‘Yeah,’ Greg said. ‘Mums often think that about their lads. Mine did, that’s for sure. Little did she know.’
‘The team didn’t take Niamh’s word for it. Everyone on the site was questioned. The only clue was in a statement from a girl of sixteen, who said that she’d spotted Callum watching her as she stripped down to her bikini.’
‘What happened?’ Les asked.
‘She shouted at him to fuck off or she’d fetch her dad, and he ran for his life — if she was to be believed. The officer who took her statement reckoned she was looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. But that didn’t mean she was lying.’
‘Was this on the day he disappeared?’
‘No, a couple of days earlier, so it wasn’t thought to be of major significance.’
‘Unless he went back for another peep, and the girl’s dad caught him.’
‘The father was a police officer.’
Greg said, ‘Not all of us are lily-white.’
‘As a matter of fact, he was a DCI.’
His teeth flashed. ‘They can be the worst of the lot.’
‘Don’t push it. Everyone was quizzed, including the girl’s family. There was no proof that Callum ever went near their caravan again. He wasn’t the bravest soul, it seemed. Not your typical devil-may-care teenage lad. If the girl screamed abuse at him, he was probably scared stiff, as well as humiliated.’
‘Did anyone see him after he supposedly left his uncle’s cottage?’ Maggie asked.
‘No, and that turned out to be a huge problem for Philip. There was no trace of Callum’s movements after he visited the cottage. Of course, we had the usual crop of false sightings, everywhere from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. All faithfully investigated, all dead ends. He’d vanished without trace. The press got excited, and the gossipmongers went into overdrive. Philip kept a pig, and that disappeared as well. All grist to the rumour mill. Soon, the received wisdom was that Philip had sexually assaulted his nephew, then killed him to keep him quiet. How to dispose of the remains? Simple — a snack for Porky.’
‘Was the pig found?’
‘No, what happened to it, nobody ever knew. Almost certainly, it made its way out into the countryside and tumbled down some gully or ravine. Unfortunately for Philip, there was nobody else in the frame as regards Callum’s disappearance. He was hauled in for questioning, and didn’t do himself any favours by buttoning his lip and refusing to cooperate. He became upset and confused and his brief made ominous noises about police brutality. Laughable, considering that the senior officer was Will Durston, whose reputation was more tabby cat than Torquemada.’
‘Was Philip represented by a duty solicitor?’
‘No, a sharp-suited lawyer from the biggest criminal practice in Leeds. Joseph Madsen footed the bill.’
‘Didn’t he want the truth to come out?’
‘Joseph’s story was that he felt obliged to see that Philip was properly defended. Bryan Madsen was furious, he wanted them to distance themselves from the man. But there was no proof Philip had harmed Callum, and the solicitor’s presence ensured there was no confession, so he was released. By that time, his cottage had been daubed with red paint. Obscene graffiti saying he was a child killer and a paedophile. Some people thought Mike Hinds was responsible, but of course he denied it.’
‘Wasn’t the place put under guard?’ Linz asked.
‘The Madsens were afraid that Callum’s disappearance would damage their business. Parents wouldn’t take their kids to a caravan site where a boy was missing, presumed abducted. So they persuaded Durston and his superiors to keep the police presence low-key.’
‘Typical,’ Linz grunted.
‘The Madsens carried a huge amount of clout in the district. Important employers, with plenty of friends in high places — you can’t ride roughshod over them. Philip insisted on going back to the Hanging Wood, and nobody could talk him out of it. An Englishman’s home is his castle and all that. Even if it is a semi-derelict ruin.’
Maggie wrinkled her nose. ‘And that’s where he committed suicide?’
‘Yes, Kit Payne found him dangling from a rope he’d tied to an oak branch at the back of the cottage.’
‘So it really did become the Hanging Wood,’ Linz said. ‘Why did Payne go to the cottage?’
‘Joseph Madsen had asked him to keep an eye on Philip. Neither Kit nor Niamh were baying for the man’s blood. They didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that Callum was dead. They preferred to think he’d run off through some misguided spirit of adventure. Out of character as it seemed.’
‘Did Philip’s death change their minds?’
‘Everyone took it as an admission of guilt. It suited the Madsens to draw a line under the case fast, and Kit Payne was pragmatic. If people stopped visiting the caravan park, he would be out of a job. For Niamh, it was different. She couldn’t face losing her son. Or the suggestion that she was partly to blame, through allowing her children to visit their uncle without a chaperone.’
‘You can understand it,’ Maggie said.
‘She made a scene when the investigation was wound down. The press loved it, but once new stories cropped up, the journalists lost interest and there wasn’t much else she could do. Her husband tried to calm her down, but it took gin to do the trick. Although she was a grieving mother, the more she hit the bottle, the less credibility she had when she insisted Callum was still alive and the search for him shouldn’t be called off.’
‘When did she die?’
‘Ten years ago. She’d been ill for a long time before that, but Kit Payne did his best to look after her as well as his stepdaughter.’
‘Quite a paragon,’ Greg said with a grimace. ‘Did he have an alibi for Callum’s disappearance?’
‘Not entirely. He spent much of the day in question looking round the caravan park, supposedly checking work done by a firm of maintenance contractors whose bill was in dispute.’
‘So he could have slipped into the Hanging Wood and done something nasty to his stepson?’
‘Correct. You can see from the map, the cottage is within walking distance of the Madsens’ offices.’
‘Were the Madsens around that day?’
‘They gave statements, but they were never suspects. Will Durston was careful to keep on their right side. I never knew Will, and he died not long after he retired from the force, but I’m told he didn’t like to make waves. Joseph was away from Keswick. He was a cricket fan and spent the day watching a Test match at Headingley. Bryan had been injured a fortnight earlier, when his car came off the road at a bend on Castlerigg Hill. He broke his leg badly, and was lucky not to be killed. He’d just started going back into the office on crutches for half an hour a day, the rest of the time he was recuperating at home. His wife was out at a fashion show with brother Gareth’s wife, so there wasn’t any corroboration, but nobody could see him as a one-legged murderer. Gareth was at the caravan park, keeping an eye on things in Bryan’s absence. No solid alibis, then, but Durston was satisfied they wouldn’t have dreamt of harming the boy.’
‘What about Mike Hinds?’ Greg asked.
‘Working on the farm. Again, he was moving around, at various times of the day he was on his own. So he had the opportunity to bump into Callum, and if they argued about something, who knows? On a farm, there are countless ways to dispose of a body. But what could drive a man to murder his own son?’
‘To spite Niamh?’
‘But why Callum, who kept the Hinds name even after his mother took him to live with Kit Payne?’ Hannah asked. ‘That was why all roads led back to Philip. If he wasn’t guilty, who else could possibly want to make a fourteen-year-old lad disappear for ever?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Begin at the beginning. The first person to see was the father of Callum Hinds. Tactful handling was vital any time, but all the more so given his latest bereavement. She rang Lane End Farm to arrange an appointment; to progress the review in line with the ACC’s timescale, she couldn’t leave the grunt work to admin staff. Hinds’ wife Deirdre listened in silence as Hannah explained she was looking into Callum Hinds’ disappearance, not his sister’s death.