Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

The road straightened out again and there was the driveway on the right, at an incline and at the top, the side door and window of the cottage. It had been sited so the front, the longer aspect looked out across the valley to the hills on the other side of the road. There was no car around, no sign of anyone about. The place did look lived in; there were some pots of cyclamens beside the door. A sign at the bottom of the drive read To Let and gave a local agency phone number.

I pulled the buggy halfway up the drive then put the brake on and told Maddie to wait there a moment.

‘Why?’

‘I just want a quick look up here. I’ll only be a minute.’

‘Why, though? ’Cos it’s for rent? Are we moving?’

How does she do that, I thought? Pick up on undercurrents, on anxieties of mine, hone in on them. ‘No, it’s just a work thing. Now wait there.’

I filmed the approach and walked up the short drive to where it levelled out some four yards from the building. That fit with Damien’s description of the car parked just by the door. He’d come outside, feeling sick and stopped by the car. He’d heard the ticking, felt the warmth of the bonnet. The only explanation for that was that the car had been used recently. So Charlie had not been here very long when his attacker struck.

The man Damien passed – Nick Dryden or whoever – was perhaps waiting for Charlie. Charlie gets back, opens the cottage, the man kills Charlie, walks down the hill to his own car and drives away, narrowly missing being interrupted or caught red-handed by Damien looking for easy pickings.

Around the front of the house was a patio and seating area by large centrally placed French doors. There might have been barn doors there once. Gauzy curtains obscured any glimpses of the interior. The view was lovely, immediately below the road dipped in and out of sight, as did the river, and beyond the hills climbed up to meet the sky. The hillsides were stitched with dry stone walls and farm buildings dotted here and there. I could hear sheep bleating from afar. It reminded me of Geoff Sinclair’s place.

‘Can I help you?’

I started, cold sweat prickling under my arms as a man appeared from the far end of the house. His face was wary, he was middle-aged, casually dressed and held a pair of hedging shears in one hand.

‘I wanted to have a look at the cottage,’ I fudged my answer.

He looked at my camcorder. ‘I see. You a reporter?’

‘Mummy?’ Maddie piped up, out of sight.

‘Wait there a minute.’

‘I am!’ She was getting fed up.

He looked confused. I moved towards the road, where I could see the children, inviting the man to follow. ‘I’m investigating the conviction of Damien Beswick.’ I waited for recognition. And got it: a small nod. ‘Are you local?’ I asked.

‘Just down the road,’ he gestured. ‘I keep an eye on the place. You’re not with the police?’

‘Private, working for the family.’ After a fashion. I passed him my card. ‘The Volvo – is that yours?’

‘Yes, why?’ He frowned.

‘You always park it there?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘It was there, the night of the incident?’ I chose the blander word.

‘I already told the police,’ he said.

‘Do you remember another car, parked next to yours? A Mondeo?’

‘No, people come and go. I can’t see the road from my study.’

‘Do any of your neighbours own a Mondeo?’

‘No.’ He shook his head.

‘Can we go now?’ Maddie yelled.

‘Just coming.’ I thought about the man coming down the hill. ‘Do you get people hill-walking up here?’

‘It’s a popular spot,’ he acknowledged.

‘Are there footpaths up that way?’ I signalled up the hill.

‘No, that’s private land this side, no access. All the trails are across the other side of the valley.’ He jerked his head towards the view I’d admired.

So whoever Damien had passed had not been out fell-walking.

‘They thought it was the girlfriend,’ he said. ‘Maybe they were right all along.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I told him.

After all, she was the one who’d hired me in the first place.

When I studied the Land Ranger map I’d bought at the service station in the valley, I could see that there weren’t any properties higher up the hill than Charlie’s cottage: it was on the very edge of the hamlet. The residential area was very compact; perhaps there were by-laws to prevent development outside the village centre.

While at the service station, I’d also made a point of looking for CCTV cameras. There was one covering the forecourt and the shop, and another facing the exit and the road towards Sheffield and the bus shelter where Damien had got high before looking for something to steal. The police must have examined the tapes from these: it was standard procedure nowadays. So what had they found?

Maddie hung over the farm gates, cooing at various animals in turn from kid goats to Vietnamese pot bellied pigs, and Jamie stared at everything with fascinated incomprehension.

My thoughts returned to Charlie’s death. In particular to the car, cooling outside his house. The car had been driven recently. Or could the engine have been going for some other reason? Some DIY task of Charlie’s? Pumping up an airbed, or shining headlights on some job? Jump leads? Had someone broken down, or pretended to? Lured Charlie to give them a hand? Always helping people out , Libby had said, nothing too much trouble . Then what? My mind stalled. The door had been unlocked, the house in gloom. There was no sign of a break-in.

I kept returning to the conclusion that the murderer must have struck as soon as Charlie reached the cottage. Charlie had opened up but hadn’t had time to turn the lights on, when he was attacked. Or, as Sinclair suggested, the killer had switched the lights off before shutting the door and hiding the dreadful crime. All this just minutes before Damien tried the door.

It was time to feed one of the calves. A volunteer asked who would like to have a go. Maddie’s arm shot up and she gave a little jump. She went second, after a boy who giggled all the way through. The brown calf smelt of warm hair and hay and milk. Its limpid eyes, fuzzy pink nose and big teeth entranced the children. Maddie stuck the teat in its mouth and clutched the bottle with both hands as the animal tugged at it. This triggered some recognition in Jamie, who began to mewl. After the train fiasco, I was better prepared and warmed her feed with boiled water from a flask.

While Maddie continued to help feed the calf and advise those children coming after her on technique, I pulled the buggy round to the edge of a stall where a huge sow lay panting on the straw, and I punched in Geoff Sinclair’s number.

‘Can I come and see you again?’ I asked him. ‘I’d really appreciate it. Today, if possible.’

‘I’m going to be out,’ he said.

‘When you get back then – whenever’s convenient.’

There was a long pause. He was going to turn me away. I needed to talk to him; I needed information only the police would have. I stared at the sow, her belly shuddering with her breaths, her mucky trotters and large snout.

‘After four,’ he consented. I let out my breath.

I sat with Jamie by the duck pond. She studied my face as she fed, her eyes swinging from mine to my mouth and back again. What was she thinking? Where was her mother this soft, Sunday afternoon? I smiled at Jamie and she smiled back, losing her grip on the teat momentarily. She fed swiftly and when I raised her to wind her, one of her hands gripped my ear.

‘You’re a lovely girl,’ I told her and she gave a ripe burp in reply.

There was no sign of Ray or Tom when we got home. Abi Dobson was free to babysit and came over in time for me to drive out to Geoff Sinclair’s for four. I was tired before I set out; I’d been tired all day and had to open the car window to let the cold air refresh my senses and counteract the fatigue.