by Val McDermid
‘I called a friend of mine who worked at Reuters and got him to check their files, and that’s how I came across Madame Charest. I never met the woman, and it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had because she couldn’t speak a word of English. We had to do it all through an interpreter. Of course, I never believed a word of it. But it made great copy.
‘I know George thought it was irresponsible. He thought the only thing I was interested in was the greater good of Don Smart. But it wasn’t just that. The other side of it was that I genuinely wanted her found as much as George did, but news stories die quickly unless there’s more fuel to throw on the flames. To keep Alison Carter’s name and picture in the paper, I needed a fresh angle. The clairvoyant gave me that, and in turn, she gave Alison Carter a few more days in the headlines. ‘In Alison’s case, it probably made no difference. But it might have done,’ he said self-righteously.
‘She was wrong, though, wasn’t she? Your Madame Charest?’ Don Smart grinned and suddenly Catherine saw the fox that George had described. ‘So? It was a bloody good read. If you can do half as well, Catherine, you’ll maybe sell a few more copies of your book than your friends and family can buy between them.’
Don Smart had left a nasty taste in Catherine’s mouth that even a decent glass of burgundy in the Garrick Street wine bar couldn’t dispel. ‘He’s such a self-serving shit,’ she confided in Paul. ‘He’s the kind that started British tabloids sliding into the gutter, and he’s proud of it.’
‘Now you can see why Dad would never talk to him,’ Paul said. ‘I must say I was surprised when he agreed to your proposal. But I’m glad now I let you and Helen talk me into persuading him to go ahead with it. Working on the book with you seems to have given Dad a new lease of life. He hasn’t been this cheerful for ages. It’s as if the process of going through it all for your benefit has finally allowed him to let go the past and move forward.’
‘I sensed that too. It’s strange, but before I started this project, I was very nervous. I’ve never done anything on this scale before, and I didn’t know if I could sustain my interest or my effort. But it’s turned into a real mission, to tell this story properly. And realizing its importance for George has been an added impetus for me to get it right.’
‘I can’t wait to read it,’ Paul said. ‘Although, if I’m honest, I do feel a bit apprehensive at the thought of reading about my father, what his life was like before I was around. Almost like spying on someone when they don’t know you’re there.’ He looked down, his face unreadable. ‘Most of it will be completely fresh to me, you know. Dad’s never been one of those policemen who bores everybody rigid with his war stories. I don’t think he’d ever mentioned Alison Carter in my hearing until that journalist turned up on the doorstep.’
He looked up with a reminiscent smile. ‘But when I went up there at the weekend, he was full of it.
He told me all sorts of things he’d never spoken about before, even though we’ve always got on well. In a funny kind of way, this project seems to have brought us closer. It’s as if working with you has given him an insight into the kind of work I do every day. He was asking me all sorts of detailed questions about the way I do my job, what it’s like working with journalists, how they differ from each other, how they go about their jobs. As if he’s comparing what he’s been doing with you.
‘It’s been good for Mum too. It was like walking on eggshells for her whenever I asked questions about what it was like when they first got married. She always had to watch her tongue in case she said something that upset Dad. Only, I never understood before exactly what was going on.’ He pulled a face. ‘I used to think it was something to do with them not wanting to talk about their lives before I came along in case they made it sound like they’d been happier without me. I don’t know, Catherine, this has been such a good thing for our family, I almost wish I’d stolen your idea and worked on the book with him myself.’ Catherine laughed. ‘He’d never have been able to be as honest with you as he has been with me. Knowing your father as I do now, he’d have been constantly playing down his successes in case you thought he was boasting.’
‘And I’d have been turning him into a hero,’ Paul said sadly. ‘As it is, I seem to be getting obsessed by it. I seem to be talking about it all the time.
I’ll be doing Helen’s head in completely if I’m not careful. Which reminds me. Helen wants one of the first copies off the press to give to her sister. It’ll be interesting for Jan to read about what happened in her house.’ Catherine pulled a face. ‘Maybe she won’t be so keen on living there in splendid isolation after she finds out the whole story. It’s not exactly going to be a comfortable read for her.’
‘Still, better she knows the real story than gossip and rumour, eh?’
‘Well, she’ll get the truth from me. That’s one thing I’m absolutely determined about.’ Catherine raised her glass. ‘To truth.’
‘To truth,’ Paul echoed. ‘Better out than in.’
46
May ⁄ June ⁄ July 1998
Catherine turned off the Ai and found herself immediately on a narrow country lane that wound between fertile fields and mature woodland, the sea a distant glint ahead of her. For some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, the prospect of meeting Tommy Clough excited her more than interviewing any of the other secondary players in Alison Carter’s story. Partly it was because both George and Anne spoke of him with such affection, even after thirty-five years with almost no contact. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that Clough was the most enigmatic figure of all.
According to George, on the surface, his sergeant had appeared bluff, even brutal at times. Far more than George himself, Clough had seemed a typical police officer of his time. Always one of the lads, always in tune with the rumour and gossip that swirled round every police station, always high up the league table of crimes solved and arrests made, he’d given the impression of being a round peg in a round hole. And yet he had resigned from Derbyshire Police two years after the Alison Carter case was closed and become resident warden at a bird sanctuary in Northumberland.
