Crying Out Loud (17 page)

I remembered Damien's comment about the ghost in the prison. John Ellis, the hangman who'd slit his own throat. Was Damien with him now? A shadow swinging on a creaking rope in the dark end of the night. Another lost soul.

‘Where are we going?' Maddie piped up, stopping my stupid fancies. Blame it on lack of sleep.

‘For a walk in the country.'

‘Will we see lambs?'

‘I think it's a bit late for lambs, they're born in the spring. But there's a children's farm.'

‘What, with children in?!' She was astounded and then saw the joke. We both laughed.

‘For children. We'll walk a bit then go to the farm. It might be feeding time.'

In the bottom of the valley, where Damien got off the bus, the road ran parallel to the river. We drove past the service station on the left and the pub advertising home-cooked food. From there I could see beyond the turn off to the bus shelter on the opposite side of the road, where Damien had been chucked off. I turned right at that junction to take the hill up to the cottage. The hamlet was pretty – maybe two dozen properties in all, clinging to the valley sides. Half of them looked to have grown out of the land, built low to the ground, the stone dark and weathered with age, the windows tiny – no doubt to avoid the punitive window taxes at the time. Somewhere like this must have been a working village, digging clay or lead or quarrying. The newer houses were bigger in scale: the same limestone but raw, glowing pale grey. They boasted picture windows, veluxes on the roofs and off-road parking.

I stopped my car partway up the hill, behind a vehicle on the left before the bend where the road twisted to the right. This was where Damien had passed two stationary cars and cased them for valuables. A Mondeo and a Volvo. The car in front of me now was a Volvo. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. It could be the same one. I used my camcorder to capture a shot of it and took in the locale as well.

‘What are you filming?' Maddie smelt a rat.

‘This and that. We'll take some of you at the farm, too.'

Jamie was awake but content and kicked her legs in excitement as I fastened her seat into the buggy chassis. The previous day's fog had lifted and we had mellow autumn sunshine. Out here there was much more birdsong, the twittering of wrens and tits and finches pierced by the raucous calls of rooks patrolling two sycamores at the end of one of the gardens.

Damien had tried the cars, looked to see if there was anything worth stealing, then crossed over. I retraced his steps. As he rounded the corner he met a man coming down the hill. Pushing the buggy up the gradient, I tried to imagine the lane at night. There were some street lights, so it wouldn't have been in complete darkness. The man had been heading down the hill. Where to? The man had crossed the road after he passed Damien, which was the wrong direction for the pub and the service station. Was he heading for one of the houses on that side of the road, or one of the cars? Or the bus stop?

If he lived here, how come he hadn't been identified by the police? All the houses would have been visited, people asked to help. Damien had heard a car start as he approached the cottage. He'd frozen, listening in case it came his way but it had gone off down the hill. Driven by that man? I should have asked him if both cars had still been there when he fled down the hill after finding Charlie's body, or had either of them gone? Too late, now. I'd never know.

The road straightened out again and there was the driveway on the right, at an incline and at the top, the side door and window of the cottage. It had been sited so the front, the longer aspect looked out across the valley to the hills on the other side of the road. There was no car around, no sign of anyone about. The place did look lived in; there were some pots of cyclamens beside the door. A sign at the bottom of the drive read To Let and gave a local agency phone number.

I pulled the buggy halfway up the drive then put the brake on and told Maddie to wait there a moment.

‘Why?'

‘I just want a quick look up here. I'll only be a minute.'

‘Why, though? 'Cos it's for rent? Are we moving?'

How does she do that, I thought? Pick up on undercurrents, on anxieties of mine, hone in on them. ‘No, it's just a work thing. Now wait there.'

I filmed the approach and walked up the short drive to where it levelled out some four yards from the building. That fit with Damien's description of the car parked just by the door. He'd come outside, feeling sick and stopped by the car. He'd heard the ticking, felt the warmth of the bonnet. The only explanation for that was that the car had been used recently. So Charlie had not been here very long when his attacker struck.

