Roz Watkins - Cut to the Bone

I browsed the comments posted on Violet’s videos, getting a strong gag-reaction from reading both the enthusiasts (‘We want to spit-roast you, Violet’) and the haters (‘You deserve to spend your life locked up in a cage and then get your throat cut’). I highlighted anything particularly virulent from both sides.

I looked up to see Jai approaching with two cups of coffee. He placed one on my desk. ‘We’ve got her adoption papers. As Izzy said, the mother is Rebecca Smith. No father listed, but we’re investigating. You look stressed.’

‘Thanks.’ I gulped the coffee down. ‘Doesn’t get any better, does it? I keep hoping one day I’ll come in and a rich benefactor will have bought us an espresso machine.’

‘Vivid imagination you have.’

‘Not as vivid as the people commenting on Violet’s videos,’ I said. ‘Have you seen this stuff?’

‘I had a quick look. Pretty dispiriting.’ Jai perched on my desk and flipped a knee up so his calf was across his thigh.

I recoiled. ‘Christ, Jai. Is that some kind of primitive display ritual? Imagine if I did that on your desk.’

‘It’s a flimsy desk, Meg – British workmanship. I wouldn’t risk it.’

I tried not to smile. Clearly Jai and I were getting back on track, but I vowed to avoid mentioning his girlfriend and her conflicted attitude to his children. ‘Sit on the bloody chair, with your legs reasonably close together, and shut up.’

Jai hoicked himself off the table and sat unwillingly in my guest chair.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘These comments on Violet’s videos – loads have appeared today saying she’s been killed, but we’re obviously more interested in the ones from before her disappearance was made public. Even the ones who like her turn potentially homicidal if she doesn’t respond to their pitiful observations.’

‘Yeah, and it’s not like they even start subtle. But whether they’d harm her in real life, I don’t know.’

‘Rejected men do have that tendency, Jai. Although I agree, the online ones usually stay there, where nobody can see how pathetic they are.’

‘I’m not sure why the pro-animal ones hate her so much. What has she actually done? She’s not drowning puppies.’

‘She’s making meat look sexy,’ I said.

‘But it’s not enough for someone to harm her, surely?’

‘Izzy said she deliberately winds people up, and there are so many people at the moment who are permanently furious, maybe she pushed one of them over the edge and they came to the abattoir to confront her. Anything on the biological father yet?’

‘No,’ Jai said. ‘But we’re carrying on with the house-to-house. Hoping someone in the village had told Violet her dad’s name. Or maybe we’ll find a lead on her laptop. You reckon she might be with him?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Kids can be remarkably forgiving of some bloke that shot his load two decades ago, as opposed to the poor sods who slaved to bring them up.’

‘But why leave the car and go missing in the middle of the night? Why not contact Izzy?’

Fiona poked her head around the door. ‘I think we’ve found out where Violet was between eight and ten last night. Results from the house-to-house. Someone saw a car that matches Violet’s.’

‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Where?’

‘Visiting a man called Tony Nightingale. He’s the father of Kirsty the pig farmer – you know, the one who’s on the Great Meat Debate website with Violet and co. He’s a pig farmer as well – with a farm at the edge of Gritton. I’ve spoken to him and he’s confirmed Violet did visit, and apparently she was saying strange things. He’s happy for someone to call on him.’

I groaned and looked at my watch. ‘Oh God. Why did I arrange for Hannah to come this evening? I’ll have to feed her from the freezer.’

‘Hannah will be devastated,’ Jai said. ‘She’ll be expecting eight courses of cordon bleu cuisine, based on your past performances.’

‘Sod off, Jai. Those chips I got you from George’s were a perfectly nice supper. And as I recall, I offered you cereal for pudding.’

‘I rest my case.’

‘I suppose the lovely Suki whips up fresh and fragrant curries every night?’ Damn it, I’d gone there.

Jai looked down. ‘She’s away at the moment. She’ll be glad to miss the kids at least.’

‘Right. Okay.’ There was a pause while my brain searched for something non-inflammatory to say about Suki and the kids, while contemplating Violet’s visit to this pig farmer. ‘Listen, Jai … You’re only round the corner now. Why don’t you come over tonight after we’ve visited the pig farmer? You could meet Hannah. I can’t believe I’ve never introduced you. You’ll like her.’ And I’d make sure I didn’t mention Jai’s girlfriend, and we could go back to being normal with each other again.

‘Ah, no, I couldn’t crash your party,’ he said.

‘You may as well. Witness the rare event of me providing food, albeit from the freezer?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘Yeah. Okay, I will. Thanks.’

‘Good. First, let’s see what Violet was doing visiting a pig farmer last night.’

Jai and I pulled onto the road out of Buxton. The sun was a vivid orange, and smoke from the wildfire was drifting up from the hills, leaving a hint of bitterness in the air.

‘Did you get any more info on him?’ Jai asked.

‘Tony Nightingale? Pig farmer and all-round country gent, from a long line of similar. Rolling around in cash, by all accounts – and owns a lot of the land around here. Violet turned up at his house around eight, saying she was related to him. Could be a good lead. Maybe it’s all a bit Thomas Hardy and he’s her biological father?’

We drove through Winnats Pass, a spectacular, steep-sided limestone valley with cliffs on all sides, formed from a long-ago collapsed cave system. It had once been the main route between Sheffield and Manchester, famous for its bad weather and bandits. We went another mile or so in silence, and then ground to a halt in the traffic of Castleton. Tiredness was catching up with me, and I wished again that I hadn’t invited Hannah over.

We chugged onwards, leaving Castleton and heading through the Hope Valley and up through Bamford, before reaching the outskirts of Gritton.

A red-brick farmhouse sat by the road, a tree-lined lane curling round behind it. A fence corralled a small garden, and an old path overgrown with weeds led to what looked like the original front door. A sign proclaimed Mulberry Farm – Rare Breed Pork . It was a decent-sized house, set apart from the neighbours, but wasn’t that grand for a supposed country gent.

I drove round to a yard at the rear, passing a field inhabited by pigs wallowing in mud. I regarded them with envy.

‘Nice,’ Jai said. ‘Shame they’re going to end up on someone’s breakfast plate.’

‘You could always go veggie,’ I said, ‘if you’re feeling bad.’

‘But bacon tastes so good …’

I remembered what Violet apparently said. That using the taste of bacon as an excuse for eating it was like saying it was okay to rape someone if you enjoyed it. Definitely an odd thing for our bikini-wearing sausage-sizzler to come out with.

We knocked on a solid, newly-painted door at the back of the house. To the side was a rose garden, overgrown and knotty, with long grasses growing between thorned stems.

The door was opened by a man with the corduroyed, bespectacled look of a university professor. He didn’t fit my image of a pig farmer, although I told myself there was no rational reason why a pig farmer should look like a pig. Then I noticed he had a thin covering of light, fair hair, almost like the hair on a pig’s back, and I felt strangely reassured.