He had cut himself off comprehensively from his past, exchanging camaraderie for isolation.
Now sixty-eight and retired, he still lived in the north east. Anne had told Catherine how she had once visited him for an hour when she’d driven Paul up for an open day at Newcastle University when he’d been making his mind up where to do his degree. According to her, Tommy Clough spent his days watching and photographing birds and his evenings drawing them. In the background, his beloved jazz kept the outside world at bay. As she described it, it was a solitary and peaceful life, strangely at odds with the fifteen years he’d spent bringing criminals to justice.
The road wound gently down the hill to Catherine’s destination, a cluster of houses—too small to be called a village—a few miles south of Seahouses. Both excited and apprehensive, she lifted the heavy brass knocker on the door of the former fisherman’s cottage. She would have recognized Tommy Clough anywhere from the photographs George had lent her. He still had a full head of curls, though they glinted silver now instead of light brown. His face was weather-beaten, but his eyes were still intelligent, his mouth still clearly more accustomed to smiling than scowling.
Although he was dressed in baggy corduroy trousers and a fisherman’s guernsey, it was clear his broad frame was still well-muscled. He’d supposedly resembled a bull in his youth; now his white curls made him look more like a Derby ram, she thought as she returned his smile. ‘Mr Clough,’ she said.
‘Miss Heathcote, I presume. Come in.’ He stood back to let her enter a spartan but spotless living room. The walls were covered with beautiful line drawings of birds, some hand-tinted, others plain black ink on brilliant white paper. In the background, Catherine recognized Branford Marsalis’s ‘Romances for Saxophone’.
She turned to study the drawings nearest her. ‘They’re wonderful,’ she said, meaning
it as she seldom did when she attempted to put interviewees at ease by praising their taste.
‘They’re not bad,’ he said. ‘Now, sit yourself down and have a brew.
You must be ready for it after that drive up from Derbyshire.’ He vanished into the kitchen, returning with a tray containing teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two RSPB mugs. ‘I’ve no coffee,’ he said. ‘One of the things I promised myself when I left the police was that I was never going to drink another cup of disgusting instant coffee. And there’s nowhere around here does a decent roast, so I content myself with tea.’
‘Tea’s fine,’ Catherine said with a smile. Already she trusted this man. She couldn’t have said why, but she did. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘It’s George you should be thanking,’ he said, picking up the pot and gently agitating it to help the tea brew. ‘I decided long ago that it was up to him to decide if the time was ever right to speak about it. I know we worked hand in hand on the investigation, but my take on things is different from George. He’s an organizational man, but I was always more of the maverick type. So my version could never be the straightforward story that he’ll have told you.
‘The Alison Carter case was a defining moment for me, you see. I’d gone into the police because I believed in the idea of justice. The way things panned out on that one, I wasn’t so sure the system could be relied on to deliver. I think we got justice in that case, but it was damn close. It could so easily have gone the other way, and there would have been nothing to show for months of work and a girl’s life. I came to the conclusion that if a police force can’t be depended upon to produce the end result that is its only justification for existence, there doesn’t seem a lot of point in being part of it.’
He shook his head and gave a mocking little laugh as he poured the tea. ‘Listen to me. Thought for the Day. I sound as pious as a preacher. George Bennett wouldn’t recognize me. I used to be one of the lads, you know. I liked a pint, a smoke, a laugh and a joke. It wasn’t an act, either. It was just one side of me that happened to fit the job, so I exaggerated it a bit, I suppose.
‘But I’ve always been a thoughtful sort of bloke as well. And when Alison Carter went missing, it was like my imagination went into overdrive. My mind was full of different scenarios, each one worse than the last. I could keep it at bay when I was working, but when I was off duty, I found myself increasingly tormented by waking nightmares. I was drinking a lot too it was the only way I could get to sleep at night. ‘I’ve often thanked God for George Bennett’s obsession with the case.
It meant there was always stuff to be getting on with, files to be checked, potential witnesses to be interviewed. Even after we were supposed to have put the case on the back burner. Without either of us ever formalizing it, I became his bagman on the investigation. It made me feel useful. But God, it was hard work getting under the skin of Scardale. ‘Do you remember that film in the seventies, The Wicker Man7 Edward Woodward plays this cop who goes off to this mysterious Scottish island to investigate a missing girl and he gets caught up in the pagan rites of the inhabitants. It’s very eerie and there are undercurrents of perverse sexual practices and strange beliefs. Well, that’s sort of what it felt like in Scardale in 1963, except we got to go home to normality at the end of the working day. And nobody tried to turn me or George into a human sacrifice,’ he added with an embarrassed laugh, as if conscious of having said more than a down-to-earth ex-policeman should admit to.
‘And of course, we solved the mystery. Which is more than Edward Woodward got to do.’ He put milk in his tea and took a deep draught of it.
‘Anne told me that none of your neighbours up here knows you were a police officer,’ Catherine observed.
