‘You name it.’
‘Latte with an extra shot?’
‘No problem. Small, medium or large?’
‘Medium.’
She nodded and turned to the complex-looking coffee-making contraption at the back of the bar. Flynn eased one cheek of his arse over a bar stool and surveyed the room again. He gave the lone woman a quick smile — she looked away — and the man continued to ignore him.
‘Weather not good,’ he said to the back of the woman behind the bar.
‘No.’ The coffee maker gurgled, hissed and steamed. ‘It’s caught us by surprise and it looks like it could be a bad one.’ She turned to him with his foamy drink and placed it carefully on the bar. ‘Passing through?’
‘Just visiting — but they weren’t at home.’
‘Ah.’ She leaned on the bar and he couldn’t help but notice her figure, which was very nice. She caught his look and smiled. ‘Two twenty-five, please.’
He paid her, counting out the exact change. When she turned to the till, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and ironed it out on the bar top. Headed ‘Lancashire Constabulary — Message Log’, it was a pro-forma document that ensured nothing could be missed when taking a message of any sort from anyone. The top message that Flynn had seen on the pad in Cathy James’s office, he had managed to snaffle it in the instant before Tom had appeared at the office door and thrown him out. It was the most recent message she had taken.
Flynn read it, then got out his phone, waited for a few moments for a signal to be indicated on the screen. One didn’t. He tutted. He raised his head to the woman behind the bar, who had turned to watch him.
‘We struggle out here at the best of times,’ she told him. ‘They’re always on about putting boosters in, or whatever, but they never seem to get round to it. Probably not worth it. This weather will make certain there’s no signal at all, I reckon.’
‘I take it the landline works?’
‘There’s a public phone in the toilet corridor.’
Flynn had noticed a phone behind the bar. ‘Any chance of using that one?’ he asked sweetly. ‘Don’t want my coffee to go cold.’
She weighed him up, then said, ‘OK,’ and gave him the cordless handset.
‘Thanks. I’m Steve Flynn, by the way.’
‘Alison Marsh.’
‘Ah, the landlady. Pleased to meet you,’ Flynn smiled. He got Cathy James’s mobile number from the contacts menu on his own phone and thumbed it into the handset, put it to his ear and waited. A connection was made — then went straight through to voice mail. He tutted and hung up, realizing he was doing a lot of tutting recently.
‘No joy?’
‘Nah.’ He handed the phone back to Alison.
Reading from his stolen message pad, Flynn asked, ‘You wouldn’t know where Mallowdale House is, would you?’
Flynn saw the woman’s instant reaction. ‘Why?’ she said sharply, and it took him back slightly.
‘Is it local?’ he asked, carrying on as though nothing had happened.
‘Yes.’
‘And it’s… where?’
‘Two miles up the road, past the police house.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Big house, behind a big fence, big grounds.’
‘When you say big grounds, what do you mean?’
‘Well, the house itself is in big, fenced-in grounds, but the land surrounding that all belongs to Mallowdale.’
‘What, like moorland or forest, kind of thing?’
‘Yeah — why?’
‘Er, nothing,’ he said. He picked up his coffee and took a sip. It was a good brew and the extra shot had an instant effect. He was puzzled by Alison’s strange reaction as he re-read the message again, written down and recorded by Cathy James, who still remained uncontactable.
In the ‘From’ section, she had written, ‘Anon.’
In the body of the message she’d written, ‘Poachers on Mallowdale House land again.’
And that was it, very bare bones. Flynn could only imagine the conversation. He guessed the phone must have rung in Cathy’s office and she’d answered it: ‘Hello, police at Kendleton. PC James speaking. Can I help?’ It would have started something like that. Professional, courteous. Then, whoever it was had said, ‘There’s poachers on Mallowdale House land.’ The phone call would have ended abruptly, or she would have quizzed the caller further, asking who was calling, asking for a description of the poacher or poachers, any vehicle, any accompanying animals — such as a dog. But the message was from Mr Anon. It was dated yesterday, timed at 16.30 hours. The words PC James attending were scribbled on the bottom of the form.
But Flynn was only guessing. All he had was a sketchy message about poachers from an anonymous source, and no doubt Cathy would have seen it as her duty to investigate, even though yesterday was actually her rest day. What it did was tell Flynn that Cathy had taken a message yesterday afternoon and that Tom was possibly telling lies about having seen her at home. How true was his claim that he hadn’t seen her for a couple of days? Or perhaps he wasn’t fibbing and they’d just had a big spat that wasn’t any business of Flynn’s, perhaps everything she’d told Flynn over the phone was just a woman’s scorn? Perhaps she was just making things up to get at Tom for something else. What Flynn didn’t like, though, was Tom’s attitude.
Flynn scratched his head, not really knowing what to think, but he did know that policemen had occasionally come a cropper investigating reports of poachers. He remembered a PC even being murdered. These days poachers weren’t jolly characters feeding their families, they were often organized, ruthless gangs and big money was involved, depending on what they were hunting.
He sighed, thinking he should just get the hell out of here before he got trapped.
‘I’m curious… sorry…’ Alison interrupted his jagged train of thought. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’
‘About what?’
‘Mallowdale House… you’re not the first person to ask about it today.’
Flynn pouted. ‘And?’
‘Like I said, I’m curious.’ She leaned on the bar again, pushing her breasts tightly against her jumper in a move with obvious consequences for the male of the species, a fact Flynn was certain she was fully aware of.
‘To be honest I’d never heard of Mallowdale House until about twenty minutes ago,’ Flynn said. His eyes registered the fact that the third finger of her left hand bore no ring of any sort.
‘Well, you wanna keep away.’
Flynn blinked. ‘You said that without moving your lips,’ he said, and he and Alison grinned briefly as both of them turned to the origin of the voice — the old-timer sitting on the stool at the end of the bar, apparently engrossed in his newspaper but actually earwigging. ‘What do you mean?’
The man, bearded, dressed in ancient tweeds, raised his chin and said, ‘Just an observation, is all.’
Flynn waited for more. Nothing came. He glanced back at Alison and arched his eyebrows.
‘They’re not that friendly, that’s all,’ she said, ending the subject.
‘Do they have a poaching problem?’
She guffawed. ‘Anyone who goes on to Mallowdale land does so at their own risk. The poachers have a problem with the owners, I’d say.’
‘Is that a long way of saying no?’
‘You work it out.’ Clearly the tone of her voice implied that she’d said enough.
Flynn exhaled and thought, ‘Bloody villagers.’ He was half-expecting to hear banjos being plucked in the background. ‘I see the “No Vacancies” sign is up.’
‘Yeah, sorry. I’ve only got two rooms, both booked for the night. I have actually got six, but the rest are all being renovated and are uninhabitable.’
‘Have the guests landed yet?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Think they will?’ He gestured at the weather through the window.
‘Why, do you need a room?’
‘Considering.’
‘I have to give them time to arrive. If they’re not here by eight and I haven’t heard from them, I’ll assume they won’t be coming and maybe re-let — if that’s any good to you?’
‘Sounds half promising.’ He threw back the remainder of his coffee and wiped his lips with the paper napkin. ‘Nice brew. Maybe see you later.’