Janet looked at Derek, who shrugged his shoulders, as baffled and bemused as she was. They had never heard a word about a second Crowther brother. His name had never been mentioned.
All the way back to the lane end, the bus driver kept on about Peter Crowther, how he lived in a hostel and worked in a sheltered workshop for nutters that the council didn’t think were daft enough to be locked up, how he supposedly had some dark secret in his past and now the police thought he’d done away with Alison. Janet focused on the back of his thick red neck and wanted him to die.
But she wanted the truth even more. Her father was waiting at the lane end for the bus to drop the children off. He’d been there for ten minutes; nobody in Scardale was taking any more chances. The first thing Janet said when the bus door closed behind them was, ‘Dad, who’s Peter Crowther? And what did he do?’
Ray Carter, being the kind of man he was, told her. Then she wished he hadn’t.
Grundy had been right about one thing at least, George thought as he leaned against the wall of the interview room. Peter Crowther was afraid of his own shadow. And of everyone else’s. The first thing that had struck him when he’d walked into the stuffy room was the thin acrid smell of Crowther’s fear, an odour quite distinct from the cheesy unwashed reek of his narrow body. ‘A chain-smoking interview,’ Clough had muttered in an aside, his nose wrinkled fastidiously against Peter Crowther’s personal miasma.
‘What?’ George had mumbled in reply as they stood on the threshold, deliberately sizing up Crowther to lay an even heavier weight of apprehension on the man.
‘You have to chain-smoke or you throw up,’ Clough illuminated him.
George nodded his understanding. ‘You kick off,’ he said, moving to stand against the wall and letting Clough drop into the chair facing Crowther. George jerked his head towards the door and the uniformed PC who had been on guard slipped out with a look of relief.
‘All right, Peter?’ Clough said, leaning forward on his elbows.
Peter Crowther seemed to fold in on himself even more. His head was the colour and shape of a wedge of Dairylea cheese, George decided. Dairylea cheese with a straggle of cress stems across the top. Odd that he should look so greasily pale while he smelled so grubby. He didn’t actually look dirty. His clean-shaven pointed chin was tucked in towards his chest, his cat’s eyes angled up towards Clough. The man could have served as the illustrated dictionary definition of a cringe. He said nothing in response to Clough’s opening, though his lips moved, forming silent words.
‘You’re going to talk to me sooner or later, Peter,’ Clough said confidently, dropping one hand to his pocket and taking out his cigarettes. Nonchalantly, he lit up and blew smoke at Peter Crowther. When the smoke reached him, Crowther’s nose twitched as he inhaled it greedily. ‘Might as well be sooner,’ Clough continued. ‘So tell us, what made you decide to go back to Scardale on Wednesday?’
Crowther frowned. He looked genuinely puzzled. Whatever he felt guilty about, it didn’t seem to involve Scardale. ‘Peter never,’ he said, his rising intonation indicating doubt rather than the bluster of the truly guilty. ‘Peter lives in Buxton. Waterswallows Lodgings, number seventeen. Peter don’t live in Scardale no more.’
‘We know that, Peter. But you went back to Scardale on Wednesday night. There’s no point in denying it, we know you were there.’
Crowther shuddered. ‘Peter never.’ This time he was firm. ‘Peter can’t go back to Scardale. He’s not allowed. He lives in Buxton. Waterswallows Lodgings, number seventeen.’
‘Who says you’re not allowed?’
Crowther’s eyes dropped. ‘Our Dan. He says if Peter sets foot in Scardale ever again, he’ll cut Peter’s hands off. So Peter don’t go there, see? Can Peter have a fag?’
‘In a minute,’ Clough said, negligently blowing more smoke towards Crowther. ‘What about Alison? When did you see Alison last?’
Crowther looked up again, his troubled face confused. ‘Alison? Peter don’t know no Alison. There’s an Angela works beside him, she puts the fringes on lampshades. Is it Angela you mean? Peter likes Angela. She’s got a leather jacket. She got it off her brother. He works in the tannery at Whaley Bridge. Angela’s brother, that is. Peter works with Angela. Peter makes lampshade frames.’
‘Alison. Your niece Alison. Your sister Ruth’s girl,’ Clough said firmly.
At the sound of Ruth’s name, Crowther jerked. His knees came up towards his chest and he wrapped his arms tightly round them. ‘Peter never,’ he gasped. ‘Peter never!’
George moved forward and leaned his fists on the table. ‘You didn’t know Ruth had a daughter?’ he asked gently.
‘Peter never,’ Crowther kept repeating like a talisman.
George unobtrusively signalled to Clough to back off. The sergeant leaned back in his chair and directed his smoke towards the ceiling. George took his own cigarettes out, lit one and held it out to Crowther, who was shivering now as he continued to mutter, ‘Peter never. Peter never.’ It took a few seconds for Crowther to notice the offering. He looked suspiciously at the cigarette, then at George. One hand snaked out and grabbed it. He held the cigarette cupped inside his hand, the tip pinched between thumb and forefinger, as if he expected it to be hijacked. He inhaled in quick snatches, his eyes flickering and fluttering between George, Clough and the cigarette.
‘When did you last speak to anyone from Scardale, Peter?’ George asked kindly, slipping into the chair next to Clough.
Crowther gave a knotted shrug. ‘Don’t know. Sometimes Peter sees family on the market on a Saturday. But family don’t speak to Peter. One time, in the summer, Peter was in the paper shop buying smokes and our Diane came in. She nodded, but she didn’t say owt. I think she wanted to, but she knew if she did our Dan would hurt Peter bad. Dan always makes Peter scared. That’s why Peter never goes back to Scardale.’
‘And you really didn’t know Ruth had a daughter?’ said Clough the sceptic.
Crowther twitched, his face clenching round his cigarette in a tight spasm. ‘Peter never,’ he moaned. He leaned forward into his knees and began to rock. ‘Peter never.’
George looked at Clough and shook his head. He stood up and walked towards the door. ‘We’ll get somebody to bring you a cup of tea, Peter.’ Clough followed him into the hallway. ‘He’s hiding something,’ George said positively.
‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with Alison, though,’ Clough said.
‘I’m not sure,’ George said. ‘I’m not committing myself till I know why his family threw him out of Scardale. Whatever it was, it must have been bad if his own sister still won’t speak to him in passing twenty years later.’
‘You want him holding on to, then?’ Clough said, unable to keep the doubt out of his voice.
‘Oh, I think so. Safest place for him, don’t you think?’ George said over his shoulder as he walked towards the CID office. ‘DCI Carver’s convinced he’s our man, and it’ll take more than my opinion to change his mind. And a police station’s always a leaky sieve. Before closing time, half the town will know Peter Crowther’s been questioned about Alison’s disappearance. I don’t think Waterswallows Lodgings, number seventeen, would be the best place for him in those circumstances.’ He pushed open the door and contemplated his chief inspector, plastered leg propped on a wastepaper bin, evening paper in front of him. The whole room was still fragrant with the unmistakable aroma of fish and chips soaked with vinegar and wrapped in newspaper.
‘Got him to tell you where the girl is yet?’ Carver demanded.
‘I don’t think he knows, sir,’ George said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as weary as he felt.
Carver snorted. ‘Is that what a university education