by Val McDermid
They’d agreed that they would meet for two hours every morning. That would give Catherine time to transcribe the tapes of their interviews and wouldn’t disrupt the Bennetts too much. The last thing she wanted was for them to grow fed up with her constant intrusion into their life. Nothing would dry up George’s flow of reminiscence faster than that.
Half an hour later, she emerged from a tunnel of winter trees into the centre ofCromford village.
Following George’s directions, she turned right by the millpond and cut up the hill, swinging out to make the sharp left turn into the drive of their detached house. As she killed the engine, the front door was already open. George stood framed in the doorway, a hand raised in greeting. In his dark-grey trousers, air-force blue cardigan and light-grey polo shirt, he looked like a model for a knitwear catalogue for the more mature man. All he needed, she thought, was a pipe clenched between his teeth. Jimmy Stewart meets suburbia in It’s A Wonderful Life for the over-sixties.
‘Good to see you, Catherine,’ he called.
‘And you, George.’ She shivered as she walked into the warm hall. ‘I’d forgotten how piercing the weather gets up here at this time of year.’
‘It takes me back,’ he said, leading the way down the carpeted hall into a living room that resembled a display in a furniture showroom. Everything was smart, stylish, even, but curiously without character. Even the framed 310 Monet prints appeared innocuous rather than indicators of taste. Not a single newspaper disturbed the clinical tidiness of the room, which smelled of floral air-freshener. Wherever the Bennetts displayed their individuality, it wasn’t in their living room.
‘It was bitter cold like this when Alison disappeared,’ George continued.
‘It made me hope right from the start she’d been kidnapped, you know. That way, there was a chance we might get her back. I knew in my heart that she’d never survive a night in the open in that weather.’ George gestured towards an armchair that looked both firm and comfortable. ‘Have a seat.’ He moved to the chair opposite. Catherine noticed he’d automatically taken the seat that put the light behind him and on her. She wondered if it were a policeman’s deliberate choice, or something as simple as that being his normal chair. Doubtless she’d be better able to judge after a few of these sessions. ‘So,’ George said. ‘How do you want to do this?’
Before she could reply, an elderly woman walked into the room. Short silver hair framed a face prematurely aged by the lines suffering had carved there. She held herself with the stiff awkwardness of someone for whom movement has ceased to be anything other than a painful necessity. Even from the other side of the room, Catherine could see the fingers knotted and twisted with the misshapen lumps of rheumatoid arthritis. But the smile on her face was still genuine, giving her blue eyes the sparkle of animation. ‘You must be Catherine,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to meet you. I’m Anne, George’s wife. Now, I’m not going to interfere with your interviews, except to ask if you’d rather have tea or coffee.’
‘It’s nice to meet you, too. Thanks for letting me invade your home like this,’ Catherine said, calculating the odds on getting a decent cup of coffee in an English home occupied by two people in their sixties. ‘I’ll have tea, please,’ she said. ‘Very weak, no milk or sugar.’ That should be safe, she reckoned. A couple of months of bad coffee was less than she deserved. ‘Tea it is,’ Anne said.
‘And Mrs Bennett?’ Catherine continued. ‘You won’t be intruding if you want to sit in on any of our sessions. And I’d be very grateful if I could talk to you at some point, to get a picture of what life was like for you as a policeman’s wife when your husband was investigating such a demanding case.’
Anne smiled. ‘Of course we can have a chat. But I’ll leave the interviews to you and George. I don’t want to cramp his style, and besides, I’ve plenty to be getting on with. And now, I’ll sort you some tea.’
As Anne left, Catherine took her tape recorder from her bag and placed it on the table between them. ‘I’ll be taping the interviews. That way there’s less chance of me making mistakes. So if there’s anything you want to say that’s not for publication, that’s just for my information, can you make that clear while we’re talking? Also, if there’s anything that you’re not sure about, can you mention that as well? That way I can keep a running list of things I need to check.’
