The Hanging Wood

CHAPTER SIX

Half a year without Marc should have acclimatised Hannah to waking up alone, but as the radio woke her, she still put out an arm, an instinctive searching for the warm body that had lain by her side for so long. Instead, her fingers clutched at emptiness.

The weather forecaster said today promised to be the sunniest of the year so far. After a cold shower — not from choice; the hot water system was on the blink — she dressed hastily so as not to keep Maggie Eyre waiting. A true farmer’s daughter, Maggie was an early riser, and the doorbell rang as Hannah swallowed her last mouthful of toast.

‘How was the awards dinner?’ Maggie asked as her little Citroen bumped over the potholes of Lowbarrow Lane.

‘I managed to stay awake. In fact, it wasn’t a complete waste of time.’ Hannah told her about meeting the Madsens. ‘Even if they aren’t thrilled about the prospect of our looking into Callum Payne’s case, at least they didn’t put any roadblocks in the way.’

‘They are convinced the uncle killed the boy?’

‘A neat solution is best for their business. The ACC has given us the green light, but wants an outcome by this time next week.’

‘A week?’ Maggie nearly swerved into the path of an oncoming tractor. ‘A proper investigation takes months. Sometimes years.’

‘She’s taking it for granted nothing new will turn up. It’s not as if we have any DNA to retest with the benefit of improved technology. Her thinking is that if we talk to the main witnesses who are still around, we’ll have done the necessary. She’s not worried about the IPCC complaining about Orla Payne’s calls to us. So the game plan is, we give the file a quick once-over, and move on.’

‘And if we find something worth investigating?’

‘The ACC would say, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’

Eyes on the winding lane, Maggie said, ‘Surely we wouldn’t give up if there was evidence that Philip Hinds wasn’t guilty?’

Hannah gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Let’s find the evidence before we worry about that, shall we?’

Enough said. Maggie fell silent until they reached the main road.

‘My father reckons Mike cast Philip as a scapegoat.’

‘He knew the Hinds family?’

‘It’s not surprising. Farming is a close community, everybody knows everybody else. People bump into each other at shows and markets and National Farmers’ Union events — can’t avoid it. By the sound of it, my dad prefers to avoid Mike Hinds, that’s for sure.’

‘They don’t get on?’

‘Dad says he’s a maverick, always arguing the toss, whether about bovine TB or compensation for foot-and-mouth disease or anything else. Thinks he’s clever because he won a scholarship to Cambridge, even though he soon dropped out. I suppose he sees Dad as a pillar of the establishment because he’s held office in the NFU. And Mike doesn’t think the union does enough to protect its members’ interests. Dad said, if it was left to Mike Hinds, tractors would be parked permanently across Whitehall, in protest about the way the government has wrecked the industry.’

‘Does your father know much about Callum’s disappearance?’

‘Only what everyone knew. Of course, I didn’t go into detail about why I was interested in the Hinds family, confidential police business and all that. Dad never met Philip, but said he felt sorry for him. For Mike Hinds too; it is terrible to lose your son like that. Dad heard that Philip was simple, but decent enough. People were too quick to jump to conclusions, in Dad’s opinion.’

‘If their conclusions were wrong, we’ll find out,’ Hannah said. She couldn’t forget what Orla Payne had said about justice. ‘If Philip was innocent, we’ll clear his name.’

Daniel and Louise breakfasted in the garden, looking out to the reed-fringed tarn and the fell beyond. The water was still, with no breeze to rustle the leaves of the oaks and the yews. The air smelt fresh, and they heard the piping call of a wood warbler hidden in the trees. No mist clung to the upper slopes, the merest scraps of cloud drifted in the sky. Already walkers in shirtsleeves were striding along Priest Ridge, their voices drifting down from the heights. The Sacrifice Stone gleamed in the sun, for once benign, not sinister.

‘No regrets about abandoning the rat race, then?’ Louise asked.

