Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(65)

‘Lauren’s coping, as long as she’s busy. Toby would have to be prepared to face a lot of hostility here if he comes down,’ said Willis.

‘From Kensa? I’m not surprised.’

‘Actually, not from her; she seems to still have a soft spot for Toby. She doesn’t remember it happening. She just remembers people telling her it happened and feeling devastated and bruised. But it wasn’t just her and Toby involved that night. Most of the village were at the same party. There’s so much going on here, it’s hard to focus on the one thing that matters, finding Samuel alive.’

‘How’s the search going?’

‘We have teams looking for him along the cliffs, on the moors and down the mine shafts, which appear around every corner in this county. It’s a difficult call. There are so many places he could be. If he’s dead, he could have been dumped at sea and may never be found.’

‘What are the local people like?’

‘Carter’s already had an attempt on his life. They don’t like interference here. The harder you lean on this village, the tighter people unite against you.’

‘A proper close-knit community. In the bad sense. What’s the house like?’

Willis moved into the drawing room at the front of the house. ‘I’d say it’s Victorian, baroque, heavy gold and red curtains, golden statues of pheasants. Every picture on the wall seems to be of naked curvy women feeding some moustached man with his clothes on. There are mirrors and dark panels on the walls. There are pretty risqué statues everywhere. The Kama Sutra features big in the artwork here. The bathrooms are my favourite rooms. They are so great – heated floors and wet rooms, massive baths that I can lie right down in. I’ve never had that before.’

‘What are you giving Lauren to do?’

‘We’ve driven around. She has an Ordnance Survey map and makes notes on it, thoughts really. Any updates from your side?’

‘We got no new information about Toby except we can be pretty sure he spent the missing time in the music shop. I quizzed the assistant again and it seems they got on so well, time just slipped by.’

‘Any sightings of Kensa at the tube stations or at the small Tesco in Greenwich?’

‘Not so far, but that Tesco bag could have been from anywhere.’

Lauren came back into the house and Willis came off the phone to Jeanie.

‘I’m going to lie down, Ebony.’

‘Okay, Lauren, did you get through to Toby?’

‘No. I left another message.’

‘I’m going out for a while, okay?’

‘Yes, I’ll phone you if I need you.’

Willis phoned Carter but there was no reply and it went straight to answer machine. She got into the detectives’ pool car left for her by Pascoe and drove towards Stokes farm. She wanted to speak to Mawgan about Kensa. She thought she could do it better on her own, woman to woman. As she drove up the farm lane she could see no lights coming from the cottages on the left. The air was heavy and damp as the sea mist covered everything. The sky was full of squawking gulls and she could hear the cows lowing from the barn as she drew into the farm. She parked up and the collie came bounding over to see her. Mawgan emerged from the house. In the light of day Willis could see that even though her jaw was square and her hair short and red, her face had a delicate look about it, smaller than average features, and her eyes were a piercing turquoise. Even though Mawgan was twenty-seven, she had a baby face.

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘You’ll have to follow me, I have chores.’

As they walked past the pig pens, the sow jumped up and rested her front legs upon the wall of her pen.

‘Mind she doesn’t bite you,’ said Mawgan. ‘She has young ones in the back.’

Willis walked side-on past the big sow that managed to still come within an inch of her. Past the pens the field opened up and it was dotted with corrugated round shelters for the pigs to live free-range.

‘They won’t hurt you,’ Mawgan shouted back to Willis, who hovered by the gate and waited for Mawgan to finish her feeding chores and check on the pigs inside their huts.

‘Are you coming back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ll wait here for you.’ Willis looked around her. The field rose steeply so that she couldn’t see over the brow. To her left was a hedge and the glimpse of another field. To the right was the rest of the field and a section that was recovering from the onslaught of pigs foraging in the mud every day. Further down was the sea; she knew it was there but only the smell and the direction of the cold mist as it came across her face in icy draughts gave it away.

‘All done?’ she asked Mawgan as she came back to Willis at the gate.

‘Pigs, yes, not the others.’ She marched back, her wellingtons flapping as she strode. There was a mended section on the one the sow had bitten. Megan wore combat trousers for work clothes and a washed-out green fleece beneath her Barbour.

‘You’re a friend of Kensa’s, aren’t you?’

Megan nodded. ‘Grew up together.’

‘Here on this farm?’

‘Here and all around. We knew every burrow in every field for a good two miles around.’

‘Sounds like an idyllic childhood.’