The Hanging Wood (9 page)

Crumbling stone pillars guarded a dirt track leading to the stone farmhouse. Ugly single-storey extensions had been added on either side of the building, as if to remind visitors that this was a workplace, not the setting for some rural idyll. No front garden, just an open space where a mud-spattered estate car and a couple of farm vehicles were parked.

As Hannah reversed in the turning space, she caught sight of someone in her rear-view mirror. A tall man with a thick mass of hair and a beard, standing next to one of the stone pillars. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, and she’d have assumed he was one of the myriad walkers who swarmed over the Lake District, if he’d had a rucksack on his back.
But there was no rucksack. As the car swung round, the man stared at them, before turning on his heel. Within moments, he rounded the hawthorn hedge and vanished from sight.

‘What do you suppose he was up to?’ Hannah asked.

‘I’ve heard of trainspotters.’ Greg shrugged. ‘But farmyard spotters?’

The only greenery this side of the fields was the thick ivy curtain around the entrance porch. A cobbled yard separated the house from a slurry tank, a straggle of
steel-framed
sheds and a two-storey L-shaped brick outbuilding. Two swarthy labourers watched from behind a tractor as the two detectives got out of the car. They muttered to each other in a language that Hannah recognised as Polish. You heard it spoken a lot in the Lake District nowadays; the place was a magnet for people who wanted work and didn’t expect to be paid the earth. She caught the word
policja
, and for a moment she thought they were about to come up and buttonhole her. But one of the men put a restraining hand on his companion’s wrist, as if he’d had second thoughts. Before Hannah could approach them, they hurried off towards the sheds.

‘Ever get the feeling that people are avoiding you?’ Hannah said as she locked the car.

‘All the time,’ Greg murmured. ‘Cold Comfort Farm, eh? They’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet.’

‘Maggie has a favourite phrase,’ Hannah said. ‘
Every farm is unique
. Each has its own design, but more than that. Each has a distinct personality.’

‘Yeah, well, what does that make Lane End?’ he asked. ‘A surly recluse?’

A muck spreader roared in the distance as they rang the doorbell. Deirdre Hinds kept them waiting a whole minute before she opened up. In her early forties, she was short and squat and carrying too much weight. Her cheeks were pasty, and her eyes red-rimmed. Distress due to her stepdaughter’s death? Her hands were covered in flour, and she didn’t offer to shake.

‘Inspector Scarlett, is it? He’ll be somewhere around the yard. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m busy baking.’

The door banged shut in their faces before they could utter a word.

‘Charming,’ Greg said. ‘And there was I, hoping she’d offer us a traditional farmhouse tea.’

‘Wonder what she made of Orla?’ Hannah said as they headed for the yard.

‘She doesn’t look like a wicked stepmother to me. Downtrodden, yes. I bet her old man wasn’t happy that she arranged this meeting.’

Hannah pointed to the top of the silver tower, visible in the distance above the roof of the barn. ‘That must be the silo where Orla died.’

Greg made a face. ‘I can think of better places to finish up.’

‘What would be your choice, then?’

‘Easy.’ He smirked. ‘A nightclub, surrounded by lap dancers. Expiring happily at the age of ninety-seven.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘You did ask, ma’am.’

Insidious, how working alongside someone changed your attitude towards them, for better or worse. She’d heard a good deal about Greg before he joined her team,
most of it bad. Lauren Self loathed him, which explained his banishment to Cold Cases. Yet although he had an ego the size of Blackpool Tower, she’d begun to warm to him. In her head, Ben Kind growled, ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t get soft in your old age.’ Good advice. Given an inch, Greg would take a mile.

Their path took them towards a tall building with a corrugated roof. Inside stood a fearsome metal contraption with a conveyor belt and a huge circular saw with teeth sharper than a shark’s. On the ground at the far end of the machine was a big sack filled with poplar logs.

‘DIY wood cutter,’ Greg said. ‘Naughty, naughty. Bet he makes sure it’s out of sight when the health and safety people come round to inspect. Lethal, by the look of it. If Orla Payne wanted a quick exit, she could have squatted on the conveyor and switched on the saw.’

‘Nasty way to go.’

‘Hey, a few nanoseconds of agony, and it’s done. As compared to – what?’ He pretended to squirm. ‘Trapped in a pile of grain, waiting for the loader to dump the next batch. Think about it. Knowing the stuff will suffocate you, and able to do bugger all to save yourself.’