George smiled. ‘That all sounds very sensible to me.’ He took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up, taking an ashtray out of the drawer in the occasional table by his side. ‘I hope you don’t mind these, by the way. I’ve cut down a lot since I stopped work, but I still can’t manage without them altogether.’
‘No problem. I’ve not smoked for a dozen years now, but I still think of myself as a smoker in abeyance rather than an ex-smoker. You’ll always find me with the smokers at parties—somehow, they’re usually the more interesting ones,’ she said with a smile, not simply flattering. She leaned forward and pressed the ‘record’ button. ‘We’re probably not going to get on to the case today.
What I’d like to start with is your own background. Most of this will never see the light of day, but it’s important for me that I have a picture of who you are and how you got to be that person if I’m going to write about your work on this case with the insight and the empathy I want to bring to it.
Also, it’s a way of easing gently into the story. I realize you’re probably quite nervous about going into the details of the case after all these years, and I want you to feel as relaxed and comfortable about it as possible. And of course, as a police officer, you’re much more accustomed to asking the questions than answering them. So is it OK if we start with you?’
George smiled. ‘That’s fine. I’m happy to tell you anything you want to know.’ He paused as Anne walked into the room, moving slowly with a tray that held two mugs. ‘One thing I will tell you.
This woman is the reason I’m not in the lunatic asylum after thirty-odd years in Derbyshire Police.
Anne is my rock, my tower of strength.’ Anne pulled a face as she put the tray down on the coffee table. ‘You’re such a flannel merchant, George Bennett. What you mean is, Anne is my catering service, my answering machine and my housekeeper.’ She looked up at Catherine with a smile.
It was clearly a familiar line of banter. ‘She had to develop arthritis so she could get me to lift a finger around the house,’ George added.
‘I had to do something,’ she said drily. ‘Otherwise you’d have taken retirement as a cue to stop dead. Now, stop blethering, and tell Catherine what she needs to know. I’ll bring some biscuits, then I’ll see you both when you’re finished.’
So began the pattern of days that lasted through February and March. Catherine would start each day by reading the section of her press cuttings that bracketed the part of the case they would be talking about. After breakfast, she would drive to Cromford, mulling over the questions she needed to tease more truth from her interviewee. Then she would lead George gently through the case, patiently backtracking to capture a particular detail of weather, of smell, of landscape.
She couldn’t help but be impressed by his eagerness to make sure they got everything spot on. He proved to have an almost photographic memory for the Alison Carter case, though he claimed not to have a particularly good recall of other investigations in his career. ‘I suppose I got a bit obsessed with Alison,’ he’d said near the beginning of their interviews.’Oh, I know it was my first big case, and I was determined to show I could do the business, but it was more than that. It probably had something to do with Anne telling me she was pregnant so near the start of the investigation. I was tormented by the worry of how I would feel if this were to happen to my child, so I wasn’t willing ever to let it go. ‘That’s what it was with me. I don’t know what it was with Tommy Clough, but he was as committed to every stage of the inquiry as I was. He worked even more hours than me, and it was his persistence with Hertfordshire Police that got us one of the
most crucial pieces of evidence, the linking of Hawkin to the gun that was used to kill Alison. ‘You know, it might sound strange, but I never saw him to speak to properly after Hawkin was hanged.
Tommy was still in Buxton, but I’d moved to Derby by then. A couple of times, we arranged to meet for a drink, but work always got in the way. And then within a couple of years of Alison’s murder, he handed in his resignation and moved away.’
‘Where did he go to?’ Catherine asked.
She’d already asked Peter Grundy the same question one evening in the pub, but he’d shrugged and told her nobody knew. It was as if Tommy Clough had vanished as comprehensively as Alison herself.
But George had known. ‘He’s in Northumberland. Some little village up there on the coast. He worked for years as a warden with the RSPB, but he’s retired now, like me. He never married, though, so he’s not got anybody like Anne to keep him going. We exchange Christmas cards, that’s about it. I think I’m the only one from the force he bothered to stay in touch with. I can give you his address, though. He might want to talk about Alison. I doubt it, somehow, but then, you got me talking, didn’t you?’ George smiled.
