A Place of Execution (1999) (7 page)

‘We found Shep tied up in the woods,’ George had said. ‘Someone had taped her mouth shut. With elastoplast.’

Ruth’s eyes widened and her mouth twisted in a rictus of pain. ‘No,’ she protested weakly. ‘That can’t be right.’ She dropped to her knees beside the dog, who was squirming round her ankles in a parody of obsequious apology. Ruth buried her face in the dog’s ruff, clutching the animal to her as if it were a child. A long pink tongue licked her ear. George looked across at Hawkin. The man was shaking his head, looking genuinely bewildered. ‘That makes no sense,’ Hawkin said. ‘It’s Alison’s dog. It would never have let anybody harm a hair on Alison’s head.’ He gave a mirthless bark of laughter. ‘I lifted a hand to her one time, and the dog had my sleeve in its teeth before I could touch her. The only person who could have done that to the dog was Alison herself. It wouldn’t even stand for me or Ruth doing something like that, never mind a stranger.’

‘Alison might not have had any choice,’ George said gently.

Ruth looked up, her face transformed by the realization that her earlier fears might truly be reflected in reality. ‘No,’ she said, her voice a hoarse plea. ‘Not my Alison. Please God, not my Alison.’ Hawkin got to his feet and crossed the room to his wife. He hunkered down beside her and put an awkward arm round her shoulders. ‘You mustn’t get into a state, Ruth,’ he said, casting a quick glance up at George. ‘That won’t help Alison. We’ve got to stay strong.’ Hawkin seemed embarrassed at having to show concern for his wife. George had seen plenty of men who were uncomfortable with any display of emotion, but he’d seldom encountered one so self-conscious about it. He felt enormous pity for Ruth Hawkin. It wasn’t the first time George had watched a marriage crack under the weight of a major investigation. He’d spent less than an hour in the company of this couple, but he knew instinctively that what he was witnessing here was not so much a crack as a major fracture. It was hard enough at any time in a marriage to discover that the person you had married was less than you imagined, but for Ruth Hawkin, so recently wed, it was doubly difficult, coming as it did on top of the anxiety of her daughter’s disappearance. Almost without thinking, George had crouched down and covered one of Ruth’s hands with his own.

‘There’s very little we can do just now, Mrs Hawkin. But we are doing everything possible. At first light, we’ll have men scouring the dale from end to end. I promise you, I won’t give up on Alison.’

Their eyes had met and he’d felt the intensity of a clutch of emotions far too complicated for him to separate. As he stared out towards the moors, George realized there was no way he could sleep that night. Wrapping the sandwiches in greaseproof paper, he filled a flask with hot tea and softly climbed the stairs to pick up his electric razor from the bathroom.

On the landing, he paused. The door to their bedroom was ajar, and he couldn’t resist a quick look at Anne. With his fingertips, he pushed the door a little wider. Her face was a pale smudge against the white gleam of the pillow. She lay on her side, one hand a fist on the pillow beside her. God, she was beautiful. Just watching her sleep was enough to make his flesh stir. He wished he could throw his clothes off and slide in beside her, feeling her warmth the length of his body. But tonight, the memory of Ruth Hawkin’s haunted eyes was more than he could escape. With a soft sigh, he turned away. Half an hour later, he was back in the Methodist Hall, staring at Alison Carter. He’d pinned four of Hawkin’s photographs of her to the notice board. He’d left the other at the police station, asking for it to be copied as a matter of urgency so it could 44 be distributed at the press conference. The night duty inspector seemed uncertain whether it could be done in time. George had left him in no doubt what he expected.

Carefully, he spread out the Ordnance Survey map and tried to study it through the eyes of a person who’d decided to run away. Or a person who’d decided to steal someone else’s life.

Then he walked out of the Methodist Hall and started down the narrow lane towards Scardale on foot. Within yards, the dim yellow light that spilled out of the high windows of the hall was swallowed by the blanketing night. The only glimmers of light came from the stars that broke through the fitful clouds. It took him all his time to avoid tripping over tussocks of grass at the road’s edge.

