There is a knock on the door. I have been so entranced by my thoughts that I haven’t heard a vehicle arrive. It unsettles me. I feel like I’ve lost touch and anyone could appear at any time without me hearing them. Standing at the doorway in clothes that look too serious for him is Tom Little, with some sort of computer tablet in one hand. He smiles at me when I open the door, and sticks out his other hand to shake mine, way too quickly.
‘Hello, Dave — Mr Martin.’
Behind him is the small car he has parked at the entrance.
‘Tommy — what a nice surprise.’
‘Yeah. It’s a long time since I’ve been out here.’ The silence is awkward, but I know he has attempted an acknowledgement of what used to be.
‘Come in.’
‘Actually, I won’t, Mr Martin, if that’s all right?’ He pauses for me to indicate that it is. ‘I’m not here for a social call. It’s a work thing.’
I’m enjoying the way he’s expressed it as he holds up the tablet as proof.
‘So how can I help you?’
‘Well, according to the police and the hospital, there’s been two incidents — assaults maybe — out here in the past couple of weeks. You and Mrs Slade.’ He says the last name carefully. ‘I wanted to get your first-hand account of all that. I’m not too keen to interview Mrs Slade.’
I think hard about this. In local news terms, it probably is a story. Bashings are hardly a common event on the farm. But what can I give him? I tell him about my win at the races, and that I believe it was just a one-off by some opportunist. It seems his device is recording me.
‘What do you know about the Slade incident?’
‘I can’t say for sure at the moment. All I know is that I found her in a pretty bad state.’
He asks me about when, how, and why I was there, and I do my best to answer. When we’ve finished, I say, trying not to be too pretentious: ‘But, off the record, there is actually a big story behind it. One that you should stay on if you really want to be a journalist. For the moment it is two assaults, unrelated.’
He scrapes his feet and squeezes his eyes shut. ‘A big story?’
I tell him how I was hit from behind, how I have been threatened by people looking for crockery, and then about all the things that have happened to Elaine. When I am finished, he looks at me with a wry, not-quite-amused smile.