‘Depending on what the squire’s got to say for himself, Peter Crowther could be irrelevant,’ Clough pointed out.
George frowned. ‘You don’t seriously think…Hawkin?’
Clough shrugged. ‘Do I think he’s capable of it? I’ve no idea, I’ve hardly spoken to the man. On the other hand, he has lied to us.’ He enumerated the possibilities on short, strong fingers. ‘Either he’s got something to hide, or he’s covering for somebody else he saw, or else he’s criminally absent-minded.’
Before George could respond, the issue was settled by the appearance of Ma Lomas, bundled in a winter coat and headscarf. She cocked her head and said, ‘You’re blocking my path.’
The two men stepped aside. She carried on towards her door without acknowledgement. ‘We need to speak to you,’ George said.
‘I don’t need to speak to you,’ she retorted, struggling to fumble a large iron key into the door lock. ‘Never had to lock our doors before Ruth Carter brought strangers into the dale.’ The lock turned with a jarring screech of metal on metal.
‘Don’t you care what happens to your own flesh and blood?’ George said.
She turned to face him, eyes narrowed. ‘You know nowt, you.’ Then she opened the door.
‘We’ll be going to talk to the squire after we’ve spoken to you,’ Clough chipped in as she was about to disappear inside. She stopped on the threshold, still as a mouse below a hovering hawk. ‘We know about him walking the field where you’ve just been. Mrs Lomas, we need to eliminate Peter Crowther from our inquiries if he’s an innocent man.’
For a moment she stood thinking, letting the seemingly unconnected sentences settle. Then she nodded, cocking her head and fixing Clough with a calculating stare. ‘You’d better come in then,’ she said at last. ‘Mind you wipe your feet. And no smoking in here. It’s bad for my chest.’
They followed her into a parlour no more than nine feet square. A dim room with only one small window, it smelled faintly of camphor and eucalyptus. The stone floor was scattered with faded rag rugs. An armchair sat on either side of a grate flanked by two black iron ovens, each the size of a crate of beer. A kettle sat on one of the ovens, a curl of steam disappearing up the chimney from its spout. A sideboard stood on the opposite side of the room, its surface cluttered with carved wooden animals and roughly polished chunks of limestone containing fossils. In the tiny bay window, three tall ladder-back chairs in black oak loomed above a small dining table, as if threatening it with a beating.
The only decorations were dozens of garish picture postcards of everything from Spanish beaches to Scandinavian baroque town halls. Seeing George’s bemused stare, Ma Lomas said, ‘They’re Charlie’s. It’s like pen pals, only postcards. He’s a dreamer. Thing that makes me laugh is that there’s hundreds of people all over the world looking at Squire Hawkin’s postcard of Scardale and thinking Derbyshire village life is milk-white sheep in a field full of sunshine.’ She hobbled across to the chair facing the door and settled herself down, squirming her shoulders until she was comfortable.
‘Can I sit down?’ George asked.
‘You won’t like the armchair,’ she told him. With her head, she gestured towards the hard chairs. ‘Better for your back, anyway.’
They turned a couple of chairs to face her. They waited while she leaned forward, poking the glowing coals ablaze. ‘Peter Crowther’s in custody in Buxton,’ George said when she’d made herself cosy.
‘Aye, I’d heard.’
‘Should he be, do you think?’
‘You’re the copper, not me. I’m just an old woman who’s never lived outside a Derbyshire dale.’
‘We could waste a lot of time trying to connect Peter Crowther to Alison,’ George continued, refusing to be diverted. ‘Time that would be better spent trying to find her.’
‘I told you before, the trouble with you and your detectives is that you understand nothing about this place,’ she said, her voice irritated.
‘I’m trying to understand. But people in Scardale seem more interested in hindering than helping me. I’ve just had the experience of discovering your grandson had omitted to mention something that could be a vital piece of evidence.’
‘That’s hardly surprising, considering the way you treated the lad. How come none of you had the sense to ask if he could have had owt to do with Alison going missing? Because he couldn’t have. When she disappeared, he was here in the house with me. That’s what you call an alibi, isn’t it?’ she demanded scornfully.
‘Are you sure about that?’ George asked dubiously.
‘I might be old, but I’ve got all me chairs at home. Charlie came in just before half past four and started peeling potatoes. I can’t manage them with my arthritis the way it is, so he has to do them. Every night, it’s the same routine. He wasn’t messing about with Alison, he was here, taking care of me.’
George took a deep breath. ‘It would have saved us a lot of time if either you or Charlie had seen fit to tell us that. Mrs Lomas, in cases involving missing children, the first forty-eight hours are crucial. That time is almost up and we are no nearer finding a young girl who is one of your relatives.’ George’s frustration made his voice rise. ‘Mrs Lomas, I swear I am going to find Alison Carter. Sooner or later, I am going to know what happened here two days ago. If that means searching every house in this village from roof beam to foundations, I’ll do it. If I have to dig up every field and garden in the dale, I’ll do it, and to hell with your crops and livestock. If I have to arrest every one of you and charge you with obstruction or even with being accessories, I’ll do it.’ He stopped abruptly and leaned forward. ‘So tell me. Do you think Peter Crowther had anything to do with Alison’s disappearance?’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘As far as I know, and believe you me, I know most things around Scardale, Peter hasn’t set foot in this dale since the war ended. I don’t think he even knows Alison exists. And I’d put my hand on the Bible and swear she’s never heard his name.’ Her lips clamped shut, her nose and chin approaching like the points of an engineer’s callipers.
‘We can’t be sure about that. The lass has been going to school in Buxton. She’s got the look of her mother. Don’t forget, Mrs Hawkin would have been about Alison’s age when her brother last spent much time around her. With somebody who’s a bit lacking in the top storey, seeing Alison in the street could have triggered off all sorts of memories.’
Ma Lomas folded her arms tightly across her chest and shook her head vigorously as George spoke. ‘I’ll not believe it, I’ll not,’ she said.
‘So, should we be interviewing Peter Crowther, Mrs Lomas?’ George asked, his voice gentler again in response to her obvious distress.
‘If he’d have stepped into the dale, we’d all have known. Besides, he’d have been at work,’ she added desperately.
‘They get Wednesday afternoons off. He could have been here. Mrs Lomas, what did Peter Crowther do that got him sent away?’
‘That’s nobody’s business now,’ she said emphatically. Her eyes were screwed up now, as if the firelight were the noonday sun.
‘I need to know,’ George persisted.
‘You don’t.’
Tommy Clough leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his notepad dangling between his calves. George envied him his ability to appear relaxed even in an interview as tense as this had become. ‘I don’t think Peter Crowther could hurt a fly,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not the one who makes the decisions. I think it could be a while before Peter sees