Scaring Crows (17 page)

‘Surely not,' Arabella said faintly.

‘We believe there is.'

Mike was surveying both the Rowans from beneath his lowered eyelids. Joanna could read his mind. If they felt there was no danger why not?

Joanna spoke. ‘You own a gun, Mrs Rowan?'

‘Of course we do.'

‘Double barrelled?'

Neil Rowan scowled. ‘What's that got to do with it? They were shot with their own gun, weren't they?'

‘I just wondered if you were familiar with the handling of a gun.'

Neil Rowan thrust his face forward. ‘I am,' he said, ‘as are most of the farmers around here.'

It was left to Mrs Rowan to apologize. ‘I'm sorry, Inspector,' she said contritely. ‘This business. It's shaken us up terribly. We were fond of Ruthie. And for this to happen to her father and brother – neighbours of ours. It's terribly upsetting.' She smiled. ‘You do understand, don't you? We really are worried about Ruthie. Where do you think she can be?'

Joanna studied her. Arabella Rowan seemed genuinely upset. Far from her assumption that Arabella might have resented the attentions of her husband towards the girl had it created a common bond?

‘We wish we knew,' Mike said grimly. ‘I don't suppose she ever mentioned any friends of hers, maybe even from outside the area?'

‘No.'

‘She was a very – sweet – girl.' Neil Rowan somehow managed to look ashamed.

And it struck Joanna. ‘Was she a happy girl?'

The question seemed to agitate Neil Rowan. He moved across the room abruptly to stare out of the window. ‘Happy?' He passed his hand across his face. ‘Happy?'

His wife's voice cut in. ‘Of course she was a happy girl.'

Her husband turned around. ‘Except I thought ... I thought she always carried a sort of sadness with her.' He gave an apologetic smile. ‘Like a grey cloak.'

His wife's eyes opened wide. She was dreading what he might say. He seemed not to notice. ‘I always wondered whether Ruthie's air of grief was something to do with her brother's accident. She felt responsible, you know.'

‘Neil.' His wife's expletive shaped a warning.

It was Neil Rowan who had all Joanna's attention now. ‘Do you think there was anything else at home that was upsetting her?'

But his brief moment of freedom was over. He shuffled his feet, returned to the table and flopped into the seat. ‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘Hardly knew the girl – really.'

His wife's glance was sugar-coated poison. ‘But she was nice, wasn't she, dear, in her own way.'

‘Quite.' He nodded obediently.

Joanna addressed her next question to them both. ‘Did she have a boyfriend that you knew of?'

Both the Rowans looked blank.

‘Maybe Dave Shackleton?' Joanna prompted.

‘The tanker driver?' Arabella Rowan looked genuinely startled. ‘Oh, I wouldn't have thought so. There was something a bit ... a bit ... nicer about Ruthie.'

‘But she was a farmer's daughter.'

Arabella Rowan gave a stiff smile. ‘You shouldn't be so anxious to typecast people, Inspector.'

Neil Rowan put his cup down firmly on the saucer. ‘Ruthie was a bright girl,' he said. ‘Way above Shackleton. For goodness sake, he was a bloody tanker driver. She was ...'

What was she? Titus Mothershaw had described her as a dryad, a wood nymph. How had Neil Rowan seen her? Joanna waited.

‘She was a perfect flower in bud.'

It was an odd expression.

Arabella Rowan stood up. ‘I'm awfully sorry,' she said, returning to the gracious hostess role. ‘But I think you've had a wasted journey. We really can't help you. We can shed no light on this utterly distressing business. And neither of us knows what's happened to poor little Ruthie. I'm so sorry.'

The last three words were spoken with true, unaffected depth of feeling. Joanna looked at Arabella Rowan closely. She was pressing her hands together hard. ‘I'm sorry,' she muttered again. ‘But we can't help you.' Then she added. ‘Do you need to search our farm now?' Joanna shook her head. She had to get back to the Incident Room for the briefing.

‘Fine,' Neil Rowan said heartily. ‘Well – any time. Any time at all. We'll do anything we can.'

‘Good.' Mike gave Rowan one of his friendly grimaces and they left the kitchen.

