‘Routine, I suppose?’ she said at last. ‘That’s what the police always say on telly, isn’t it?’
She sounded numb. Shock, more than grief, Hannah supposed. Orla was not her own flesh and blood, but the discovery of her stepdaughter’s corpse buried in grain was enough to stun the sturdiest soul. When Hannah asked for a word with Mike Hinds, his wife said he was out in the fields, too far away to be summoned to the phone.
When Hannah expressed surprise, Deirdre Hinds’ patience frayed.
‘This is a working farm, Detective Chief Inspector. Life goes on, there is no choice. We have livestock to look after. This sunshine is too precious for Mike to waste after the rotten spring we had. Anyroad, he’s not the type of man to sit inside and feel sorry for himself.’
But she agreed that her husband would make himself available at the back end of the afternoon — ‘Might as well get it over with’ — and Hannah rang off before she had time for second thoughts.
Hannah was determined to lead the key interviews herself. One compensation of being shunted into cold case work — Lauren had sidelined her after a major prosecution turned sour — was the chance to work as a proper detective again, rather than sinking forever into the quicksand of management. Whenever the chance to escape bureaucracy and desk work came her way, she grabbed it. She was so much keener on meeting witnesses than targets.
Better not take Maggie, lest old antagonisms between Hinds and Mr Eyre complicated the discussion. She’d bring Greg Wharf along. Mike Hinds might be one of those old-fashioned blokes who didn’t take women police officers seriously. Pick one maverick to deal with another.
Her next call was to Kit Payne. She made it as far as his PA, who insisted he was in conference, and couldn’t be disturbed, but booked her in for the following day — ‘Only an hour, mind. He has an important meeting with a delegation from the Bulgarian Holiday Home Association.’
In between lunch and an interview for the force blog about the previous evening’s award ceremony, she tried ringing Daniel, but his phone was on voicemail. Oh well. At least she had a date with Mario Pinardi.
‘How could you do that to your own brother?’
Orla’s voice jangled in Aslan’s brain. He’d roamed the country lanes hour after hour, losing track of time. His shoes were pinching his toes. Tomorrow, he’d have blisters, but so what? Anything to put off the moment when he came face-to-face with Michael Hinds.
Of course, he should have been kinder to Orla, but now it was too late. He’d never done regrets, and now wasn’t a good time to start. Once she’d come back to his squalid bedsit, and he’d shocked her by offering to share a joint the moment they stepped through the door. She made it clear she wanted to talk, to reminisce about her childhood with Callum, and the days leading up to his disappearance. He was sure she’d dreamt that he was Callum, come back to find her — it was her very own fairy tale. She’d detected a resemblance, something in the shape of his head, and the way he walked, not to mention the almond colour of his eyes. The line between fantasy and reality was hard to draw.
It didn’t help that she was pissed. When she took off her headscarf, he saw her bald head for the first time. Her features were pretty, but the smooth scalp turned him off. He gave her a can of beer, while he had a smoke. When he dropped a few hints about his past, she didn’t seem to take it in. He’d assumed she would be happy, but instead she was bemused. They talked for a while, but when she sat herself down on the side of his bed and asked for a cuddle — for comfort, she said, that was all — he drew away. She must have seen the distaste in his eyes, for a tear trickled down her cheek. This infuriated him, and when he’d said something cruel, her face twisted in pain. She jumped up and ran off down the stairs. Of course, he didn’t follow.
What was it about women? The easier he found it to attract them, the sooner he wanted them out of his sight. His mother had doted on him, had given everything she could and asked him for nothing in return, but a heart attack had taken her away from him at a stupidly young age, while he was on board a ship in the Adriatic. At her funeral he’d wept, but no woman since had stirred his emotions.
A muck spreader thundered down the narrow lane towards him and he pressed against a hedge to allow it to pass. For a nanosecond, he understood the strange impulse that had caused Orla to take her own life. How easy to leap under the heavy wheels at the last moment, and put an end to everything. A cop-out, yes, but at least he’d be rid of his baggage for good. No more complications, no more crushed expectations.
How long had he dreamt of making his way back to Lane End Farm? Across three continents, and for as long as he could remember, yet now he saw the fields in the distance, he felt a chill that the sun’s warm rays could not dispel.
His nerve ends jangled, pins and needles pricked his fingertips. He patted the butterfly knife in his pocket, but for once it didn’t give him the warmth of reassurance. He wasn’t spoiling for a fight. But he was afraid.
DS Mario Pinardi was tall, dark and handsome. Unfortunately, as far as his female admirers in Cumbria Constabulary were concerned, he was also married, to a stunningly lovely lady, a fellow Scot of Italian descent. Hannah’s best friend, Terri, had met Mario at a Cumbria Constabulary charity dance years ago, and still asked after him, but she was wasting her time. Photographs of Alessandra Pinardi, along with young Roberto, Davide and Claudio, festooned the walls of Mario’s cubbyhole in the police station in Keswick. His family-man image might have been tedious if he were not such good company. Hannah liked him enough to push to one side the sneaking suspicion that he was in the same mould as Will Durston. Insufficiently driven to make a first-rate detective. She was prejudiced by her apprenticeship with Ben Kind. The job came before your private life, was Ben’s creed. Mind you, Ben had messed up his own private life, and hers was going down the pan as well. Mario was wiser than both of them.
‘Horrible way to go, drowning in grain,’ he said. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’
Hannah and Greg shook their heads, and he grinned. ‘Good decision, it’s out of a machine and tastes like weasel pee.’
‘Any words of wisdom from the pathologist?’
‘Orla cracked her head on the side of the tower on her way down. Nasty gash, the blow probably knocked her unconscious. Otherwise, she might have been able to climb back up.’
‘If she wanted to,’ Greg said.
‘True, but the deputy coroner is a softie. If she can find a way of turning this into an accident, rather than suicide, she will. Easier for the family to bear, especially the father. Bad enough to find your one remaining child lying dead in a heap of grain. Worse if you torment yourself over whether you could have done anything to persuade her not to jump.’
‘You’re sure she did jump?’
‘If anyone wanted to do away with her on a farm, there are plenty of easier murder methods. You couldn’t drag an unwilling victim all the way up to the top of a grain silo.’
‘Might someone have talked her into making the climb?’ Greg asked.
‘To take a look at the interesting grain? I don’t think so. She’d been boozing, there were empty cans on the passenger seat of her car. God knows what was in her mind, but she wanted to climb that tower. The only reasonable assumption is, she intended to jump.’
‘She grew up on the farm,’ Hannah said. ‘If she had suicidal thoughts, she’d know there was no guarantee that she’d die. The cavalry might have ridden to the rescue. In the shape of her father, or his labourers.’