Roz Watkins - Cut to the Bone

Kirsty was acting as if everything was normal, as if she was oblivious to the chaos of emotions Bex was feeling. But then Bex caught her eye and what she saw in those sharp blue depths made her realise that Kirsty was acutely aware.

Bex shrugged. ‘I was rubbish. Wrong clothes – I suppose I’m a townie.’ She thought of her lovely yellow coat, now sodden and smeared brown, her pretty shoes, ruined.

Her dad couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘No, you were fine,’ he said.

‘The water got into the library.’ That was the boy. About eighteen or nineteen, like Kirsty. A dark, gentle-looking sort, except that he was gulping and slurping his tea, and dunking and devouring his biscuits, chewing with his mouth open. He caught Bex’s eye, and then quickly looked away.

‘It’s fine, Daniel.’ Kirsty spoke with an edge to her voice that seemed unwarranted, given the innocuous nature of his comment. ‘We shifted the books off the lower shelves, so not a problem.’

Daniel looked up from his tea. ‘Not a problem? The library’s flooded. They’re beautiful old books in there. I can’t believe they were rescued from the reservoir and then you put them at risk here.’

Kirsty shot him a piercing look. ‘The books are okay, Daniel. Why do you get so upset about a few books?’

‘But if you’d let me divert the water to the other side of the big field …’

Bex’s dad spoke, his voice firm. ‘It’s fine, Daniel. Let it go.’

Bex flicked her eyes from person to person, feeling for the undercurrents in the conversation. Kirsty saw her and dropped her shoulders and smiled. ‘The books were from the manor house,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ Bex knew all about the drowned house. Their ancestral home, lost under the waters when Ladybower Reservoir was created over fifty years ago.

‘Daniel’s helping out this summer,’ Kirsty added. ‘Sometimes he has his own ideas about how Dad should do things. Forgets he’s paid to do what Dad wants.’

Daniel looked at Kirsty through narrow eyes, then took a breath and laughed. ‘Your dad’s put so much effort into making sure the pig barn doesn’t flood that the water ends up in the house. I just suggested we divert it.’

‘We’re not doing that,’ said Bex’s dad, placing his teacup down in a way that made it clear this was the end of the matter. ‘If the house were to flood we can always move upstairs or outside. Pigs don’t have those options. They mustn’t get flooded.’

Kirsty said, ‘It’s sweet how much he cares for his pigs.’

Daniel smiled awkwardly at Bex’s dad. ‘I’m surprised you don’t build a robot to move the sandbags automatically when it rains.’ He was obviously trying to lighten the mood, but Bex had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Dad makes robots,’ Kirsty said. ‘In fact, normally he gets the robot to make the tea.’

Bex’s dad coughed. ‘It’s a prototype. It takes a little longer than I’d like.’

Kirsty rolled her eyes.

Fenton shoved his nose under Bex’s arm, shifting it up so she spilled tea on the table.

‘Dear me, Dad,’ Kirsty said. ‘For a competent animal trainer, you’ve done a shitty job with that dog.’

‘Sorry,’ Bex said. ‘It was my fault.’ She stroked Fenton’s sleek head.

‘You’ve just rewarded him for being an arse.’ Kirsty’s tone was blunt.

Bex felt sick. Had Kirsty become one of those unnerving people who changed from sunny to scary second by second? She pulled her hand back. ‘Oh God, sorry.’

Kirsty laughed. ‘Relax. It’s fine. You weren’t to know.’

Their dad grabbed a cloth and mopped up the tea. ‘Don’t listen to your sister. She’s only teasing. She’s been so excited about you coming.’

‘So excited,’ Kirsty echoed. There it was again. Kirsty’s voice had two layers, the sarcasm so subtle it was almost not there. Bex could tell that her dad only heard one layer, but Daniel could detect the other one. His eyes flitted nervously between Bex and Kirsty.

Bex had never imagined that Kirsty might not like her, might not want her there.

‘You should get your dad to show you how he trains the pigs,’ Daniel said. ‘He’s really into animal training. The pigs are so cool.’

‘Wow, yes!’ Bex felt a sudden rush of optimism. ‘That would be brilliant.’

Her dad smiled. ‘Good. We can do that.’

At last, something Bex could do with her dad that would avoid the awkward silences. And training pigs sounded fun.

‘Soft in the head, the lot of you,’ Kirsty said. But she gave Bex a warm smile, and Bex realised she must have been wrong. Paranoid. She could be like that sometimes. Of course Kirsty was happy she was there. Nobody blamed her. The summer wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Meg – Present day

Tuesday

I was at my desk skim-reading the recent statements from the house-to-house. Violet had spoken to so many people in her search for Rebecca Smith, and the residents of Gritton had been so excessively helpful, interested and keen to share their thoughts with our officers, that we were drowning in their contributions. Most of it was tediously irrelevant, the only thing of possible interest being someone’s assertion that Kirsty Nightingale – the pig-farming daughter of Tony Nightingale – dealt drugs. Surprising but not obviously helpful.

We’d spoken to Violet’s parents when they’d changed planes in Singapore, and they’d had no demands from any menacing folk about Violet, so a kidnap was looking unlikely. The search teams had found nothing, and there had been no sightings from people who weren’t attention-seeking and/or deranged, although plenty from those who were. A huge search of the moorland was underway, with help from an over-emotional public determined to get too close to the wildfire. Crime scene officers were at the abattoir, and in Violet’s room at the cottage, and the tech team were going through her laptop. There was still no sign of her phone. To use a cliché, she’d disappeared into thin air.

Fiona stuck her head around the door. ‘We’ve got some info from the house-to-house,’ she said. ‘An insomniac who spends her nights staring out at the lane by her cottage. And her lane’s on the main route into the abattoir. She thinks she saw Violet.’

‘Sounds helpful.’

‘Yeah. She was sure she saw a small, green car drive past in the direction of the abattoir at quarter to ten. And Violet’s car’s small and green, so that ties in with Tony Nightingale saying she left his farm around nine thirty.’

‘Okay, so it looks like he might have been the last person to speak to her.’

‘Yes. And this woman – a Mrs Ackroyd – was sure no other cars passed her that night, although there is another way to the abattoir – you just have to go down a really narrow lane.’

Mrs Ackroyd could of course be mistaken, as witnesses frequently were. I’d learned that the more vehement the account and detailed the description, the more likely it was that the large, black man with a beard was in fact a small, white man with a moustache. Still, if Mrs Ackroyd was right, Violet had driven from Tony Nightingale’s and gone to work at the abattoir as normal. But then what?

‘I’ve tracked down Tony Nightingale’s daughter, Bex,’ Fiona said, ‘who we thought might be the birth mother. She’s a dog trainer who lives just south of Nottingham. She says Violet’s not her child and she refuses to go anywhere near Gritton, or to a police station.’

Another one? Hadn’t Daniel Twigg said his mum refused to go to Gritton? What was it about that place? ‘Oh great,’ I said. ‘Do we know why?’

‘She won’t say, but she was very adamant.’

‘And she says Violet’s not her child? Did she have a baby at that time?’