‘I won’t,’ George said. ‘And I’ll do my best to make sure no other police officer does.’
‘You’re sure, aren’t you?’ she said through stiff lips. ‘In your heart, you’re sure she’s dead?’
George wanted to be anywhere but in Ruth Carter’s kitchen, nailed by her eyes against the truth. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I can find no reason to think otherwise and a significant amount of circumstantial evidence that leads me to that conclusion. God knows, I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t not.’
Ruth began rocking to and fro in her chair, her arms clamped across her breasts, hands turned to claws in her armpits. Her head dropped back and she let out an agonized roar, the wordless cry of an animal wounded beyond recovery. Helpless, George sat like a block of wood. Somehow, he knew the worst thing he could do would be to touch her.
The noise stopped and her head fell forward, slack-jawed and flushed. Here yes glittered with tears unshed. ‘You get him hanged,’ she said, hard and clear.
He nodded, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting one. ‘I’ll try my best.’
She shook her head. ‘Never mind trying. Do it, George Bennett. Because if you don’t make sure he dies, somebody else will and it’ll be a damn sight less humane than what the hangman will do to him.’ Her vehemence seemed to have used her last reserve of energy. She turned away and said breathlessly, ‘Now go.’
George slowly got to his feet. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, to take a statement. If you need anything, anything at all, you can reach me at the police station.’ He scrabbled in his jacket pocket for his notebook and scribbled his home number on a torn-out sheet of paper. ‘If I’m not there, call me at home. Any time. I’m sorry.’
He backed across the room and groped for the door handle. He closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall, cigarette smoke dribbling up his arm in a fragmented swirl. The sound of voices from down the hall led him to the cheerless room where the other Scardale women were besieging Tommy Clough. ‘To hell with the monkey, here comes the organ grinder,’ Maureen Carter said, catching sight of George. ‘You tell us. Are you going to hang that bastard Hawkin?’
‘I don’t make those decisions, Mrs Carter,’ George said, trying not to show how far past arguing he was. ‘Can I suggest that you’d be better off spending your time and your energy with Ruth? She needs your support. We’ll be leaving shortly, but there will be a guard on the outhouse overnight. I’d appreciate it if you’d all rally round Ruth now, and rack your brains for any little detail that might help us build our case.’
‘He’s right, leave him be,’ Ma Lomas said unexpectedly. ‘He’s only a lad and he’s had a lot to take in for one day. Come on, girls. We’d best see to Ruth.’ She shooed them out of the door ahead of her, then turned for the inevitable parting shot. ‘We won’t let you off this light again, lad. Time to shape up.’ She shook her head. ‘I blame the old squire. He should have known better. Half an hour with Philip Hawkin and there’s one thing you know for certain. Who spared that would drown nothing.’ The door closed behind her with a sharp snick.
As if choreographed, George and Clough subsided into chairs opposite each other, their faces as drained as their spirits. ‘I never want to have to do that again,’ George sighed on an exhalation of smoke. He cast around looking for an ashtray, but none of the ornaments held out any possibilities. He settled for nipping the hot coal off with his fingers and dropping it in the empty grate.
‘Chances are you’ll have to before you get your pension,’ Clough said. In the hall, a phone began to ring. On the sixth or seventh ring, it was picked up. A murmur of interrogatory speech, then footsteps approached the parlour door. Diane Lomas poked her head round and said, ‘It’s for the inspector. Somebody called Carver.’
Wearily, George pulled himself out of the armchair and across the room. He lifted the receiver and said, ‘DI Bennett.’
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at, Bennett? I’ve got Alfie Naden reading the riot act in here, claiming we’ve shoved his client in the cells without so much as a by-your-leave, and left him to stew while you go gadding around Derbyshire on another wild-goose chase.’
And how, George wondered, had the town’s most expensive lawyer found out that Philip Hawkin was in custody in the first place? Cragg was a useless wassock, but he wouldn’t have phoned the solicitor without George’s say-so. It looked like Carver hadn’t learned the lesson of Peter Crowther’s death and was behaving like a law unto himself again. George choked back an angry retort and said, ‘I was about to come back to the station and charge Mr Hawkin.’
‘With what? Naden said you told Hawkin he was being arrested on suspicion of murder. You’ve not got a murder to charge him with!’ Carver’s broad Midlands accent always thickened under pressure. George recognized the signs of a man whose temper was about to burst the dam. That made two of them.
Biting down hard on his anger, he spoke calmly. ‘I’ll be charging him with rape, sir. For starters. That should give us enough breathing space to ask the Director of Public Prosecutions where we stand on a murder charge with no body.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence. ‘Rape?’ Incredulity stretched the word into three syllables.
‘We have photographic evidence, sir. Believe me, this is copper-bottomed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll get off. I’ll be back in the office in about half an hour and I’ll show you my evidence then.’ George gently replaced the receiver and turned to see Bob Lucas in the doorway of the study. ‘DCI Carver would like us to return to Buxton,’ he said. ‘And I need to take those envelopes back with me. Can I leave you to sort out an overnight guard on the darkroom?’
‘I’ll deal with it, sir. Just to say, we’ve been through every book on the shelves in the study and there’s no photographs anywhere. We’ll carry on looking, though. Good luck with Hawkin.’ His sleek head bobbed in a supportive nod. ‘Let’s hope he makes it easy on Mrs Hawkin and decides to come clean.’
‘Somehow, I doubt it, Bob,’ Clough said from the doorway. ‘Too cocky by half, that one.’
‘While I remember, she doesn’t want us calling her Mrs Hawkin any more. I suppose we call her Mrs Carter,’ George sighed. ‘Pass the word round.’ He ran a hand over his still wet hair. ‘Right, then. Let’s go and make this bastard suffer.’
The photographs silenced Carver. George reckoned it wouldn’t be the last time they had that effect. Carver stared as if gazing would somehow erase the images and replace them with the picture-postcard shots of Scardale that Hawkin sold to local shops. Then, abruptly, he turned away. He pointed to a sheet of paper. ‘Naden’s home number. He’ll want to be present when you interview the prisoner.’ He stood up and snatched his overcoat from the wall hook behind his desk.
‘You’re not staying for the interview, sir?’ George asked, something like dismay showing in his voice.
‘It’s been your case from the beginning. You see it through,’ Carver said coldly. He shrugged into his coat. ‘You and Clough, you do it.’
‘But, sir,’ George started, then stopped. He wanted to say he’d never done anything as serious as this, that he’d never conducted an interrogation where he had so little to go on, that it was Carver’s job as the DCI to take charge in this situation. The words died in his mouth with the realization that Carver thought the wheels were going to come off this case somewhere along the line and he didn’t want to be aboard when they did.
‘But what?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘So