Scaring Crows (7 page)

‘No,' Miss Lockley said reluctantly, ‘but I can soon find out things.'

‘Well if you do perhaps you'll let us know.'

‘I certainly will, young man.' Mike's sarcasm was wasted on the old girl.

Joanna tried again. ‘Miss Lockley,' she said patiently, ‘can you think of anyone who bore the family a grudge?'

The woman's eyes misted over and she looked upset. ‘I ... No I don't think so. Perhaps.' Then she shook her head. ‘I can't think anyone would have wanted to kill Aaron. He wasn't a bad man.'

‘And Jack?'

‘No,' she said. ‘No one could have
wanted
to have killed Jack.'

The wording struck Joanna. What could she mean? That Jack might have been killed by accident? A clear vision of the slumped body of the younger farmer, his hands covering the huge wound in his chest, dispelled the idea as quickly as it had formed.

That could not have been her meaning. So she pushed on with her questions. ‘How did Ruthie get on with her brother?'

‘Very well,' Hannah said wearily. ‘I never heard them argue. They were devoted to each other.'

‘Really?'

Miss Lockley picked up the note of scepticism in Korpanski's voice. ‘That's Gospel,' she said before adding softly, ‘I wonder where Ruthie is right now.'

It was a question they would all have liked the answer to.

‘And Aaron?' Joanna was still scratching around for some insight. ‘How did Ruthie get on with her father?'

Hannah was thoughtful for a moment then she fixed her gaze on Joanna. ‘You have to understand Aaron,' she said. ‘He was a lonely, gentle man. He didn't say much, especially after his wife died. Ruthie would cook him a meal. Aaron would eat it. He'd dirty his clothes. Ruthie would wash them. I never heard him utter a word of thanks. Every day was the same for them. They ate, they milked, they cleaned out the sheds, they fed the animals, they fed themselves, they slept. They all worked very hard to keep the farm going. They couldn't have managed without her.'

Her voice was soft but the image she was building up was a life of ceaseless toil, day in, day out, year in, year out, of back-breaking work.

‘Did Ruthie have a boyfriend?'

The old lady shook her head. ‘She never went anywhere to meet anyone,' she said. ‘Her life was her father, her brother, the farm, the animals. We were her friends.' Hannah gave a deep sigh then looked straight at them. ‘And how's Noah?'

Joanna gave Mike a sharp, panicked glance. Not another one?

‘The dog,' Hannah said.

Joanna breathed a sigh of relief. ‘We've left him in his kennel. He was chained up.'

Hannah stood up stiffly. ‘Then I'd better get over there and bring him back with me. He'll be confused. He isn't used to all these people around. He'll bark himself hoarse. And the milking?'

Nothing could have given them a more vivid picture of the treadmill of a dairy farm than these simple concerns. Two people had been murdered yet the cows must be milked, the dog must not be allowed to bark himself hoarse.

‘The farmer from Fallowfield has done the morning milking.'

Hannah snorted. ‘Oh he did, did he? Well there's a funny thing, Martin Pinkers getting ‘is fingers curled round Aaron's cows' udders.' She gave a harsh cackle then shrugged her shoulders. ‘It's been a blighted family, no mistake. But there you are. Spilt milk and no use crying.' Joanna was startled by the old lady's apparent insensitivity. Until she reminded herself that Hannah Lockley firmly believed her niece to be both alive and well – and innocent. ‘Though for Aaron the worst part was that business with Jack,' Hannah continued. Her pale eyes fixed at some point across the room. ‘You wouldn't understand, being a policewoman. A farmer needs a good, strong son and a wife to keep house. Jack was a bitter blow.'

Joanna was sure she was missing something. ‘You were very fond of the family?'

The old woman nodded. ‘Especially Ruthie. She is a daughter to me,' she said simply. ‘I love that girl.'

‘Then where is she now?' Mike was pursuing the point with his usual vigour.

‘I don't know,' Hannah said fearlessly. ‘All I am certain of is that she is safe. She will come back.'

Considering Hannah's last few sentences the next question might be necessary but it was still cruel. ‘You don't think it's possible—' She didn't even manage to finish the sentence.

