Charlie’s older brother John scowled. ‘They’ve got no idea what’s happened to our Alison. They’re just making an example of Charlie so it looks like they’re doing something.’
‘They’re not going to let it go at that, though, are they?’ Charlie’s uncle Robert said. ‘They’ll go through us one by one if they get no change out of Charlie. That Bennett bloke, he’s got a bee in his bonnet about Alison, you can tell.’
‘But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ Ray Carter chipped in. ‘It means he’s going to do a proper job. He’s not going to settle till he’s got an answer.’
‘That’s fine if it’s the right answer,’ Terry said.
‘Aye,’ Robert said pensively. ‘But how do we make sure he doesn’t get distracted from what he should be doing because he’s too busy persecuting the likes of young Charlie? The lad’s not tough, we all know that. They’ll be putting words in his mouth. For all we know, if they can’t get the right man, they’ll decide to have Charlie anyway and to hell with it.’
‘There’s two roads we can go,’ Jack Lomas said. ‘We can stonewall them. Tell them nothing, except what we need to cover Charlie’s back all ways. They’ll soon realize they’ll have to find another scapegoat then. Or we can bend over backwards to help them. Maybe that way they’ll realize that looking at the people who cared about our Alison isn’t going to find the lass or whoever took her.’
There was a long silence in the kitchen, punctuated by Terry sucking on his pipe. Eventually, old Robert Lomas spoke. ‘Happen we can do both.’
Without George, the work went on. The searchers had given up for the day, but in the incident room, uniformed officers made plans for the following day. Already, they had accepted offers from the local Territorial Army volunteers and the RAF cadets to join the hunt at the weekend. Nobody was voicing their thoughts, but everyone was pessimistic. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t cover every inch of Derbyshire if they had to.
Up in Longnor, Clough and Cragg were awash with tea but starved of leads. They’d agreed to call it a night at half past nine, a farming community being earlier abed than the townies in Buxton. Just before close of play, Clough struck lucky. An elderly couple had been coming home from Christmas shopping in Leek and they’d noticed a Land Rover parked on the grass at the side of the Methodist Chapel. ‘Just before five, it was,’ the husband said definitely.
‘What made you notice it?’ Clough asked.
‘We attend the chapel,’ he said. ‘Normally, it’s only the minister who parks there. The rest of us leave our cars on the verge. Anybody local knows that.’
‘Do you think the driver parked off the road to avoid being noticed?’
‘I suppose so. He wasn’t to know that was the one parking place that would make him conspicuous, was he?’
Clough nodded. ‘Did you see the driver?’
Both shook their heads. ‘It was dark,’ the wife pointed out. ‘It didn’t have any lights on. And we were past it in moments.’
‘Was there anything you did notice about the Land Rover? Was it long wheelbase or short wheelbase? What colour was it? Was it a fixed top or a canvas one? Any letters or numbers from the registration?’ Clough probed.
Again, they shook their heads dubiously. ‘We weren’t paying much attention, to be honest,’ the husband said. ‘We were talking about the fatstock show. Chap from Longnor took one of the top prizes and we’d been invited to join him for a drink in Leek. I think half the village was going to be there. But we decided to come home. My wife wanted to get the decorations up.’
Clough glanced around at the home-made paper chains and the artificial Christmas tree complete with its pathetic string of fairy lights and a garland of tinsel that looked as if the dog had been chewing it since Christmas past. ‘I can see why,’ he said, deadpan.
‘I always like to get them done the day of the fatstock show,’ the woman said proudly. ‘Then we feel like Christmas is coming, don’t we, Father?’
‘We do, Doris, yes. So you see, Sergeant, our minds weren’t really on the Land Rover at all.’
Clough got to his feet and smiled. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘At least you noticed it was there. That’s more than anybody else in the village did.’
‘Too busy celebrating Alec Grundy’s heifers,’ the man said sagely.
Clough thanked them again and left, rendezvousing with Cragg in the local pub. He’d never believed that the rule about not drinking on duty need be strictly applied, especially on night shift. Like high-grade oil to an engine, a couple of drinks always made his mind run more smoothly. Over a pint of Marston’s Pedigree, he told Cragg what he’d heard.
‘That’s great,’ Cragg enthused. ‘Professor’ll like that.’
Clough pulled a face. ‘Up to a point. He’ll like the fact we’ve got a pair of witnesses who saw a Land Rover parked where locals knew not to park. He’ll like the fact that this unusual piece of parking happened around the same time Alison disappeared.’ Then Clough explained what he thought George wouldn’t like.
‘Bugger,’ Cragg said.
‘Aye.’ Clough took two inches off his pint in a single swallow. ‘Bugger.’
Friday, 13th December 1963. 5.35 a.m.
George walked into Buxton Police Station through the front office to find a uniformed constable attaching festive bells of honeycomb paper to the wall with drawing pins. ‘Very jolly,’ he grunted. ‘Sergeant Lucas here?’
‘You might just catch him, sir. He said he was going to the canteen for a bacon sandwich. First break he’s had all night, sir.’
‘The red bell’s higher than the green one,’ George said on his way out.
The PC glared at the door as it swung shut.
George found Bob Lucas munching a bacon sandwich and staring glumly at the morning papers. ‘Seen this, sir?’ he greeted him, pushing the Daily News across the table. George picked it up and began to read.
Daily News, Friday, 13th December 1963, p.5
MISSING GIRL: IS THERE A LINK? Dogs in manhunt for Alison By Daily News Reporter
Police yesterday refused to rule out a link between missing schoolgirl Alison Carter, 13, and two similar disappearances less than thirty miles away within the last six months.
There are striking similarities between the three cases, and detectives spoke privately of the need to consider whether a joint task force should be set up among the three police forces investigating the cases.
The latest manhunt centres round Alison Carter, who vanished from the remote Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale on Wednesday. She had taken her collie, Shep, for a walk after school, but when she failed to return home, her mother, Mrs Ruth Hawkin, alerted local police at Buxton.
A search led by tracker dogs failed to find any trace of the girl, although her dog was discovered unharmed in nearby woods.
Her mystery disappearance comes less than three weeks after 12-year-old John Kilbride went missing in Ashton-under-Lyne. He was last seen in the town’s market at teatime. Lancashire police have so far failed to come up with a single positive sighting of him since.
Pauline Reade, 16, was going to a dance when she left her family home in Wiles Street, Gorton, Manchester in July. But she never arrived and, as with John and Alison, police have no idea what happened to her.
A senior Derbyshire police officer said: ’At this point,