Daniel’s eyes followed a flash of yellow as the warbler emerged from a tall oak before flying off towards Tarn Fold.

‘Need you ask?’

‘At first, I thought you were mad to give up your career,’ she said. ‘But now … this place is addictive, and I’m hooked too. All I need is to find a place of my own, so I can get out of your hair.’

‘Stay as long as you like.’

She grinned. ‘No, better quit before we start bickering all the time, like when we were kids.’

‘We’ve grown up.’

‘You think so?’

As soon as she went inside to get dressed and stiffen her sinews for a renewed onslaught on the local property market, Daniel fished out his mobile and dialled Hannah’s number.

‘Is it convenient?’ he asked when she answered. ‘If not, I can call again.’

‘I have a briefing scheduled in five minutes, but no worries,’ she said. ‘Great to hear from you.’

‘And did you hear from Orla Payne?’

‘I spoke to her, yes. And then she rang again when I was off work. I’m assuming you met her at St Herbert’s, where she worked?’

‘Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time there lately, trying to finish the book.’

‘You know what happened to her?’

‘She suffocated in a grain silo on her father’s farm,’ Daniel said. ‘That’s all I’ve heard. So she talked to you about Callum?’

‘I didn’t get much sense out of her. Certainly no clue about her brother’s fate. Linz Waller got nowhere either, when Orla called again. Each time, she sounded drunk.’

‘Sorry I’ve added to your burdens, but she was so screwed up about Callum’s disappearance, and I thought it qualified as a cold case.’

‘How much did she tell you?’

‘She talked a great deal, but if she had any firm evidence about what happened to Callum, I didn’t hear it. She rather liked to be mysterious. But she was emphatic that their uncle didn’t kill the boy.’

‘Was it wishful thinking? She was fond of her uncle, and didn’t like the idea that he was to blame.’

‘Possible. But …’

He hesitated, trying to put into words the intuition he had about Orla, and her quest for the truth about Callum.

‘Yes?’

‘Orla’s life was a mess. She reminded me of someone who has the pieces of a self-assembly kit, but doesn’t know how to put them together.’

‘I know that feeling,’ Hannah said. ‘My garage is full of segments of a kitchen trolley, and instructions written in Japanese with illustrations that make no sense to me.’

He wondered if she’d ask Marc to stick the pieces together, but said nothing. He heard someone speak to Hannah, and her muffled reply that she’d be along in a moment.

‘Daniel, I’m sorry, but I need to conduct this briefing. Can we speak again?’

‘Love to.’

Story time.

Hannah’s mentor, Ben Kind, was a grizzled teller of tales. As she stood and waited for Greg Wharf — as ever, the last to arrive — while Les Bryant chewed the fat with Maggie Eyre, and Donna Buxton nagged Linz about becoming more active in the Federation, her thoughts drifted back to her early days in the CID. How the briefing room fell silent as Ben took his team through the sequence of events leading up to the latest murder. How she listened, spellbound, as he highlighted scraps of information culled from page after page of witness statements, suggesting fresh lines of enquiry, and ideas about the culprit’s motive and MO. By the time Ben finished briefing you about a case, the victim was no longer a name, always a person. That cold corpse in the mortuary had once been flesh and blood. Ben made you care about the victim’s fate, strengthened your resolve to see justice done.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Greg said, marching into the room like a chief executive greeting members of his board. Donna, an arch-feminist recently drafted into the team, threw him a withering look, but Greg smirked in response, pleased to have provoked a reaction.

Hannah breathed in. She’d soaked herself in the old statements, and reckoned she had a handle on the main facts, but there was no denying that the mood today was so different from that at briefings from Ben. From the moment murder was done, every hour that passed reduced the chances of a result. Statistics proved the need for speed. Everyone felt an adrenaline rush. By definition, cold cases were rarely time-critical, and Hannah’s team knew it. They knew, too, that each of them was there for a reason. Most were misfits, as far as the brass was concerned. Some folk, and not just in the hierarchy, reckoned that cold case reviews were cushy and only fit for underachievers. Others regarded transfer to the team as a form of exile or punishment, the Cumbria Constabulary’s very own Gulag Archipelago. All of which meant the pressure was on her to motivate people to get results.

