New arrivals, he wondered?

That was pretty much confirmed a few seconds later, when a massive removals lorry trundled up the hill. Great, he thought, another family moving in, another house going to be occupied! The whole estate would have a very different feel once all the properties were being lived in.

Jason drove down into the village, passing the 30 mph sign at this end of the village, then the village store, the pretty cottage on the left with the picket fence and the BED & BREAKFAST – VACANCIES sign and then the smithy. He slowed when he reached the Crown, and turned left down the side of the pub and into its almost empty car park at the rear. Hurrying through the cloying drizzle, he passed a man in an apron standing outside smoking a cigarette, and entered through a side door.

He found himself in a narrow corridor that didn’t look like it had been painted in a century, and reeked of the toilets a short distance along. The corridor zig-zagged and as he passed the kitchen the smell improved to one of bacon. He pushed a door at the end and entered the saloon bar.

There was a very different vibe from the bustle of Sunday – everything felt faded and tired and rather cheerless, not helped by it being cold, the fire in the grate as yet unlit. The ingrained smell of beer, old carpet and polish was even more noticeable than when he and Emily had been here on Sunday, because it was now so empty.

Lester Beeson, the massive landlord, towered over the room from behind the bar, wiping a glass and discussing something intently with the man Jason recognized instantly as the miserable farmer, Albert Fears. How had he got here so quickly, he wondered?

The old countryman sat on a bar stool, in his tweed cap and leather-patched jacket, holding a pewter pint tankard. Doubtless his own, Jason thought – it was that kind of a pub.

Ping-beep-bloop-ping. Ping-beep-bloop-ping.

The gaming machine continued its forlorn mating cry, urgently flashing away as if desperate to attract someone’s attention. But there were no likely candidates here at the moment. The only other customers were an elderly couple at an alcove table. Both of them wore brightly coloured cagoules, starkly contrasting with their grey countenances.

The man, with wisps of grey hair on his head, sported a hearing aid the size of a golf ball; the woman wore her hair in a bun, atop a face that wasn’t made for smiling. They sat opposite each other, the man hunched, the woman primly upright, each eating a ploughman’s in silence, as if they had long run out of anything to say to each other. Their mournful faces reminded Jason of two goldfish in a bowl. They’d make subjects, he thought, pulling out his phone and pretending to send a text, but instead discreetly photographing them.

The landlord clocked Jason and gave him a welcoming smile. Fears just stared at him through tiny, aggressive eyes.