And so it continued, one strand leading seamlessly into another as the mornings slipped by. After she left George, Catherine soon developed a routine. She would stop on the way back at a pub on the Ashbourne road that did good lunches, then she’d be home by two. The afternoon and early evening were devoted to transcribing tapes, a task she found tedious beyond belief, in spite of her fascination with the material she was gradually amassing. After every half-hour, she allowed herself a short phone call or an e–mail session to save her from complete insanity. Work over, she’d heat up one of the ready meals she’d bought from the supermarket in her weekly shopping raid on Buxton. Then she’d have an hour by the fire with either her own magazine or a competitor, armed with a notebook. Finally, the day would end with a nightcap in the local pub. This usually involved buying Peter Grundy a drink too, but Catherine didn’t mind the small outlay. He’d already provided her with valuable background into Scardale and its families and besides, she’d grown to enjoy his company.
It was, she realized, a curiously satisfying way of life. The work was fascinating, drawing her back into a world that was both familiar and yet alien. The more she discovered about the background to the case, the more her respect for George Bennett had grown. She’d had no idea of what he’d had to contend with to bring Hawkin to justice, both from inside the force and outside. She’d never had a particularly high opinion of the police, but George was gradually transforming that prejudice.
She’d also been nervous of returning so close to home, almost super—stitiously afraid that somehow the stifling small-town life she’d struggled so hard to leave behind might swallow her again. Instead, she’d found a strange peace in the rhythm of her days and nights. Not that she’d want to live like this for ever, she reminded herself vigorously. She had a life, after all. This was just a pleasant interlude, nothing more. What else could it be?
43
April 1998
Catherine had forgotten how springtime came so late out here. For anyone living in the Derbyshire Peaks, April brought relief after the rigours of winter. Bulbs that had bloomed a full month before a mere dozen miles away on the Cheshire Plain finally thrust up through the ground. Trees pushed forth tentative blossom, and the sheep-cropped grass remembered the colour green.
In Scardale, the first leaves were starting to unfurl in copse and spinney as Catherine drove down into the village. Almost with regret, she had completed her initial interviews with George, and today marked the start of the second phase of her project. Catherine had never intended that her book should merely be George Bennett’s memoirs. She had always planned to interview as many of the people connected to the case as she could track down. It hadn’t occurred to her that so many of them would be reluctant to share their memories of the case. To her surprise, almost all of the Carters, Crowthers and Lomases had refused point blank to have anything to do with the project.
However, she had managed to schedule an interview with Alison’s aunt, Kathy Lomas. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much that other members of the extended family had turned her down since, according to George, Kathy had been closer to Ruth Carter than anyone else. For that reason alone, Catherine would have wanted to talk to her. But there was a second reason for her eagerness today.
In spite of Helen having prepared the way with her sister, Catherine still hadn’t been inside Scardale Manor. Word had come back to her via a letter from Janis Wainwright’s solicitor, who reported that his client had several trips planned throughout the late winter and early spring and would be working from home the rest of the time, when she preferred to remain undisturbed. The lawyer had suggested that, since Miss Wainwright could tell Catherine nothing about the Alison Carter case, the best solution that would meet Catherine’s needs without disrupting Janis’s busy schedule would be for the writer to view the manor on one of the occasions when its owner was away from home.
Catherine was more than happy to agree to the lawyer’s suggestion if that was the only way she would get to see inside the manor. Finally, today she would see the interior of Philip Hawkin’s inheritance. Even better, she’d have a guide who could reveal which room had been Alison’s, which Hawkin’s study, and describe the original decor. She couldn’t help speculating about the woman she was about to meet. George Bennett had painted a portrait of a shrewish, pushy woman who had no respect for the police and who constantly nagged and harried at his heels whenever she felt she had cause. Peter Grundy had described her as a woman haunted by what might have been.
