Val McDermid - A Place of Execution

As he stared out towards the moors, George realized there was no way he could sleep that night. Wrapping the sandwiches in greaseproof paper, he filled a flask with hot tea and softly climbed the stairs to pick up his electric razor from the bathroom.

On the landing, he paused. The door to their bedroom was ajar, and he couldn’t resist a quick look at Anne. With his fingertips, he pushed the door a little wider. Her face was a pale smudge against the white gleam of the pillow. She lay on her side, one hand a fist on the pillow beside her. God, she was beautiful. Just watching her sleep was enough to make his flesh stir. He wished he could throw his clothes off and slide in beside her, feeling her warmth the length of his body. But tonight, the memory of Ruth Hawkin’s haunted eyes was more than he could escape.

With a soft sigh, he turned away. Half an hour later, he was back in the Methodist Hall, staring at Alison Carter. He’d pinned four of Hawkin’s photographs of her to the notice board. He’d left the other at the police station, asking for it to be copied as a matter of urgency so it could be distributed at the press conference. The night duty inspector seemed uncertain whether it could be done in time. George had left him in no doubt what he expected.

Carefully, he spread out the Ordnance Survey map and tried to study it through the eyes of a person who’d decided to run away. Or a person who’d decided to steal someone else’s life.

Then he walked out of the Methodist Hall and started down the narrow lane towards Scardale on foot. Within yards, the dim yellow light that spilled out of the high windows of the hall was swallowed by the blanketing night. The only glimmers of light came from the stars that broke through the fitful clouds. It took him all his time to avoid tripping over tussocks of grass at the road’s edge.

Gradually, his pupils expanded to their maximum extent, allowing his night vision to steal what images it could from the ghosts and shadows of the landscape. But by the time they resolved themselves into hedges and trees, sheep folds and stiles, the cold had sneaked up on him. Thin-soled town shoes were no match for frosty ground, and not even his cotton-lined leather gloves were proof against the icy flurry that seemed to use the Scardale lane as a wind tunnel. His ears and nose had lost all sensation except pain. A mile down the lane, he gave up. If Alison Carter was abroad in this, she must be hardier than him, he decided.

Either that or beyond sensation altogether.

Manchester Evening News, Thursday, 12 thDecember 1963, p.11

Boy camper raises hopes in John hunt POLICE RACE TO LONELY BEAUTY SPOT By a Staff Reporter

Police investigating the disappearance of 12-year-old John Kilbride of Ashton-under-Lyne rushed to a lonely beauty spot on the outskirts of the town.

A boy had been seen camping out.

Hopes soared when the boy was said to be safe and well. But it turned out to be a false alarm.

The boy they found had been reported missing from home and was about the same age as John – but it was 11-year-old David Marshall of Gorse View, Alt Estate, Oldham.

He had been missing for only a few hours.

After ‘getting into trouble’ at home, he packed his belongings – and a tent – and went to camp out near a farm in Lily Lanes, on the Ashton-Oldham boundary.

It was another frustrating incident in the 19-day-old search for John, of Smallshaw Lane, Ashton.

Police said today: ‘We really thought we were on to something. But at least we are glad we were able to return one boy home safe and well.’

David was spotted at his lonely bivouac by a visitor to the farm who informed the police immediately.

‘It shows the public are really cooperating,’ said police.

Thursday, 12 thDecember 1963. 7.30 a.m.

Janet Carter reminded George of a cat his sister had once had. Her triangular face with its pert nose, wide eyes and tiny rosebud mouth was as closed and watchful as any domesticated predator he’d ever seen. She even had a scatter of tiny pimples at either end of her upper lip, as if someone had tweezed out her whiskers. They faced each other across the table in the low-ceilinged kitchen of her parents’ Scardale cottage. Janet was picking delicately at a piece of buttered toast, small sharp teeth nibbling crescents inwards from each corner. Her eyes were downcast, but every few moments she’d give him a quick sidelong look through long lashes.

Even in his younger years, he’d never been comfortable with adolescent girls, a natural result of having a sister three years older whose friends had regarded the fledgling George first as a convenient plaything and later as a marvellous testing ground for the wit and charms they planned to try on older targets. George had sometimes felt like the human equivalent of training wheels on a child’s first bike. The one advantage he’d gained from the experience was that he reckoned he could tell when a teenage girl was lying, which was more than most of the men he knew could manage.

But even that certainty faded in the face of Janet Carter’s self-possession. Her cousin was missing, with all the presumptions that entailed, yet Janet looked as composed as if Alison had merely nipped out to the shops. Her mother, Maureen, had a noticeably less sure grip on her emotions, her voice trembling when she spoke of her niece, tears in her eyes when she shepherded her three younger children from the room, leaving George to interview Janet. And her father, Ray, was already up and gone, lending his local knowledge to one of the police search parties looking for his dead brother’s child.

‘You probably know Alison better than anybody,’ George said at last, reminding himself to stick with a present tense that seemed increasingly inappropriate.

Janet nodded. ‘We’re like sisters. She’s eight months and two weeks older than me, so we’re in a different class at school. Just like real sisters.’

‘You grew up together here in Scardale?’

Janet nodded, another new moon of toast disappearing between her teeth. ‘The three of us, me and Alison and Derek.’

‘So you’re like best friends as well as cousins?’

‘I’m not her best friend at school because we’re in different classes, but I am at home.’

‘What kind of things do you do?’

Janet’s mouth twisted and furled as she thought for a moment. ‘Nothing much. Some nights Charlie, our big cousin, takes us into Buxton for the roller-skating. Sometimes we go to the shops in Buxton or Leek, but mostly we’re just here. We take the dogs for a walk. Sometimes we help out on the farm if they’re short-handed. Ali got a record player for her birthday, so a lot of the time me and Ali and Derek just listen to records up in her room.’

He took a sip of the tea Maureen Carter had left for him, amazed that someone could make stronger tea than the police canteen. ‘Has anything been bothering her?’ he asked. ‘Any problems at home? Or at school?’

Janet raised her head and stared at him, her eyebrows coming together in a frown. ‘She never ran away,’ she said fiercely. ‘Somebody must have took her. Ali wouldn’t run away. Why would she? There’s nothing to run away from .’

Maybe not, thought George, startled by her vehemence. But maybe there had been something to run away to . ‘Does Alison have a boyfriend?’

Janet breathed heavily through her nose. ‘Not really. She went to the pictures with this lad from Buxton a couple of times. Alan Milliken. But it wasn’t a date, not really. There was half a dozen of them all went together. She told me he tried to kiss her, but she wasn’t having any. She said that if he thought paying her in to the pictures meant he could do what he liked, he was wrong.’ Janet eyed him defiantly, animated by her outburst.