A Place of Execution (1999) (18 page)

‘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.

Friday, 13
th
December 1963. 5.52
PM

R
uth 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.’

‘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.

‘I’d like to take a look later, if I may.’

‘You’re welcome. Your uniformed lads were in there the night Alison disappeared, just checking that she wasn’t hiding there, but I explained that it’s normally kept locked. Because of the valuable equipment. But please don’t take their word for it. And if you ever need any professional photographs…’ Hawkin nodded at the gold ring gleaming on George’s finger. ‘Perhaps a portrait of you and your wife?’

The thought of Hawkin’s lounge-lizard charm focusing on Anne, even mediated by a camera lens, was disproportionately repugnant to George. Masking his distaste, he merely said, ‘That’s a very kind offer, sir. Now, about Wednesday afternoon. You’ve told us you went across to your darkroom about half-two. How long did you stay there?’ Hawkin frowned and reached for his cigarettes. ‘I had quite a backlog of printing to do. Entries for a competition, so it’s important to get the prints just so. I didn’t come back indoors until just before dinner time. I found my wife and Kathy Lomas getting themselves in a terrible state in the kitchen about Alison. Does that answer your question, Inspector?’

‘It answers my question, but it doesn’t resolve my difficulty. You see, sir, we have been told that you were seen walking from the woodland where we found Shep to the spinney where we discovered what we believe to be traces of a struggle involving Alison. The time has been put at about four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. Can you explain why anyone might think that, sir?’

It was Hawkin’s ears that flushed first, turning a deep scarlet that spread along his jaw and up his cheeks. ‘Because they are stupid peasants, Inspector?’

George sat up straight in his seat, astonished at the virulence of Hawkin’s response. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They’ve been inbreeding for centuries, Inspector. A village with three surnames? Their not exactly going to win Top of the Form, are they? Some of them barely know what year it is, never mind what day it is. Just because one of those halfwits mistook Tuesday for Wednesday…well, it’s hardly something to take seriously, is it? Look, Inspector, my uncle ran this village as if it was his personal hobby for a very good reason. He knew that without the protection of a squire, the people of Scardale would never survive. They’re just not equipped for the modern world.’ Suddenly, Hawkin ran out of vitriol. He ran a hand over his hair and managed one of his neat three-cornered smiles. ‘Believe me, Inspector, I never moved out of my darkroom on Wednesday afternoon.

Whoever told you otherwise was mistaken.’

Before George could respond, Clough chimed in with the perfect timing that makes comedy duos into stars. Ostentatiously flicking back the pages of his notebook, he spoke apologetically, ‘Sir, there were two statements.

Two individuals claim they saw you in the same place at about four o’clock on Wednesday. If it was just the one, well, frankly, sir, we’ve seen enough in the last couple of days to understand exactly what you’re getting at.

But with two…It’s a bit more awkward.’

This time, Hawkin’s smile appeared genuine. For the first time, George had a flash of what had attracted a Scardale widow like Ruth Carter. When he smiled, Hawkin had the same devilish quality as the young David Niven. And the same smoothness, George added mentally as Hawkin offered both policemen cigarettes with an expansive gesture. ‘Thankfully, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,’ he said, his voice straining for lightness. ‘And that would be?’ George asked, leaning forward to accept a light, his eyes never leaving Hawkin’s.

‘I’m often out in the dale. I take photographs, I walk my land to make sure everything is as it should be. You have to keep them up to the mark, you know, or the walls would be nothing more than piles of limestone rubble. And as for the gates…’ Pursed lips, shaken head. ‘Anyway, it so happens that on Tuesday I was in the field you mentioned. Obviously a couple of the villagers saw me there. After Alison disappeared, they’ll have been arguing about what day it was. Now, if I had been a Carter or a Crowther or a Lomas, I’d have been given the benefit of the doubt and they’d all have agreed it was Tuesday. But I’m an outsider, so they’re always ready to think the worst of me.

And, let’s not forget, they’re like children, always playing to the gallery. So if there was any doubt in what passes for a mind among the Carters, the Crowthers and the Lomases, they’d automatically pick the version of events that made them look important and me look bad.’ Hawkin leaned back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other to reveal a bony ankle and a few inches of white, hairy skin between pyjama and slipper.

‘You’re certain it wasn’t Wednesday?’ George asked.

‘I’m positive.’

‘And you’d be willing to sign a sworn statement to that effect?’ George asked. Nothing Hawkin had said persuaded him Ma Lomas and Charlie were mistaken, but it remained their word against his. And George knew who would make the more convincing witness.