But they were still in the hall when the storm broke.

It was Arabella Rowan's voice. And she was furious. ‘Bloody philanderer. Now see where it's got us.'

They headed back to the car. Joanna made a face. ‘Interesting,' she said. ‘Most interesting.' And she started up the engine.

‘Seems obvious to me,' Mike observed. ‘Rowan tried to get inside little Ruthie's knickers.'

‘And his wife knew all about it. So where does that leave us, Mike?'

His face was serious. ‘We should take a better look around their farm.'

They were back outside the Incident Room within five minutes. The officers were assembled in the courtyard, most with open necked shirts, loosened ties, rolled up sleeves. But before Joanna climbed out of the car she wanted to say something else to Mike. ‘If Neil Rowan had made advances towards Ruthie it would mean somebody else had intruded on that tightly knit little family group.'

‘Yes?'

‘And Mrs Rowan is patently fond of her little storybook lifestyle. I'm certain she would do anything to preserve it.'

‘Yeah. So she wouldn't have appreciated her husband fumbling in the cleaner's petticoats.'

‘No.'

Mike summed up. ‘Well it might be a sort of motive for getting rid of Ruthie Summers. But I don't see what Aaron or Jack would have to do with it.'

She sighed. ‘Neither do I.'

She stared out across the green fields spattered with black and white cows, contentedly munching the grass. Her eyes moved past the dry-stone walls to the yellowing hay fields, their harvest almost collected in. There was no sign of the weather breaking. Not yet. When she turned back Mike was watching her. ‘Where's that optimism you're usually so full of, Jo?'

‘Temporarily abandoned,' she said with a laugh.

‘Why? We've had worse cases than this one.'

‘I think it's Ruthie,' she said. ‘This image people had of her is so at variance with the image of a killer that it seems reasonable to suppose that she is either dead or has been abducted.'

‘So?'

‘
So why can't we find her?
'

‘Because,' Mike suggested, with a wave of his hand across the wide expanse of fields, ‘there's so many places her body could have been hidden. Haystacks and river beds, barns, badger holes, fox earths. Besides there's miles of countryside.'

She opened the car door. ‘Then let's mobilize troops to search every inch because I am convinced that it will be only through finding Ruthie – dead or alive – that we will know who shot her father and brother ...'

She had expected little from the briefing, nothing more than a general sharing of facts. She was anxious that the officers were all aware that the Rowans could be implicated in Ruthie Summers' disappearance. But Sergeant Barraclough had something up his sleeve. He called her across and handed her a leaflet, blue-grey, printed on coarse paper. She looked at it without comprehension.

‘BPAS?' She looked to Barra for explanation.

‘It's just a thought, Joanna. We decided to comb through the entire house, every drawer and cupboard and one of the junior officers came up with this. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service,' he explained. ‘We wondered what it was doing in her room, hidden at the back of a drawer, in her underwear.'

‘You mean ... you thought she might be pregnant?'

‘What if she's having an abortion – now. What if that's where she is?'

Joanna took the leaflet with her and left Mike to finish the briefing. She disappeared inside the Incident caravan, picked up the phone and dialled the 0800 number.

A soft voice answered. ‘Hello. This is the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. How may I help you?' Wincing at the Americanism Joanna gave the details out curtly. She was a police officer.
Not
a fallen woman. ‘All I need to know is have you taken a call from a girl in this area, recently, in the last few days.'

‘I'm not able to tell you that,' the woman said regretfully. ‘Confidentiality.' She began the usual fender of ... ‘You'd want the same level of confidentiality if it were you.'

‘But this is a murder investigation. I'm a police officer.'

The woman's voice was soothing. ‘If you want to call round to our offices – with a warrant – we might be able to help you. Otherwise ...'

Joanna felt confounded. ‘Then at least tell me where you would send such a girl. Which hospital do you use?'

‘A private one in Macclesfield,' the woman said reluctantly.

Joanna took the number and redialled.

The answering voice was brisk. ‘We have no one of that name here. I'm sorry. And quite honestly if such a girl had had an abortion here she would be home by now. We only keep them in for one night.'

