Val McDermid: A Place of Execution

Lucas’s smile was grim. ‘They don’t have to. Beyond the gate, technically it’s a private road. It’s only in the last ten years that it’s been asphalted. Before that, nothing that wasn’t a tractor or a Land Rover got up or down the Scardale road.’ He eased the car forward, waiting on the far side of the gate for Grundy to close up and rejoin them.

They set off again. Within a hundred yards of the gate, the limestone cliffs fell back, sloping away on either side to form a distant horizon. Suddenly they’d emerged from gloom into full moonlight once more. Against the starry sky, it looked to George as if they’d emerged from the players’ tunnel into a vast stadium, at least a mile across, with an almost circular ring of steep hills in place of tiers of seats. The arena was no sports field, however. In the eerie light of the moon, George could see fields of rough pasture rising gently from the road that bisected the valley floor. Sheep huddled together against the walls, their breath brief puffs of steam in the freezing air. Darker patches revealed themselves as areas of coppiced woodland as they drove past. George had never seen the like. It was a secret world, hidden and separate.

Now he could see lights, feeble against the moon’s silver gleam, but strong enough to outline a straggle of buildings against the pale limestone reefs at the far end of the dale. ‘That’s Scardale,’ Grundy said needlessly from the back seat.

The conglomeration of stone soon resolved itself into distinct houses huddled round a scrubby circle of grass. A single standing stone leaned at an angle in the middle of the green, and a telephone box blazed scarlet at one side, the only vivid splash of colour in Scardale by moonlight. There looked to be about a dozen cottages, none identical, each separated from its neighbours by only a few yards. Most were showing lights behind their curtains. More than once, George caught a glimpse of hands making a gap for faces to peer through, but he refused to be drawn into a sideways look.

At the very back of the green was a sprawl of ill-assorted gables and windows that George assumed must be Scardale Manor. He wasn’t sure quite what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this glorified farmhouse that looked like it had been thrown together over several hundred years by people who’d had more need than taste. Before he could say anything, the front door opened and an oblong of yellow light spilled out on to the yard in front of it. Against the light a woman’s form was silhouetted.

As the car drew to a halt, the woman took a couple of impulsive steps towards them. Then a man appeared at her shoulder and put an arm round her. Together they waited while the police officers approached, George hanging back slightly to let Bob Lucas take the lead. He could use the time Lucas was taking for the introductions to note his first impressions of Alison Carter’s mother and stepfather.

Ruth Hawkin looked at least ten years older than his Anne, which would put her in her late thirties. He reckoned she was about five feet three, with the sturdy build of a woman used to hard work. Her mid-brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which emphasized the drawn look around grey-blue eyes that showed signs of recent weeping. Her skin looked weather-beaten but her pursed lips showed faint traces of lipstick in their cracks. She wore an obviously hand-knitted twin set in a blue heather mixture over a pleated grey tweed skirt. Her legs were encased in ribbed woollen stockings, her feet shod sensibly in ankle boots with a zip up the front. It was hard to square what he was seeing with Peter Grundy’s description of Ruth as a good-looking woman. George would not have looked twice at her in a bus queue except for her obvious distress, which showed in the tightness of her body, arms crossed defensively across her chest. He assumed it had also drained her attractiveness from her.

The man standing behind her seemed far more at ease. The hand that wasn’t lightly touching his wife’s shoulder was thrust casually into the pocket of a dark-brown cardigan with suede leather facings. He wore grey flannel trousers whose turn-ups flopped over well-worn leather slippers. Philip Hawkin hadn’t been out knocking on village doors with his wife, George noted.

Hawkin was as handsome as his wife was ordinary. A couple of inches under six feet, he had straight dark hair swept back from a widow’s peak, lightly brilliantined to hold it in place. His face reminded George of a shield, with a broad, square forehead tapering to a pointed chin. Straight brows over dark-brown eyes were like an heraldic device; a slender nose seemed to point to a mouth shaped so that it appeared always to be on the point of a smile.

All of this George itemized and filed away in his memory. Bob Lucas was still speaking. ‘So if we could come in and take some details, we can get a clearer picture of what’s happened.’ He paused expectantly.

Hawkin spoke for the first time, his voice unmistakably alien to the Derbyshire Peaks. ‘Of course, of course. Come inside, officers. I’m sure she’s going to turn up safe and well, but it doesn’t hurt to follow the procedures, does it?’ He dropped his hand to the small of Ruth’s back and steered her back into the house. She seemed numb, certainly incapable of taking any initiative. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been dragged out on such a cold night,’ Hawkin added smoothly as he crossed the room.

George followed Lucas and Grundy across the thresh-old and into a farmhouse kitchen. The floors were stone flagged, the walls rough stone brightened with a coat of white distemper that had discoloured unevenly, depending on its proximity to the wood-burning stove and the electric cooker. A dresser and several cupboards of differing heights painted hospital green ranged round the walls, and a pair of deep stone sinks were set under the windows that looked out towards the end of the dale. Another pair of windows gave a view of the village green, the phone box bright against the darkness. Various pans and kitchen implements hung from the black beams that crossed the room a few feet apart. It smelled of smoke, cabbage and animal fat.

Without waiting for anyone else, Hawkin sat down immediately in a carving chair at the head of a scrubbed wooden table. ‘Make the men some tea, Ruth,’ he said.

‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ George interjected as the woman lifted a kettle off the stove. ‘But I’d rather we pressed on. Where it’s a matter of a missing child, we try not to waste any time. Mrs Hawkin, if you could sit down and tell us what you know.’

Ruth glanced at Hawkin as if seeking his permission. His eyebrows twitched upwards, but he nodded acquiescence. She pulled out a chair and sank into it, folding her arms on the table in front of her. George sat down opposite her, with Lucas beside him. Grundy unbuttoned his overcoat and lowered himself into the carver at the opposite end to Hawkin. He took his pocketbook from his tunic and flipped it open. Licking the end of his pencil, he looked up expectantly.

‘How old is Alison, Mrs Hawkin?’ George asked gently.

The woman cleared her throat. ‘Thirteen past. Her birthday’s in March.’ Her voice cracked, as if something inside her were splintering.

‘And had there been any trouble between you?’

‘Steady on, Inspector,’ Hawkin protested. ‘What do you mean, trouble? What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything, sir,’ George said. ‘But Alison’s at a difficult age, and sometimes young girls get things out of all proportion. A perfectly normal ticking-off can feel like the end of the world to them. I’m trying to establish whether there are any grounds for supposing Alison might have run away.’

Hawkin leaned back in his seat with a frown. He reached behind him, tipping the chair back on two legs. He grabbed a packet of Embassy and a small chrome lighter from the dresser and proceeded to light a cigarette without offering the packet to anyone else. ‘Of course she’s run away,’ he said, a smile softening the hard line of his eyebrows. ‘That’s what teenagers do. They do it to get you worried, to get their own back for some imagined slight. You know what I mean,’ he continued with a man-of-the-world air that included the police officers. ‘Christmas is coming. I remember one year I went missing for hours. I thought my mum would be so glad to see me back home safe that I’d be able to talk her into buying me a bike for Christmas.’ His smile turned rueful. ‘All I got was a sore backside. Mark my words, Inspector, she’ll turn up before morning, expecting the fatted calf.’