‘And of course you have a photographer’s eye for these things. You wouldn’t expect to be mistaken,’ George continued. ‘You’re quite right, Inspector.’ Hawkin flashed him a patronizing little smile and reached for his cigarettes. He was relaxing now, as George had expected.
‘So it was you and not your wife who spotted the likeness?’
By now Hawkin was preening himself. ‘My wife has many fine qualities, Inspector, but in our house, I’m the one who notices things.’ Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered what the reason for the interview was, he composed his face into an expression of solemnity. ‘Besides, Inspector, you must realize that since Alison went out of our lives, my wife has lost the habit of paying attention to the outside world. It’s all she can do to maintain some semblance of normality in our domestic life. I insist on that, of course. It’s the best thing for her, to keep her mind on routine matters like cooking and keeping house.’
‘Very considerate of you,’ George said. ‘This photograph was in the Sunday Sentinel, is that right?’
‘Correct, Inspector.’
George frowned slightly. ‘What newspapers do you take on a regular basis?’
‘We’ve always had the Express and the Evening News. And the Sentinel on Sundays. Of course, with all the press coverage ofAlison’s disappearance, I made sure we got all the papers while you were still conducting your daily press conferences.
Well, somebody’s got to check that they’ve not got everything wrong, haven’t they? I didn’t want them writing things about us that weren’t true. Plus I wanted to be forewarned. I didn’t want Ruth upset by some tactless person telling her what the papers were saying without any advance warning. So I made sure I knew what was what.’ He flicked the ash off his cigarette and smiled.
‘Dreadful people, those reporters. I don’t know how you can bring yourself to deal with them.’
‘We have to deal with all sorts in our job,’ Clough said insolently.
Hawkin pursed his lips but said nothing. George leaned forward slightly.
‘So you do read the Evening News7.’
‘I told you,’ Hawkin said impatiently. ‘Of course, we get it the morning after it’s published, but it’s the only newspaper they can deliver in time for breakfast, so I have to make do with its parochial view of the world.’ George opened his folder and took out a clear plastic envelope. Inside it was a newspaper clipping. He pushed it across the table. ‘You’ll remember this story, then.’
Hawkin did not reach for the clipping. All that moved was his eyes, flickering across the lines of type. The ash on his disregarded cigarette grew, its own weight curving it gently downward. At last, he raised his eyes to George and said slowly and deliberately, ‘I have never seen this story before today.’
‘It’s a strange coincidence, don’t you think?’ George said. ‘A missing girl, a family member spots a likeness in a photograph of a sporting crowd, but their hopes are dashed when it turns out to be a tragic error. And this story appears in a paper that’s delivered six days a week to your home.’
‘I told you, I have never seen this story before today.’
‘It’s hard to miss. It was on page three of the paper.’
‘Nobody reads the Evening News from cover to cover. I must have missed the story. What interest could it possibly have held for me?’
‘You are the stepfather of a teenage girl,’ George said mildly. ‘I’d have thought stories about what happens to teenage girls would have been very interesting for you. After all, this was a relatively new experience for you. You must have felt you had a lot to learn.’
Hawkin crushed out his cigarette. ‘Alison was Ruth’s business. It’s a mother’s place, to deal with children.’
‘But you were obviously very fond of the girl. I’ve seen her bedroom, don’t forget. Beautiful furniture, new carpet. You’ve not stinted her, have you?’ George persisted.
Hawkin frowned in irritation before he replied. ‘The girl had been without a father for years. She’d not had most of the things other girls take for granted. I was good to her for her mother’s sake.’
‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’ Clough chipped in. ‘You bought her a record player. Every week, you bought her new records. Whatever was in the top ten, you got it for her. Whatever Charlie Lomas told her to ask you for, you got her. If you ask me, that goes above and beyond being good to her for her mother’s sake.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ George broke in repressively. ‘Mr Hawkin, how close were you and Alison?’
‘What do you mean?’ He reached for another cigarette. It took him several tries before his lighter caught. He inhaled the smoke gratefully and repeated the question that had earned him no response.
‘What do you mean? How close were we? I’ve told you, I left Alison to her mother to deal with.’
‘Did you like her?’ George asked.