The man Damien passed – Nick Dryden or whoever – was perhaps waiting for Charlie. Charlie gets back, opens the cottage, the man kills Charlie, walks down the hill to his own car and drives away, narrowly missing being interrupted or caught red-handed by Damien looking for easy pickings.

Around the front of the house was a patio and seating area by large centrally placed French doors. There might have been barn doors there once. Gauzy curtains obscured any glimpses of the interior. The view was lovely, immediately below the road dipped in and out of sight, as did the river, and beyond the hills climbed up to meet the sky. The hillsides were stitched with dry stone walls and farm buildings dotted here and there. I could hear sheep bleating from afar. It reminded me of Geoff Sinclair's place.

‘Can I help you?'

I started, cold sweat prickling under my arms as a man appeared from the far end of the house. His face was wary, he was middle-aged, casually dressed and held a pair of hedging shears in one hand.

‘I wanted to have a look at the cottage,' I fudged my answer.

He looked at my camcorder. ‘I see. You a reporter?'

‘Mummy?' Maddie piped up, out of sight.

‘Wait there a minute.'

‘I am!' She was getting fed up.

He looked confused. I moved towards the road, where I could see the children, inviting the man to follow. ‘I'm investigating the conviction of Damien Beswick.' I waited for recognition. And got it: a small nod. ‘Are you local?' I asked.

‘Just down the road,' he gestured. ‘I keep an eye on the place. You're not with the police?'

‘Private, working for the family.' After a fashion. I passed him my card. ‘The Volvo – is that yours?'

‘Yes, why?' He frowned.

‘You always park it there?'

‘Yes,' he said.

‘It was there, the night of the incident?' I chose the blander word.

‘I already told the police,' he said.

‘Do you remember another car, parked next to yours? A Mondeo?'

‘No, people come and go. I can't see the road from my study.'

‘Do any of your neighbours own a Mondeo?'

‘No.' He shook his head.

‘Can we go now?' Maddie yelled.

‘Just coming.' I thought about the man coming down the hill. ‘Do you get people hill-walking up here?'

‘It's a popular spot,' he acknowledged.

‘Are there footpaths up that way?' I signalled up the hill.

‘No, that's private land this side, no access. All the trails are across the other side of the valley.' He jerked his head towards the view I'd admired.

So whoever Damien had passed had not been out fell-walking.

‘They thought it was the girlfriend,' he said. ‘Maybe they were right all along.'

‘I don't think so,' I told him.

After all, she was the one who'd hired me in the first place.

When I studied the Land Ranger map I'd bought at the service station in the valley, I could see that there weren't any properties higher up the hill than Charlie's cottage: it was on the very edge of the hamlet. The residential area was very compact; perhaps there were by-laws to prevent development outside the village centre.

While at the service station, I'd also made a point of looking for CCTV cameras. There was one covering the forecourt and the shop, and another facing the exit and the road towards Sheffield and the bus shelter where Damien had got high before looking for something to steal. The police must have examined the tapes from these: it was standard procedure nowadays. So what had they found?

Maddie hung over the farm gates, cooing at various animals in turn from kid goats to Vietnamese pot bellied pigs, and Jamie stared at everything with fascinated incomprehension.

My thoughts returned to Charlie's death. In particular to the car, cooling outside his house. The car had been driven recently. Or could the engine have been going for some other reason? Some DIY task of Charlie's? Pumping up an airbed, or shining headlights on some job? Jump leads? Had someone broken down, or pretended to? Lured Charlie to give them a hand?
Always helping people out
, Libby had said,
nothing too much trouble
. Then what? My mind stalled. The door had been unlocked, the house in gloom. There was no sign of a break-in.

I kept returning to the conclusion that the murderer must have struck as soon as Charlie reached the cottage. Charlie had opened up but hadn't had time to turn the lights on, when he was attacked. Or, as Sinclair suggested, the killer had switched the lights off before shutting the door and hiding the dreadful crime. All this just minutes before Damien tried the door.

