‘Was it wishful thinking? She was fond of her uncle, and didn’t like the idea that he was to blame.’
‘Possible. But …’
He hesitated, trying to put into words the intuition he had about Orla, and her quest for the truth about Callum.
‘Yes?’
‘Orla’s life was a mess. She reminded me of someone who has the pieces of a self-assembly kit, but doesn’t know how to put them together.’
‘I know that feeling,’ Hannah said. ‘My garage is full of segments of a kitchen trolley, and instructions written in Japanese with illustrations that make no sense to me.’
He wondered if she’d ask Marc to stick the pieces together, but said nothing. He heard someone speak to Hannah, and her muffled reply that she’d be along in a moment.
‘Daniel, I’m sorry, but I need to conduct this briefing. Can we speak again?’
‘Love to.’
Story time.
Hannah’s mentor, Ben Kind, was a grizzled teller of tales. As she stood and waited for Greg Wharf — as ever, the last to arrive — while Les Bryant chewed the fat with Maggie Eyre, and Donna Buxton nagged Linz about becoming more active in the Federation, her thoughts drifted back to her early days in the CID. How the briefing room fell silent as Ben took his team through the sequence of events leading up to the latest murder. How she listened, spellbound, as he highlighted scraps of information culled from page after page of witness statements, suggesting fresh lines of enquiry, and ideas about the culprit’s motive and MO. By the time Ben finished briefing you about a case, the victim was no longer a name, always a person. That cold corpse in the mortuary had once been flesh and blood. Ben made you care about the victim’s fate, strengthened your resolve to see justice done.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Greg said, marching into the room like a chief executive greeting members of his board. Donna, an arch-feminist recently drafted into the team, threw him a withering look, but Greg smirked in response, pleased to have provoked a reaction.
Hannah breathed in. She’d soaked herself in the old statements, and reckoned she had a handle on the main facts, but there was no denying that the mood today was so different from that at briefings from Ben. From the moment murder was done, every hour that passed reduced the chances of a result. Statistics proved the need for speed. Everyone felt an adrenaline rush. By definition, cold cases were rarely time-critical, and Hannah’s team knew it. They knew, too, that each of them was there for a reason. Most were misfits, as far as the brass was concerned. Some folk, and not just in the hierarchy, reckoned that cold case reviews were cushy and only fit for underachievers. Others regarded transfer to the team as a form of exile or punishment, the Cumbria Constabulary’s very own Gulag Archipelago. All of which meant the pressure was on her to motivate people to get results.
‘The body of Orla Payne was found buried in a grain tower at the farm of her father, Michael Hinds, near Keswick. An apparent suicide. She had been in touch with us about a cold case, the disappearance of her brother Callum twenty years ago.’
‘Is murder a possibility?’ Les Bryant asked.
‘Nothing is being ruled out, pending the inquest. Mario Pinardi up in Keswick is looking into the circumstances surrounding her death. He’s waiting on the results of toxicology and urine tests. Our focus is on the cold case. What happened to Callum Hinds?’
Hannah nodded at a black-and-white photograph on the whiteboard. A dark-haired boy with a hooked nose and deep-set eyes, reluctant to smile for the camera.
‘Callum’s mother came over from Donegal as a student. After she took a degree in Lancaster, she stayed in England. She was called Niamh, and her first husband was Mike Hinds. Three years before the boy went missing, the couple split up.’
‘Why?’ Greg asked.
‘Niamh’s story was that she wasn’t suited to being a farmer’s wife.’
‘It’s a vocation,’ Maggie said.
‘And the husband’s story?’ Greg was a city boy, scornful of the so-called pressures of rural life.
‘You can almost taste the bitterness when you read his statement,’ Hannah said. ‘He scarcely had a good word to say for her. She drank too much, cared only for herself. He blamed her for the boy’s disappearance. Obviously pissed off that she’d landed on her feet. Before the divorce was finalised, she’d moved in with Kit Payne, a manager at Madsen’s.’
‘The caravan park?’ Donna Buxton asked. ‘My uncle and aunt used to have a pitch there. We stayed with them when we were kids.’
‘They call it a holiday home park these days,’ Hannah said. ‘One of the biggest in the Lakes. The site borders Mike Hinds’ land. In next to no time, Niamh and Kit Payne were married, and instead of slaving away all hours cooking and cleaning, she had a husband with a well-paid job and free accommodation thrown in. Even if it was only a glorified log cabin.’
‘How did the stepfather get on with the kids?’ Greg asked.
‘Kindness itself, according to Niamh. There weren’t any issues between him and Orla, or so it seemed. Yet Callum resented the new man in his mum’s life, and refused to take Payne’s name.’
‘He stayed close to Hinds?’
‘The divorce was acrimonious. Niamh played games over Hinds’ access to the kids. Arrangements would be made, and at the last minute she’d come up with some excuse for cancelling. But Kit Payne tried to act as a peace-broker, and Callum made it clear that he was determined to stay in touch with his dad. Since the farmhouse was a stroll away, Niamh could hardly stop him.’
‘How about the prime suspect?’
‘Philip Hinds was older than his brother Mike, and they had nothing in common. He was single, and seems never to have had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, that we know of. He enjoyed the company of his nephew and niece, but for all anyone could prove, it seemed perfectly innocent.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, actually. Everyone agreed he was devoted to Orla and Callum. Mike Hinds discouraged them from spending time with their uncle, but Niamh was fond of Philip, and didn’t mind the kids visiting his cottage. Hinds said it showed she was a bad mother, letting them walk through the wood on their own. His argument was that, never mind Philip, the caravan site was nearby; you couldn’t be sure who might be lurking around, on the lookout for kids.’
‘You can see his point of view.’
‘Sure, but does it do any good to wrap kids up in cotton wool?’
As she spoke, Hannah wondered if she’d ever face that dilemma as a mother. The closest she’d come to parenthood was when a miscarriage had put an end to an unplanned pregnancy. Marc had said all the right things, but he reckoned he wasn’t ready for fatherhood, and he’d hardly been able to hide his relief that a baby hadn’t complicated their relationship even further. Perhaps that was the moment she should have decided he wasn’t the right man for her.
Greg shrugged. He didn’t have kids, either. At least, none that Hannah knew of.
Aslan had the habit of coming and going as he pleased at St Herbert’s. What was the worst that could happen? The principal wasn’t made of the right stuff to sack anyone, and why get rid of a spare pair of hands, even if they belonged to someone as bolshie as Aslan?
He strode down the corridor towards the main entrance. With Orla dead, St Herbert’s’ publicity efforts were on hold. No point in twiddling his thumbs. It was time for a visit to Lane End Farm. He could not delay it any longer. Yet his stomach churned, and his skin was all gooseflesh. He would go the long way round to the farmhouse, along the meandering lanes rather than taking a short cut across the fields. He needed plenty of time to work out what to say.
‘Penny for them!’
Sham, in breezy mood. A deeply cut pink top fought a losing battle to contain her breasts. She’d made a rapid recovery from the trauma of learning that Orla was dead.
He smiled. ‘If you knew what I was thinking, you’d never believe me.’