Gradually, his pupils expanded to their maximum extent, allowing his night vision to steal what images it could from the ghosts and shadows of the landscape. But by the time they resolved themselves into hedges and trees, sheep folds and stiles, the cold had sneaked up on him. Thin-soled town shoes were no match for frosty ground, and not even his cotton-lined leather gloves were proof against the icy flurry that seemed to use the Scardale lane as a wind tunnel. His ears and nose had lost all sensation except pain. A mile down the lane, he gave up. If Alison Carter was abroad in this, she must be hardier than him, he decided. Either that or beyond sensation altogether.

Manchester Evening News, Thursday, 12
th
December 1963

Boy camper raises hopes in John hunt

POLICE RACE TO LONELY BEAUTY SPOT

By a Staff Reporter

Police investigating the disappearance of 12-year-old John Kilbride of Ashton-under-Lyne rushed to a lonely beauty spot on the outskirts of the town.

A boy had been seen camping out. Hopes soared when the boy was said to be safe and well. But it turned out to be a false alarm. The boy they found had been reported missing from home and was about the same age as John—but it was 11-year-old David Marshall of Gorse View, Alt Estate, Oldham.

He had been missing for only a few hours. After ‘getting into trouble’ at home, he packed his belongings and a tent—and went to camp out near a farm in Lily Lanes, on the Ashton-Oldham boundary. It was another frustrating incident in the 19-day-old search for John, of Smallshaw Lane, Ashton.

Police said today: ‘We really thought we were on to something. But at least we are glad we were able to return one boy home safe and well.’

David was spotted at his lonely bivouac by a visitor to the farm who informed the police immediately.

‘It shows the public are really cooperating,’ said police.

Thursday, 12
th
December 1963. 7.30
AM

J
anet Carter reminded George of a cat his sister had once had. Her triangular face with its pert nose, wide eyes and tiny rosebud mouth was as closed and watchful as any domesticated predator he’d ever seen. She even had a scatter of tiny pimples at either end of her upper lip, as if someone had tweezed out her whiskers. They faced each other across the table in the low-ceilinged kitchen of her parents’ Scardale cottage. Janet was picking delicately at a piece of buttered toast, small sharp teeth nibbling crescents inwards from each corner. Her eyes were downcast, but every few moments she’d give him a quick sidelong look through long lashes.

Even in his younger years, he’d never been comfortable with adolescent girls, a natural result of having a sister three years older whose friends had regarded the fledgling George first as a convenient plaything and later as a marvellous testing ground for the wit and charms they planned to try on older targets. George had sometimes felt like the human equivalent of training wheels on a child’s first bike. The one advantage he’d gained from the experience was that he reckoned he could tell when a teenage girl was lying, which was more than most of the men he knew could manage. But even that certainty faded in the face of Janet Carter’s self-possession.

Her cousin was missing, with all the presumptions that entailed, yet Janet looked as composed as ifAlison had merely nipped out to the shops. Her mother, Maureen, had a noticeably less sure grip on her emotions, her voice trembling when she spoke of her niece, tears in her eyes when she shepherded her three younger children from the room, leaving George to interview Janet. And her father, Ray, was already up and gone, lending his local knowledge to one of the police search parties looking for his dead brother’s child.

‘You probably know Alison better than anybody,’ George said at last, reminding himself to stick with a present tense that seemed increasingly inappropriate.

Janet nodded. ‘We’re like sisters. She’s eight months and two weeks older than me, so we’re in a different class at school. Just like real sisters.’

‘You grew up together here in Scardale?’

Janet nodded, another new moon of toast disappearing between her teeth. ‘The three of us, me and Alison and Derek.’

‘So you’re like best friends as well as cousins?’

‘I’m not her best friend at school because we’re in different classes, but I am at home.’

‘What kind of things do you do?’

Janet’s mouth twisted and furled as she thought for a moment. ‘Nothing much. Some nights Charlie, our big cousin, takes us into Buxton for the roller-skating. Sometimes we go to the shops in Buxton or Leek, but mostly we’re just here. We take the dogs for a walk. Sometimes we help out on the farm if they’re short-handed. All got a record player for her birthday, so a lot of the time me and All and Derek just listen to records up in her room.’

He took a sip of the tea Maureen Carter had left for him, amazed that someone could make stronger tea than the police canteen. ‘Has anything been bothering her?’ he asked. ‘Any problems at home? Or at school?’ Janet raised her head and stared at him, her eyebrows coming together in a frown.

