I was in my darkroom. I lose all sense of time when I’m in there.’
‘I hadn’t realized you were a photographer,’ George said, noticing Grundy shift in his seat.
‘Photography, Inspector, is my first love. When I was a lowly civil servant, before I inherited this place from my uncle, it was never more than a hobby. Now, I’ve got my own darkroom, and this last year, I’ve become semi-professional. Some portraiture, of course, but mostly landscapes. Some of my picture postcards are on sale in Buxton. The Derbyshire light has a remarkable clarity.’ Hawkin’s smile was dazzling this time.
‘I see,’ George said, wondering at a man who could think about the quality of light when his stepdaughter was missing on a freezing December night. ‘So you had no idea that Alison had come in and gone out?’
‘No, I heard nothing.’
‘Mrs Hawkin, was Alison in the habit of visiting anyone when she went out with the dog? A neighbour? You mentioned cousins that she goes to school with.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘No. She’d just go up through the fields to the coppice then back. In summer, she’d go further, up through the woodland to where the Scarlaston rises. There’s a fold in the hills, you can hardly see it till you’re on it, but you can cut through there, along the river bank, into Denderdale. But she’d never go that far of a winter’s night.’ She sighed. ‘Besides, I’ve been right round the village. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of her since she crossed the fields.’
‘What about the dog?’ Grundy asked. ‘Has the dog come back?’
It was a countryman’s question, George thought. He’d have got there eventually, but not as fast as Grundy.
Ruth shook her head. ‘She’s not. But if Alison had had an accident, Shep wouldn’t have left her. She’d have barked, but she wouldn’t have left her. A night like tonight, you’d hear Shep anywhere in the dale. You’ve been out there. Did you hear her?’
‘That’s why I wondered,’ Grundy said. ‘The silence.’
‘Can you give us a description of what Alison was wearing?’ asked the ever-practical Lucas.
‘She had on a navy-blue duffel coat over her school uniform.’
‘Peak Girls’ High?’ Lucas asked.
Ruth nodded. ‘Black blazer, maroon cardie, white shirt, black and maroon tie and maroon skirt. She’s wearing black woolly tights and black sheepskin boots that come up to mid-calf. You don’t run away in your school uniform,’ she burst out passionately, tears welling up in her eyes. She brushed them away angrily with the back of her hand. ‘Why are we sitting here like it was Sunday teatime? Why aren’t you out looking for her?’
George nodded. ‘We’re going to, Mrs Hawkin. But we needed to get the details straight so that we don’t waste our efforts. How tall is Alison?’
‘She’s near on my height now. Five foot two, three, something like that. She’s slim built, just starting to look like a young woman.’
‘Have you got a recent photograph of Alison that we can show our officers?’ George asked.
Hawkin pushed his chair back, the legs shrieking on the stone flags. He pulled open the drawer of the kitchen table and took out a handful of five-by-three prints. ‘I took these in the summer. About four months ago.’ He leaned across and spread them out in front of George. The face that looked up at him from five coloured head-and-shoulders portraits was not one he’d forget in a hurry.
Nobody had warned him that she was beautiful. He felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked down at Alison. Collar-length hair the colour of set honey framed an oval face sprinkled with pale freckles. Her blue eyes had an almost Slavic set to them, set wide apart on either side of a neat, straight nose. Her mouth was generous, her smile etching a single dimple in her left cheek. The only imperfection was a slanting scar that sliced through her right eyebrow, leaving a thin white line through the dark hairs. In each shot, her pose varied slightly, but her candid smile never altered.
He glanced up at Ruth, whose face had imperceptibly softened at the sight of her daughter’s face. Now he could see what had attracted Hawkin’s eye to the farmer’s widow. Without the strain that had stripped gentleness from Ruth’s face, her beauty was as obvious as her daughter’s. With the ghost of a smile touching her lips, it was hard to imagine he’d believed her plain.
‘She’s a lovely girl,’ George murmured. He got to his feet, picking up the photographs. ‘I’d like to hang on to these for the time being.’ Hawkin nodded. ‘Sergeant, if I could have a word outside?’
The two men stepped from the warm kitchen into the icy night air. As he closed the door behind them, George heard Ruth say in a defeated voice, ‘I’ll make tea now.’
‘What do you think?’ George asked. He didn’t need Lucas’s confirmation to know that this was serious, but if he assumed authority now over the uniformed man, it was tantamount to saying he thought the girl had been murdered or seriously assaulted. And in spite of his growing conviction that that was what had happened, he had a superstitious dread that acting as if it were so might just make it so.
‘I think we should get the dog handler out fast as you like, sir. She could have had a fall. She could be lying injured. If she’s been hit in a rock fall, the dog could have been killed.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got four extra uniformed officers on duty at the Kennedy memorial service. If we’re quick, we can catch them before they go off duty and get them out here as well as every man we can spare.’ Lucas reached past him to open the door. ‘I’ll need to use their phone. No point in trying the radio here. You’d get better reception down the bottom of Markham Main pit shaft.’
‘OK, Sergeant. You organize what you can by way of a search party. I’m going to call in DS Clough and DC Cragg. They can make a start on a door-to-door in the village, see if we can narrow down who saw her last and where.’ George felt a faint fluttering in his stomach, like first-night nerves. Of course, that’s exactly what it was. If his fears were right, he was standing on the threshold of the first major case he’d been entirely responsible for. He’d be judged by this for the rest of his career. If he didn’t uncover what had happened to Alison Carter, it would be an albatross round his neck for ever.
Wednesday, 11th December 1963. 9.07 p.m.
The dog’s breath swirled and hung in the night air as if it had a life of its own. The Alsatian sat calmly on its haunches, ears pricked, alert eyes scanning Scardale village green. PC Dusty Miller, the dog handler, stood by his charge, one hand absently fingering the short tan and brindle hair between its ears. ‘Prince’ll need some clothes and shoes belonging to the lass,’ he told Sergeant Lucas. ‘The more she’s worn them, the better. We can manage without, but it’d help the dog.’
‘I’ll have a word with Mrs Hawkin,’ George interjected before Lucas could assign anyone to the task. It wasn’t that he thought a uniformed officer would be deficient in tact; he simply wanted another chance to observe Alison Carter’s mother and her husband.
He walked into the warm fug of the kitchen, where Hawkin was still sitting at the table, still smoking. Now he had a cup of tea in front of him, as did the WPC who sat at the other end of the table. They both looked up as he entered. Hawkin raised his eyebrows in a question. George shook his head. Hawkin pursed his lips and rubbed a hand over his eyes. George was pleased to see the man finally showing some signs of concern for his stepdaughter’s fate. That Alison might be in real danger seemed finally to have penetrated his self-absorption.
Ruth Hawkin was at the sink, her hands among the suds in the washing-up bowl. But she wasn’t doing the dishes. She was motionless, staring intently into the unbroken dark of the night.