‘The body of Orla Payne was found buried in a grain tower at the farm of her father, Michael Hinds, near Keswick. An apparent suicide. She had been in touch with us about a cold case, the disappearance of her brother Callum twenty years ago.’

‘Is murder a possibility?’ Les Bryant asked.

‘Nothing is being ruled out, pending the inquest. Mario Pinardi up in Keswick is looking into the circumstances surrounding her death. He’s waiting on the results of toxicology and urine tests. Our focus is on the cold case. What happened to Callum Hinds?’

Hannah nodded at a black-and-white photograph on the whiteboard. A dark-haired boy with a hooked nose and deep-set eyes, reluctant to smile for the camera.

‘Callum’s mother came over from Donegal as a student. After she took a degree in Lancaster, she stayed in England. She was called Niamh, and her first husband was Mike Hinds. Three years before the boy went missing, the couple split up.’

‘Why?’ Greg asked.

‘Niamh’s story was that she wasn’t suited to being a farmer’s wife.’

‘It’s a vocation,’ Maggie said.

‘And the husband’s story?’ Greg was a city boy, scornful of the so-called pressures of rural life.

‘You can almost taste the bitterness when you read his statement,’ Hannah said. ‘He scarcely had a good word to say for her. She drank too much, cared only for herself. He blamed her for the boy’s disappearance. Obviously pissed off that she’d landed on her feet. Before the divorce was finalised, she’d moved in with Kit Payne, a manager at Madsen’s.’

‘The caravan park?’ Donna Buxton asked. ‘My uncle and aunt used to have a pitch there. We stayed with them when we were kids.’

‘They call it a holiday home park these days,’ Hannah said. ‘One of the biggest in the Lakes. The site borders Mike Hinds’ land. In next to no time, Niamh and Kit Payne were married, and instead of slaving away all hours cooking and cleaning, she had a husband with a well-paid job and free accommodation thrown in. Even if it was only a glorified log cabin.’

‘How did the stepfather get on with the kids?’ Greg asked.

‘Kindness itself, according to Niamh. There weren’t any issues between him and Orla, or so it seemed. Yet Callum resented the new man in his mum’s life, and refused to take Payne’s name.’

‘He stayed close to Hinds?’

‘The divorce was acrimonious. Niamh played games over Hinds’ access to the kids. Arrangements would be made, and at the last minute she’d come up with some excuse for cancelling. But Kit Payne tried to act as a peace-broker, and Callum made it clear that he was determined to stay in touch with his dad. Since the farmhouse was a stroll away, Niamh could hardly stop him.’

‘How about the prime suspect?’

‘Philip Hinds was older than his brother Mike, and they had nothing in common. He was single, and seems never to have had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, that we know of. He enjoyed the company of his nephew and niece, but for all anyone could prove, it seemed perfectly innocent.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah, actually. Everyone agreed he was devoted to Orla and Callum. Mike Hinds discouraged them from spending time with their uncle, but Niamh was fond of Philip, and didn’t mind the kids visiting his cottage. Hinds said it showed she was a bad mother, letting them walk through the wood on their own. His argument was that, never mind Philip, the caravan site was nearby; you couldn’t be sure who might be lurking around, on the lookout for kids.’

‘You can see his point of view.’

‘Sure, but does it do any good to wrap kids up in cotton wool?’

As she spoke, Hannah wondered if she’d ever face that dilemma as a mother. The closest she’d come to parenthood was when a miscarriage had put an end to an unplanned pregnancy. Marc had said all the right things, but he reckoned he wasn’t ready for fatherhood, and he’d hardly been able to hide his relief that a baby hadn’t complicated their relationship even further. Perhaps that was the moment she should have decided he wasn’t the right man for her.