‘It’s not that I’m ashamed of it,’ he said self-consciously, getting up to change the CD. More subdued saxophone, though this time it was unfamiliar to her. She kept quiet, knowing Tommy would pick up where he had left off when he was ready.
He settled back into his chair. ‘It’s just that people make a certain set of assumptions about you if they know you’ve been a copper. I wanted to avoid that. I wanted to start again with a clean sheet. I thought that maybe if I could ignore my past, Alison Carter might finally leave me alone.’ His mouth twisted into something closer to a grimace than a smile. ‘Didn’t work. Did it? Here you are, and here I am, going over it all again. ‘I was thinking about it last night, getting my thoughts in order. And it’s all as vivid as it was going through it the first time,’ he added. ‘I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Ask away.’
Tommy Clough had been the missing element in Catherine’s story. His unique perception had filled the gaps in her understanding, somehow turning a kaleidoscope of jumbled pieces into a coherent picture. He had given her insight into George Bennett as a man as well as a police officer, and he had allowed her to comprehend things that had previously been unclear. At last she had grasped the underlying reasons behind what had sometimes appeared to be a lack of cooperation between the villagers and the police. And she could see the overall shape of her story with much greater clarity.
Back in Longnor, she started on the long and complex task of organizing her material. Her printer ground away constantly in the background as she stacked separate piles of paper round the living room floor. Transcripts of her long series of interviews with George; a separate pile for her notes and transcripts of each of her other witnesses; a stack of photocopied newspaper clippings; the copies she’d been able to obtain of the trial transcript, thanks to a friend who worked in a law library, and a neat pile of battered second-hand green Penguin editions of famous trials to provide hints and tips as she went along.
Catherine had taken down the innocuous watercolours of the glories of the Peak District that the landlords had chosen and replaced them with photographs of Scardale then and now, including Philip Hawkin’s postcards. One wall featured nothing but blown-up photographs of the key players, from Alison herself to a stern-faced George, snapped by a newspaper photographer, emerging from a press conference in mac and trilby. The third wall was taken up with large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of the area.
For the best part of two months, she entirely immersed herself in Scardale. She would rise at eight and work until half past noon. Then she would drive the seven miles into Buxton, park by Poole’s Cavern and walk up through the woods to the open moorland above, crossing the open ground to Solomon’s Temple, the Victorian folly that overlooked the town. She would descend through the leafy shadows of Grin Low woods and walk back along Green Lane, past the house where she had grown up with her parents. Her father had died five years before and her mother had cashed in the house and moved to a retirement home in Devon where the climate was easier on old bones.
Catherine had no idea who lived in the house now, nor did she much care. She supposed there must still be plenty of people around that she’d been to school with, but Catherine had shed her past like a snake its skin when she’d moved to London. As far as friendships were concerned, she’d been a late developer. As an only child, she’d found the country of her imagination more interesting than the real world of her teenage contemporaries. It was only when she’d started to work with others whose minds ran along the same tracks that she’d found people she could truly forge bonds with. So there were no treasured childhood ties she’d wanted to resurrect. She’d expected to run into half-familiar faces in the supermarket where she shopped, but it hadn’t happened. She felt no regrets on that score. The only part of her past that she cared to be connected to was the stash of memories that allowed her to get under the skin ofAlison Carter’s life and death.
After her daily walk, she’d drive back to Longnor and have a snack of bread, cheese and salad before returning to her task. At six, she opened a bottle of wine and watched the TV news. Then it was back to work until nine, when she’d stop and eat a pizza or some other instant meal from the supermarket. For the rest of the evening, she’d answer e–mail and read some trashy air
port paperback. That, and occasional conversations with her editor about the progress of her book, and with the documentary maker about his timetable, were all she was capable of.
For the first time in her life, Catherine’s days had ceased to revolve around a gregarious office and an active social life. She was bemused by how little she missed human company. She had, she thought wryly, 340 become what six months previously she would have categorized as a sad bastard.
When the phone rang one afternoon and she heard George Bennett’s voice on the other end, it seemed as if her words had suddenly taken on a life of their own and for a moment, she couldn’t take in what he was saying.
‘Sorry, George, I was miles away when you rang, can you just run that past me again?’ she said uncertainly.
‘I hope I haven’t interrupted the creative flow at a crucial moment.’
‘No, no, nothing like that. How can I help you?’ Catherine was back in control, slipping straight into her professional persona. ‘I was ringing to tell you Paul is bringing Helen over for a few days next week. Anne and I wondered if you’d like to join us for dinner on Friday?’
‘I’d be delighted,’ she said. ‘I should have the first draft finished by the end of this week. I’ll bring it over with me so you can check it over after they’ve gone back to Brussels.’
‘You have been working hard,’ George said. ‘That’ll be a real treat for me. So, Friday at seven it is.
See you then, Catherine.’ She replaced the receiver and stared at her wall of photographs. She’d done almost all she could to make them come to life. Now, like Philip Hawkin, she’d have to wait for the verdict of others.
47
August 1998
