Trust Me (Trust Me, Find Me 1)

“You’ve done a lot of fencing.”

“Jess was sick of fetching the sheep off the road all the time.”

Jac grabbed a bag of sheep nuts off the back of the quad and she did the same, giving him a hand to fill the feeding troughs.

“Have you reseeded those pastures too?”

Jac put the bag down.

“Yes. I have,” he said impressed, “And spent all last spring chain harrowing and liming the other fields. They’d gone real rough. The reeds had come back and they’d gotten boggy and wild.”

“You’ve done a great job, Jac.”

“Thanks.”

He couldn’t help but feel a pang of pride as she noticed the results of all the hard work he’d put in.

“Still much more to do, though,” he said, clearing his throat.

Out in the fresh air, she’d more colour in her cheeks. Her skin was glowing. She’d always been outdoorsy. London and New York must have been a real culture shock for her.

He told her about the stock he’d bought in the autumn sales and the new breed of rams he’d put in.

“Bigger lambs will help raise profitability.”

“But they’ll cost you more in feed. And they’ll be more tricky to lamb.”

She was right. There was that.

“How are those hands of yours?” she joked.

Jac held them up for her.

“Ah! Too big.”

She playfully held up her own.

“Now these… these hands here are perfect for lambing.”

“I’ll bear that in mind when I need help with the night shifts in the lambing shed. Those glued on nails might not be so popular with the ewes.”

“Uch! There’s mud and muck underneath them already.”

She laughed at the sorry state of her hands.

“Oh, and one’s snapped off.”

It was nice talking farming. Bouncing around ideas. He didn’t have much opportunity to do that. And Sion didn’t know one end of a sheep from the other.

They worked together filling up the creep feeders in the frosty fields and checking on the stock. Lambing was a couple of months away, but the ewes were getting heavier and needed a regular top-up of food.

In her waterproofs and wellies, no one would ever guess that it was the same woman who’d got off the train.

“Do you miss the army?” she asked as they got back onto the yard by the farmhouse.

“Yeah. I was good at it. I miss the boys, more than anything else. Still see some of them from time to time. Sion stays with me a lot. They’re like brothers to me. But, I’m glad I left when I did. I always wanted to come back and farm.”

“Did you do any tours of duty?”

“Afghanistan twice.”

He didn’t want to elaborate. There was the good, the bad and the very ugly in his memories of that place.

“Best deployments were Cyprus and Belize.”

“Wow. They must have been wonderful experiences.”

“Definitely. Especially Belize. I learned to dive out there. The sea's incredible. Different shades of turquoise. So clear. And, marine life… I can’t even begin to describe it. Shoals and shoals of fish, all shapes and colours. And turtles. I’ve got some sketches, if you wanna see?”

He clammed up. He'd gotten carried away.

“I’d like that.”

She grinned at him and his gut twisted.

“Bring them over and I’ll make you some supper tonight. As a thank you for the lift from the station.”

“Annie, you don’t need to.”

“Don’t be daft, I want to.”

“Okay. I'll see you later, then."

She was still standing there, like she was reluctant to go.

His pulse was racing, in spite of himself.

“Jac, you apologised last night for leaving me.”

He heard her voice faltering as she struggled to find her words.

“I’m sorry too. Sorry, that I never read your letters and that I didn’t keep in touch. I know it’s no excuse, but I was angry with you.”

His throat felt raspy and dry, his heart in his mouth.

“It was a long time ago. Things have changed since then.”

The way she’d looked back at him, like she was a little hurt, puzzled him after.

Until he went back to the cottage for lunch. He needed to go to the agricultural merchants, and it was only as he was changing out of his farm clothes, that he noticed.

The letters had been moved.

Not by much, but they weren’t stacked as neatly as he’d left them. And upon closer inspection, he realised that there was one letter missing. The one on top. The first.

She’d been there, and she’d helped herself when he’d been out tending to Jess.

All those years when she could have opened them, and yet, she chose to do it now. The day he’d taken them away from her. That was so Annie.

Picking up the pile, he took them downstairs and fed them one by one into the woodburner’s fire. Angrily pushing them with the poker, until all his words were eaten up by the flames.

There was only one letter left now. The last one he wrote.

He printed his bitterness onto the back of the envelope.

This thing between them had to end. Now. Before it messed anymore with his head. And his heart.

Slipping it into his coat, he made his way up to the farmhouse and silently posted the final letter through the letterbox. It landed on the hall floor, joining the pile of sympathy cards that had been delivered by the postman.

CHAPTER 8

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Sitting alone in his unmarked police car, Detective Ellis Roberts considered his morning and his lunch as he peeled back the cellophane. Two limp-looking triangles. They didn’t quite hold the promise of the label; mature cheddar cheese ploughman’s on malted granary bread.

He’d been to all the shops in town that sold climbing rope and none of them stocked it in black. It wasn’t an uncommon item, apparently. Just that most climbers used the more colourful ropes. They were easier to see, and sell.

If he had the time to trawl through Glyn Evans’ bank accounts, would he find any details of a payment to an outdoor shop? As the farmhouse didn’t have any internet, he could hardly have ordered it online.

He could have bought it anywhere. And there’d be no chance of getting the time or manpower he needed to sift through Glyn Evans’ farm receipts. Farmers used cash. It could have been bought off the back of a van in the market? Or from a stall in an agricultural show? There were too many possibilities.

And all farmers around here liked a deal. A length of rope on special would be appealing to some. Even if it wasn’t to be used for its intended purpose, it’d still be a useful item on the farm.

His daughter hadn’t been surprised about it. As she’d said, he was a farmer, he was resourceful.

It wasn’t worth spending more time on the rope, he decided, as he took another bite of his soggy sandwich.

Plus, his boss had already told him in no uncertain terms to wrap this one up quickly. The coroner was going with a suicide verdict. The pathologist had confirmed death by hanging. The toxicology reports had come back clear, and Glyn Evans had a long record of medically diagnosed mental illness. His liver was sclerotic, and he had undiagnosed diabetes too. Not uncommon in long-term alcoholics, the pathologist had confirmed when he’d called about the results.

Plus, he was a domestic abuser, by all accounts.

There was no more digging to be done.

Loose ends, like the rope and the slippers, they always bothered him. But not everything in real life could be tidily explained away.

???

I’m making food in the kitchen when I hear the familiar click of the letterbox.

Wiping my hands, I go into the hall to pick up the post off the floor.

Mam’s in the lounge with Auntie Pat. It’s been another full-on day of visitors.

I can see a couple of bank letters addressed to Dad, but mostly it’s sympathy cards.

And then my heart sinks.

In the middle of the envelopes, there’s another one of Jac’s letters.

Picking it up, I read the neat writing on the back.

‘You took what didn’t belong to you. But, seeing as you’ve finally started reading my letters, here’s the last one. The others are burned.’

His curt tone is a slap in the face. But, unable to curb my curiosity either, I take it to my bedroom to read.

June 2010