A Manchester CID officer told the Daily News, ‘Of course, we hope Alison is found quickly. But we would be very happy to share the fruits of our investigations with Derbyshire if this case drags on.’
‘Bloody journalists,’ George complained. ‘They twist everything you say. Where’s all the stuff I said about there being more dissimilarities than there are similarities? I might as well have saved my breath. This Don Smart’s just going to write what he wants to write, no matter what the truth is.’
‘It’s always the same with the Fleet Street reporters,’ Lucas said sourly. ‘The local lads have to stay on the right side of the truth because they have to come back to us week after week for their stories, but that London lot don’t give a monkey’s whether they upset the police in Buxton or not.’ He sighed. ‘Were you looking for me, sir?’
‘Just something I wanted you to pass on to the day shift. I think it’s time we located any known sex offenders in the area and brought them in for questioning.’
‘In the whole division, sir?’ Lucas sounded weary.
Sometimes, George thought, he understood exactly why some officers remained locked inside their uniforms for the duration of their careers. ‘I think we’ll concentrate on the immediate area round Scardale. Maybe a five-mile radius, extending it up on the northern side to include Buxton.’
‘Hikers come from miles around,’ Lucas said. ‘There’s no guaranteeing our man isn’t from Manchester or Sheffield or Stoke.’
‘I know, Sergeant, but we’ve got to start somewhere.’ George pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘I’m off to Scardale. I’ll be there all day, I expect.’
‘You’ll have heard about the Land Rover?’ Lucas said, his voice as neutral as his face was smug.
‘Land Rover?’
‘Your lads turned up a pair of witnesses in Longnor last night. Saw a Land Rover parked off the road near the Scardale turn-off round about the time young Alison left the house.’
George’s face lit up. ‘But that’s fantastic news!’
‘Not entirely. It were dark. The witnesses couldn’t give any description except that it was a Land Rover.’
‘But we’ll be able to get impressions from the tyres. It’s a start,’ George said, his irritation with Lucas and the Daily News forgotten in his excitement.
Lucas shook his head. ‘Afraid not, sir. The spot where the Land Rover was parked? Up the side of the Methodist Chapel. Right where our cars were in and out all night and day yesterday.’
‘Bugger,’ said George.
Tommy Clough was nursing a mug of tea and a cigarette when George arrived at the incident room. ‘Morning, sir,’ he said, not bothering to get to his feet.
‘You still here?’ George asked. ‘You can go off duty now, if you like. You must be exhausted.’
‘No worse than you were yesterday. Sir, if it’s all right with you, I’d rather stop on. This is my last night shift anyway, so I might as well get used to going to bed at the right time. If you’re interviewing the villagers, happen I could be some help. I’ve seen most of them already, I’ve picked up a fair bit of the background.’
George considered for a moment. Clough’s normally ruddy face was paler than usual, the skin around his eyes puffy. But his eyes were still alert, and he had some of the local knowledge that George lacked. Besides, it was about time George established a working partnership with one of his three sergeants that went deeper than the surface. ‘All right. But if you start yawning when some old dear decides to tell us her life story, I’m sending you straight home.’
‘Fine by me, sir. Where do you want to start?’
George crossed to one of the tables and pulled a pad of paper towards him. ‘A map. Who lives where and who they are. That’s where I want to start.’
George scratched his head. ‘I don’t suppose you know how they’re all related?’ he asked, staring down at the map Tommy Clough had sketched out for him.
‘Beyond me,’ he confessed. ‘Apart from the obvious, like Charlie Lomas is Terry and Diane’s youngest. Mike Lomas is the eldest of Robert and Christine’s. Then there’s Jack who lives with them, and they’ve got two daughters – Denise, who’s married to Brian Carter, and Angela, who’s married to a smallholder over towards Three Shires Head.’
George held up his hand. ‘Enough,’ he groaned. ‘Since you’ve obviously got a natural talent for it, you’re officer in charge of Scardale genealogy. You can remind me of who belongs where as and when I need to know it. Right now, all I want to know is where Alison Carter fits in.’
Tommy cast his eyes upwards as if trying to picture the family tree. ‘OK. Never mind cousins, first, second or third. I’ll stick with just the main relationships. Somehow or other, Ma Lomas is her great-grandmother. Her father, Roy Carter, was David and Ray’s brother. On her mother’s side, she was a Crowther. Ruth is sister to Daniel and also to Terry Lomas’s wife Diane.’ Clough pointed to the relevant houses on the map. ‘But they’re all interconnected.’
‘There must be some fresh blood now and again,’ George objected. ‘Otherwise they’d all be village idiots.’
‘There are one or two incomers to dilute the mixture. Cathleen Lomas, Jack’s wife, is a Longnor lass. And John Lomas married a woman from over Bakewell way. Lasted long enough for her to have Amy, then she was off somewhere she could watch Coronation Street and go out for a drink without it being a military operation. And of course, there’s Philip Hawkin.’
‘Yes, let’s not forget the squire,’ George said thoughtfully. He sighed and stood up. ‘We could do with finding out a bit more about him. St Albans, that’s where he hails from, isn’t it?’ He took out his notebook and jotted down a reminder. ‘Don’t let me forget to follow that up. Come on then, Tommy. Let’s have another crack at Scardale.’
Brian Carter wiped the teats of the next cow in line and, with surprising gentleness, clamped the milking machine on to her udder. Dawn had still been a few hours away when he’d left the warm bed he shared with his new wife, Denise, in Bankside Cottage, the two-bedroomed house where Alison Carter was born on a rainy night in 1950. Tramping up through the silent village with his father, he’d been unable to avoid thinking bitterly how much his cousin’s disappearance had changed his world already.
His had been a simple, uncomplicated life. They’d always been very self-contained, very private in Scardale. He’d grown used to getting called names at school and later in the pubs when folk had had a few too many. He knew all the tired old jokes about inbreeding and secret black magic rituals, but he’d learned to ignore all that and get on with his life.
When there was light, Scardale worked the land and when there wasn’t, they were still busy. The women spun wool, knitted jumpers, crocheted shawls and blankets and baby clothes, made preserves and chutneys, things they could sell through the Women’s Institute market in Buxton.
The men maintained the buildings, inside and out. They also worked with wood. Terry Lomas made beautiful turned wooden bowls, rich and lustrous, the grain chosen for its intricate patterns. He sent them off to a craft centre in London where they sold for what seemed ridiculous sums of money to everyone else in the village. Brian’s father David made wooden toys for a shop in Leek. There wouldn’t have been time for the wild pagan rituals that gullible drinkers speculated about in Buxton bars, even supposing anyone had been interested. The truth was, everyone in Scardale worked too bloody hard to have time for anything except eating and sleeping.
There was little need for contact with the outside world