The Power of One by Jane A. Adams

curious as to what the redoubtable Mrs Martin wanted, didn’t know when he’d be back.
    â€˜No, thank you,’ Rina told him. ‘I don’t think you can help. Will you just ask him to give me a ring?’
    She stood in the hall, undecided. Then tried Mac’s mobile only to be diverted on to his voicemail.
    â€˜Oh, for goodness sake.’ She gave up and instead marched into the kitchen and, for want of anything else to do, filled the kettle and set it on the range.
    â€˜You won’t help anything by storming around like some unhappy rhino, Rina dear,’ Bethany told her from the doorway. ‘Not that you are anything like a rhino, of course, you’re far too slim and elegant for that.’
    â€˜But they do talk about a crash of rhino, don’t they?’ Eliza attempted to come to her sister’s rescue. ‘And you are crashing rather.’
    Rina turned, exasperated, harsh words rising to her lips. She swallowed them down; the sight of the Peters sisters, pretty, still artfully blonde, still, Rina thought, children despite their now advancing years, doused her anger.
    â€˜I’ve always thought of Rina more as a secretary bird,’ Matthew said, wandering in. ‘All elegance and jaunty feathers and long neck but with a sharp beak at the ready to impale her prey.’
    Rina, who in turn had always thought of Matthew as a man-sized saluki, couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m not sure I like your version of me any better,’ she said. ‘But you’re right, this really won’t help anyone. Better to be doing.’
    She patted Matthew affectionately on the arm and sailed out of the kitchen, thinking about the photocopy Mac had given her. That was a puzzle to solve and, hopefully, something to take her mind off the worry. She knew Tim had been as shaken as she had by the gunshot and was as concerned as Rina that the gunman would have found out who and where they were. He’d be alert and careful.
    Perhaps she should have confided in Sergeant Baker.
    Shaking her head and forcibly pushing her anxiety aside, Rina went into her little room and closed the door.
    â€˜What is this place?’ Lydia asked as they got out of the car in front of the old farmhouse. The drive was even more overgrown than Tim remembered it, nettles and brambles reaching out across the gap, hawthorn scraping the sides of the car. The privet hedge that surrounded the farmyard itself was a good foot higher, twined through with bindweed and belladonna. Birds sang, but beyond that there was utter silence.
    Two of the farmhouse windows had been boarded up since Tim had last been there and the front door had gained a padlock; Tim supposed the police had affixed that when the house was still considered a crime scene.
    â€˜Who owns this place?’
    â€˜I actually have no idea,’ Tim said. ‘But no one’s lived here in years. You won’t be here for long and you saw how long the drive was. We can’t be seen from the road.’
    â€˜It still looks … I don’t know. Creepy. How did you know about this place?’
    Tim was rummaging in the boot of the car, sorting through his tool kit, trying to find something to break the padlock off the door. He wondered what to tell Lydia in response to her question. He’d been puzzling about this since they left Peverill Lodge and now decided something close to the truth would have to do. A large screwdriver found to attack the door, he emerged from behind the car. ‘Just before you came to live in Frantham, there was a kidnapping, just a few miles away. Two little girls. They were held here for a while. Our friend Fitch helped to find them.’
    â€˜Oh, my God,’ Lydia said. ‘I read about that in the newspaper. Wasn’t there a siege or something?’
    Tim nodded. He slid the blade of the screwdriver behind the door and pulled, wrenching the screws out of the door frame with a splintering