“Busy man. What do you think’s going on up there?” She nodded her head in completely the wrong direction to the manor. No one ever let Jennie take control over directions. Or give them.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think everything’s about meditation or growing your own veggies, put it that way.” A text message pinged onto the phone he kept in his pocket, the vibration alerting him. “Coffee would be great. I can make it though. Pretty sure it’s my turn.” He was positive it was. And it’d give him the chance to check that message.
“That’d be great. I’m not arguing. Might nip to the bakery for breakfast though. Want anything? Tanya’s been experimenting with Danish pastries.” She beamed.
Alex wondered what it was like to always be that happy.
“Just one of her smoothies. Doesn’t matter which.”
There was another smile. “Tanya knows what you like. I think she’d like to know a little more of what you like, if you get my meaning.”
He did get Jennie’s meaning. Tanya had moved back to Severton after working in Leeds at a pretty upmarket restaurant as their pastry chef. She’d grown up in Rayah’s year at school and had been a diva back then, just one who loved to cook. And tease boys. He also knew that she fancied capturing herself a Maynard, and Jake wasn’t on her agenda for some reason that Alex didn’t want to know.
“Just make sure she doesn’t add any form of potion to it,” he muttered. “And if she asks if the rumours about me and Abby are true, then tell her yes.”
“What if those rumours are that you have her tied up in your bed as some form of willing sex slave?”
“Make sure she knows the handcuffs are padded.” It wasn’t a bad thought at all. A nice distraction from the second vibration in his pocket.
“Will do. Back in five. Remember I have three sugars in my coffee.”
Which, he thought, explained a lot.
Alex checkedhis phone as soon as Jennie left the room, seeing Loneghan’s name on the screen, although it was shortened toLonnersas if he was a mate or an old friend from college.
Our friends are on the move to you. Three of them. LD, NK, ST.
Alex knew who the initials stood for, had their profiles stored in his mind, knew they’d likely be armed, have guns and knives. These were foot soldiers and they’d be here under orders.
Intel says they’re trying to hide out of the way. One of TJ’s men was stabbed in a bar fight in Manchester last week. It’s being pinned on Fletcher’s men. Turf wars. Check for pics.
Alex stuffed his phone away, hearing footsteps outside the small kitchenette. No need for anyone to read anything over his shoulder. The door swung open and Janie, the only civilian based at Severton’s small station appeared with a bag of shopping.
He took it off her and placed it on the worktop, knowing that it would contain the twice weekly top up of food supplies. Janie looked after everyone, even Garrison, and very little went unobserved by her, not that she ever commented.
“You’re in early.”
She was, by his reckoning, a good forty-five minutes earlier than usual and for a woman you could set your clock by, that was unusual.
“Couldn’t sleep. The little shop on the way to Waterfoot was raided last night and it’s thrown me. Why would someone raid there?” She looked at him, her expression shell-shocked.
“Raided? It hasn’t come up on the notes.” Waterfoot wasn’t under his jurisdiction even though it was only six miles to its centre. It fell under the watch of its own division, where they’d had their own change in personnel recently too.
Janie squinted. “That’s odd. I was there when the police arrived. They took my number and said they’d be in touch for a statement – haven’t heard anything yet.”
“What exactly happened?”
“I went in to buy a scratch card and milk. I was at the fridge when three lads came in, went straight for the counter and demanded Ron hand over all the cigarettes and tobacco. They waved a knife around. Ron was – amazing, really. He just got everything together without saying a word and passed it over. The lads were really loud – I think they were on something. Ron had pressed the button, I think, to request the police and I stayed with him till the constable got there.” She was unpacking the shopping bag without thinking, putting items on the counter and not checking what they were, her focus elsewhere completely. Alex saw a packet of pads land on the counter, picked them up and placed them back in her bag.
“Oh crap, sorry.” Janie blushed. “My head’s elsewhere. This hasn’t come through for your information?”
It hadn’t and he didn’t know why. Information on a hold up like that would be sent out over the area, shop owners would be made aware, security stepped up.
“No. Why don’t you give Waterfoot Station a call and find out what’s happened? Maybe it was a rookie cop and he hasn’t clicked the right buttons on the system. It’s easy done.” It was; everything was twice as complicated as it needed to be, but it wasn’t difficult.
And three men. High. After smokes. Kind of tallied with the intel he’d been messaged.
The roadto Felley Manor wasn’t a long one. When Alex had been a kid, it had felt like forever, a stretch of unlevelled ground that Scott and Zack forced him to walk down to go and spy around the Manor and in the woods beyond. The cult had always been a forbidding place, full of sinister mystery because no one was quite sure what went on there. There were kids in his class who lived up there and they always seemed normal, into the same things he was, but they were never allowed to come for tea or sleepover like his other friends, and, as they grew older, they became more distant. He knew one boy he’d gone to school with who’d lived at the manor had pretty much ran away as soon as he’d finished college, supporting himself at university. They hadn’t stayed in touch and on the odd occasion when Alex had tried to search for him on social media, he had never been able to find anything. Maybe one to ask Indy Carter about.