Hannah swallowed. ‘Point taken.’

The barn loomed before them. Stone steps led up to the haylofts; calves squealed in the bays below. A spade and scythe leant against one wall. At the sound of unfamiliar voices, a broad-shouldered man in a faded black T-shirt and grubby jeans came out of the nearest bay. Hair grey and close-cropped, face weather-beaten, arms muscular. A line of sweat gleamed on his brow. He considered them rather as he might weigh up cats caught in a hen coop.

‘Mr Hinds? My name is Detective Chief Inspector Scarlett, and I head the Cold Case Review Team. This is DS Greg Wharf. Thanks very much for sparing us a few minutes.’

‘My time is money.’

Mike Hinds had a strong local accent, which he seemed to be laying on with a trowel, as if he liked to play the horny-handed son of toil. But there was more to him than that; he’d spent a year studying natural sciences at Cambridge before giving up and going back to the family farm. Bloody-minded, yes, but intelligent.

‘We understand that, Mr Hinds.’

‘Then hopefully you won’t cost me more than a few quid, Chief Inspector. I’ve already spent a long time talking to your people about Orla.’

He stood on the cobbles, legs wide apart, hands thrust deep into his pockets. His sceptical tone made her rank sound like proof of declining standards, as if she’d been promoted because she was a thirty-something woman, not a proper detective. Hannah ground her teeth, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of provoking her temper.

‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about Callum’s disappearance.’

‘When my wife told me you wanted to talk about my son, I thought she must have got her wires crossed.’ Hannah guessed Deirdre had felt the rough edge of his tongue. ‘What has Callum got to do with this? He died twenty years ago.’

Were his eyes glistening? Could be the sunlight, rather than tears.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Hinds, I understand this is a difficult time for you.’

‘Oh, you understand, do you?’ He took a stride forward, and for an instant, she thought he meant to grab hold of her and wrap his meaty fingers around her throat. ‘A boy dead, twenty years back, and now his sister? You’ve got dead children of your own, have you? Do you really
feel my pain
?’

Hannah remembered the unborn child she had lost.
Don’t go there
. He didn’t know; he was a wounded animal, lashing out in a confusion of grief, rage and self-defence.

‘Might be easier if we went inside, Mr Hinds,’ Greg said. ‘This doesn’t need to take long.’

All of a sudden, her DS had morphed into Mr Nice Guy, affable as a saloon bar chum. It was like watching an alien bodysnatcher assume the appearance of a harmless human being. But Hinds wasn’t shifting.

‘Don’t worry, Sergeant. It definitely won’t take long, you can bet on that.’

‘Orla contacted the Cold Case Review Team this week,’ Hannah said. ‘She wanted us to look afresh at what happened to her brother.’

Mike Hinds flexed his muscles. Habit, or a warning sign? ‘She knew bloody well what happened.’

‘She discussed the case with a variety of people after coming back to this area. It’s clear she wasn’t satisfied that her uncle was responsible for Callum’s disappearance.’

‘She didn’t have a clue,’ Hinds said. ‘As a kid, she preferred fairy tales to reality, and she never got them out of her system. Things got worse once the booze started to rot her brain. Just like it rotted her mother’s.’

‘Niamh didn’t believe Philip killed Callum either, did she?’

‘Her state of mind depended on how pissed she was. After Callum went missing, she was in … what do you call it?’ He glared. ‘Denial?’

‘Philip didn’t leave a suicide note, or any confession. There is no proof he harmed a hair on your son’s head.’

‘Hanged himself, didn’t he? What better evidence do you want?’

‘He’d been interviewed by the police, he must have been scared witless. A man with learning difficulties, under intolerable pressure, who had never learnt effective coping skills.’

‘He was pathetic. So fucking weak.’

Mike Hinds spat out the words, and Hannah saw in his eyes that nothing, in his book, was more contemptible than weakness. He must have despised Philip for as long as he could remember.

Greg said, ‘After the divorce, Niamh made it hard for you to see Callum. Women do that sometimes, don’t they? The law’s in their favour, and they use it to their advantage. Driven by some sort of thirst for revenge.’

‘She was a mean bitch.’

Greg nodded towards the barn. ‘Couldn’t hack it, I suppose. Farm life doesn’t suit everyone, eh?’