Greg shrugged. He didn’t have kids, either. At least, none that Hannah knew of.

Aslan had the habit of coming and going as he pleased at St Herbert’s. What was the worst that could happen? The principal wasn’t made of the right stuff to sack anyone, and why get rid of a spare pair of hands, even if they belonged to someone as bolshie as Aslan?

He strode down the corridor towards the main entrance. With Orla dead, St Herbert’s’ publicity efforts were on hold. No point in twiddling his thumbs. It was time for a visit to Lane End Farm. He could not delay it any longer. Yet his stomach churned, and his skin was all gooseflesh. He would go the long way round to the farmhouse, along the meandering lanes rather than taking a short cut across the fields. He needed plenty of time to work out what to say.

‘Penny for them!’

Sham, in breezy mood. A deeply cut pink top fought a losing battle to contain her breasts. She’d made a rapid recovery from the trauma of learning that Orla was dead.

He smiled. ‘If you knew what I was thinking, you’d never believe me.’

She giggled and leant back on her chair, revealing a skirt so short that it was more like a belt. ‘You reckon?’

‘I reckon,’ he said, and strode out through the door.

‘How did Philip Hinds earn a crust, ma’am?’ Greg asked.

‘Odd jobs around the caravan park, a bit of joinery here, mending a fuse there. Bryan Madsen had little time for him, so he reported to Gareth, who by reputation is more easy-going. In the middle of the wood was a tumbledown cottage. It was built a hundred years ago and occupied by a succession of gamekeepers who worked for the Hopes family until the cash ran out and the wood was sold, along with the land for the caravan park. Philip lived there for a peppercorn rent. The deal suited both sides, though Philip’s handyman skills don’t seem to have extended to upgrading the cottage. It was in a shocking state of repair at the time of his death.’

‘Who reported Callum missing?’ Linz asked.

‘Niamh Payne. It was the start of the summer holidays. Callum had finished at school and she’d gone shopping in Keswick. Orla went with her, but Callum refused to tag along. He was fourteen, and she took the view that it was fine to leave him alone in the house.’

‘Caravan,’ Greg said.

‘Log hut, whatever. It wasn’t unusual for her to leave the boy to his own devices. Her ex-husband moaned about it, but nobody suggested there was serious neglect on Niamh’s part. She and Orla were back by half three. Callum wasn’t around. He’d muttered about calling on his uncle, and when he was still nowhere to be found at six, she went to the cottage in the wood. Take a look at the map and you’ll see the lie of the land twenty years ago.’

All eyes turned to a sketch map on the whiteboard. The Hanging Wood was in the centre, crossed by two diagonal footpaths, with a cottage close to the point where the two paths intersected. To the east lay the caravan park, occupying the greater part of the area shown, its borders shared at different points by Lane End Farm, the wood, the Mockbeggar Estate, and St Herbert’s Residential Library. A stream ran along the boundary, with the estate and St Herbert’s on the west side, and Madsen’s on the east, before veering off just before the Hanging Wood and threading its way through the caravan park towards the River Derwent.

Greg Wharf grunted. ‘Typical Lakes, eh? Orla Payne grew up at the farm, moved to the caravan site, worked at the library, and then went back to the farm to die. And you can fit them all in a small-scale map. Claustrophobic, or what?’

Hannah reached into her case, and unfolded another sketch map which she pinned on the board. ‘Compare past and present — spot the difference?’

‘The Mockbeggar Estate has been swallowed up by the caravan park!’ Linz was never afraid to state the obvious. ‘How come?’

