Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“You’ve made excellent time,” St. James said as Lynley offered his hand in greeting and then brushed a kiss against Deborah’s cheek.

“The wind at my back.”

“And no trouble getting away from the Yard?”

“You’ve forgotten. I’m on holiday. I’d just gone into the office to clear off my desk.”

“And we’ve taken you from your holiday?” Deborah asked. “Simon! That’s dreadful.”

Lynley smiled. “A mercy, Deb.”

“But surely you and Helen had plans.”

“We did. She changed her mind. I was at a loose end. It was either a drive to Lancashire or a prolonged rattle round my house in London. Lancashire seemed to hold infi nitely more promise. It’s a diversion, at least.”

Deborah shrewdly assessed the fi nal statement. “Does Helen know you’ve come?”

“I’ll phone her tonight.”

“Tommy…”

“I know. I’ve not behaved well. I’ve picked up my marbles and run away.”

He dropped into the seat next to Deborah and picked up a shortbread still left on the plate. He poured some tea for himself into her empty cup and stirred in sugar as he munched. He looked about. The door to the restaurant was shut. The lights behind the bar were switched off. The office door was open a crack, but no movement came from within, and while a third door — set at an angle behind the bar — was open far enough to emit a lance of light that pierced the labels of the spirit bottles that hung upside down awaiting use, no sound came from beyond it.

“No one’s here?” Lynley asked.

“They’re about somewhere. There’s a bell on the bar.”

He nodded but made no move to go to it.

“They know you’re the Yard, Tommy.”

Lynley raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“You had a phone message during lunch. It was the talk of the pub.”

“So much for incognito.”

“It probably wouldn’t have served us well, anyway.”

“Who knows?”

“That you’re CID?” St. James leaned back and let his glance wander, as if trying to remember who had been in the pub when the call came through. “The owners, certainly. Six or seven locals. A group of hikers who’re no doubt long gone.”

“You’re certain about the locals?”

“Ben Wragg — he’s the owner — was chatting some of them up at the bar when his wife brought the news from the office. The rest got the information with their lunches. At least Deborah and I did.”

“I hope the Wraggs charged extra.”

St. James smiled. “They didn’t, that. But they did give us the message. They gave everyone the message. Sergeant Dick Hawkins, Clitheroe Police, phoning for Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley.”

“‘I asked him where this Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley was from, I did,’” Deborah added in her best Lancashire accent. “‘And wouldn’t you know’—with a wonderfully dramatic pause, Tommy—‘he’s from New Scotland Yard! Staying right here at the inn, he’ll be. He booked a room hisself not three hours past. I took the call. Now what you s’pose he’s come to look into?’” Deborah’s nose wrinkled with her smile. “You’re the week’s excitement. You’ve turned Winslough into St. Mary Mead.”

Lynley chuckled. St. James said pensively, “Clitheroe’s not the regional constabulary for Winslough, is it? And this Hawkins said nothing about being attached to anyone’s CID, because if he had, we surely would have heard that bit of news along with everything else.”

“Clitheroe’s just the divisional police centre,” Lynley said. “Hawkins is the local constable’s superior officer. I spoke to him this morning.”

“But he’s not CID?”

“No. And you were right in your conclusions about that, St. James. When I spoke to Hawkins earlier, he affirmed the fact that Clitheroe’s CID did nothing more than photograph the body, examine the crime scene, collect physical evidence, and arrange for autopsy. Shepherd himself did the rest: investigation and interviews. But he didn’t do them alone.”

“Who assisted?”

“His father.”

“That’s deucedly odd.”

“Odd and irregular but not illegal. From what Sergeant Hawkins told me earlier, Shepherd’s father was Detective Chief Inspector at the regional constabulary in Hutton-Preston at the time. Evidently he pulled rank on Sergeant Hawkins and gave the order how things would be.”

“ Was Detective Chief Inspector?”

“This Sage affair was his last police case. He retired shortly after the inquest.”

“So Colin Shepherd must have arranged with his father to keep Clitheroe’s CID out of it,” Deborah said.

“Or his father wanted it that way.”

“But why?” St. James mused.

“I dare say that’s what we’re here to fi nd out.”

They walked down the Clitheroe Road together, in the direction of the church, past the front of terraced houses whose white, transomed windows were edged by a hundred years of grime that no mere washing could ever remove.

They found Colin Shepherd’s house next to the vicarage, just across the street from St. John the Baptist Church. Here, they separated, Deborah crossing to the church itself with a quiet “I haven’t seen it yet anyway,” leaving St. James and Lynley to conduct their interview with the constable on their own.

Two cars stood on the drive in front of the sorrel brick building, a muddy Land Rover at least ten years old and a splattered Golf that looked relatively new. No car stood on the neighbouring drive, but as they skirted past the Rover and the Golf on their way to Colin Shepherd’s door, a woman came to one of the front windows in the vicarage, and she watched their progress with no attempt to hide herself from view. One hand was freeing kinky, car-rot-coloured hair from a scarf that bound it at the base of her neck. The other was buttoning a navy coat. She didn’t move from the window even when it was obvious that Lynley and St. James had seen her.

A narrow, rectangular sign jutted from the side of Colin Shepherd’s house. Blue and white, it was printed with the single word POLICE . As was the case in most villages, the local constable’s home was also the business centre of his policing area. Lynley wondered idly if Shepherd had brought the Spence woman here to do his questioning of her.

A dog began to bark in answer to their ringing of the bell. It was a sound that started at one end of the house, rapidly approached the front door, and took up a raucous position behind it. A large dog by the sound of it, and none too friendly.

A man’s voice said, “Quiet, Leo. Sit,” and the barking ceased at once. The porch light flicked on — although it wasn’t yet completely dark — and the door swung open.

With a large black retriever sitting at attention at his side, Colin Shepherd looked them over. His face reflected neither the anticipation attendant to greeting a request for his professional services nor the general curiosity attached to finding strangers at one’s door. His words explained why. He said them with a quick, formal nod. “Scotland Yard CID. Sergeant Hawkins said you might pay me a call today.”

Lynley produced his warrant card and introduced St. James, to whom Shepherd said after an evaluative glance, “You’re staying at the inn, aren’t you? I saw you last night.”

“My wife and I came to see Mr. Sage.”

“The red-headed woman. She was out by the reservoir this morning.”

“She’d gone there to walk on the moor.”

“The mist comes down fast in these parts. It’s no place for a walk if you don’t know the land.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Shepherd stepped back from the door. The dog rose in response, a rumbling in his throat. Shepherd said, “Be quiet. Go back to the fi re,” and the dog trotted obediently into another room.