‘Ever get the feeling that people are avoiding you?’ Hannah said as she locked the car.
‘All the time,’ Greg murmured. ‘Cold Comfort Farm, eh? They’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet.’
‘Maggie has a favourite phrase,’ Hannah said. ‘Every farm is unique. Each has its own design, but more than that. Each has a distinct personality.’
‘Yeah, well, what does that make Lane End?’ he asked. ‘A surly recluse?’
A muck spreader roared in the distance as they rang the doorbell. Deirdre Hinds kept them waiting a whole minute before she opened up. In her early forties, she was short and squat and carrying too much weight. Her cheeks were pasty, and her eyes red-rimmed. Distress due to her stepdaughter’s death? Her hands were covered in flour, and she didn’t offer to shake.
‘Inspector Scarlett, is it? He’ll be somewhere around the yard. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m busy baking.’
The door banged shut in their faces before they could utter a word.
‘Charming,’ Greg said. ‘And there was I, hoping she’d offer us a traditional farmhouse tea.’
‘Wonder what she made of Orla?’ Hannah said as they headed for the yard.
‘She doesn’t look like a wicked stepmother to me. Downtrodden, yes. I bet her old man wasn’t happy that she arranged this meeting.’
Hannah pointed to the top of the silver tower, visible in the distance above the roof of the barn. ‘That must be the silo where Orla died.’
Greg made a face. ‘I can think of better places to finish up.’
‘What would be your choice, then?’
‘Easy.’ He smirked. ‘A nightclub, surrounded by lap dancers. Expiring happily at the age of ninety-seven.’
‘In your dreams.’
‘You did ask, ma’am.’
Insidious, how working alongside someone changed your attitude towards them, for better or worse. She’d heard a good deal about Greg before he joined her team, most of it bad. Lauren Self loathed him, which explained his banishment to Cold Cases. Yet although he had an ego the size of Blackpool Tower, she’d begun to warm to him. In her head, Ben Kind growled, ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t get soft in your old age.’ Good advice. Given an inch, Greg would take a mile.
Their path took them towards a tall building with a corrugated roof. Inside stood a fearsome metal contraption with a conveyor belt and a huge circular saw with teeth sharper than a shark’s. On the ground at the far end of the machine was a big sack filled with poplar logs.
‘DIY wood cutter,’ Greg said. ‘Naughty, naughty. Bet he makes sure it’s out of sight when the health and safety people come round to inspect. Lethal, by the look of it. If Orla Payne wanted a quick exit, she could have squatted on the conveyor and switched on the saw.’
‘Nasty way to go.’
‘Hey, a few nanoseconds of agony, and it’s done. As compared to — what?’ He pretended to squirm. ‘Trapped in a pile of grain, waiting for the loader to dump the next batch. Think about it. Knowing the stuff will suffocate you, and able to do bugger all to save yourself.’
Hannah swallowed. ‘Point taken.’
The barn loomed before them. Stone steps led up to the haylofts; calves squealed in the bays below. A spade and scythe leant against one wall. At the sound of unfamiliar voices, a broad-shouldered man in a faded black T-shirt and grubby jeans came out of the nearest bay. Hair grey and close-cropped, face weather-beaten, arms muscular. A line of sweat gleamed on his brow. He considered them rather as he might weigh up cats caught in a hen coop.
‘Mr Hinds? My name is Detective Chief Inspector Scarlett, and I head the Cold Case Review Team. This is DS Greg Wharf. Thanks very much for sparing us a few minutes.’
‘My time is money.’
Mike Hinds had a strong local accent, which he seemed to be laying on with a trowel, as if he liked to play the horny-handed son of toil. But there was more to him than that; he’d spent a year studying natural sciences at Cambridge before giving up and going back to the family farm. Bloody-minded, yes, but intelligent.
‘We understand that, Mr Hinds.’
‘Then hopefully you won’t cost me more than a few quid, Chief Inspector. I’ve already spent a long time talking to your people about Orla.’
He stood on the cobbles, legs wide apart, hands thrust deep into his pockets. His sceptical tone made her rank sound like proof of declining standards, as if she’d been promoted because she was a thirty-something woman, not a proper detective. Hannah ground her teeth, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of provoking her temper.
‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about Callum’s disappearance.’
‘When my wife told me you wanted to talk about my son, I thought she must have got her wires crossed.’ Hannah guessed Deirdre had felt the rough edge of his tongue. ‘What has Callum got to do with this? He died twenty years ago.’
Were his eyes glistening? Could be the sunlight, rather than tears.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Hinds, I understand this is a difficult time for you.’
‘Oh, you understand, do you?’ He took a stride forward, and for an instant, she thought he meant to grab hold of her and wrap his meaty fingers around her throat. ‘A boy dead, twenty years back, and now his sister? You’ve got dead children of your own, have you? Do you really feel my pain?’
Hannah remembered the unborn child she had lost. Don’t go there. He didn’t know; he was a wounded animal, lashing out in a confusion of grief, rage and self-defence.
‘Might be easier if we went inside, Mr Hinds,’ Greg said. ‘This doesn’t need to take long.’
All of a sudden, her DS had morphed into Mr Nice Guy, affable as a saloon bar chum. It was like watching an alien bodysnatcher assume the appearance of a harmless human being. But Hinds wasn’t shifting.
‘Don’t worry, Sergeant. It definitely won’t take long, you can bet on that.’
‘Orla contacted the Cold Case Review Team this week,’ Hannah said. ‘She wanted us to look afresh at what happened to her brother.’
Mike Hinds flexed his muscles. Habit, or a warning sign? ‘She knew bloody well what happened.’
‘She discussed the case with a variety of people after coming back to this area. It’s clear she wasn’t satisfied that her uncle was responsible for Callum’s disappearance.’
‘She didn’t have a clue,’ Hinds said. ‘As a kid, she preferred fairy tales to reality, and she never got them out of her system. Things got worse once the booze started to rot her brain. Just like it rotted her mother’s.’
‘Niamh didn’t believe Philip killed Callum either, did she?’
‘Her state of mind depended on how pissed she was. After Callum went missing, she was in … what do you call it?’ He glared. ‘Denial?’
‘Philip didn’t leave a suicide note, or any confession. There is no proof he harmed a hair on your son’s head.’
‘Hanged himself, didn’t he? What better evidence do you want?’
‘He’d been interviewed by the police, he must have been scared witless. A man with learning difficulties, under intolerable pressure, who had never learnt effective coping skills.’
‘He was pathetic. So fucking weak.’
Mike Hinds spat out the words, and Hannah saw in his eyes that nothing, in his book, was more contemptible than weakness. He must have despised Philip for as long as he could remember.
Greg said, ‘After the divorce, Niamh made it hard for you to see Callum. Women do that sometimes, don’t they? The law’s in their favour, and they use it to their advantage. Driven by some sort of thirst for revenge.’
‘She was a mean bitch.’
Greg nodded towards the barn. ‘Couldn’t hack it, I suppose. Farm life doesn’t suit everyone, eh?’
‘Farmers marry farmers’ daughters, it’s the best way, but I met an Irish girl with big tits at a club in Carlisle and let myself get carried away. Biggest mistake of my life.’