Abediah Thornton

Chapter 21 - Friday

'Good afternoon Mrs Thornton. It's DeeDee calling, we visited yesterday?'

'Yes, of course.' Abediah was standing in her kitchen, one rubber glove on, one off. She attempted to squash the phone into the space between her ear and her shoulder. Then, realising it was in danger of falling into the soapy water, she removed the second glove and moved away from the sink. 

'Mrs Thornton I just wanted to give you a quick update,' DeeDee paused as if waiting for something.

'Yes?' asked Abediah, feeling compelled to reply.

'We've reported your safe stolen. Nothing further to report on that so far I'm afraid. We did pop round and have a look at your barn yesterday. As you said there was nothing to see and everything looked locked up. We thought it might be best to come back on Sunday, since that seems to be the day they are visiting.'

I spoke to Rita this morning, she has reported to her superiors and they agree. We wondered if it would be alright with you to approach from your side of the property. We'd probably want to have two teams, one coming from the road and one over the hill. Would that be alright?'

Abediah felt that there was nothing to say about this. It wasn't like she could do anything herself, and she would much rather everything was handled by the police. 'Yes, that sounds like a good plan,' she paused. 'I suppose you could drive over there from here, but you'd need a good 4 wheeler, especially if it keeps raining like this.'

'I see, how far would you say it is to walk, Mrs Thornton?'

Abediah had never really walked straight there, she was usually checking the fences or herding cattle, she wasn't sure if she knew how long it would take to walk there directly. 'I'm not sure, to be honest I usually ride and I don't go straight there. It's maybe three miles as the crow flies so, maybe an hour? But again, you'd need the right gear, or you'll be wet through in this weather.'

'OK, thank you Mrs Thornton, I'll have a chat with the team and get back to you on what we decide to do. It'll probably be tomorrow now.'

'OK, no problem.'

'And one more thing Mrs Thornton,'

'Yes?

''About Mr Goodman.'

'Yes?'

'I've had a chat to your lawyer and there are a few things I'm a bit worried about. I think we'll deal with the barn first and see if we can't get to the bottom of that. Once we understand how that came about then we'll see about approaching Mr Goodman. Hopefully by that point we'll have your safe, which might make things simpler. However, your lawyer did advise that Mr Goodman had mentioned selling the farm,' the police officer paused, leaving the statement hanging in the air.

'Yes, that's right.'

'OK, well I agree with your lawyer. If anyone, including Mr Goodman, comes asking about that again just give them the business card and tell them to talk to Mrs Holtby-Cope, OK?'

'Alright. Thank you for letting me know.'

'No problem. I'll call again with an update tomorrow Mrs Thornton, alright?'

'OK, thank you officer.'

Abediah hit the button on the small phone and moved to plug it back into the charger. All this exercise was making the phone lose battery faster than it ever had before. She had begun to think it might be a good idea to replace it. Although, how she'd go about that, she had no idea.