by Val McDermid
Ma Lomas’s head came up as if someone had yanked at the hair on the back of her head. Her eyes widened. ‘Not Ruth. No, you mustn’t. Not Ruth.’
‘Why not?’ George demanded, letting some of his anger out. ‘She wants Alison found, she doesn’t want us to waste our time on false leads. She’ll tell us anything we want to know, believe me.’
She glared at him, her witch’s face malevolent as a Halloween mask. ‘Sit down,’ she hissed. It was a command, not an invitation. George retreated to his chair. Ma Lomas stood up and moved unsteadily across to the sideboard. She opened the door and took out a bottle whose label claimed it contained whisky. The contents, however, were colourless as gin. She filled a sherry glass with the liquid and drank it down in one. She gave two sharp coughs, her shoulders heaving, then she turned back to them, her eyes watering. ‘Peter were always a problem,’ she said slowly. ‘He always had a dirty mind,’ she continued, making her way back to her chair. ‘Nasty. Mucky. You’d find him out in the fields, staring at any animals that were coupling. The older he got, the worse he got. He’d follow anybody that was courting, his own kith and kin, desperate to see what they were doing.
You’d know when the ram were serving the ewes because you’d walk into the wood and find Peter standing with his…’ She paused, pursed her lips, then continued. ‘His thing in his hand, eyes on stalks, watching the beasts at their business. He’d been slapped and shouted at, kicked and called for it, but it made no difference to him. After a time, it didn’t seem to matter so much. In a place like Scardale, you have to endure what you can’t cure.’
She stared into the fire and sighed. ‘Then young Ruth started to change from a little girl into a young woman. Peter was like a man obsessed. He followed her around like a dog sniffing after a bitch in heat. Clan caught him a couple of times up a ladder outside the lass’s bedroom, watching her through a crack in the curtains. We all tried to make him see sense—she was his own sister, it couldn’t go on. But Peter would never take a telling. In the end, Clan made him move out of the house and sleep over here in my cottage.’
Ma Lomas paused and briefly rubbed her closed eyelids. Neither George nor Clough moved a muscle, determined not to break the momentum of the story. ‘One night, Clan came back from Longnor. He’d been having a drink. This was during the war, when we were supposed to keep a blackout.
As soon as he turned into the dale, he could see a chink of light shining out like a beacon from the village. He pedalled as fast as he could, wanting to tell whoever it was that they had a light showing before the bobby saw it and fined them. He was a good half-mile away when he realized it must be coming from his own home. Then he really stepped on it. Soon, he recognized the very window—Ruth’s bedroom. He knew their Diane was alone with Ruth, and he was convinced something terrible had happened to one or other of them.’ She turned to face her spellbound audience.
No ‘Well, he was wrong, and he was right. He came roaring and rushing into the house like a hurricane, up the stairs two at a time, near on hitting his head on the beams. He flung open the door to Ruth’s room and there was Peter standing by Ruth’s bed, his pants round his ankles, the lantern casting a shadow on the ceiling that made his cock look like a broomstick. The lass had been fast asleep, but Clan bursting in like a madman woke her up. She must have thought she was having a nightmare.’ The old woman shook her head. ‘I could hear her screaming right across the village geen. ‘The next thing I heard was Peter screaming. It took three men to drag Clan off him. I thought he was a dead man, covered in blood like a calf that’s had a hard birth. We locked him in a lambing shed until his body had started to heal, then Squire Castleton arranged for him to go into the hostel in Buxton. Clan told him if he ever came near Ruth or Scardale again, he’d kill him with his bare hands. Peter believed him then and he believes him now. I know you’ll be thinking that what I’ve told you means he could have seen Ruth in Alison and done something terrible to her.
But you’re wrong. It means the very opposite. If you want to make Peter Crowther crawl across the floor begging for mercy, just go and tell him Ruth and Clan are looking for him. The last place he’d ever come is Scardale. The last person he’d come near is anybody connected to Scardale. Take my word for it, I know.’
