Which was exactly what David himself should have been doing, he told himself. The microwave pinged and he went to collect his meal. He prodded the radioactive sludge around his plate before eventually abandoning it. It was tasteless and he had no appetite anyway. He took care of the ironing, vacuumed the house and then sat on the sofa again, feeling twitchy and restless. He scrolled through the OWL reports again.
‘Fuck it,’ he muttered, grabbed his jacket and his car keys, and went to have a word with Matthew Hewitson.
* * *
Matt wasn’t at home, but his mum was, and she wasn’t happy. David eventually managed to convince Shirley Hewitson that he wasn’t there to get her son into trouble with the police, but it didn’t improve her mood appreciably.
‘He’s off at that bloody farm again, I’ll bet,’ she complained. ‘Spends all his time there now. I hardly see him these days!’
‘What farm?’ he asked.
‘Oh, the one owned by that bloody pair of millennials. You know she actually came here to help him collect his things? The woman, the one with the Welsh-sounding name. I said to her, he’s a legal adult and can make his own decisions but you’re taking advantage of him and it’s not right. And she says to me, she says that I don’t need to worry about him any more because he’s got a new family. Well I thought, that’s bloody cheeky, isn’t it? She says, “He’s got a new mother now,” looking all pleased with herself. So I says to her, love, you ain’t somebody’s mother until you’ve sat up with him vomiting all the night in hospital—’ Mrs Hewitson stopped and slapped her hand across her mouth. ‘Oh my God I am so sorry, I didn’t mean… how is your little one?’
‘She’s improving,’ he said. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his daughter. ‘Tell me about this farm where he’s moved to.’
2
THE ABATTOIR SHRINE
BY THE TIME DAVID ARRIVED AT FARROW FARM, FULL night had fallen; the sky was clear and dusted with stars. The first thing that he noticed when he pulled into the yard was how many other vehicles there were – and not farm vehicles. Ordinary cars. It wasn’t unusual to see yards like this full of rusting old motors, but these weren’t wrecks. It looked more like Mr Everett Clifton and Miss Ardwyn Hughes were hosting a bit of a get-together.
That impression was strengthened when he got out of his car and approached the front door. There was bright light behind drawn curtains and from inside he could hear what sounded like a dinner party: laughter and chatter and the sounds of cutlery on plates. David had no intention of interrupting; however odd the couple might be, they were entitled to their social life, and if Matthew was here then now wasn’t the time to be asking him awkward questions. David would come back another time. He turned to go.
The front door opened and Ardwyn was standing there with a tide of light and warmth and the noise of a boisterous dinner party flowing out from around her.
‘Why, David!’ She beamed. ‘What a pleasant surprise! Please, come in!’
‘Oh, no thank you, it’s fine. I don’t want to disturb. I’ll just—’
‘You’ll just nothing of the sort.’ She stepped to one side and beckoned with her head. ‘In.’
It would have been rude to refuse.
She led him along a cluttered hallway, past closed doors to left and right, and then into a high-ceilinged kitchen where a group of people were sitting around a heavy table chaotic with the remains of a large meal. Matthew Hewitson was in the process of swigging from a can of lager when he entered, and chatter stopped as they all turned to look at him. David recognised them as fellow tenants of Briar Hill Allotments; he saw Angie Robotham, Shane Harding and his partner Jason, ‘Big Ed’ Rimedzo, and Hugh Preston, who winked at him. There was something weird about Hugh’s face, but before he could look more closely, Everett was handing him a can of beer.
‘Drink?’
‘Oh,’ he said, surprised. ‘No, thank you. I’m driving.’ Admittedly his own life had been somewhat hectic lately, but he was sure that he hadn’t seen Hugh since the day of the barbecue, which was another strange thing because Hugh’s allotment was his pride and joy and he would ordinarily have been working on it every day.
‘Well, we can’t have that,’ Everett replied. ‘You’d have to arrest yourself. Cup of tea it is, then.’
Ardwyn resumed her seat at the head of the table and murmured something to Matthew, who replied, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and immediately got up and started clearing the dirty dishes. ‘Please,’ she said, indicating his now empty chair. ‘Have a seat.’
David sat, looking around at the faces of his neighbours, seeing nothing but smiles and friendliness. For some reason it scared the shit out of him.
‘So, to what do we owe this honour?’ asked Ardwyn, smiling. ‘I mean, we would have invited you and Becky of course but we assumed that you were a bit preoccupied at the moment.’
Everett returned from having put the kettle on, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘Yes, how goes the Pimblett Project?’ he asked. ‘How’s Alice doing? We heard, you know, jungle drums and all that.’ He shrugged.
‘She’s getting better, thanks. The infection’s mostly gone. She’s not out of the woods yet, but the doctors are optimistic.’
‘Doctors always are, until they
