Laurel straightened her papers in front of her, not letting this spectacle get to her. If it did, she’d lose control of this meeting, and that was the absolute last thing she wanted or needed.
Jack bustled a brimming Robin out. The door closed behind them, clicking loudly in the quiet room.
Her dad took a breath as if to start the meeting again, but Laurel jumped in.
‘So, you’ve seen the CCTV, you’ve seen what he did.’ She didn’t even acknowledge George. He wasn’t worth her time. ‘I have a police reference number and David is coming to take statements at midday.’ She spread her hands out. ‘Tell me what you propose.’
Bill Fletcher ground his teeth audibly. George crossed his arms and stared at the table.
‘Well,’ Old Man Hibbert started, eyeing both Laurel and her dad carefully. ‘What we wouldn’t want is a protracted court case or anything like that, it just costs money.’
The silence stretched as Laurel waited.
‘Besides, we can’t be sure that it is actually George in the video,’ Old Man Hibbert said quietly, not even believing his own words. ‘And we don’t really need to involve the police for a bit of graffiti do we?’
Laurel just looked at him, her eyes dead.
‘It’s industrial sabotage. Our Pick Your Own business has been ruined for this year, perhaps into next. We will have loss of earnings, excessive damage to our reputation, not to talk about the unmeasurable impact on ancillary sales in the farm shop, the cafe, the petting zoo,’ she said, pausing to let that sink in. She didn’t dare look at her father, instead keeping her eyes on Old Man Hibbert’s greying face. ‘So, no. It’s not just graffiti.’
Laurel’s hands were sticky as she clasped them together on the table.
‘What do you propose?’ she repeated, enunciating each word.
The Hibbert men exchanged glances and George shrugged slightly. Colour her surprised that George Hibbert hadn’t thought about the repercussions of his actions.
‘What do you want? We haven’t got any money,’ George’s voice was cold.
Laurel’s eyebrow raised. How could he be annoyed with her, when it was him who had put his own family in this mess? She had anticipated this question.
Laurel spoke softly to Old Man Hibbert, not George.
‘Look, I’ve had to report it to the police so I can get a reference number for the insurance, but if we can come to some sort of…’ she cast around for the right word, ‘arrangement, then I’m sure it’s both in our interests to have as little police involvement as possible.’
‘You’ve obviously got something in mind, what is it?’ Old Man Hibbert said.
She glanced at her dad’s stony face. He wasn’t impressed with the way she was dealing with this, but she’d laid the granite hard facts out for them all. They needed money to get past these next few months. Money that had to come from somewhere. She was eighty percent sure it would come from the insurance, but when and how much would be a different matter. It would come from the BAS funding recommendation, but that wouldn’t be for a few months. It wouldn’t come from the Hibberts because they had very little money.
But they did have the development land.
The development land that she could let out for grazing, perhaps even back to Hibbert, although that would definitely stick in their throats. It was valuable, good quality grazing land. Even if she had to sell an acre, she’d have to bank that it wouldn’t be enough to build a substantial property on.
‘I—’ she swallowed. ‘We want your fields.’
George sat up suddenly.
‘What? No. No way, no fucking way.’
‘Watch your mouth, boy,’ his father snapped. ‘You’re the reason we’re in this mess, so you can damn well keep your mouth shut before you get us in any more trouble.’
Old Man Hibbert passed a hand across his face.
She carried on.
‘I’m prepared to give you a grazing licence, guaranteed for five years at a good price and,’ this was the big thing, ‘I’m prepared for your cattle to fall under our umbrella, which means they will fall under our vet charges, our TB testing, but they will still be your cattle. They will have your marks, your breeding, you can choose if and when to sell them, but we will pay for their upkeep.’
They’d had a massive argument over this. Laurel on one side, and Jack and her father on the other, Robin sniping at both sides from the middle.
If Hibbert gave them the fields for free, then the money that she’d been able to wangle from the bank could go to covering the unknown loss of earnings from George Hibbert’s escapades last night, before the insurance came through. The five-year guaranteed grazing licence and the living expenses for his cattle were massive sweetener that her father had suggested, once he’d got over how appalled he was that Laurel would even dream to ask for such a thing.