‘Farmers marry farmers’ daughters, it’s the best way, but I met an Irish girl with big tits at a club in Carlisle and let myself get carried away. Biggest mistake of my life.’

‘Often let yourself get carried away, do you?’

‘Not by women,’ Hinds said. ‘Least, not for a long while.’

He fixed his eyes on Hannah. She was wearing a cream trouser suit and open-neck blouse. Lauren had issued fresh ‘standards of expectation’ a month back, as part of her
campaign to smarten up the force’s image, and as a DCI, Hannah was expected to take a lead when it came to dress code. In the age of austerity, the emphasis was on looking sober and businesslike – no earrings for men, no tattoos likely to offend, no violently coloured hair. And certainly, nothing too revealing. Hinds didn’t look impressed.

‘You did better second time around,’ Greg said.

‘Deirdre? Yeah, she’s not quite such a pain in the arse as Niamh.’

Don’t go overboard with the compliments, Hannah thought. Spare a thought for what it’s like for a woman, trying to make a life with you. But she kept her mouth shut. Greg was doing fine, talking man to man.

‘You got to know her before Callum went missing?’

‘She was only young at the time. Training to be a farm secretary; we met at an NFU do. Her dad had a sheep farm, a few miles this side of the Scottish border. Thankless task – poor sod went bankrupt six months before cancer got him. Deirdre was one of five, the baby of a family that didn’t have two pennies to rub together.’

‘Until you provided a roof over her head?’

‘We didn’t live together until we’d been courting for eighteen months. Things were different in them days, and I bided my time. Once bitten, you know?’ Greg said with feeling, ‘I do know.’

‘Deirdre would come over here to visit, then go back home. Bit by bit, she started staying the night.’

‘How did Niamh react?’

Hinds snorted. ‘She got wind I was seeing Deirdre, not that it was any of her business after she’d run off with Kit Payne.’

‘I bet it didn’t stop her grabbing her pound of flesh in the divorce settlement.’

‘You’re not wrong. She tried to say it wasn’t good for Callum, hanging around here.’

Greg chuckled. ‘When you might be occupied with your girlfriend?’

‘He caught us at it once, admitted.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘Nah, we were on the sofa in the back room.’ Hinds had his eyes on Hannah. The idea of shocking her appealed to him, she thought; he couldn’t resist the temptation to talk. ‘I couldn’t wait to get her upstairs, and we suddenly realised he was watching us through the window.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Greg sounded almost admiring. Hannah realised, not for the first time, that she was very glad not to be a man. Talk about basic instincts. ‘What happened?’

‘Told his sister, the daft sod, and of course she opened her trap to Niamh. I think he’d guessed what he was going to see, but there you go. He wanted an eyeful, and by Christ, he got it. She was a bonny lass, Deirdre, before she started eating too much chocolate cake. Anyroad, that’s teenage lads for you.’

Greg nodded. ‘Yet Niamh reacted badly?’

‘Too fucking right. Hypocritical cow – she was the one who started shagging a businessman whilst she was still married to me. Talk about one law for the rich.’

‘How did she get to know Kit Payne?’

‘I’ve known old man Madsen and his family all my life. Bryan’s stand-offish, doesn’t care to mix with riff-raff like me, but Gareth’s not so bad.’

‘You were students together, weren’t you?’

‘For a year, that’s all. I couldn’t stick the place. Full of posh folk who talked through their arses. They made me sick, but Gareth had a whale of a time. He loves being cock of the walk. Anyroad, he introduced Niamh and me to Payne. I would never have guessed she’d fall for Payne – he’s as ugly as sin. But she hated being a farmer’s wife, and he lent a shoulder for her to cry on.’

‘Money talks, eh?’

‘Yeah, when she broke the news she was running off with Keswick’s answer to Quasimodo, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

‘And she used the incident with Deirdre as an excuse to prevent Callum visiting you?’

Hinds’ face darkened. ‘There was no cause for her to take it out on the boy. To stop him from seeing his dad was pure malice.’

‘He kept your surname. That says a lot.’

‘He was made of sterner stuff than Orla, she just wanted everything to be happy ever after. Niamh liked to have things her way; why do you think the kids were given Irish names? I wanted Callum to be christened Eric, after my dad, but she wouldn’t hear of it. But she couldn’t watch over the boy twenty-four hours a day. She and Payne only lived across the field; no way could she stop us seeing each other every now and then.’