Carter’s knickers with semen had been a secretor. Thanks to that, the police now knew her assailant’s blood group was A. That was something Philip Hawkin had in common with forty-two per cent of the population. So did three other men in the dale – two of Alison’s uncles and her cousin Brian. What separated them from Philip Hawkin was that they all had alibis for the time of her disappearance. One uncle had been in a pub in Leek following the Christmas fatstock market, and her cousin Brian had been milking the cows with his father. If Alison had been attacked by someone from inside the dale, it was beginning to appear that there was only one possible candidate.
‘It could have been somebody who came up the Scarlaston valley from Denderdale. Somebody who knew her from Buxton. A schoolteacher or a fellow pupil. Or just some pervert who’d been watching her at school,’ Clough said when he returned to the car after closing the gate that obstructed the road into the village.
‘They couldn’t have got there in time. It’s a good hour and a half’s walk from the road in Denderdale up the river banks. And they’d never have got back down there in the dark with Alison, alive or dead. They’d both have ended up in the river,’ George said positively. ‘I agree with you. All the circumstantial evidence points to one man. But we’ve no body, and we’ve no direct evidence. Without that, we can’t justify bringing him in for questioning, never mind charging him.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Damned if I know,’ George sighed. The car came to a halt beside the brown patch of grass that marked where the police caravan had stood. On Superintendent Martin’s orders, it had been towed back to Buxton on the previous Friday. Searches had effectively ended on the same day. There was nowhere left to look.
George stepped out into the chill evening air. The village looked curiously untouched by what had happened. There was no obvious sign that anything had altered, apart from the newspaper poster pasted to the back of the phone box. Around the green, the houses still huddled. Lights burned behind curtains, the occasional bark of a dog split the silence. There were no Christmas trees visible at any of the windows, it was true. Nor were there any holly wreaths on the cottage doors of Scardale. But George wasn’t convinced that there would have been on any other Christmas in Scardale either.
He and Clough leaned against the bonnet of the Zephyr, smoking in silence. After a few moments, a wedge of yellow light spread across the doorway of Tor Cottage. The unmistakable outline of Ma Lomas appeared, silhouetted against the interior. Then the light disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared. His night vision impaired, George blinked hard. The old woman was almost upon them before he realized that she hadn’t gone back indoors.
‘Have you no home to go to?’ she asked.
‘He’s on duty,’ George said.
‘What’s your excuse?’
‘Christmas is for kids, isn’t that what they say? Well, there’s one kid I couldn’t get out of my mind.’
‘By heck, a copper with a heart,’ Ma scoffed. She opened her voluminous coat and from a poacher’s pocket she took out a bottle of the clear spirit she’d drunk when they’d interviewed her at the very beginning of the investigation. From another pocket, she took three thick tumblers. ‘I thought you might like something to keep the cold out.’
‘That would be an act of Christian charity,’ Clough said.
They watched her place the glasses on the car bonnet and pour three generous measures. Ceremoniously, she handed them a glass each, then raised hers in a toast.
‘What are we drinking to?’ George asked.
‘We’re drinking to you finding enough evidence,’ she said in a voice that was more chill than the night air.
‘I’d rather drink to finding Alison,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘If you were going to find Alison, you’d have found her by now. Wherever he’s put her, she’s beyond anything except chance. All that’s left for us now is the hope that you can make him pay.’
‘Did you have anyone in particular in mind?’ Clough asked.
‘Same as you, I shouldn’t wonder,’ she said drily, turning to face the manor house and raising her glass. ‘To proof.’
George took a swig of his drink and almost choked. ‘About a hundred and sixty proof, I’d say,’ he gasped when he could speak again. ‘Flaming Nora, what is this stuff? Rocket fuel?’
The old woman chuckled. ‘Our Terry calls it Hellfire. It’s distilled from elderflower and gooseberry wine.’
‘We never found a still when we searched the village,’ Clough remarked.
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you?’ She drained her glass. ‘So, what’s next? How do you get him?’
George forced himself to swallow the rest of the fiery spirit. When he’d recovered the power of speech, he said, ‘I don’t know that we can. That said, I’m not giving up.’
‘See that you don’t,’ she said grimly. She held out her hand for the empty glasses then turned her back and returned to her cottage.
‘That’s us told,’ Clough said.
‘And a Merry bloody Christmas to you, too.’
The first Monday in February, and George was at his desk by eight. Tommy Clough tapped on the door a few minutes after the hour, a couple of steaming mugs of tea gripped in one large hand. ‘How was the weather?’ he asked.
‘Better than we had any right to expect,’ George said. ‘It was freezing, but the sun shone every day. We neither of us mind the cold as long as it’s dry, and Norfolk’s so flat that Anne was able to walk for miles.’
Clough settled down opposite George and lit up. ‘You look well on it. More like you’d had a fortnight on the Costa Brava than a week in Wells-next-the-Sea.’
George grinned. ‘The Martinet was right, then.’ He’d resisted furiously when Superintendent Martin had insisted that he take off some time in lieu of the endless hours he’d expended on the Alison Carter inquiry. Eventually, when Jack Martin had turned his suggestion into an order, he’d given in with ill grace and allowed Anne to book them into a guesthouse in the Norfolk seaside town. They’d been the only residents, pampered by a landlady who believed everyone should eat at least three square meals a day. A week of regular food, fresh air and the undivided attention of his wife had filled George with energy and resolve.
‘He’s been on at me to do the same,’ Clough admitted. ‘Maybe I will, now you’re back.’
‘Any developments?’ George asked, blowing gently on his tea.
‘Well, I took that new WPC from Chapel-en-le-Frith to see Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band at the Pavilion Gardens on Friday night, and we had a very nice evening. Think I might ask her if she fancies going to see that Albert Finney film at the Opera House. Tom Jones, they call it. Apparently it’s a right good film to take a young lady to if you want to get her in the mood.’ Clough grinned, without lasciviousness.
‘I meant in the case, not in your pathetic love life,’ George responded with good humour.
‘Funnily enough, there was something.
