‘It’s very high but it’s narrow,’ Gallivan explained. ‘They can move above the flow, using their hips and their elbows, pinning themselves between the walls.’
‘It’s still dangerous,’ Susan Taylor added. ‘Because if they slip they’re going to get swept away. But the two of them fight their way back in and there’s still no sign of Charlie.’
She stopped herself as if there was no point telling any more.
‘They decided he must have missed the contortion altogether and continued straight into a tangle of different passageways. It’s like an underground maze.’
‘Spaghetti Junction,’ Gallivan said. That was the name that Davina Richardson had told us.
‘There was no way they could get back there so they made a second decision, which was to get back out and call for help.’
‘They went up to Ing Lane Farm.’ Gallivan picked up the story. ‘The farmer there is Chris Jackson and they knew that if he wasn’t in his wife would be. They went there and rang the police. They contacted me directly. I logged the call at five past five and called out the team. We were down Long Way Hole by seven.’
‘The police called me too.’ Susan lifted her cup of tea but it had gone cold. She grimaced and put it down again. ‘That’s when I knew there was something wrong. But it wasn’t until the next day that they found him . . .’
‘That’s enough,’ Gallivan growled. ‘You should read the inquest if you want to know more. It’s all out in the open. I think you should leave now.’
‘The girls will be back soon,’ Susan said. She reached for a tissue and I saw that her hand was trembling. Looking up, I realised she had begun to cry.
‘Wait for me outside.’ Gallivan went over to her.
Hawthorne stood up. ‘Thank you for seeing us, Mrs Taylor,’ he said. ‘We’ll find out what happened at King’s Cross station. I promise you that.’
She glanced up at him almost balefully, as if she actually blamed him. She had a point. His visit had only opened the wounds, forcing her to relive what had happened all over again. I nodded but said nothing. We left the room.
But we didn’t leave the house straight away. Making sure he wasn’t being seen, Hawthorne crossed the front hall and went into the living room. I followed him. The room was empty to the point of being austere. Apart from the fireplace and the piano there was a television, two sofas, a coffee table with a cactus in a pot and a few photographs of the family in happier times. A pair of French windows opened into the conservatory. The cat had curled up on one of the chairs. That was everything. There was nothing else.
‘What exactly are you looking for?’ I whispered.
‘You don’t see it?’ Hawthorne replied.
I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.
‘No,’ I said.
Hawthorne shook his head. ‘It’s right in front of your eyes, mate.’
Whenever Hawthorne saw anything or worked something out, he deliberately kept it from me as if the whole thing was some sort of game. This is often the case in detective stories and I always find it infuriating, but I knew only too well that there was nothing I could do. We left the living room and tiptoed back out into the street. As soon as we were outside, he lit a cigarette.
‘Did you really have to be so hard on her?’ I said.
Hawthorne looked genuinely surprised. ‘Was I?’
‘She was upset.’
‘She was nervous.’
Had she been nervous? I didn’t think so. I certainly hadn’t seen it. And what did she have to be nervous of? As I turned these thoughts over in my head, I remembered the one thing I knew that Hawthorne probably didn’t. It came from having lived in Crouch End for sixteen years and although it almost certainly wasn’t relevant, I decided to share it. At least it allowed me to contribute something to the day.
‘You know that photograph she showed us,’ I said.
‘The one he sent his wife?’
‘I happen to know where it was taken.’ I paused for effect. ‘That’s Hornsey Lane in Highgate. It’s about a minute away from Suicide Bridge.’
‘Suicide Bridge?’
‘It’s what everyone calls it. Hornsey Lane Bridge. If he wanted to commit suicide, he could have jumped off – but what’s really interesting is that it’s only a five-minute walk from Davina Richardson’s house.’
Hawthorne took this in. ‘That is interesting,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ll tell you something that interests me even more.’
‘What’s that?’
‘King’s Cross station. W. H. Smith. Why did he buy that book?’
11 At the Station Inn
I thought we might go back to the hotel after Ingleton but first of all Hawthorne wanted to visit the entrance to Long Way Hole. I didn’t see how it could help but I was just grateful he wasn’t suggesting we kit up and drop into the cave system ourselves. Dave Gallivan drove us in his Land Rover, which was so beaten-up that I was nervous the whole thing would collapse when we drove over the next bump or a cattle grid. Hawthorne sat in the front. I was in the back, hemmed in between plastic barrels, ropes and backpacks, looking out through windows streaked and splattered with mud.
The railway line had slashed through the countryside but the roads allowed us to weave our way across it more gently. Everything – the cottages and farmhouses, streams and bridges, woodland and hills – looked even lovelier at close quarters. Gallivan gave us an occasional commentary but his observations seemed almost deliberately prosaic, as if he felt uncomfortable having a writer with him in the car.
‘That’s Whernside. It’s the tallest of the three peaks. And that’s Ingleborough. If you look up there, that ridge is carboniferous limestone. Those are Swaledale.’ (He was pointing at a flock of sheep.) ‘They’ve been grazing here two hundred year or more.’
Sitting next to him, Hawthorne had the best view, but again he showed no interest, sinking into his seat, saying nothing.
A rough lane forked off from the road and we followed it into the glorious green emptiness of the Dales, finally stopping at a gate built into a drystone wall. Apart from the crunch of our feet on the gravel, there was barely a sound as we walked away from the car, through the gate and up another track. It had been sunny when we were in Ingleton but now the weather was closing in and it occurred to me that this must have been what it looked like when Richard Pryce, Charles Richardson and Gregory Taylor had set out on their last trip. There was still plenty of blue sky but far away the clouds were rubbing up against each other, throwing dark shadows across the fields, broken only by the light slanting down in godlike shafts.
We came to a stream that bubbled cheerfully along until it reached a stone ledge where it suddenly spilled over and became a waterfall. It was impossible to see how deep it was but it seemed to continue into the very bowels of the earth. A hill rose up ahead with the dark mouth of a cave, surrounded by ivy and moss, looking very much like something out of a story designed to frighten children. This was where the three men had begun their descent, allowing themselves to be swallowed up by the dark.
‘Where’s the exit?’ Hawthorne asked.
Gallivan pointed. ‘Two miles east. Round the back of Drear Hill. You want to go there?’
Hawthorne shook his head. Scanning the horizon, he picked out a white-painted farmhouse, isolated, surrounded by grass. ‘Who lives there?’