‘Dennie, hi, what can I do for you?’
‘Sorry to trouble you at dinner time. I did say I could come back later but Becky insisted.’
‘She’s good at that. Cup of tea?’
‘Go on, then. Twist my arm.’
While he was busying himself with the kettle and mugs, Alice came through from the living room with her mother and gave Dennie a hug. ‘Daddy, can I play with Viggo?’ she asked.
‘Hey, troublemaker!’ protested Becky. ‘You already asked me that.’
‘Whatever your mother said goes,’ he replied. ‘Which I’m assuming is a no. Sorry, honey.’
‘I’ve tied the boy up outside,’ said Dennie, and took Alice’s face in her hands. ‘And how are you doing, Looking-Glass Girl?’
Becky stroked the fine fuzz that passed for Alice’s hair. ‘We’re taking it day by day. Over the worst of it, we hope. Probably still another six months of maintenance to go. Just so long as she doesn’t pick up another infection.’
Alice was staring out of the kitchen window at where the dog was sniffing around in the back garden. ‘Mummy, if Viggo has puppies can we have one? And can we call it Kirk?’
That threw her mother. ‘Well, I, uh, assume that if Viggo, becomes a, well, a daddy…’ It also assumed that Alice would be well enough to be around animals, but David kept that to himself.
‘Of course, you can,’ said Dennie. ‘And you can call it whatever you want.’
The tea had brewed and David passed mugs to Dennie and Becky. His wife took hers in one hand and her daughter’s hand in the other and said: ‘Come on, you, back to school.’
‘Bye, Dennie!’ Alice waved as she left.
‘Bye, Alice.’
‘We used to have a cat called Kirk,’ explained David when they’d gone. ‘He was a rescue cat, spent the first month of his life with us hiding behind the TV. Then, when Alice got sick we had to get rid of him because of the danger of germs. Granted, we were probably overreacting, but it was back to the rescue centre. I swear that cat knew what we were doing. The look of betrayal on his face…’ He sipped his tea. ‘Anyway, I would have thought I’d be one of the last people you’d want to talk to. You know, after last time.’
‘Yes, it’s about that.’
‘Ah.’ He steeled himself for an argument.
Dennie must have realised how he’d taken it because she was quick to clarify. ‘Oh no, I don’t mean like that. I know it was all Angie’s idea. You at least had the decency to look embarrassed. No, this is about something different. Do you remember Marcus Overton?’
‘What, the chap that went missing?’
‘Yes. When was that? Have you got a record of it on that app?’
‘There should be. Why? Have you heard something?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just trying to join some dots and I don’t even know if they are dots.’
‘All very enigmatic.’ He took out his phone and scrolled through the OWL notifications. ‘Here we are. Twelfth of April. We checked his shed and found nothing. Police broke into his house the same day and found evidence to suggest that he’d been missing for maybe a fortnight. Missing persons report filed. Nothing since, no credit card activity, no phone calls. I did actually ask at the station if there had been any word about a month ago. One of the officers there told me that phone and ISP records indicate his last use of the internet was dated the end of March, so if he has run away he’s gone off-grid.’
‘Can you remember the exact date?’
‘The twenty-fifth, I think. Oh shit!’ He glanced guiltily at the doorway to the living room in case either his wife or his daughter had heard that.
‘What is it?’
‘Ben Torelli!’
‘What, Dopehead Ben? Plays dominoes with Big Ed down the Pavilion and always loses?’
‘Yes! He’s not been seen either! Ed asked me to remind him that he owed some money next time I saw him but I never did, and it all completely slipped my mind because, well, things have been a bit busy around here recently.’
Dennie sipped her tea. ‘You’re telling me,’ she said drily. ‘When was this?’
David racked his brains. ‘Literally the same day that me and Angie came to see you. But he wasn’t at the VE Bank Holiday commemoration, I remember, because Hugh Preston was there and I thought at the time, the two of them are both ex-servicemen and it was a surprise that Ben wasn’t there to share in it.’
‘Back at the start of May. So, nobody’s seen him for, what, three weeks?’
‘I’m sure he had a perfectly good reason, though I admit I didn’t really know him very well to talk to. He was a bit of a loner.’
‘Just like Marcus Overton,’ she commented. ‘Both solitary men, not many social connections, both easy to miss.’
‘What are you suggesting – that they’re linked? That they ran off together?’
‘How would that work, a month apart? No. But I do think there’s something very odd happening on our allotments. All right, thank you for that, that’s useful. I have another question to ask and it’s going to sound strange.’ She was fidgeting with her mug, and he noticed that one of her fingers was bandaged.
‘Dennie, trust me, it couldn’t be as strange as some of the other things I’ve heard recently.’
‘Oh? Want to share?’
He almost did. The secret of what he’d seen and heard at Farrow Farm had been stuck like a ball in the bottom of his throat for weeks now, choking him, and the thought of there being someone he could tell it to who wouldn’t think him completely crazy or, worse, look at him with blame, was very tempting. Maybe he would, but not until he’d told Becky first, however badly she took it. ‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘Go ahead.’
She was doodling in the condensation from underneath her mug, drawing it out into crescent shapes. ‘Do you have a thing on your phone that tells you about