‘She never ran away,’ she said fiercely. ‘Somebody must have took her. All wouldn’t run away.

Why would she? There’s nothing to run away from.’

Maybe not, thought George, startled by her vehemence. But maybe there had been something to run away to. ‘Does Alison have a boyfriend?’ Janet breathed heavily through her nose. ‘Not really. She went to the pictures with this lad from Buxton a couple of times. Alan Milliken. But it wasn’t a date, not really. There was half a dozen of them all went together. She told me he tried to kiss her, but she wasn’t having any. She said that if he thought paying her in to the pictures meant he could do what he liked, he was wrong.’ Janet eyed him defiantly, animated by her outburst. ‘So there isn’t anybody she fancies? Maybe somebody older?’

Janet shook her head. ‘We both fancy Dennis Tanner off Coronation Street, and Paul McCartney out of the Beatles. But that’s just fancying.

There isn’t anybody real that she fancies. She always says boys are boring. All they want to talk about is football and going into outer space on a rocket and what kind of car they’d have if they could drive.’

‘And Derek? Where does he fit in?’

Janet looked puzzled. ‘Derek’s just…Derek. Anyway, he’s got spots.

You couldn’t fancy Derek.’

‘What about Charlie, then? Your big cousin? I hear they spent a lot of time together round at his gran’s.’

Janet shook her head, one finger straying to a tiny yellow-headed spot beside her mouth. ‘All only goes round to listen to Ma Lomas’s tales. Charlie lives there, that’s all. Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re going on about who All fancies. You should be out looking for whoever kidnapped her. I bet they think Uncle Phil’s got loads of money, just because he lives in a big house and owns all the village land. I bet they got the idea off Frank Sinatra’s lad being kidnapped last week. It must have been on the television and in the papers and everything. We don’t get television down here. We can’t get the reception, so we’re stuck with the radio. But even down in Scardale we heard about it, so a kidnapper could easily have known about it and got the idea. I bet they’re going to ask for a huge ransom for All.’ Her lips glistened with butter as the tip of her tongue darted along them in her excitement. ‘How does Alison get along with her stepfather?’

Janet shrugged, as if the question couldn’t have interested her less. ‘All right, I suppose. She likes living in the manor, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’A sparkle of malice lit up Janet’s eyes. ‘Whenever anybody asks her where she lives, she always says, right out, ‘Scardale Manor’, like it’s something really special. When we were little, we used to make up stories about the manor. Ghost stories and murder stories, and it’s like All thinks she’s really the bee’s knees now she’s living there.’

‘And her stepfather? What did she say about him?’

‘Nothing much. When he was courting her mum, she said she thought he was a bit of a creep because he was always round their cottage, bringing Auntie Ruth little presents. You know, flowers, chocolates, nylons, stuff like that.’ She fidgeted in her seat and popped a spot between fingernail and thumb, unconsciously trying to mask the action behind her hand.

‘I think she was just jealous because she was so used to being the apple of Auntie Ruth’s eye. She couldn’t stand the competition. But once they got married and all that courting stuff stopped, I think All got on all right with him. He sort of left her alone, I think. He doesn’t act like he’s very interested in anybody except himself. And taking pictures. He’s always doing that.’ Janet turned back to her toast dismissively. ‘Pictures of what?’ George said, more to keep the conversation going than because he was interested.

‘Scenery. He spies on people working, too. He says you’ve got to get them looking natural, so he takes their pictures when he thinks they’re not looking. Only, he’s an incomer. He doesn’t know Scardale like we do. So mostly when he’s creeping about trying to stay out of sight, half the village knows what he’s doing.’ She giggled, then, remembering why George was there, covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide. ‘So as far as you know, there was no reason why Alison should run away?’

Janet put down her toast and pursed her lips. ‘I told you. She never ran away. All wouldn’t run away without me. And I’m still here. So somebody must have took her. And you’re supposed to find them.’ Her eyes flicked to one side and George half turned to see Maureen Carter in the kitchen doorway.

‘You tell him, Mum,’ Janet said, desperation in her voice. ‘I keep telling him, but he won’t listen.

Tell him All wouldn’t run away. Tell him.’ Maureen nodded. ‘She’s right. When Alison’s in trouble, she takes it head on. If she had something on her mind, we’d all know what it was.