‘Mockbeggar Hall was owned by the Hopes family. The last of the line, Fleur, married Joseph Madsen’s elder son. At the start of the nineteenth century, the Hopes owned this whole area on the map. In the late Victorian era, Sir Milo Hopes gave away a chunk of it for this private library to be built, where Orla Payne worked. Come the twentieth century, and the family fortunes plummeted. Death duties, bad investments, spending too much for the sake of appearances. The farm was sold to Mike Hinds’ grandfather. The land to the east became a caravan park, the Hanging Wood was flogged off for good measure. Fleur Hopes’ grandfather and father were useless with money, and so was her older brother Jolyon. She was last of the line, and when Jolyon died, there was nobody left to live in the Hall.’

‘Fleur, Jolyon?’ Linz frowned. ‘The names ring a bell.’

‘You’re thinking of The Forsyte Saga. Their mother was called Irene, maybe she was a Galsworthy fan. Though the father’s name was Alfred, not Soames. Fleur’s solution was to marry into the Madsens, and her husband Bryan has run the business ever since his father suffered a stroke. Jolyon Hopes was a bachelor who broke his neck fox-hunting twenty-one years ago.’

‘Serves him right,’ Linz said. ‘A sick way to pass the time, killing animals for pleasure.’

Maggie gave her a dirty look. The two of them often argued about country sports. Hannah’s worst nightmare was that one day, budget cuts would cause the ACC to insist that the Cold Case Review Team be roped into policing hunts.

‘Fleur inherited the Hall and estate, but also the Hopes debts. Jolyon lived for a decade after his accident, but his nursing fees cost a fortune. Once everything was paid off, the Madsens set about transforming the old Hall into a new centrepiece for their park. They built a new bridge over the stream to link the Hall with the business headquarters. No expense spared. The official opening is due soon, and most of Cumbria’s VIPs will be there.’

‘Funny, that,’ Les Bryant mused. ‘My invitation must have got lost in the post.’

‘In all their publicity, the Madsens emphasise that the park is carefully managed and secure. They have never allowed their caravanners access to the Hanging Wood. Philip spent most of his time in the wood alone, apart from when Niamh’s children visited. It wasn’t frequented by locals, and even poachers gave it a wide berth.’

‘Niamh didn’t find Callum in the cottage?’ Linz asked.

‘No, Philip said he’d dropped in during the morning. He spent half an hour climbing trees around the cottage, a schoolboy letting off steam, if his uncle was to be believed. Philip was supposed to mend a fence on the site that afternoon, and Callum didn’t stop for lunch, though they often shared a bit of bread and cheese. According to Philip, the boy didn’t say where he was going afterwards, just said he had stuff to do. Philip helped Niamh search the wood, but there was no sign of Callum, so she ran back and phoned Mike Hinds. When he said he hadn’t seen his son, she rang the police. Within half an hour, the search spread further afield. First to the caravan site, then the farm.’

‘What about the grounds of Mockbeggar Hall?’ Maggie asked.

‘Eventually — much to the disgust of Alfred Hopes, who thought an Englishman’s hall was his castle. He sounds like a cantankerous old bugger.’

‘Could Callum have hidden in the cottage?’

‘It wasn’t until twenty-four hours had passed, with no trace of Callum, that Mike Hinds suggested to the police that his brother might be responsible for the boy’s disappearance. There was a tiny cellar under the cottage, and he said Philip might have put Callum there. Dead or drugged. Philip flew into panic mode when he got wind that he was a suspect. Said he’d rather die than harm a hair on the lad’s head, but barricaded the door and refused to let the police inside. In the end, they obtained a search warrant and forced their way in, but all they found in the cellar was a pile of wood chippings and a few ancient porn magazines.’

‘Heterosexual porn?’ Inevitably, it was Greg who wanted to know.

‘Old naturist magazines called Health and Efficiency, with black-and-white pictures of people playing volleyball and wearing only a smile, that sort of stuff. There was no evidence Philip had ever had any kind of sexual relationship, whether with man, woman or a child.’

‘Christ.’ Greg’s mind boggled at the very idea of lifelong celibacy.