It was time to feed one of the calves. A volunteer asked who would like to have a go. Maddie's arm shot up and she gave a little jump. She went second, after a boy who giggled all the way through. The brown calf smelt of warm hair and hay and milk. Its limpid eyes, fuzzy pink nose and big teeth entranced the children. Maddie stuck the teat in its mouth and clutched the bottle with both hands as the animal tugged at it. This triggered some recognition in Jamie, who began to mewl. After the train fiasco, I was better prepared and warmed her feed with boiled water from a flask.

While Maddie continued to help feed the calf and advise those children coming after her on technique, I pulled the buggy round to the edge of a stall where a huge sow lay panting on the straw, and I punched in Geoff Sinclair's number.

‘Can I come and see you again?' I asked him. ‘I'd really appreciate it. Today, if possible.'

‘I'm going to be out,' he said.

‘When you get back then – whenever's convenient.'

There was a long pause. He was going to turn me away. I needed to talk to him; I needed information only the police would have. I stared at the sow, her belly shuddering with her breaths, her mucky trotters and large snout.

‘After four,' he consented. I let out my breath.

I sat with Jamie by the duck pond. She studied my face as she fed, her eyes swinging from mine to my mouth and back again. What was she thinking? Where was her mother this soft, Sunday afternoon? I smiled at Jamie and she smiled back, losing her grip on the teat momentarily. She fed swiftly and when I raised her to wind her, one of her hands gripped my ear.

‘You're a lovely girl,' I told her and she gave a ripe burp in reply.

There was no sign of Ray or Tom when we got home. Abi Dobson was free to babysit and came over in time for me to drive out to Geoff Sinclair's for four. I was tired before I set out; I'd been tired all day and had to open the car window to let the cold air refresh my senses and counteract the fatigue.

He took an age to open the door, making me think that rather than bother a sick man, the sooner I could talk to someone else involved with the police case the better. At least I hoped so. Police officers come in all shapes and sizes, from the nit-picking and officious to the generous and cooperative. Some resent private investigators; others hope to make a second career in that line. Luck of the draw.

Sinclair didn't offer me tea this time, just a seat. I looked out to where the sun was blazing over the moorland, washing the shreds of cloud with vermillion and cherry and for a split second wondered about somewhere like this for Maddie and me if we had to move, then dismissed it instantly as a passing folly. Neither of us would cope with the isolation, the distance from facilities, the need to make an effort with all the locals. Maddie would miss school and all her friends. And I'd miss mine. Working would be harder as most of my jobs are in the city; I'd spend half my life in the car.

I laid out my thoughts to Geoff Sinclair: ‘If we accept that Damien told me the truth, as far as he could remember, then it suggests that Charlie was attacked soon after he reached the cottage, and shortly before Damien found him. The lights were off and the door unlocked. And Charlie's car was still warm when Damien came out of the cottage.'

Sinclair frowned at that.

‘Damien felt ill,' I elaborated. ‘He went to steady himself on the car. The metal was hot.'

Sinclair shrugged. ‘A shock like that, the nausea, makes you sweat, that's all.'

‘But he didn't just feel it, he heard it, too: the clicking of the bodywork cooling. It only came back to him when we talked. And it is such a specific, bizarre detail I'm certain it's a genuine memory. That time of year, it would take, what, ten minutes to cool off? Did you have an estimate for the time of death?'

He made a sound, an exasperated snort. ‘I really don't think it's my place—'

‘Please, if you can still remember?' It was a challenge of sorts as well as a plea. I reckoned he would pride himself on knowing the details of his last case. Probably older ones, too. He struck me as a conscientious man.

He was quiet for a moment, then: ‘The pathologist estimated that Charlie died sometime in the four hours preceding discovery by Libby Hill at six, though time of death is only ever an approximation. We had the last sighting from Heather Carter and Valerie Mayhew at four fifteen. It would take a further fifteen to twenty minutes to reach the cottage depending on the traffic. So that gave us a time frame of an hour and a half, between four thirty and six.'