‘That she killed her father and brother? No,' Hannah said vehemently. ‘No. It is not possible.'

‘Could she shoot?'

‘She's a farmer's daughter.' They waited. ‘Of course she could shoot.' Hannah gave a peculiar smile. ‘Anyone can shoot. You just hold the gun and squeeze the trigger.'

‘Was she a good shot?'

‘She could hit a rabbit at forty yards and him dodging between tussocks.'

It answered their question.

Joanna stood up. ‘And where were you at around six this morning?'

‘In my bed,' Hannah said with another flash of humour. ‘And there aren't any witnesses to that.'

At the door Joanna paused and Hannah Lockley was sharp enough to read her action.

‘I suppose they'll have to be formally identified?'

Joanna nodded.

‘And I suppose you'll have to do a post mortem?'

Again Joanna nodded and Hannah Lockley sighed. ‘So be it,' she said simply. ‘When?'

‘Can we pick you up tomorrow morning?'

‘All right.'

‘At half past eight?'

‘Yes.'

‘Just one last thing, Miss Lockley. Who stands to inherit the farm?'

The old lady looked affronted. ‘Why Ruthie of course. She's a capable girl. She'll farm Hardacre.'

‘But if Ruthie is dead?' Mike asked brutally.

Hannah Lockley drew herself up with dignity. ‘Ruthie isn't dead,' she said. ‘There will be some perfectly rational explanation. I know.'

3.30 p.m.

The heat was still stifling as they returned to Hardacre, stepping carefully through the fresh cow pats, each one with its own cloud of flies. From the milking parlour came the steady hum of the milking machine and the contented lowing of cows gaining relief from the pressure of full udders. Pinkers must be helping out again. The lane was still full of police cars and Joanna could see a line of blue-shirted officers crossing a distant field in a line.

Two uniformed constables were guarding the door.

‘You haven't found her then?'

PC David Timmis shook his head. ‘She isn't here,' he said. ‘Half a dozen officers have been drafted in from the Potteries to help with the search. We've been through most of the farm including the fields. There's no sign of her. Not anywhere. We did find one thing though.' Joanna's interest quickened. ‘What?' Experience had told her the smallest detail might be of disproportionate relevance. Therefore no fact was too small. And Timmis was part of the Moorland Patrol. He knew these people and their terrain.

‘The hasp on the gate into the field was broken, stuck into rotten wood. It looks as though the cows might have leant a bit too hard on it and it snapped.'

It explained something about the events of the morning. ‘So that means neither Aaron nor Jack Summers let the cows out. They never got as far as the field.'

Mike spoke over her shoulder. “That makes a bit more sense.'

‘Martin Pinkers has been quite helpful. He's even mended the gate and done the afternoon milking too.'

She spoke to Mike. ‘So we're left with this. The cows let themselves out of the field and Ruth Summers has vanished. I think we should search her room again to see if she's taken any clothes with her.'

‘So you think ...?'

She wheeled around. ‘What am I supposed to think, Mike? Her father and brother have been slaughtered. Hannah Lockley wasn't too keen on admitting it but it seems sweet little Ruthie could shoot straight. From a range of less than four feet I don't imagine she'd miss. And while Aaron must have faced his attacker even though she was holding a gun Jack came crashing down the stairs, also unsuspecting. Now what am I supposed to think?'

‘All right, Jo,' he said uncomfortably. ‘Keep your hair on.'

She sighed. ‘I'm sorry. It's been a long day. Matthew seems determined to live somewhere in these wretched moors and I've spent the last six hours expecting to stumble across a third body.' She made a move towards the house. ‘Let's get this over with, shall we?'

The sun had moved from the little bedroom with its vain attempt at femininity and now it looked dingy and dark. The scent of flowers was a little less obvious as though Ruthie's presence was itself beginning to fade.

They stood in the doorway for a few minutes, surveying the room until Joanna motioned towards the chest of drawers. ‘We'll start there.'

