Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(42)

‘I knew him,’ Mawgan answered. Her dad sighed and rolled his eyes as if everything she said was a lie.

‘Did you like him?’

‘Course she did – we all did,’ Stokes interrupted again.

Mawgan looked down at her feet and pushed the mud with her toes. ‘Not much.’

‘Mawgan, for Christ’s sake – I don’t know why you’re talking like this.’

‘Why did you go, then?’ Willis asked.

‘The Sheriff said we all had to. It was a matter of respect, even if we didn’t much like him.’

‘Don’t take any notice of her.’ Stokes glared at her. ‘It has nothing to do with like or dislike. We owed him respect – that’s all.’ Mawgan listened to her father but kept her eyes on the ground.

‘Is it possible to speak to your son Towan, Mr Stokes?’ asked Carter.

‘He’s here somewhere. Mawgan, go and fetch him.’

‘I’m here.’ A voice came from behind them.

‘Where you been?’ Stokes said angrily. ‘Me and Mawgan have had to get the herd in to be checked this morning.’

Towan grinned at them as he walked past the detectives’ car, looking inside it and nodding approvingly. He was dressed for a night out – clean jeans, clean blue checked shirt. He looked like his father. He was medium build and height with dark blond hair and a swagger in his bow-legged walk.

‘Been out and about. I’m here now.’ He came up and patted Stokes on the back hard. ‘Doubt if you did any of it anyways – you lazy old bugger.’ He slapped him again and Stokes laughed, embarrassed.

‘Well, that’s as may be, but you’re needed now.’

‘I’m going out.’

‘Can we have a word first?’ said Carter. ‘Where were you an hour ago?’

‘These are detectives from London, want to know about Monday, when we went up for the funeral,’ Stokes explained to Towan.

‘When they buried the great man?’ Towan became mock-serious and crossed himself. ‘I can’t tell you much. I got hammered and had to be looked after by my lovely sis here.’ He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. He held on to her until she elbowed him hard in his ribs.

‘Get off.’ She looked angry, but her father laughed. Towan caught her again and drew her back to him. She tried to shake him off but he held her tightly, squashed against him, his arm around her.

‘I wouldn’t have looked after you, I’d have left you in the gutter,’ she said.

‘Oh well, it was someone anyway. Some maid.’

‘Where have you been the last couple of hours?’ asked Willis.

Towan looked at her and grinned. ‘I’ve been taking care of a couple of commitments in Penhaligon. One’s called Tracy and the other is Shannon.’

‘One of the vehicles registered to this farm was seen parked up above Garra Cove an hour or so ago. Was that you?’

‘Nope. Couldn’t have been.’

‘We’ll need to contact your friends in Penhaligon. We need addresses, please,’ said Willis, getting out her notebook ready.

‘No problem.’ He grinned again and took out his phone, then read off the numbers and addresses from his contacts. Willis wrote them down.

‘Did you come back with your dad the day of the funeral?’ asked Carter.

‘I don’t know, did I?’ He laughed and looked at Stokes as he put his phone back in his pocket.

‘Yes, he bloody did. I had to listen to him snoring in the back for six hours.’

Towan turned to Mawgan and pressed his face against her cheek. ‘And what about you, sis? Did you listen to my snoring?’ He laughed.

Mawgan tipped forward and freed herself. She stepped quickly out of reach and gave Towan a kick in the back of the leg.

‘You wait, missy. We’re talking to you,’ Stokes called after her as she started walking away towards the house.

‘They know where I am if they want more,’ she shouted back.





Chapter 19


‘Is she allowed to just kill a pig?’ Willis asked as they drove towards the nearby town of Penhaligon, thirty minutes away up the coast. Willis was checking on the price of rail tickets and times of trains from Bristol to London.

‘No, you have to have a licence, be an abattoir or something like that. She was joking.’

‘Didn’t look like it. She seems pretty pissed off with life.’

‘Yes. She looks like she works harder than any of them.’

‘Why would she stay there?’ asked Willis.

‘Maybe she wants the farm when the old man goes? I didn’t see a wife, did you?’ asked Carter.

‘Not unless the pigs have eaten her,’ replied Willis.

Carter laughed. ‘It was a bit like that there, wasn’t it? Not a biscuit-tin photo of a farm.’

‘Harsh reality, I suppose. It looks like she’s well off with her costs of tickets.’ Willis read from her screen, ‘The cost would have been about forty pounds, not twenty, and she’d have had to leave well before nine to make it.’

‘If we don’t find any CCTV of her on the platforms at that time, or we can’t get her story verified, we’ll bring her in for questioning,’ said Carter. ‘I’m not going to be given the run-around here. What did you think of Stokes?’