no bigger than four metres square with not a single thing in it. Nothing. Barren. Bare. Whatever naked word she could use to describe it. Jenna circled around for all of three minutes before concluding it was a no-go.
Disappointed, Jenna took a sip of her tea as they sat around the kitchen table and studied the ringed location of the area the phone had last been used.
‘We had the shed cleaned out last year in case we wanted to store anything in it. Our boys came and did it. It looked so pristine, we’ve never brought ourselves to use it again,’ Ethel explained.
‘Strange.’ Jenna tugged at her bottom lip as she lifted her head to gaze out of the window at the dozens of outbuildings surrounding the farmhouse. ‘It’s normally pretty precise.’ She squinted out of the window. ‘Which could mean it hasn’t been lost or dropped. Maybe someone has got it.’
Ethel’s small gasp had Jenna turning her head. The old lady raised a gnarled hand up and paused halfway to her lips.
Ryan’s eyes sharpened. Mason tilted his head.
‘What is it, Ethel?’ Jenna asked gently.
‘I don’t know.’ She gave a delicate sniff. ‘It may be something, it may be nothing.’
‘Okay. Any little piece of information could help.’ Jenna hated to rush her, but they needed to get on.
Ethel pushed up from the table and made her way to a cupboard, which she pulled open, leaving the door wide for them to see inside. Ceiling to floor, the shelved interior was filled with enough produce to survive a pandemic.
Jenna’s mouth fell open. She’d never seen a cupboard arranged with such precision. Every package and tin neatly stacked, not only in categories, but with the labels turned outwards. Her dream cupboard and one she could never aspire to.
Admiration was one thing, but she didn’t grasp Ethel’s point.
‘I thought it was me.’ Palm outwards, Ethel skimmed her hand along each row of the cupboard. ‘Yesterday, I wanted to give Mr Crawford some baked beans with his full English.’