The top drawer was stuck, needing a sharp tug to display white underwear. The second drawer was stuffed full of sweaters neatly folded – and the third and fourth drawer too. From underneath the bed Mike pulled a brown, canvas zip bag. ‘I wouldn't have thought she'd have had a selection of suitcases,' he said grimly and slapped it on the bed. ‘I bet this is the only one.' He opened the zip and fished around with his hand. It was empty. He slid his fingers through the lining and pulled out a strip of three photographs, head and shoulders, taken in an automatic booth. The bottom one had been snipped off with curving nail scissors. Joanna stared curiously at the faintly anxious face of a woman, probably in her late twenties, her hair pulled away from a thin face that stared – almost pleaded – into the camera. And somehow Joanna felt a faint sense of shock. This dark-eyed, sensitive face looked nothing like the picture she had formed of a healthy, robust farmer's daughter. This young woman was cast from a different mould. Typically Korpanski stared at the picture too but he saw something different. ‘How many pictures come on a strip?'

‘Four or five. I'm not sure.'

‘You need two to send off for a passport,' he said. Wondering if she had been misled, she stared again at the strip of photographs. Barely visible, on the top edge of the girl's shoulder, she could make out three or four fingertips. As Ruth Summers had sat in the passport photo booth someone had rested their hand on her shoulder. And far from being a work-roughened farmer's hand it looked neat and clean, long, slim fingers with oval, manicured nails, polished, shaped and filed. And it was a small hand. A child's hand? She met Mike's gaze. ‘I suppose,' she said reluctantly, ‘that if two photos are missing there is a possibility Ruthie's legged it somewhere. But if she did, she didn't take any of her clothes with her.'

‘Well I'm not a woman,' Mike said unnecessarily. ‘But the stuff in the drawers hardly looked like fancy stuff. I think if my wife was about to hop it she'd leave that scruffy lot behind.'

She was forced to agree with him. ‘So where is she?'

Mike sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Just a thought,' he said. ‘What if this ...' He was careful not to touch the photograph. ‘What if she had a man – a boyfriend – father and brother none too happy about it, losing their housekeeper. They quarrel, she or the boyfriend blasts them both and they leg it, together.'

‘Where?'

‘To boyfriend.'

‘But her aunt says she never met anybody. She was always here.'

‘Even here she must have met some men.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't know, Joanna. Cattle feed salesmen, vets, people at market, other farmers.'

‘Yes,' she said slowly, still studying the thin, sensitive face with its haunting dark eyes. ‘It could have been like that.' But to herself she acknowledged she was unhappy with the scenario. And yet behind the large eyes was an apology, a sort of veiled guilt. Had she known then what might come some time in the future?

Joanna dropped the strip of photos into the specimen bag but she couldn't rid herself of the thin, haunting face.

They spent the later part of the sweltering afternoon and the early part of the evening cooking in the Incident Room, co-ordinating the continuing search of the surrounding farmland, filling in forms and swatting the insistent flies. And as the screeches and chirps of a summer night played a high-pitched musical background around them the soft lowing of contented cows provided tenor accompaniment.

They had done three hours of solid work. Gradually the evening stilled. The flies moved out and the midges arrived. Most of the extra officers had gone home. They would return early in the morning. Only a skeleton staff was left as Joanna and Mike planned the following day.

Joanna knew the first obstacle would be the post mortem.

‘And then we should interview Martin Pinkers,' she said, clipping together the sheaf of preliminary statements gathered by the uniformed officers. ‘Although he doesn't seem to have seen much.'

‘Sometimes the lads don't ask the right questions.'

‘True. And let's get a print out of telephone calls to and from the farm. If there is a boyfriend it's even conceivable that he has abducted her.'

‘You're determined to see her as a victim.'

‘Maybe because she looks more like a victim than a killer.'

He gave a snort of doubt. And what other leads have we got?'

‘If we haven't completely obliterated them I'd like to take a closer look at the tyre marks in the yard and Shackleton's milk tanker.'

‘What for?'

‘I just want to know whether he really did burn the rubber as much as he says he did. That's all. Just a simple check. You know as well as I do one little lie, another little lie. And why? So we'll check everything he's told us so far.'

The telephone shrilled at her elbow and she picked it up. It was Matthew.

‘The PM's fixed for nine thirty in the morning,' he said. ‘We'll have them tidily arranged at the morgue ready for formal identification before we start.' He paused. ‘Time for a drink tonight, Jo?'