Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

Until now, Aslan had always found it easy to take decisions. Go there, say this, pretend to do that. Perhaps the secret was that none of it seemed to matter. Once he’d arrived at the Lakes, decisions became harder to take. In the past he’d scoffed at ditherers, people who were afraid to act. But did they hesitate simply because they cared too much?

Outside Lane End Farm, he’d encountered a couple of labourers who had sneaked out for a crafty smoke. The men exchanged a few words in a foreign language, and wandered back into the farmyard. Maybe they thought he was an undercover snooper from the Border Agency, checking up on migrant workers. If only they knew his own visa was phoney, bearing a made-up name, and that his knees were knocking with apprehension.

So far he hadn’t caught sight of Mike Hinds. He knew what the man looked like, he’d memorised his appearance thanks to Orla. A sentimentalist, she’d kept dog-eared photographs of her parents as well as Callum, and she’d shown them to Aslan over a drink in a bar. For once, he hadn’t needed to fake interest.

No matter how many times he rehearsed what he might say when they came face-to-face, it never sounded right.

You don’t know me, but …

I know this will come as a shock …

Sorry to disturb you, but we need to talk …

Please don’t slam the door in my face, please …

Shit, he was no good at this. He hated his own weakness. People who knew him would never believe it; everyone thought he was brash, so why had confidence deserted him, when he needed it most?

He heard a car with a quiet engine, coming down the lane. Even before he set eyes on it, instinct told him the police were coming. Surely they could not be on to him?

His stomach felt queasy. This was all too difficult. He wanted to run away and hide.

Hannah smelt the farm before she set eyes on it. She had the sunroof open, making the most of the weather. Sitting behind her, Greg had spread notes about the Callum Hinds case over the back seat and was studying them in uncharacteristic silence. The lane traipsed around a forbidding hawthorn hedge, and petered out in a tight turning space. North of the lane, woodland stretched towards the slopes of the fells. The caravan park was masked by trees. Lane End might have been in the middle of nowhere, rather than five minutes’ drive from the centre of Keswick.

Crumbling stone pillars guarded a dirt track leading to the stone farmhouse. Ugly single-storey extensions had been added on either side of the building, as if to remind visitors that this was a workplace, not the setting for some rural idyll. No front garden, just an open space where a mud-spattered estate car and a couple of farm vehicles were parked.

As Hannah reversed in the turning space, she caught sight of someone in her rear-view mirror. A tall man with a thick mass of hair and a beard, standing next to one of the stone pillars. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, and she’d have assumed he was one of the myriad walkers who swarmed over the Lake District, if he’d had a rucksack on his back. But there was no rucksack. As the car swung round, the man stared at them, before turning on his heel. Within moments, he rounded the hawthorn hedge and vanished from sight.

‘What do you suppose he was up to?’ Hannah asked.

‘I’ve heard of trainspotters.’ Greg shrugged. ‘But farmyard spotters?’

The only greenery this side of the fields was the thick ivy curtain around the entrance porch. A cobbled yard separated the house from a slurry tank, a straggle of steel-framed sheds and a two-storey L-shaped brick outbuilding. Two swarthy labourers watched from behind a tractor as the two detectives got out of the car. They muttered to each other in a language that Hannah recognised as Polish. You heard it spoken a lot in the Lake District nowadays; the place was a magnet for people who wanted work and didn’t expect to be paid the earth. She caught the word policja , and for a moment she thought they were about to come up and buttonhole her. But one of the men put a restraining hand on his companion’s wrist, as if he’d had second thoughts. Before Hannah could approach them, they hurried off towards the sheds.

‘Ever get the feeling that people are avoiding you?’ Hannah said as she locked the car.

‘All the time,’ Greg murmured. ‘Cold Comfort Farm, eh? They’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet.’

‘Maggie has a favourite phrase,’ Hannah said. ‘ Every farm is unique . Each has its own design, but more than that. Each has a distinct personality.’

‘Yeah, well, what does that make Lane End?’ he asked. ‘A surly recluse?’

A muck spreader roared in the distance as they rang the doorbell. Deirdre Hinds kept them waiting a whole minute before she opened up. In her early forties, she was short and squat and carrying too much weight. Her cheeks were pasty, and her eyes red-rimmed. Distress due to her stepdaughter’s death? Her hands were covered in flour, and she didn’t offer to shake.

‘Inspector Scarlett, is it? He’ll be somewhere around the yard. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m busy baking.’

The door banged shut in their faces before they could utter a word.

‘Charming,’ Greg said. ‘And there was I, hoping she’d offer us a traditional farmhouse tea.’

‘Wonder what she made of Orla?’ Hannah said as they headed for the yard.

‘She doesn’t look like a wicked stepmother to me. Downtrodden, yes. I bet her old man wasn’t happy that she arranged this meeting.’

Hannah pointed to the top of the silver tower, visible in the distance above the roof of the barn. ‘That must be the silo where Orla died.’

Greg made a face. ‘I can think of better places to finish up.’

‘What would be your choice, then?’

‘Easy.’ He smirked. ‘A nightclub, surrounded by lap dancers. Expiring happily at the age of ninety-seven.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘You did ask, ma’am.’

Insidious, how working alongside someone changed your attitude towards them, for better or worse. She’d heard a good deal about Greg before he joined her team, most of it bad. Lauren Self loathed him, which explained his banishment to Cold Cases. Yet although he had an ego the size of Blackpool Tower, she’d begun to warm to him. In her head, Ben Kind growled, ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t get soft in your old age.’ Good advice. Given an inch, Greg would take a mile.

Their path took them towards a tall building with a corrugated roof. Inside stood a fearsome metal contraption with a conveyor belt and a huge circular saw with teeth sharper than a shark’s. On the ground at the far end of the machine was a big sack filled with poplar logs.

‘DIY wood cutter,’ Greg said. ‘Naughty, naughty. Bet he makes sure it’s out of sight when the health and safety people come round to inspect. Lethal, by the look of it. If Orla Payne wanted a quick exit, she could have squatted on the conveyor and switched on the saw.’

‘Nasty way to go.’

‘Hey, a few nanoseconds of agony, and it’s done. As compared to — what?’ He pretended to squirm. ‘Trapped in a pile of grain, waiting for the loader to dump the next batch. Think about it. Knowing the stuff will suffocate you, and able to do bugger all to save yourself.’

Hannah swallowed. ‘Point taken.’

The barn loomed before them. Stone steps led up to the haylofts; calves squealed in the bays below. A spade and scythe leant against one wall. At the sound of unfamiliar voices, a broad-shouldered man in a faded black T-shirt and grubby jeans came out of the nearest bay. Hair grey and close-cropped, face weather-beaten, arms muscular. A line of sweat gleamed on his brow. He considered them rather as he might weigh up cats caught in a hen coop.