‘Moon phases? I don’t think so, but it shouldn’t be too hard to download one. Why?’
‘I’d like to know what phase the moon was in at the end of March and April, around about the same time we think Marcus and Ben disappeared.’
‘See? That doesn’t sound strange at all.’ He tapped and swiped until he found an app called LunarLore which looked promising, downloaded it, and opened it. He entered approximate dates for the time she was requesting, and came up with the same result for both. His heart froze, and he was back in the barn at Farrow Farm, kneeling before the skull of a creature that should not exist mounted on the wall, and surrounded by crude paintings of the same exact shape as the one on his phone screen.
‘David?’ said Dennie. She touched his hand, and he recoiled. ‘David, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
He swallowed thickly. ‘Waxing crescent,’ he read. ‘The growing portion just after the dark of the new moon but before it is half full. Sometimes known as a regeneration moon, or a rebirth moon.’ He shook himself back together a bit more. ‘Does this help?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Like I say, it might not even be a dot to join. Are you sure you’re all right? You look very pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ he replied, gathering their mugs and taking them over to the sink to hide the fact that he was very far from being fine.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you somehow,’ she said. ‘I think I’d better go. Whenever you want to tell me what’s on your mind, you know where to find me. Thanks for your help.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. I’d invite you to stay for dinner, but we’re not eating veggie tonight, I’m afraid.’
‘Bless you anyway for the thought. If I don’t see you on your plot I might have a weed of those runner beans for you.’
‘Dennie, you’re a legend.’ He watched her go into the living room and heard Becky seeing her to the door, after which Becky popped her head into the kitchen.
‘ETA on dinner?’ she asked.
He looked at the parcel wrapped in its white butcher’s paper. He’d thawed it out and taken it to Partridge’s to be minced, and it sat surrounded by chopped potato, carrots, onions, and all the ingredients necessary for a home-made ‘lamb’ hot pot to make his little girl healthy and strong.
* * *
The next waxing crescent moon was on the 22nd of June, which gave Dennie a little over three weeks to prepare. She made a rare foray into online shopping and ordered a rape alarm and a video camera with night mode, and while she was waiting for those to arrive she beefed up the security of her shed, installing heavy bolts top and bottom of the door. She packed two changes of clothes, a ten-litre plastic jerrycan of water, spare gas canisters for her stove, extra batteries for her lantern and enough tins and packets of food to last for several days.
Luckily, her opportunity to have a look inside the newcomers’ shed came sooner. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to borrow a pair of bolt-cutters and just have at it, but then they’d know, and even if they couldn’t point the finger at her to the extent of having her reported for criminal damage, they’d still know, and creeping around outside her shed in the wee small hours might not be the least of it. The problem was that the only times when it was unlocked was when one or other of them was working the plot, or at least pretending to. They’d got Matt Hewitson doing the occasional shift, though all he did was poke a rake around for a few minutes and then sit out with his headphones on, smoking and prodding at his phone. It was a case of waiting until he was there at the same time as his mother Shirley was home from her job behind the cash register at Homebase, and that was like waiting for the stars to align. But align they did towards the middle of June, and as soon as Dennie saw Shirley’s car pull into her driveway she strolled with all the nonchalance she could muster up to the Pavilion and its ancient payphone, and dialled 999.
Her anonymous call having been made, she meandered back towards her allotment, stopping to smile and chat with the neighbours and trade advice on black-spot and greenfly and the eternal war on the slugs. She was talking to Fred Pline about his plans for the Anderson shelter when she caught a glimpse of blue flashing lights between the houses on Hall Road, and said with neighbourly concern, ‘Oh, I wonder what that ambulance is doing outside Shirley Hewitson’s place. Do you think someone should tell Matt? He’s only just over there, look.’
Fred might have been in his seventies but he was nippy on his pins in an emergency, real or fabricated, and she watched him hurry over to the Neary plot, and the mime show that followed: Fred taps Matt on the shoulder. Matt pulls his headphones off and scowls. Fred gestures emphatically towards Matt’s mother’s house, which backs onto the allotments. Matt leaps out of his chair and dashes for the back gate.
Leaving the shed door open and unattended in his panic.
Dennie took a deep breath as she stepped onto the Neary plot and up to their shed. She didn’t know how much time she had but it wouldn’t be much. All she needed was one solid piece of evidence to take to David, or any of them, and say, ‘Here! Look! I’m not paranoid! These people are up to no good!’ She peered in. It looked like a perfectly normal gardening shed – a little on the large side, perhaps, and very neatly looked after. All the tools were hanging up, boxes of