Joanna went outside the caravan to find Mike discussing the Rowans' land with the assembled officers.

‘Start with the barns,' he was saying, ‘before moving on to the fields. You know the drill. Freshly turned earth. And take sniffer dogs. The helicopter will be working through the afternoon with heat seekers.'

A few of them nodded. Mike noticed Joanna and raised his eyebrows. ‘Success?'

‘A blind alley, I'm afraid. The BPAS use a private place near Macclesfield and they only keep the girls in for one night. Ruthie's been missing since early Tuesday morning at the very least. Even if she had been having an abortion she would have been home by yesterday.'

‘Unless there were complications.'

She nodded.

‘So where now?'

‘We'll send a couple of uniforms around the local hospitals, not only Macclesfield but the North Staffs, and Buxton too. See if that bears any fruit.'

9.30 p.m.

The sun was just setting as she descended the hill towards the tiny, pretty village of Waterfall, a cluster of stone cottages and a pub scattered around a triangular village green complete with a spreading chestnut and a bench seat. It was powerfully silent as though the entire village slept through the dying embers of another summer's day. Unlike the town there was no distant hum of traffic, no sound of lawn mowers or the thump of music. The church clock struck once as Joanna wheeled her bike towards the square stone house, the estate agent's details in her hand.

It wasn't big, according to the details. The rooms were modestly sized. But it had three bedrooms and two reception rooms and a small, Victorian conservatory at the back. Joanna walked around to the rear and peeped over the wall.

It transported her to her childhood. A rusting swing in the long, orchard garden which backed on to the church. For a moment she rested her elbows on the wall and closed her eyes, waiting for her father's voice to call her in for tea.

There was nothing. Nothing but peace, stillness, memories.

So she returned to the front garden, tidy but unimaginative with rows of thirsty looking wall flowers. As she pushed the wicket gate open to take a closer look Matthew's BMW drew up on the verge. It was perfect timing.

He jumped out of the car, grinning at her. ‘So you made it.'

‘I couldn't resist it. It's such a lovely evening and I've worked hard enough for one day.'

‘Are you getting anywhere with the case?'

‘A few blind alleys. None of them have led anywhere – so far.' She glanced around at the village. ‘It's a peaceful place, isn't it? Seems a hundred miles from the death and destruction of Hardacre. And yet it's less than five, as the crow flies. Matthew,' she said impulsively. ‘Why don't we take a quick look around the house, get a takeaway and eat it in my garden with a bottle of chilled wine I just happen to have in my fridge?'

He looked uncomfortably back towards his car. And that was when she noticed Eloise, slumped in the front seat, her blonde hair catching the last of the fading light.

She looked to Matthew for an explanation.

He threw his hands up in the air. ‘A phone call,' he said, ‘from Jane, early this morning. She got the chance of an early flight.' He looked sheepish. ‘I mean – what could I do? She just stuck Eloise on the train and I had to pick her up. I'm sorry, Jo.'

He moved back towards the car, his face mirroring his emotions. Pride in his daughter, a fierce love, but there was embarrassment and guilt too.

Joanna stood glued to the spot because she had her own feelings about Matthew's daughter. Sure, Eloise had intelligence and resilience, strength of character and stamina. But it was tempered with a vicious, feminine spite which she had inherited from her mother. And Joanna knew that the emotion Eloise felt for the woman who had finally parted her parents was pure, undisguised hatred. Against it she felt powerless. There was
nothing
she could do to deflect it. She looked again, longingly, at the cold, stone peace of the house. When she and Matthew were living together there would be many such visits from Eloise. The question was, was their combined love strong enough to withstand such a destructive force?

She doubted it.

Watching the girl flick her long, pale hair out of her eyes, she caught Eloise watching her in the wing mirror. The girl smiled.

She watched Matthew urge his daughter to get out of the car and take a look inside the cottage.

She heard him try to persuade her to join them in the pub. She did not, however add her encouragement to his but stood still and watched.

Matthew returned with a sigh. ‘Says she's knackered after the train journey.'

‘Well we've got the key,' she said steadily. ‘We may as well take a look and then you can take Eloise home.'