‘Poor sod,’ Donna said.

‘The enquiry team was becoming desperate. They put Philip under a lot of pressure. It wouldn’t happen today.’

‘You don’t think so?’ Greg muttered.

Maggie asked, ‘Had Callum run away from home in the past?’

‘Niamh said not. She admitted that Kit had been cross with him, but that wasn’t unusual, and insisted his disappearance came out of the blue.’

‘Girlfriend?’ Les Bryant’s tone suggesting that he blamed most extraordinary male behaviour on trouble with the opposite sex.

‘Not as far as anyone knew.’

‘He could have kept her existence secret. A lot of kids do.’

‘One possibility was that he’d become involved with a girl on holiday with her family in one of the caravans. The Madsens had a rule that staff weren’t allowed to fraternise with holiday visitors, and Kit Payne insisted his stepchildren didn’t mix with them, even though they all lived cheek by jowl on the site. Callum was supposed to have been shy of girls.’

‘Yeah,’ Greg said. ‘Mums often think that about their lads. Mine did, that’s for sure. Little did she know.’

‘The team didn’t take Niamh’s word for it. Everyone on the site was questioned. The only clue was in a statement from a girl of sixteen, who said that she’d spotted Callum watching her as she stripped down to her bikini.’

‘What happened?’ Les asked.

‘She shouted at him to fuck off or she’d fetch her dad, and he ran for his life — if she was to be believed. The officer who took her statement reckoned she was looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. But that didn’t mean she was lying.’

‘Was this on the day he disappeared?’

‘No, a couple of days earlier, so it wasn’t thought to be of major significance.’

‘Unless he went back for another peep, and the girl’s dad caught him.’

‘The father was a police officer.’

Greg said, ‘Not all of us are lily-white.’

‘As a matter of fact, he was a DCI.’

His teeth flashed. ‘They can be the worst of the lot.’

‘Don’t push it. Everyone was quizzed, including the girl’s family. There was no proof that Callum ever went near their caravan again. He wasn’t the bravest soul, it seemed. Not your typical devil-may-care teenage lad. If the girl screamed abuse at him, he was probably scared stiff, as well as humiliated.’

‘Did anyone see him after he supposedly left his uncle’s cottage?’ Maggie asked.

‘No, and that turned out to be a huge problem for Philip. There was no trace of Callum’s movements after he visited the cottage. Of course, we had the usual crop of false sightings, everywhere from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. All faithfully investigated, all dead ends. He’d vanished without trace. The press got excited, and the gossipmongers went into overdrive. Philip kept a pig, and that disappeared as well. All grist to the rumour mill. Soon, the received wisdom was that Philip had sexually assaulted his nephew, then killed him to keep him quiet. How to dispose of the remains? Simple — a snack for Porky.’

‘Was the pig found?’

‘No, what happened to it, nobody ever knew. Almost certainly, it made its way out into the countryside and tumbled down some gully or ravine. Unfortunately for Philip, there was nobody else in the frame as regards Callum’s disappearance. He was hauled in for questioning, and didn’t do himself any favours by buttoning his lip and refusing to cooperate. He became upset and confused and his brief made ominous noises about police brutality. Laughable, considering that the senior officer was Will Durston, whose reputation was more tabby cat than Torquemada.’

‘Was Philip represented by a duty solicitor?’

‘No, a sharp-suited lawyer from the biggest criminal practice in Leeds. Joseph Madsen footed the bill.’

‘Didn’t he want the truth to come out?’

‘Joseph’s story was that he felt obliged to see that Philip was properly defended. Bryan Madsen was furious, he wanted them to distance themselves from the man. But there was no proof Philip had harmed Callum, and the solicitor’s presence ensured there was no confession, so he was released. By that time, his cottage had been daubed with red paint. Obscene graffiti saying he was a child killer and a paedophile. Some people thought Mike Hinds was responsible, but of course he denied it.’