Hawkin’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of trick question is that? If I say no, you’ll say I wanted rid of her. If I say yes, you’ll imply there was something unnatural about my feelings for her. You want the truth? I was largely indifferent to the girl. Look…’ He leaned forward and essayed a man–to–man smile. ‘I married her mother for three reasons. First, I found her moderately attractive.
Second, I needed someone to look after me and the house and I knew no half-decent housekeeper would want to live in a godforsaken place like Scardale. And third, I wanted the villagers to stop treating me like an alien from outer space. I did not marry her because I had designs on her daughter. That’s sick, frankly.’ He leaned back in his chair after this outburst, as if defying George to say anything further. George looked at him with clinical curiosity. ‘I never suggested you did, sir. I find it interesting that your mind moves in that direction of its own accord, however. I also find it interesting that when you talk about Alison, you always use the past tense.’
His words hung in the air as palpably as the cigarette smoke. A dark flush coloured Hawkin’s cheeks but he managed to keep silent. It was clearly an effort.
‘As if you were talking about somebody who was no longer alive,’ George continued inexorably.
‘Why do you think that might be, sir?’
‘It’s just a habit of speech,’ Hawkin snapped. ‘She’s been gone so long.
It means nothing. Everybody talks about Alison like that now.’
‘Actually, sir, they don’t. It’s something I’ve noticed in my visits to 182 Scardale. They still talk about Alison in the present tense. As if she’s stepped out for a while, but she’ll be back soon. It’s not just your wife that talks like that. It’s everybody. Everybody except you, that is.’ George lit a cigarette, trying to display a relaxed confidence he did not feel. When he and Clough had rehearsed the interview, they hadn’t been at all certain how Hawkin would react. It was satisfying to see him rattled, but they were still a long way from any useful admissions. ‘I think you must be mistaken,’ Hawkin said abruptly.
‘Now, if you have no further questions?’ He pushed his chair back. ‘I’ve hardly begun, sir,’
George said, his stern expression accentuating his resemblance to James Stewart. ‘I’d like to go back to the afternoon when Alison disappeared. I know we’ve interviewed you about this already, but I want to go over it again for the record.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Hawkin exploded.
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by a knock at the door. It opened to reveal DC Cragg’s sleepy-eyed face in apologetic mode. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I know you said not to interrupt, but I’ve got an urgent call for you.’
George tried not to show the anger and disappointment that flooded through him. The rhythm of the interview had been flowing in his direction and now the mood was shattered. ‘Can’t it wait, Cragg?’ he snapped.
‘I don’t think so, sir, no. I think you’ll want to take the call.’
‘Who is it?’ George demanded.
Cragg flashed a worried look at Hawkin. ‘I…uh…I can’t really say, sir.’
George jumped to his feet, his chair clattering on the floor. ‘Sergeant, stay here with Mr Hawkin.
I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He strode out of the room, exercising his last ounce of self-restraint in not slamming the door behind him.
‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ he hissed at Cragg as he stalked down the corridor towards his office. ‘I specifically said no interruptions. Don’t you understand plain bloody English, Cragg?’
The young detective constable scuttled along behind him, waiting for a gap in the tirade. ‘It’s Mrs Hawkin, sir,’ he finally managed to get out.
George stopped so suddenly that Cragg cannoned into him. He whirled round. ‘What?’ he said, incredulous.
‘It’s Mrs Hawkin. She’s in a state, sir. Asking for you.’
‘Did she say why?’ George turned on his heel and practically ran for his phone.
‘No, sir, just that she needed to talk to you urgently.’
‘Jesus,’ George muttered, grabbing for the phone before he was even sitting down. ‘Hello? This is DI Bennett.’
‘Mr Bennett?’ The voice was choked with tears.
‘Is that you, Mrs Hawkin?’
‘Aye, it is. Oh, Mr Bennett…’ Her sobs rose in a terrible crescendo. ‘What’s happened, Mrs Hawkin?’ he asked, desperately wondering if there was a WPC on duty.
‘Can you come, Mr Bennett? Can you come now?’ Her words were gasped out between gulps and sniffs.
‘I’ve got your husband here, Mrs Hawkin. Do you want me to bring him home?’
‘No!’ It was almost a scream. ‘Just you. Please!’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Mrs Hawkin, try to calm down. Get one of your family to sit with you. I’ll be right there.’ He slammed the phone down and stood for a moment, stunned by the intensity of the phone conversation. He had no idea why Ruth Hawkin was demanding his presence, but it was clearly something traumatic. She couldn’t have found a body…He thrust the idea away before it could even form properly.
