‘We did have to establish Pickford’s alibi, or rather the lack of it, in the Pedley case, I think.’
‘Yes, but that was hardly important,’ said Wishart reprovingly. ‘I was just trying to sort out where, if anywhere, you might be vulnerable to a bit of criticism.’
‘I suppose Watmough could make a few snide remarks about us having got nowhere with the Tweddle investigation,’ said Pascoe dubiously. ‘But in fairness to the man, he never made any such cracks when he was here, and God knows, he was provoked enough!’
‘So, no need to lose any beauty sleep, eh? Or ugly sleep in Andy’s case. Before you ring off, Peter, there was one other thing. Insignificant, I’m sure, but it might interest you. I gave my old mate, Sergeant Swift, a ring. He was at Burrthorpe all through the Pedley case and through the Strike too, so what he doesn’t know about the place isn’t worth knowing. It was Swift who had the doubtful pleasure of arresting that lad, Farr, you were asking about. Now, when I told him about the Challenger printing Mr Watmough’s memoirs, he told me that our friend Monty Boyle hadn’t been put off by his encounter with that window. He’d been back a couple of times, buying drinks and asking questions, though he’s given a wide berth to the Farr boy!’
‘Asking questions about the Pedley girl, you mean? Well, that figures. Incidentally, was there any special reason why he should have approached Farr or was it pure accident?’
‘He claimed it was just an accident at the time, but now Swift knows what he’s up to, he reckons different.’
‘But Farr can’t know anything about the girl’s disappearance or the Pickford case,’ said Pascoe. ‘You said he was away at sea till the Christmas before the Strike and the Pickford business blew up that September, didn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Wishart. ‘He was away, but his father wasn’t. Billy Farr was the last person to see, or admit seeing, Tracey alive. In fact, he was in the frame for a bit. He was an old friend of the Pedleys, it seems, and had taken a real shine to the little girl. He often used to take her off for walks, him, her, and his dog. They’d gone brambling that day up in … let’s see, here it is … Gratterley Wood, that runs along a ridge to the south of the village and there’s a track runs up to it behind the Miners’ Welfare Club where Tracey’s father was – still is – steward. Mrs Pedley expected them back about five for the little girl’s tea. But, according to Farr, Billy Farr that is, they were back within half an hour, about four o’clock. He said he wasn’t feeling too well, and that’s why instead of taking the girlie in as he usually did, he left her in the lane at the back of the club, just a few yards from the kitchen door. Trouble was, no one else saw her and there was no sighting of Billy Farr himself till he got home just before six, by which time the Pedleys were getting a bit agitated. Farr said he’d just been walking around by himself. Evidently he was like a man demented when he heard the girlie was missing, though demented with what wasn’t clear to a lot of people.’
‘Guilt, you mean?’
‘There’s nowhere like a mining village for gossip,’ said Wishart. ‘Naturally there was a big search for the girl. They found her bramble pail in the woods on a path running down to the road about a quarter-mile outside the village. There were a couple of sightings of a blue car parked off the road, but one of them was by Billy Farr’s best friend, so that didn’t carry all that much weight. Watmough certainly looked long and hard at Farr for a couple of days, then Pickford topped himself, and it was roses, roses, all the way for Mr Watmough and his modern investigative techniques which, we were assured, had pressurized Pickford into his suicide.’
‘So it was merely Pickford’s death that took the spotlight off Farr?’
‘To be fair, I don’t think so,’ said Wishart. ‘Watmough seems to have lost interest in him before Pickford killed himself. At least that’s how I read the file.’
‘And was there any doubt locally?’
‘It seems so, though probably not a lot. Billy Farr was well thought of, a quiet fellow and a bit of a loner, especially since his accident which left him too lame to work underground, but much respected. Most people were happy to accept that Pickford was responsible. It had all the marks of one of his killings – except that they never found the body. But two child killers in the same neck of the woods on the same day was unlikely, wouldn’t you say? And Watmough wasn’t averse to clearing up as many cases as he could in one triumphant swoop.’
‘And the few who didn’t accept this?’
‘Swift tells me that before Pickford died they got the usual rash of anonymous calls and notes, pointing in every possible direction from the vicar to the NUM. Afterwards there was only one, a note, printed in block capitals. It said, YOU GOT THE WRONG MAN FOR TRACEY. DON’T WORRY. WE WON’T.’
‘And how did Swift interpret this?’
‘Sergeants don’t interpret, they file, have you forgotten? But he recalled it on Boxing Day three months later when Billy Farr went missing and they found him at the foot of a sealed-off shaft in the old workings along the same ridge that Gratterley Wood stands on. Inquest brought in a verdict of accident. His wife said he’d gone out for a walk with his Jack Russell. There was no sign of the dog. Theory was that it had got into the old workings somehow and when Farr realized it was lost, he’d started looking down the old shaft, the cover was rotten, it broke, he slipped, and bingo! A day or two later there was another note arrived at the station. It said, CASE CLOSED.’
‘It’s a sick world,’ said Pascoe. ‘And this is why young Farr came back to Burrthorpe?’
‘That’s it. And he’s been a bloody nuisance ever since.’
‘To the police?’
‘To every bugger as far as I can make out. Perhaps not the kind of company an ambitious young policeman’s wife ought to be keeping.’
‘Thanks for the “young”, Alex,’ said Pascoe. ‘As for the rest, get knotted. But let’s keep in touch over this one, shall we?’
‘Take care, Peter,’ said Alex Wishart.
Pascoe replaced the phone. The clouds on his horizons were still just the size of a man’s hand. Only now the man seemed to have hands the size of Andy Dalziel’s.
Colin Farr awoke with a splitting head. The alarm clock by his narrow bed told him it was past eleven. He was on ‘afters’, the 1.0 P.M to 8.0 P.M shift. Last night he had started drinking as soon as he finished. There’d been some bother at the Club and he’d left. He couldn’t remember much after that but there was the aftertaste of greasy chips in his mouth which suggested he hadn’t come home to eat the supper his mother would have cooked for him.
Groaning, he rose, washed, dressed, and went downstairs to face the music.
His apologetic mood evaporated when he went into the kitchen and saw Arthur Downey there, sitting at the table drinking a mug of tea.
‘’Morning, Col,’ the deputy said, smiling rather uncertainly.
‘It’s you,’ said Farr. ‘Run out of tea, your sister?’
‘Colin, don’t be rude. After last night, you should be ashamed to show your face in this kitchen. I had to throw his supper out, Arthur.’
His mother was standing by the stove from which came a smell of rich meat pastry. May Farr was in her forties, a tall, good-looking woman whose face and body could have done with putting on a bit more weight, and the rather becoming dark shadows around her eyes had not been put there with a brush.