Kirsty rolled her eyes.
Fenton shoved his nose under Bex’s arm, shifting it up so she spilled tea on the table.
‘Dear me, Dad,’ Kirsty said. ‘For a competent animal trainer, you’ve done a shitty job with that dog.’
‘Sorry,’ Bex said. ‘It was my fault.’ She stroked Fenton’s sleek head.
‘You’ve just rewarded him for being an arse.’ Kirsty’s tone was blunt.
Bex felt sick. Had Kirsty become one of those unnerving people who changed from sunny to scary second by second? She pulled her hand back. ‘Oh God, sorry.’
Kirsty laughed. ‘Relax. It’s fine. You weren’t to know.’
Their dad grabbed a cloth and mopped up the tea. ‘Don’t listen to your sister. She’s only teasing. She’s been so excited about you coming.’
‘So excited,’ Kirsty echoed. There it was again. Kirsty’s voice had two layers, the sarcasm so subtle it was almost not there. Bex could tell that her dad only heard one layer, but Daniel could detect the other one. His eyes flitted nervously between Bex and Kirsty.
Bex had never imagined that Kirsty might not like her, might not want her there.
‘You should get your dad to show you how he trains the pigs,’ Daniel said. ‘He’s really into animal training. The pigs are so cool.’
‘Wow, yes!’ Bex felt a sudden rush of optimism. ‘That would be brilliant.’
Her dad smiled. ‘Good. We can do that.’
At last, something Bex could do with her dad that would avoid the awkward silences. And training pigs sounded fun.
‘Soft in the head, the lot of you,’ Kirsty said. But she gave Bex a warm smile, and Bex realised she must have been wrong. Paranoid. She could be like that sometimes. Of course Kirsty was happy she was there. Nobody blamed her. The summer wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
Meg – Present day
Tuesday
I was at my desk skim-reading the recent statements from the house-to-house. Violet had spoken to so many people in her search for Rebecca Smith, and the residents of Gritton had been so excessively helpful, interested and keen to share their thoughts with our officers, that we were drowning in their contributions. Most of it was tediously irrelevant, the only thing of possible interest being someone’s assertion that Kirsty Nightingale – the pig-farming daughter of Tony Nightingale – dealt drugs. Surprising but not obviously helpful.
We’d spoken to Violet’s parents when they’d changed planes in Singapore, and they’d had no demands from any menacing folk about Violet, so a kidnap was looking unlikely. The search teams had found nothing, and there had been no sightings from people who weren’t attention-seeking and/or deranged, although plenty from those who were. A huge search of the moorland was underway, with help from an over-emotional public determined to get too close to the wildfire. Crime scene officers were at the abattoir, and in Violet’s room at the cottage, and the tech team were going through her laptop. There was still no sign of her phone. To use a cliché, she’d disappeared into thin air.
Fiona stuck her head around the door. ‘We’ve got some info from the house-to-house,’ she said. ‘An insomniac who spends her nights staring out at the lane by her cottage. And her lane’s on the main route into the abattoir. She thinks she saw Violet.’
‘Sounds helpful.’
‘Yeah. She was sure she saw a small, green car drive past in the direction of the abattoir at quarter to ten. And Violet’s car’s small and green, so that ties in with Tony Nightingale saying she left his farm around nine thirty.’
‘Okay, so it looks like he might have been the last person to speak to her.’
‘Yes. And this woman – a Mrs Ackroyd – was sure no other cars passed her that night, although there is another way to the abattoir – you just have to go down a really narrow lane.’
Mrs Ackroyd could of course be mistaken, as witnesses frequently were. I’d learned that the more vehement the account and detailed the description, the more likely it was that the large, black man with a beard was in fact a small, white man with a moustache. Still, if Mrs Ackroyd was right, Violet had driven from Tony Nightingale’s and gone to work at the abattoir as normal. But then what?
‘I’ve tracked down Tony Nightingale’s daughter, Bex,’ Fiona said, ‘who we thought might be the birth mother. She’s a dog trainer who lives just south of Nottingham. She says Violet’s not her child and she refuses to go anywhere near Gritton, or to a police station.’
Another one? Hadn’t Daniel Twigg said his mum refused to go to Gritton? What was it about that place? ‘Oh great,’ I said. ‘Do we know why?’
‘She won’t say, but she was very adamant.’
‘And she says Violet’s not her child? Did she have a baby at that time?’
‘Her answers were evasive.’
‘Arrange for us to go to her,’ I said. ‘This sounds interesting. And let’s have a closer look at Tony Nightingale. If Violet is his granddaughter, what are the implications of her turning up out of the blue? Could he have travelled with her to the abattoir? And what about his other daughter, Kirsty? Would it affect her inheritance or anything like that?’
‘I’ll look into it.’ Fiona left in a cloud of competence. Whatever it was that had been distracting her, she’d let it go.
My phone rang. Anna Finchley from the abattoir. ‘You’d better come and see this.’ Her voice was flat. ‘The Animal Vigilantes have put a banner up. Threatening us. It’s horrible.’
‘We’ll be right over.’
I found Jai in our tiny, sticky-surfaced kitchen, making tea. He turned to me, balancing a spent teabag on a fork. ‘Never interrupt a man who’s mashing.’
‘Even for a trip to the abattoir?’
‘Crikey, you know how to offer a guy a good time.’
‘They’ve had a visit from the Animal Vigilantes. A threatening banner’s appeared overnight.’
‘You win.’
‘Why are you mashing tea with a fork? Is that where all the forks are going? You’re nicking them for tea.’
‘No. Today the teaspoons are partying with the forks in the black hole. This is my personal lunch fork.’ He dropped it in the sink and followed me out to the car. He’d never see that fork again. He frowned. ‘You think the Animal Vigilantes haven’t finished yet?’
I pulled out of the car park and took the road towards Gritton. The heatwave showed no sign of abating and the sun battered the dry rocks and scorched grasses of the moors.
‘What about that abattoir waste?’ I said. ‘Please tell me we found it.’
‘Um … Not yet I’m afraid. Nobody admits to knowing who took it away,’ Jai replied.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. How can a ton of rotting giblets just disappear?’
‘I know, I know. Fiona’s on it.’
‘This is all highly suspicious. Did you check with the rendering plants?’
‘Yes, they all have cameras and an inspection process. They’re adamant they’d spot human remains. We alerted the local ones and they’ve checked cameras for yesterday and there was nothing suspicious, but they’ll let us know if any human heads appear.’
‘Bloody