‘They couldn’t find any disgruntled employees, or any other reason the metal would’ve been in the mixer. Brand-new machine. Nothing had let go inside. Someone put a freaking large piece of metal in it. It’s come through the wall of the machine when it was started up.’ There was a pause down the line before Dave added, ‘And on the inside of the mixer, there was a message spray-painted on the wall. Don’t kill them.’

‘A message? Jeez, that sounds like a serial killer leaving a calling card.’

‘Sure does, but it’s interesting that it was out of sight. Be careful with that piece of intel because we haven’t released it to the media.’

‘But what’s the point in disabling a mixer? That doesn’t do anything about saving the animals,’ Jack said.

‘No, but it stops them from being fed, doesn’t it?’

At that point Dave was called away, leaving Jack puzzling over his words. Surely not feeding animals was cruel in itself. In small pens, where there wasn’t any grass, there wouldn’t be anything to eat unless the feed mix was delivered to them. Why would whoever stopped the machine think that not feeding them was a good idea?

He was still thinking about this when Crumbs slid into the booth. ‘Got rid of all that anger today?’ he asked as he signalled the waiter.

‘No different to yesterday,’ Jack answered. ‘Twenty-four hours isn’t going to change my feelings about protecting animals.’

Crumbs smirked a little and ordered a straight whiskey. Jack waved two fingers to indicate he wanted one too.

He waited for Crumbs to say more, but he just sat back in his seat and looked around the bar, sunglasses still firmly in place. Jack had decided they must be prescription glasses because Crumbs never seemed to take them off.

Jack’s bomber jacket had the two new pens placed in either sleeve, so to get a better picture, he sat side on to Crumbs and stared out across the bar.

‘Pretty girl,’ Crumbs finally said as the waitress came back with two Scotches.

Jack shrugged. ‘She’s all right.’

‘Got a girlfriend, Jack?’ Crumbs suddenly asked, eyeballing him.

‘I thought the less we knew about each other, the better,’ he answered.

Again, Crumbs smirked. Taking a sip of his drink, he didn’t answer or press Jack for details.

‘I saw a post on the Farming Telegraph’s Facebook page yesterday.’ Jack said. ‘Do you follow it?’

‘Why would I follow a farming page?’ Crumbs asked disdainfully.

Jack leaned back and assessed his comment. ‘Why wouldn’t you? There’s all sorts of info on there.’

Crumbs shrugged. ‘I got better things to do with my time. Facebook is for the younger generation. I know it’s got its place, but it’s not for me.’