‘Wasn’t the place put under guard?’ Linz asked.

‘The Madsens were afraid that Callum’s disappearance would damage their business. Parents wouldn’t take their kids to a caravan site where a boy was missing, presumed abducted. So they persuaded Durston and his superiors to keep the police presence low-key.’

‘Typical,’ Linz grunted.

‘The Madsens carried a huge amount of clout in the district. Important employers, with plenty of friends in high places — you can’t ride roughshod over them. Philip insisted on going back to the Hanging Wood, and nobody could talk him out of it. An Englishman’s home is his castle and all that. Even if it is a semi-derelict ruin.’

Maggie wrinkled her nose. ‘And that’s where he committed suicide?’

‘Yes, Kit Payne found him dangling from a rope he’d tied to an oak branch at the back of the cottage.’

‘So it really did become the Hanging Wood,’ Linz said. ‘Why did Payne go to the cottage?’

‘Joseph Madsen had asked him to keep an eye on Philip. Neither Kit nor Niamh were baying for the man’s blood. They didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that Callum was dead. They preferred to think he’d run off through some misguided spirit of adventure. Out of character as it seemed.’

‘Did Philip’s death change their minds?’

‘Everyone took it as an admission of guilt. It suited the Madsens to draw a line under the case fast, and Kit Payne was pragmatic. If people stopped visiting the caravan park, he would be out of a job. For Niamh, it was different. She couldn’t face losing her son. Or the suggestion that she was partly to blame, through allowing her children to visit their uncle without a chaperone.’

‘You can understand it,’ Maggie said.

‘She made a scene when the investigation was wound down. The press loved it, but once new stories cropped up, the journalists lost interest and there wasn’t much else she could do. Her husband tried to calm her down, but it took gin to do the trick. Although she was a grieving mother, the more she hit the bottle, the less credibility she had when she insisted Callum was still alive and the search for him shouldn’t be called off.’

‘When did she die?’

‘Ten years ago. She’d been ill for a long time before that, but Kit Payne did his best to look after her as well as his stepdaughter.’

‘Quite a paragon,’ Greg said with a grimace. ‘Did he have an alibi for Callum’s disappearance?’

‘Not entirely. He spent much of the day in question looking round the caravan park, supposedly checking work done by a firm of maintenance contractors whose bill was in dispute.’

‘So he could have slipped into the Hanging Wood and done something nasty to his stepson?’

‘Correct. You can see from the map, the cottage is within walking distance of the Madsens’ offices.’

‘Were the Madsens around that day?’

‘They gave statements, but they were never suspects. Will Durston was careful to keep on their right side. I never knew Will, and he died not long after he retired from the force, but I’m told he didn’t like to make waves. Joseph was away from Keswick. He was a cricket fan and spent the day watching a Test match at Headingley. Bryan had been injured a fortnight earlier, when his car came off the road at a bend on Castlerigg Hill. He broke his leg badly, and was lucky not to be killed. He’d just started going back into the office on crutches for half an hour a day, the rest of the time he was recuperating at home. His wife was out at a fashion show with brother Gareth’s wife, so there wasn’t any corroboration, but nobody could see him as a one-legged murderer. Gareth was at the caravan park, keeping an eye on things in Bryan’s absence. No solid alibis, then, but Durston was satisfied they wouldn’t have dreamt of harming the boy.’

‘What about Mike Hinds?’ Greg asked.

‘Working on the farm. Again, he was moving around, at various times of the day he was on his own. So he had the opportunity to bump into Callum, and if they argued about something, who knows? On a farm, there are countless ways to dispose of a body. But what could drive a man to murder his own son?’

‘To spite Niamh?’

‘But why Callum, who kept the Hinds name even after his mother took him to live with Kit Payne?’ Hannah asked. ‘That was why all roads led back to Philip. If he wasn’t guilty, who else could possibly want to make a fourteen-year-old lad disappear for ever?’