06 The Patient Man by Joy Ellis

Author:Joy Ellis
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781789312799
Publisher: Joffe Books
Published: 2020-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

This time Rachel Lorimer was incandescent with rage, but anticipating this reaction, Jackman had made a PC drag a magistrate out of bed and issue a search warrant for the whole place, and the motorhome.

‘Did Ezra talk to you last night, Mrs Lorimer?’ Robbie asked urgently. ‘He had something very important to tell you.’

‘What are you talking about? I never even saw Ezra last night!’ Rachel was almost jumping up and down in her fury.

‘Rachel! Calm down.’ Marie stepped forward. ‘This really is important. Ezra promised to speak to you. There was something he wanted you to know about before we came knocking on your door.’ She looked intently at Rachel. ‘He’s done something that could get your sons into a lot of hot water. Do you understand?’

Rachel’s expression was stony. ‘And what has he done exactly?’

‘First, we need to see him. Do you want to come with us?’ Marie asked.

‘Too right I do,’ Rachel said through gritted teeth.

Two uniformed officers were already stationed outside the motorhome.

Jackman stepped forward and rapped hard on the door. ‘Ezra Lorimer! Police! Open up please.’

Getting no answer, Robbie walked around to the front and tried the driver’s door. ‘Locked, sir. And there’s a screen pulled down over the windows.’

Jackman went to call out again but Rachel Lorimer got there first. ‘Cousin Ezra! Get yourself out here this minute!’

Silence. A pigeon flapped its wings. Ezra too had flown.

‘Break in!’ Jackman called out to one of the police constables.

The lock was easily cracked, and Jackman wrenched the door back.

Marie peered inside. No sign of Ezra Lorimer. His clothes were still there, and nothing appeared to have been taken, but the man himself was gone.

‘We need to talk, Rachel. Can you get the family together?’ Marie looked at her rather sadly. ‘Your cousin has caused your sons a lot of damage, and you need to know the truth.’

Rachel turned her back and stalked towards the farmhouse, yelling out her children’s names, her face set and grim.

It took around ten minutes for them to assemble — in varying stages of undress but all with the same expression on their faces — sheer terror.

Rachel sat, ram-rod straight in an old armchair, and looked at each of her children in turn. ‘So, which one of you bunch of blockheads is going to tell me what’s been going on?’

‘Let me speak first.’ Jackman stepped forward. ‘We need to explain a few things before you start apportioning blame. These young people have been conned by your cousin into believing that what he told them to do would benefit you.’

Heads nodded frantically at this.

‘Explain.’

As Jackman told her, Rachel’s anger slowly dissipated and an expression of intense hurt began to spread across her face. When Jackman had finished, she sighed and said, ‘I still cannot believe that he took them all in like that.’ She stared at them incredulously. ‘How could you be so gullible? Jacob I can understand, but as for the rest of you . . . Even you, Levi?’

‘I believed him, Ma.

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