‘What do you mean, no?’
‘David is on his way. I’ll have a police reference number, and I can choose whether or not to press charges after I’ve met with Hibbert tomorrow,’ she said, trying to push down the desire to revert back to a scared seven-year-old who had just broken a greenhouse window.
‘I’ll have Jack call David, tell him not to come out.’ He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand.
Laurel persisted. ‘He needs to come out now. He needs to see first-hand, take statements, photographs, evidence. Tomorrow will be too late.’ She spread her hands wide and forced out a humourless smile. ‘I need at least that as a bargaining chip for my meeting with Hibbert.’
Bill Fletcher let the weight of his grey eyes rest heavily on her.
‘Fine,’ he reluctantly agreed. His face softened a little. ‘Are you going home or staying here tonight?’
‘I’ll go home.’ Like she’d want to stay after that dressing down from her father.
Her dad hesitated with his hand on the door frame.
‘You keep saying “I”, Laurel. If anyone is an “I” on this farm, it’s me. Not you.’ He turned to pierce her with those grey eyes. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’
Nate
There was no disturbance at the site. It was fine. Nate sighed in relief.
Fucking George Hibbert.
If he could go back and change the timeline, he would. Stop Robin from punching George Hibbert, calm things down, stop Hibbert from getting all wound up and thinking that this was a good idea.
The admin building glowed like a beacon in the dark farmyard as he strode across it, wanting to check on Laurel. Behind the barn were the farmhouses, no wonder the Fletcher’s or the students hadn’t seen or heard anything.
He was just about to open the door to the admin building when headlights flashed across the brickwork. Laurel appeared in the doorway a second later.
‘It’s David, the policeman,’ she said. She was a wilted sunflower, defeated and faded.
‘Laurel, what’s all this?’ he asked, gesturing to the black scrawl across the building.
‘What do you think it is, David?’ she snapped. ‘Sorry, David. It was George Hibbert. We’ve got CCTV footage. He’s also put weedkiller in our irrigation system for the Pick Your Own. It’s industrial sabotage. I need a police reference number for my insurance claim.’
She was succinct and to the point.
Nate looked around, frowning. Were the Fletcher men really going to leave her to deal with this by herself? Where was the support?
Well, he would be her support. Nate put his arm around her shoulders.
‘Irrigation system?’ David said, confused. ‘Pick Your Own?’ Laurel stiffened under his touch, obviously angered at the incompetence.
She took a deep breath.
‘I’ll walk you through it, shall I? Then I’ll show you the CCTV.’
He trailed after them around the farm as Laurel showed David the policeman what had happened, giving timelines as to when the Fletchers found things, what they have done to mitigate the weedkiller, the difficulties that it would then cause the business.
‘I’ll need to collect statements from your brothers and father, and…’ He looked at Nate. ‘Whoever you are.’
‘Dr Nathanial Daley,’ he said, holding his hand out.
‘Ooh, a doctor, is it?’ David said, offering a limp, dead fish handshake.
‘Yes,’ he said shortly, hoping that he exuded some kind of authority. There were some benefits of spending most of his life studying.
‘You can come back tomorrow at midday and collect statements. That should give you or whoever enough time to write up the incident and allocate it a crime number. I’ll need that when you come tomorrow,’ Laurel said, leading them back to the farmyard and David’s police Ford Focus.
