'No, we pulled it off. Christ, we had how many SOCO officers, not to mention the bloody Territorial Support Group, but we'll start it up again.'
Anna was still not one hundred per cent sure. She looked to see if Lewis was agreeing with Langton.
'And he's somewhere that they feel safe enough about moving back into the house? Is that what you think?' Lewis asked.
Langton took a deep breath. 'Exactly; now, we can go back in and put the frighteners on them, or we wait for him to make contact. If I was in his position, with the amount of press circulating… He's not going to hang around or make himself obvious, is he?' Langton patted their driver's shoulder. 'Let's go back; this time, I'll talk to them.'
The patrol car pulled a U-turn round the gravelled horseshoe drive.
Langton opened his car door. 'In the meantime, get onto the Incident Room; I want the surveillance team back in place round the clock. I want their phone tapped; book us into the hotel the forensic guys were staying at.'
'For tonight?' Lewis asked.
'For as long as this is going to take.' He slammed the door hard and headed towards the front door of the house. They saw him pull the old bell rope and also ring the doorbell.
'You think he's right, Anna?' Lewis asked
'I don't know, but anything is worth a try.'
Justine opened the front door.
'Hi, just to say we're out of here.' Langton smiled.
'I thought you'd already gone.'
'Nope, we just finished up in the barn.'
'Really?'
'I'll be getting people back to make sure any damage done to the property is repaired. Could be a couple of days. I'm sorry for any inconvenience; the equipment left in the barn will be collected sometime tomorrow.'
'Thank you.'
Langton stepped closer. 'If your father should make contact…'
'If he does, I'll make sure you know about it.'
'Has he tried to?'
'Tried to what?' Justine asked.
'If you know where he is, if you have any idea where he is, then you can call me on this number.' He handed her his card.
She took it and glanced down, then back to him. 'Thank you. Goodnight.'
Langton returned to the car. 'Well, now we wait.'
'It will take at least two hours for a surveillance team to get hooked up again,' said Lewis. 'We already had a phone tap, so that's organised. The hotel have two vacancies only: two double rooms.'
'I'm in with you, am I?' Langton shot a sly glance at Anna.
She was about to blush when Lewis laughed and did a mincing lisp. 'Yeah, just the two of us, Gov, but we've got an ensuite!'
The hotel was small but very accommodating, probably because they had not had so many customers in such quick succession for a long time. As they had no luggage, Langton suggested they have a quick wash and brush-up, then go and grab something to eat.
There was a communal bathroom on Anna's floor and she decided to have a shower. The door was rapped; Lewis said impatiently that they were across the road at the pub and for her to join them there.
By the time Anna had got dressed again, she didn't feel like going over to the pub. She asked the landlady if she could make her a sandwich and a pot of tea. She took out her laptop and began to write up her report. It had been three days and three nights since Wickenham had escaped. If he had, as they suspected, merely picked up one of the white forensic suits and walked out undetected, that would have given him no time to make plans for leaving the country. Had he simply disappeared, like Lord Lucan, or had he been helped by one or more of his close friends?
Anna brought up the plans of the Wickenham estate on her laptop. She tried to place herself in his shoes. She stared at the small screen: to walk from the drawing room into the hall and take a left turn to the front door meant that he would have had to pass a lot of people. If he then walked outside and stopped to pick up a paper suit, where did he put it on? Wouldn't someone have seen him? If he had taken the other route, that would mean taking a right turn at the suit of armour, past the dining hall and then out into the corridor leading to the kitchen. If Wickenham had gone that way, he would have had to pass the narrow servants' staircase that was next to the laundry room. This area would have been heaving with officers. How could he have bypassed them all to enter the kitchen and escape via the back door? Anna was certain that this was impossible, so if he walked out it would have had to be via the front door.
She was interrupted by the landlady who had, as requested, made some ham sandwiches and a pot of tea. She placed the tray down, and Anna thanked her profusely. The landlady was about to walk out when she paused at the door.
'Everyone has been talking about what has been going on. It's been hard not to, especially here with every room taken by… forensic officers, I think they were.'
'Yes, they stayed here.'
'I don't usually serve meals, but a few times I made up a stew as they were working such late hours and the restaurants around here don't stay open after ten, well, not in the week. There's a chip shop but that closes early as well.'
Anna didn't respond; she wanted to get back to her work.
'I never knew him; he never came here, well, this wouldn't be a place for him, but everyone knew about that family. His daughters rode with my niece, she was quite friendly with them; she used to muck out and help groom their horses, but then something happened, and she said that Emily, the youngest, was sick. Course, they went off to boarding school and she went to the local comprehensive, so she hasn't seen them for years, She works in the local library.'
'Thank you very much for the tea.'
'Oh, that's all right. Their house is historically well known; the National Trust did some work there. It would have been very good for the locals if it had been opened to the public. The family who had owned it for generations before the Wickenhams lost their only son in the last war. They had a little daughter; she climbed into one of those priest holes and I think she died, but this was all before I even came here. They sold it to Charles Wickenham's father in the sixties, I think. In the old days, they would open up the gardens for a summer fete. When Wickenham took it over, he let it go badly. It was a shame, because it really was a very beautiful example of Tudor architecture; we all knew when his son inherited the place he was doing extensions and conversions that he shouldn't have been allowed to do; God forbid, if you put up a greenhouse without the council's permission here, but he used to get away with murder.'
Realising that what she had said was, at best, unfortunate, she left the room, rather embarrassed, to Anna's relief.
She had just poured herself a cup of tea when there was a light tap on her door. The landlady was back, this time with a folder with pictures of the Hall as it had been.
'Mr McDonald was very interested in these: they show the Hall before it had the extensions. You can see how over the centuries the house was rebuilt.'
'Thank you very much; I'd like to look over them.'
'My pleasure. It's one of the oldest houses in this area.'
This time, Anna got up to see the landlady to the door to make it obvious she wanted her to leave. She picked up a ham sandwich and stood flicking through the folder. Some of the photographs had a library stamp on them; from her niece, no doubt. Anna sat down and looked over them. After a while, she went online with her Bluetooth connection and tried to find more details.
It was after ten when she walked over to the pub; Langton and Lewis were obviously quite a few drinks the worse for wear. The table was littered with peanuts and empty crisp packets.