From Peter, she had also gleaned some of the bare facts ofKathyLomas’s life. Alison’s aunt lived alone these days. Her husband Mike had died five years before in a farm accident, trampled to death by a berserk bull. Her son Derek had left Scardale to go to university in Sheffield and had become a soil scientist for the United Nations. Kathy, now in her mid-sixties, ran a flock of Jacob’s sheep in Scardale. She spun the fleeces into yarn which she then turned into expensive designer sweaters on a knitting machine that, according to Peter Grundy’s wife, had more controls than the space shuttle.
Kathy and Ruth Carter were cousins, separated by less than a year, connected by blood on both maternal and paternal sides. They had grown into women and mothers side by side. Kathy’s Derek had been born a mere three weeks after Alison. The families’ histories were inextricably intertwined. If Catherine couldn’t get what she needed from Kathy Lomas, the chances were she wasn’t going to get it anywhere else. And if she was as awkward as George had predicted, this was one she would have to handle with consummate skill.
Catherine pulled up outside Lark Cottage, the eighteenth-century house Kathy had lived in continuously since her marriage nineteen years before Alison disappeared. The woman who opened the door was still straight and sturdy, her steel-grey hair pinned up in a cottage loaf. Coupled with her coarse red cheeks, it made her look like Mrs Bunn the Baker’s Wife from Happy Families.
Only her eyes gave the lie to her jolly appearance. They were cool and critical, making Catherine feel she was being appraised and costed in more than merely monetary terms. ‘You’ll be the writer, then,’ Kathy greeted her, reaching to one side and taking a battered anorak from its peg. ‘You’ll be wanting a look at the manor first, I expect.’ Her tone offered no scope for an alternative suggestion.
‘That would be great, Mrs Lomas,’ Catherine said, falling in beside the older woman as they crossed the corner of the green towards the manor. ‘I really appreciate you giving up your time like this for me.’ She cursed herself for starting to gush.
‘I’m not giving it up for you,’ Kathy said briskly. ‘It’s for the sake of Alison’s memory. I often think about our Alison. She were a grand lass. I imagine the life she would have lived if things had gone different. I see her working with children. A teacher, or a doctor. Something positive, useful.
‘If I could turn back the hands of time and change one thing in my whole life, it would be that Wednesday night,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’d not let Alison out of my sight. There’s no point in telling me not to blame myself. I know Ruth Carter went to her grave wondering how she could have changed things, and I’ll go into the ground the same way when it’s my turn.
‘These days, my life seems to be full of regrets. What is it they say? ‘If might have beens were kings and queens, then we’d have kingdoms all.’ Well, I’ve had plenty of years to rue the things undone and the things unsaid. The trouble is, the only place I can say sorry to the people who matter is the graveyard. And that’s why I’m willing to talk to you, Miss Heathcote.’
She took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, ushering Catherine into the kitchen. Money had clearly been no object when it had been renovated. The pine units and dresser had a patina that indicated their antiquity was the real thing, not some modern reproduction. The worktops were a mix of marble and sealed wood. As well as a dark-green Aga, the room had a matching American-style double-fronted fridge-freezer and a dishwasher. Catherine glanced at the short stack of newspapers on the end of the kitchen table. The top one was dated two days previously. So Janis Wainwright wasn’t long gone, she thought. In spite of that, the kitchen had the empty air of a place long unoccupied.
‘I bet it wasn’t like this in 1963,’ she said drily.
At last, Kathy Lomas managed a smile. ‘You’re not wrong.’
‘Maybe you could tell me what it was like?’
‘I think I’ll make us a cup of tea first,’ Kathy hedged. ‘I appreciate Ms Wainwright letting me see over the place. You know her sister’s engaged to George Bennett’s son?’
‘Aye. It’s a small world, right enough.’ She filled the kettle. ‘I met Helen in Brussels,’ Catherine continued. ‘A nice woman. It’s a shame her sister’s not around.’