She sat back in her chair, her narrative over. The oral tradition would never die as long as Ma Lomas lived, George thought. She epitomized the village elder who holds the tribal history, its integrity protected only by her personal skills. He’d never expected to encounter one of those in 1963 in Derbyshire. ‘Thank you for telling us, Mrs Lomas,’ he said formally. ‘You’ve been very helpful. One more thing before we leave you in peace. Charlie said he’d seen Mr Hawkih in the field between the wood and the copse on Wednesday afternoon. He told us you were retracing his steps just now. Did you also see the squire on Wednesday, then?’ She gave him a calculating look, her eye as bright as a parrot’s. ‘Not after Alison disappeared, no.’
‘But before?’
She nodded. ‘I’d been having a cup of tea with our Diane. When I came out, Kathy were just getting into the Land Rover to go up to the lane end to pick up Alison and Janet and Derek from off the school bus. I saw David and Brian over by the milking parlour, bringing the cows in. And I saw Squire Hawkin crossing the field.’
‘Why didn’t you mention this?’ George asked, exasperated.
‘Why would I? There was nothing out of the ordinary in it. It’s his field, why wouldn’t he be walking it? He’s always out and about, snapping away with his camera when you least expect it.
Besides, like I said, Alison wasn’t even home from school by then. He’d have had to be a bloody slow walker to still be in the field when she came out with Shep. And this weather, nobody walks slow in Scardale,’ she added decisively, as if settling an argument.
George closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. When he opened them again, he could have sworn a smile was twitching the corners of the old woman’s mouth. ‘I’ll have all this typed up into a statement,’ he said. ‘I expect you to sign it.’
‘If it’s truthful, you’ll get no argument from me. You going to let Peter go now?’
George got up and deliberately tucked his chair back under the table. ‘We’ll be taking what you’ve told us into consideration when we make our decision.’
‘He’s not a violent man, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Even supposing he had seen Alison, even supposing she’d reminded him of Ruth, all she’d have had to do was push him away. He’s a cowardly man.
Don’t waste your time on Peter and let a guilty man go free.’
‘You seem to have made your mind up that whatever’s happened to Alison, somebody made it happen,’ dough said, standing up, but making a point of keeping his notebook open.
Her face seemed to close in on itself, eyes narrowing, mouth pursing, nose wrinkling. ‘What I think and what you know are very different things. See if you can get them a bit closer together, Sergeant Clough. Then we’ll maybe all know what happened to our lass.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘I thought you said you were going to talk to Squire Hawkin?’
‘We are,’ George said.
‘Better get your skates on, then. He likes his tea on the table at six sharp and I can’t see him changing his ways for you.’ They saw themselves out. ‘What did you make of that, Tommy?’
George asked.
‘She’s telling us the truth as she sees it, sir.’
‘And the alibi for Charlie?’
Clough shrugged. ‘She could be lying for him. She would lie for him, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But until we find somebody saying something different, or something more solid to tie him to Alison’s disappearance, we’ve got no reason to doubt her. And I agree with her about Crowther, for what it’s worth.’
The too.’ George ran a hand over his face. The skin felt raw with tiredness, the very bones seeming nearer the surface. He sighed. ‘We should let him go, sir,’ Clough said, fishing o
ut his cigarettes and passing one to George. ‘He’s not going to run. He’s got nowhere to run to. I could call the station from the phone box and tell them to bail him. They can give him stringent conditions—he shouldn’t go within five miles of Scardale, he’s got to stay at the hostel, he should report daily. But there’s no need to keep him in, surely.’
‘You don’t think we’re exposing him to lynch-mob justice?’ George asked.
‘The longer we keep him, the worse it looks for him. We could get the duty officer to tip the wink to the newspaper lads that Crowther was never a suspect, just a vulnerable adult relative that we brought in so we could interview him away from the pressures of the outside world. Some sort of rubbish like that. And I could mention the need to spread the same word round the pubs.’ There was a stubborn set to Clough’s jaw. He had a point, and George was too tired to argue a case he didn’t feel passionately about either way.