‘Cragg,’ he bellowed as he emerged from his office. ‘Go and relieve Sergeant Clough. You stay there with Mr Hawkin until we get back. You don’t let him leave. You explain politely we’ve been called away on an emergency and he’s to wait for us to get back. If he insists on leaving, you go with him. Don’t let him bully you.’
Cragg looked dumbfounded. This wasn’t the pace of life he was accustomed to in Buxton CID.
‘What if he gets in his car?’
‘His car’s not here. Sergeant Clough drove him in. Cragg, move!’
George grabbed Clough’s overcoat and his own trench coat, jamming his trilby down over his hair.
As soon as Clough emerged from the interview room looking bemused, George grabbed him by the arm and hustled him down the stairs. ‘It’s Ruth Hawkin,’ George said before Clough could ask him what was up. ‘She rang me in a hell of a state. She wants me to come out to Scardale right away.’
‘Why?’ Clough said as they hurried out into the station yard and made for his car.
‘I don’t know. She was too upset to make sense. All I know is she went completely hairless when I asked if she wanted me to bring Hawkin back with me. Whatever it is, it’s big.’
Clough gunned the engine. ‘Better not hang about, then.’ George had no idea that the journey to Scardale could be completed in so short a time. Clough broke every speed limit and most rules of the road as he threw the big saloon around the bends. They said little on the way, both too tense at the prospect of something that might set the Alison Carter case moving again. As they drew up by the village green, George spoke. ‘Time we had a little bit of luck, Tommy. We’ve got him on the back foot. If Ruth Hawkin’s got something for us, this could be it.’ They took the path to the manor at a run. Before either could knock, the kitchen door swung open and Ma Lomas greeted them.
‘We’ve been doing your work for you again,’ she said.
Ruth Hawkin sat at the head of the table, her face streaked with tears and make–up, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. Kathy sat next to her. Their work-reddened hands were clasped so tight the knuckles showed white. On the table in front of them was a crumpled bundle oftattersall checked material. It was smudged with dirt, but more ominously, there were extensive patches of rust-red that looked remarkably like dried blood. ‘You’ve found something,’ George said, crossing the room and sitting opposite Kathy.
Ruth took a shuddering breath and nodded. ‘It’s a shirt. And a…And a…’ Her voice cracked and gave up.
George took out a pen and poked at the material, separating its folds. It was indeed a shirt, made of fine cotton twill. The maker’s name was sewn into a label in the collar. He had seen Philip Hawkin in similar shirts more times than he could count. Lying in the centre of the material was a revolver.
George didn’t know much about guns, but he’d have bet a year’s salary that this was a .38 Webley.
‘Where did you find these, Mrs Hawkin?’
Kathy gave him a sharp look. ‘Have you still got Phil Hawkin at the police station?’
‘Mr Hawkin’s still helping us with our inquiries,’ Clough said stoutly from the bottom of the table, where he sat with open notebook. ‘He’s not going to be walking in on us.’
Kathy squeezed Ruth’s hands even more tightly. ‘It’s all right, Ruth.
You can tell him.’
‘I usually wait till he goes out for the day before I can clean his darkroom.
He hates me getting underfoot, so I always hang on till I know he’s going to be gone for a few hours,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to pull it out…I thought I could give the place a proper bottoming for once; I was going fair mad with nowt to keep me occupied…’ George waited patiently. Ruth pulled her hands away from Kathy and covered her face. ‘Oh God, I need a fag,’ she said indistinctly. George handed her a cigarette and managed to light it in spite of her trembling fingers. He wished he could find some useful words, but knew it was futile to tell Ruth that everything was going to be all right. Nothing would ever be right again for this woman. All he could do was sit quietly and watch her drag smoke into her lungs until the hammer of her heart quietened enough to let her take up her tale again. When she spoke this time, it was almost dreamily. ‘The bench he works at, it’s really an old table. It’s got drawers in it. I moved it away from the wall. It was a hell of a job, it’s really heavy. But I wanted to get behind it, to clean properly. I saw this material sticking out of the hole where one of the back drawers used to be. I wondered what it could be. So I pulled it out.’