Val McDermid 3-Book Crime Collection: A Place of Execution, The Distant Echo, The Grave Tattoo. Val McDermid
Smart was there before them. As they pulled up by the village green, they saw him pushing a paper through the letterbox of Crag Cottage. While they looked on, Smart carried on to Meadow Cottage and delivered another copy. ‘I’ll swing for him,’ George said, opening the car door and striding across the green to confront the journalist. With a sigh, Clough climbed out and followed him.
‘Congratulations,’ George snarled while he was still a few strides away from Smart.
‘Good story, wasn’t it?’ Smart said, his foxy face pleasantly surprised. ‘I didn’t think an educated man like you would have appreciated it, though.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t congratulating you on the story,’ George said, now only feet away from the man. ‘I was congratulating you on your award.’
‘Award?’
Clough couldn’t believe Smart had walked straight into it. He bit his lip to keep his smile secret.
‘Yes, your award,’ George continued with patently false bonhomie. ‘The Police Federation Award for Irresponsible Journalist of the Year.’
‘Oh dear, Inspector, didn’t they teach you at university that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?’ Smart leaned against the wall of Meadow Cottage and folded his arms across his chest.
‘Nobody could win the title of lowest form of anything while you’re still breathing, Mr Smart. Did you stop for one minute to consider how cruel it is to raise Mrs Hawkin’s hopes like that?’
‘Are you saying she should give up hope? Is that the official police view?’ Smart leaned forward, eyes alert, beard bristling.
‘Of course not. But what you held out with that piece of trash this morning was false hope. Grabbing at headlines without thinking about the consequences.’ George shook his head in disgust. ‘Does she exist, this Madame Charest? Or did you make that up as well as your police quote?’
Now it was Smart’s turn to flush with anger. His skin had the mottled look of corned beef. ‘I don’t make stuff up. I keep an open mind. You might benefit from doing the same thing, Inspector. What if Madame Charest is right? What if Alison is miles from here, locked up in a house in Manchester or Sheffield or Derby? What are you doing to check that out?’
George gave an incredulous gasp. ‘Are you saying we should do a door-to-door search of every city in England just on the off chance that some charlatan in France might have struck lucky with her fantasies? You’re even more stupid than I thought.’
‘Of course that’s not what I’m saying. But you could put out an appeal on the news. “Has anybody seen this girl? It’s believed that Alison Carter may be staying with somebody she knows. If you know of any house where a teenage girl has appeared in the last few days, or if you know of anyone who has connections to Scardale or Buxton whose behaviour has been at all unusual, please contact Derbyshire Police on this number.” That’s what I’m going to suggest to your boss at the press conference this morning.’ Smart straightened up, his face triumphant. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m going to suggest. And see how clever you look sitting beside him when he says what a great idea it is.’
‘You’re sick, you know that, Smart?’ It was the best George could do and he knew it was weak even as he said it.
‘You’re the one that said you’d do whatever it took to find what had happened to Alison Carter. I took you at your word. I thought you were a bit special, George. But when push comes to shove, you’re as set in your ways as the rest of them. Well, God help Alison Carter if you’re her best hope.’ Smart moved sideways, trying to pass George.
The policeman placed a hand in the middle of Smart’s chest. He didn’t actually push him, just firmly held him in place. ‘I will find out what happened to Alison,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘And when I do, you’ll be the last to know.’ He stepped back and released the journalist, who stood staring back at him.
Then Smart smiled, a tight, sharp sickle that made no impact on the hard glare of his eyes. ‘Oh, I doubt that very much,’ he said. ‘You might not like to think so, George, but you and me, we’re two of a kind. Neither of us cares who we upset as long as we get the job done the best it can be done. You might not agree with me right now, but when you go away and talk it over with your pretty wife, you’ll know I’m right.’
George inhaled so deeply his physical size actually increased. Hastily, Clough stepped forward and put a hand on his boss’s arm. ‘I think you’d better be on your way, Mr Smart,’ he said. One look at his face and the journalist slid round the two of them and walked briskly to his car.
‘How long do you think I’d get if I beat that smile off his face with a truncheon?’ George asked through stiff lips.
‘Depends if the jury know him or not. Cup of tea?’
They walked together to the caravan where, even this early, the WPCs were brewing up. George stared into a cup of tea and spoke softly. ‘I suppose you’ve worked this kind of case before, Tommy? Full of dead ends and frustrations?’
‘Aye, one or two,’ Clough admitted, stirring three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. ‘Thing is, sir, you just have to keep plugging away. It might feel like you’re battering your head against a brick wall, but as often as not, part of the wall’s just cardboard painted to look like the real thing. The breakthroughs generally come sooner or later. And it’s early days yet, even though it doesn’t feel like it.’
‘And what if the breakthrough doesn’t come? What if we never find out what happened to Alison Carter? What then?’ George looked up, his eyes wide with apprehension about what such a failure would mean, both personally and professionally.
Clough took a deep breath then slowly exhaled. ‘Then, sir, you move on to the next case. You take the wife out dancing, you go to the pub and have a pint and you try not to lie awake at night fretting over what you can’t change.’
‘And is that a recipe that works?’ George asked bleakly.
‘I wouldn’t know, sir, I’ve not got a wife.’ Clough’s wry smile didn’t mask the knowledge they both shared. If they didn’t uncover Alison Carter’s fate, it would scar them both.
‘Mine’s pregnant.’ The words were out before George knew he was going to say them.
‘Congratulations.’ Clough’s voice was curiously flat. ‘Not the best of times to get the news. How’s Mrs Bennett?’
‘So far, so good. She’s not having morning sickness yet. I just hope…well, I just hope she’s not in for a difficult time. Because I can’t ignore this inquiry, however long it takes.’ George stared through the misted windows of the caravan, not registering the gradual lightening of the sky that signalled the start of another day’s searching.
‘It doesn’t go on at this pitch for long, you know,’ Clough said, reminding George of what the younger man knew in theory but had little direct experience of. ‘If we’ve not found her after ten days or so, say by next weekend, we’ll stop searching. They’ll close down the incident room and pull back to Buxton. We’ll still be following up leads, but if we’re no further forward after a month, it’ll be put on the back burner. You and me, we’ll have other cases up to our armpits, but we won’t close this down. It’ll stay open, we’ll have reviews every three months or so, but we won’t be working it like this.’
‘I know, Tommy, but there’s something about this one. I worked an unsolved murder when I was a DC in Derby, but it didn’t get under my skin like this. Maybe because the victim was in his fifties. It felt like he’d had a life. Now it’s looking more and more like we’re not going to find Alison alive, and that fills me with rage because she’s hardly started living. Even if all she was ever going to do was stop in Scardale and have babies and knit jumpers, it’s still been taken from her and I want the law to do the same to whoever did it to her. My only regret is that we don’t hang animals like that any more.’