‘All right, Tommy. You call them and say it’s my orders. And make sure somebody informs the DCI. He won’t like it, but that’s his hard cheese. I’ll see you in the caravan. If I don’t get a brew inside me, I’ll be falling off my perch before I can get anything out of the squire.’ George didn’t even wait for a response. He walked straight across the green to the police caravan. No prickle of intuition made him turn and stay Detective Sergeant Clough’s hand. After all, Clough was convinced he was doing the right thing. Not even Ma Lomas’s instincts had cried out against releasing Peter Crowther.
It was a burden of knowledge they would all share equally.
13
Friday, 13th December 1963. 5.52PM
Ruth Hawkin was wiping her hands on her apron as she opened the kitchen door ofScardale Manor.
A brief hope flared in her eyes but found nothing in their faces to fan the spark into flame. Hope abandoned, fear wasted no time in taking its place. Judging from the dark circles under her eyes and the pinched look of her pale skin, anxiety had been seldom absent in the previous two days.
Seeing her distress, George quickly said, ‘We’ve no fresh news, Mrs Hawkin. I’m sorry. Can we come in a minute?’ Ruth nodded and mutely stepped aside, still rubbing her hands on the rough floral cotton of her wraparound apron. Her shoulders were slumped, her movements sluggish and abstracted. George and Clough trooped past her and stood awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen floor. The unmistakable smell of steak and kidney floated on the air, making both men salivate with hunger. George wondered fleetingly what Anne would have waiting for him if he ever got home. One thing was sure: it would be shrivelled past desirability at this rate. ‘Is your husband at home?’ he asked. ‘It was actually him we needed to have a word with.’
‘He’s been out searching with your lads,’ she said quickly. ‘He came in exhausted so he went for a bath. Is it something I could help you with?’
George shook his head. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. We just need a word with him.’
She glanced at the battered enamel alarm clock on a shelf by the cooker. ‘He’ll be down for his tea in ten minutes.’ She chewed the right-hand corner of her lower lip in an unconscious parade of anxiety. ‘It’d be better if you could come back later. After he’s eaten. Maybe about half past? I’ll tell him to expect you.’ Her smile was nervous. ‘If you don’t mind holding back the tea, Mrs Hawkin, we’ll speak to 114 your husband when he comes down,’ George said gently. ‘We don’t want to waste any time.’
The skin round her eyes and mouth tightened. ‘You think I don’t understand that? But he’ll be needing his tea after being out in the dale all afternoon.’
‘I appreciate that, and we’ll be as quick as we can.’
‘As quick as you can about what, Inspector?’
George half turned. He hadn’t heard Hawkin open the door behind him. The squire was wearing a shaggy camel dressing gown over striped pyjamas. His skin glowed pink from his bath, his hair even more sleek against his skull than before. He had one hand thrust in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette in a pose that would have passed for debonair in a West End theatre but only managed ridiculous in a Derbyshire farm kitchen. George dipped his head in acknowledgement.
‘We need a few minutes of your time, Mr Hawkin.’
‘I’m about to eat, Inspector,’ he said petulantly. ‘As I expect my wife will already have told you.
Perhaps you could call back later?’ Interesting, George thought, that Hawkin hadn’t even asked if fresh news had brought the police back to his kitchen. Not a mention ofAlison, not a hint that he was concerned about anything except filling his belly. ‘I’m afraid not, sir. As I’ve already indicated, in inquiries of this nature, we believe it’s vital not to waste time. So if Mrs Hawkin wouldn’t mind keeping your dinner warm, we’d like a word.’
Hawkin’s sigh was theatrically loud. ‘Ruth, you heard the inspector.’ He moved forward to the table, his hand snaking out from his pocket and reaching for the back of his chair.
‘It might be better elsewhere, sir,’ George said.
Hawkin’s eyebrows arched. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We prefer to interview witnesses independently of each other. And since your wife has things to attend to in here, it seems sensible for us to go elsewhere. The living room, perhaps?’ George was inexorably polite but irresistibly firm.
‘I’m not going into the living room. It’ll be like a cold store in there and I’ve no intention of catching pneumonia for your benefit.’ He tried to soften his words with a swift triangle of a smile, but George found it unconvincing. ‘My study’s warmer,’ Hawkin added, turning towards the door.
