He’d no experience of sibling rivalry, let alone everything else that had happened here since his arrival. Even though he’d spent so little of his life in Britain, he liked to think of the Lakes as home. How many times had he dreamt of this homecoming? He’d never settled anywhere for long. The first place he could remember was in Istanbul, and then his mother had moved to Germany, where her cousins lived, and they’d lived in a cramped flat in Berlin before moving out to Rostock, eventually finishing up in the small coastal resort of Warnemunde, where his mother worked in one of the bars that served crew members coming ashore from the big ships. When she entertained at home, he’d make himself scarce and go to watch the cruise ships sailing out of the harbour and beyond the lighthouse, into the wide blue yonder. At sixteen, he took a job with one of the cruise lines, lying about his age and what he could do, and over the next few years he moved from ship to ship, but he never found what he was searching for. Perhaps the truth was that he didn’t know.
He’d travelled far and wide before drifting around the States, but he’d never bought a share of the American dream. Women, drink, drugs, he tried them all, but none of them meant much. He’d as soon smoke a cheap fag as a joint, and the money he earned or stole never lasted long. In the end, he persuaded himself the way to change his life was to come back to England. This was to be where he finally discovered himself.
But he’d never expected things to turn out like this. Orla was dead, and the Lakes didn’t feel anything like home.
CHAPTER SIX
Half a year without Marc should have acclimatised Hannah to waking up alone, but as the radio woke her, she still put out an arm, an instinctive searching for the warm body that had lain by her side for so long. Instead, her fingers clutched at emptiness.
The weather forecaster said today promised to be the sunniest of the year so far. After a cold shower — not from choice; the hot water system was on the blink — she dressed hastily so as not to keep Maggie Eyre waiting. A true farmer’s daughter, Maggie was an early riser, and the doorbell rang as Hannah swallowed her last mouthful of toast.
‘How was the awards dinner?’ Maggie asked as her little Citroen bumped over the potholes of Lowbarrow Lane.
‘I managed to stay awake. In fact, it wasn’t a complete waste of time.’ Hannah told her about meeting the Madsens. ‘Even if they aren’t thrilled about the prospect of our looking into Callum Payne’s case, at least they didn’t put any roadblocks in the way.’
‘They are convinced the uncle killed the boy?’
‘A neat solution is best for their business. The ACC has given us the green light, but wants an outcome by this time next week.’
‘A week?’ Maggie nearly swerved into the path of an oncoming tractor. ‘A proper investigation takes months. Sometimes years.’
‘She’s taking it for granted nothing new will turn up. It’s not as if we have any DNA to retest with the benefit of improved technology. Her thinking is that if we talk to the main witnesses who are still around, we’ll have done the necessary. She’s not worried about the IPCC complaining about Orla Payne’s calls to us. So the game plan is, we give the file a quick once-over, and move on.’
‘And if we find something worth investigating?’
‘The ACC would say, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Eyes on the winding lane, Maggie said, ‘Surely we wouldn’t give up if there was evidence that Philip Hinds wasn’t guilty?’
Hannah gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Let’s find the evidence before we worry about that, shall we?’
Enough said. Maggie fell silent until they reached the main road.
‘My father reckons Mike cast Philip as a scapegoat.’
‘He knew the Hinds family?’
‘It’s not surprising. Farming is a close community, everybody knows everybody else. People bump into each other at shows and markets and National Farmers’ Union events — can’t avoid it. By the sound of it, my dad prefers to avoid Mike Hinds, that’s for sure.’
‘They don’t get on?’
‘Dad says he’s a maverick, always arguing the toss, whether about bovine TB or compensation for foot-and-mouth disease or anything else. Thinks he’s clever because he won a scholarship to Cambridge, even though he soon dropped out. I suppose he sees Dad as a pillar of the establishment because he’s held office in the NFU. And Mike doesn’t think the union does enough to protect its members’ interests. Dad said, if it was left to Mike Hinds, tractors would be parked permanently across Whitehall, in protest about the way the government has wrecked the industry.’
‘Does your father know much about Callum’s disappearance?’
‘Only what everyone knew. Of course, I didn’t go into detail about why I was interested in the Hinds family, confidential police business and all that. Dad never met Philip, but said he felt sorry for him. For Mike Hinds too; it is terrible to lose your son like that. Dad heard that Philip was simple, but decent enough. People were too quick to jump to conclusions, in Dad’s opinion.’
‘If their conclusions were wrong, we’ll find out,’ Hannah said. She couldn’t forget what Orla Payne had said about justice. ‘If Philip was innocent, we’ll clear his name.’
Daniel and Louise breakfasted in the garden, looking out to the reed-fringed tarn and the fell beyond. The water was still, with no breeze to rustle the leaves of the oaks and the yews. The air smelt fresh, and they heard the piping call of a wood warbler hidden in the trees. No mist clung to the upper slopes, the merest scraps of cloud drifted in the sky. Already walkers in shirtsleeves were striding along Priest Ridge, their voices drifting down from the heights. The Sacrifice Stone gleamed in the sun, for once benign, not sinister.
‘No regrets about abandoning the rat race, then?’ Louise asked.
Daniel’s eyes followed a flash of yellow as the warbler emerged from a tall oak before flying off towards Tarn Fold.
‘Need you ask?’
‘At first, I thought you were mad to give up your career,’ she said. ‘But now … this place is addictive, and I’m hooked too. All I need is to find a place of my own, so I can get out of your hair.’
‘Stay as long as you like.’
She grinned. ‘No, better quit before we start bickering all the time, like when we were kids.’
‘We’ve grown up.’
‘You think so?’
As soon as she went inside to get dressed and stiffen her sinews for a renewed onslaught on the local property market, Daniel fished out his mobile and dialled Hannah’s number.
‘Is it convenient?’ he asked when she answered. ‘If not, I can call again.’
‘I have a briefing scheduled in five minutes, but no worries,’ she said. ‘Great to hear from you.’
‘And did you hear from Orla Payne?’
‘I spoke to her, yes. And then she rang again when I was off work. I’m assuming you met her at St Herbert’s, where she worked?’
‘Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time there lately, trying to finish the book.’
‘You know what happened to her?’
‘She suffocated in a grain silo on her father’s farm,’ Daniel said. ‘That’s all I’ve heard. So she talked to you about Callum?’
‘I didn’t get much sense out of her. Certainly no clue about her brother’s fate. Linz Waller got nowhere either, when Orla called again. Each time, she sounded drunk.’
‘Sorry I’ve added to your burdens, but she was so screwed up about Callum’s disappearance, and I thought it qualified as a cold case.’
‘How much did she tell you?’
‘She talked a great deal, but if she had any firm evidence about what happened to Callum, I didn’t hear it. She rather liked to be mysterious. But she was emphatic that their uncle didn’t kill the boy.’