Gary’s phone pinged and he fished it out of his pocket. Pressed a few keys. ‘Yeah. Look at this.’ He showed me the phone. ‘If it’s not them, how do they even know to post this?’
I looked at the screen. It was the Great Meat Debate website that Anna had told me about. Gary had scrolled down to the bottom of the comments on the home page. One was posted under the name ‘Animal Vigilantes’. It said, Violet got what she deserved.
‘Media are going to go mental for this,’ Jai said, as we drove up the lane away from the abattoir. The reservoir sat low in the valley, sparkling turquoise and white in the sunshine, contrasting with the darkly jutting rocks which loomed above us on the gritstone edge.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘The best thing that’s happened to the meat industry since the invention of the burger, and she goes missing from an abattoir.’
We were on our way to see Daniel Twigg. To find out what he’d seen that morning and what he knew about the threats from the Animal Vigilantes. To find out why he was so scared.
‘Do you think the Animal Vigilantes have done something to her?’ Jai said. ‘They’re quite full-on.’
‘It’s possible. I’ve asked the techies to trace who posted the throat-slit comments, and the one that said Violet got what she deserved. Do we know what happened to the waste products from last night?’
‘Bit weird, that. The company who’d sent the invoice said their contract was cancelled a few weeks ago. But Anna Finchley claims she didn’t know and has no idea who replaced them. She reckons someone must have changed contractors without telling her. She’s checking with them urgently.’
‘You mean we don’t know who took the waste this morning, or where it’s gone?’
‘Er, no. Not yet. We’re on it.’
I didn’t want to go there in my mind. For now, the girl was missing, not dead. Missing, not murdered and thrown into a vat with pigs’ intestines and snouts and trotters.
There was nothing about Violet on our system. No previous disappearances, no suggestion she’d self-harm, no criminal record, no domestic violence complaints. She was a blank slate. Blank slates were tough. They gave you no clues.
We’d pulled out all the stops to look for her. Her car had been seized and taken off on the back of a truck. We’d arranged dogs and a drone, a unit to her parents’ place in Sheffield in case she was holed up there, house-to-house in the village, checks for any cameras, people bagging up all her things from her landlady’s house. The local mountain rescue would be brought in if she was missing much longer.
Above us I could see the black speck of the drone hovering like a mutant insect, while in the distance smoke was still rising from the wildfire. Together they induced a sense of end-of-the-world doom. Plagues and fires and all that good stuff. But I was lacking my usual big-case emotions – a mix of excitement and terror akin to what Eddie the Eagle must have felt standing at the top of the ninety-metre ski jump. So far all I felt was the crushing weight of responsibility and a dose of low-level depression.
‘Why come to Gritton and work in an abattoir?’ I said. ‘A beautiful young woman, who must be well-off, yet she’s cleaning up pigs’ guts in a backwater village.’
‘It is weird.’
‘Anna Finchley said she thought Violet had come to Gritton for another reason and the job was an excuse. We need to know that reason.’
‘Did you talk to the brother?’ Jai asked. ‘Gary, was it?’
‘Yeah. And that’s another odd set-up. I got the impression he can’t stand this place and he and his sister hate each other. It’s all simmering under the surface.’
‘It’d be more than simmering if I had to work with my sister.’
‘Ha, I’m sure.’
I wished I could have had the chance to simmer about my sister.
‘Sorry,’ Jai said. ‘That was insensitive.’
‘It’s fine. She died twenty-five years ago. You don’t need to be sensitive. In fact, I’d worry about you if you started being sensitive.’
A mile later, we came to a sign: Welcome to Gritton. Please drive carefully.
I pulled around a steep bend and looked at the road ahead. A flush of adrenaline hit my stomach and I slammed on the brakes.
‘Bloody hell,’ Jai said. ‘What’s that?’
In front of us, the road seemed to have collapsed into a spectacular sinkhole, but as I looked more closely, I could see it was in fact an image painted onto the road. ‘Wow,’ I said, allowing the car to crawl towards the crater and fighting the urge to shut my eyes as we drove over it. ‘That slowed me down.’
‘It’s good to see that you shut your eyes when things get tricky,’ Jai said.
‘I just squinted a little! But you wouldn’t want to drive here if you had a weak heart. I suppose it must be to slow people down, but it’s a bit brutal.’
Once we’d passed the fake sinkhole, the lane rose steeply beside a row of stone houses with freshly painted windows in Farrow & Ball colours. On the other side was a park, tree-fringed and pristine, a children’s play area at its centre. Every lawn was immaculately mown and weed-free, every garden fenced with railings, every door beautifully painted. The street lamps were Victorian-style. There weren’t even any people, as if they’d lower the tone. The only things that disturbed the look were notices attached to the lamp posts, although even they were tastefully done. Don’t Build on our Burial Grounds! Stop the Development!
‘Is this a real village or a filmset for a period drama?’ Jai said.
‘It’s creepy,’ I said. ‘And everything’s fenced in. Look at the railings by the sides of the road. That would annoy me. You can only cross in designated spots. I’d feel the need to climb over them.’
‘That could end in tears,’ Jai said.
‘I hope you’re referring to my dodgy ankle rather than the size of my arse.’
Jai laughed. ‘Naturally. But yes, it’s almost too perfect.’
‘The village or my arse? Because that’s far from perfect.’ That had popped out before the censorship lobes in my brain had a chance to click in. Trying so hard to get our banter back that I crossed the line into dodgy territory. ‘Yes,’ I said hurriedly, cringing inside. ‘It’s quite Stepford. Almost ominous. But there are cameras everywhere. That could help us.’
‘There are tunnels in this area,’ Jai said, ignoring my babbling. ‘I wonder if that’s why they have all the fences. Are they scared of kids wandering off and falling into them? I heard they stretch for miles. Old lead mines and stuff. I’ve seen videos on YouTube. I wondered if you fancied dragging me down there? Maybe at night? In a storm? When they’re about to flood?’
I laughed, relieved I’d got away with the inappropriate arse comment. ‘Honestly, Jai,’ I said. ‘One little incident where we nearly die in a flooded cave and you won’t stop going on about it.’
We reached the rim of the valley, where the road sloped down again. A sign said, Thank you for driving carefully through Gritton. Underneath, in very faint letters as if they had been repeatedly scrubbed clean, were the words, Village of the Damned. It was almost reassuring that there were vandalising teenage scrotes in residence amongst all the perfection, but I wondered what the village had done to earn that accolade.
In another half-mile, we drove through red-brick housing which looked more normal and messy, as if people