They followed him down the chilly hall to a room that looked like a miniature gentlemen’s club. A pair of leather armchairs flanked a grate where a paraffin heater squatted. Hawkin made straight for the one that overlooked the window. A wide desk with a scarred leather top occupied the opposite end of the room, its surface scattered with ornamental paperweights. The walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves crammed with leather-bound volumes, ranging in size from tall ledgers to tiny pocketbooks. A parquet floor, worn uneven with years of use, was partly covered by a frail and faded Turkish rug. By the door was a glazed gun cupboard containing a matching pair of shotguns.
George knew nothing about guns, but even he recognized that these were no common farmer’s rook controllers. ‘Lovely room, sir,’ he said, crossing to the armchair opposite Hawkin.
‘I don’t think my uncle changed anything from his grandfather’s day,’ he said. ‘I shall want to modernize it a bit. Get rid of that tatty old desk and clear out some of these books to make way for something more contemporary. I need somewhere to store my photographic books and my negatives.’
George bit his tongue. He’d have loved a room like this, redolent of a connected past and present, a room he could imagine passing on to a son. If he was lucky enough to have a son. The thought of what Hawkin might do to it was painful, even though he recognized it was none of his business.
But it didn’t make him like the man any better. He glanced over his shoulder at Clough, who had slipped into the desk chair and had his notebook out, pencil poised. The sergeant nodded. George cleared his throat, wishing for the authority that a few more years would automatically bring.
‘Before I get on to the main reason we wanted to see you, sir, I wanted to check that you haven’t received any communication asking for a ransom for Alison.’
Hawkin frowned. ‘Surely nobody would imagine I have that kind of money, Inspector? Just because I own a bit of land?’
‘People get all sorts of ideas in their heads, sir. And with the Sinatra kidnapping being in the news, it’s as well to bear it in mind as a possibility.’ Hawkin shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I’ve had no such thing. Not a letter, not a phone call. We had several letters today from local Buxton people who had heard about Alison’s disappearance, but they were all offering sympathy, not asking for money. You’re welcome to take a look; they’re all on the dresser in the kitchen.’
&nb
sp; ‘If you do, sir, it’s important that you let us know. Even if you’re warned against telling us, for Alison’s sake, you mustn’t keep it from us. We need your cooperation in this.’
Hawkin gave a nervous laugh. ‘Believe me, Inspector, if anybody thinks they’re going to get their hands on my money as well as my stepdaughter, they’ve got another think coming. You can rely on me to get right on to you if anyone is foolish enough to think I’m in a position to ransom Alison.
Now, what was it you wanted to see me about? I’ve been out in the dale all afternoon, and I’m famished.’
‘We’ve discovered a small discrepancy between statements. We wanted to clear the matter up.
Finding Alison is our highest priority, so any potential misunderstandings need to be sorted out as quickly as possible.’
‘Of course they do,’ Hawkin said, turning away to crush out his cigarette in the ashtray perched on top of a pile of newspapers next to his chair. ‘You stated that on the afternoon Alison disappeared, you were in your darkroom?’
Hawkin cocked his head to one side. ‘Yes,’ he drawled, caution in his eyes.
‘All afternoon?’
‘Why does it matter when I went into my darkroom?’ he said. ‘I don’t understand what my afternoon activities had to do with Alison.’
‘If you could bear with me, sir, then we can resolve this problem very quickly. Can you tell us when you went through to your darkroom?’ Hawkin rubbed the side of his narrow nose with his index finger. ‘We ate lunch at twelve thirty as usual, then I came through here to read the paper. One of the drawbacks of rural living is that the post and the morning paper seldom arrive before lunch. So I have my little ritual after lunch of retiring here to deal with any post and read the Express. On Wednesday, I had a couple of letters to answer, so it was probably somewhere in the region of half past two when I went out to the darkroom. It’s a small outbuilding at the back of the manor that already had running water. I had it converted. Are you interested in photography, Inspector? I promise you, you won’t have seen a private darkroom as well equipped and laid out as mine.’ Hawkin’s smile was the nearest thing to unguarded candour George had ever seen on his face.