Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(43)

‘He’s a funny chap, isn’t he? A bit hyperactive,’ Dermot remarked as Maxwell walked away.

‘He’s not used to coming on site,’ answered Carter. ‘It’s all formulas and diagrams for him.’

‘I thought he was going to cry when the helicopter started flying away,’ said Sandford.

‘Well, I don’t blame him for that,’ said Dermot, ‘it was pretty cool.’

Carter walked across with Willis to the gravesite. ‘How soon will you know who she is?’ he asked.

‘We’ll finish getting her out and then get a DNA sample from a vertebra, probably. I can see her teeth are in pretty bad shape.’

Inside the grave two other SOCOs, who specialised in removing skeletons that were more than ten years old, were taking it in turns to work from the excavation channel.

‘Any idea how she might have died?’ asked Carter.

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Sandford said.

‘Okay, well, I’m hoping we can narrow it down a little.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Sandford smiled, pleased that he’d rattled the ever-charming Carter just a little. ‘And, if she’s in the system, then we’ll know who she is within an hour of testing. If she isn’t, it’s a piece-of-string scenario.’

Carter turned away and addressed Willis. ‘Eb, I may as well head back to town, I’m going to talk to Davidson. Will you get a lift back with Chris Maxwell?’

‘No problem.’ She went to look for the analyst and eventually found him walking back along the lane. He looked as if he was searching the hedgerows as he went.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, watching him.

‘Nothing. Just making sure nothing’s been missed. We still haven’t found the murder weapons for either murder, have we?’

‘You okay?’ she asked, watching him wince as he stood up.

‘Fine, overdid it with the abdominals last evening,’ he smiled, embarrassed. ‘I was following this challenge online.’

‘Oh, I know. The abs challenge. It’s tough,’ said Willis, who could talk fitness all day long. ‘Which gym do you use?’

‘I just work out at home,’ Maxwell replied. ‘I have everything I need there.’

‘Self-motivated, that’s good.’

‘What about you?’ asked Maxwell, sensing he wasn’t going to win in any fitness competition against Willis.

‘I run a lot, go to the gym as much as I can,’ she said with a smile. ‘I get seriously depressed if I can’t exercise. It’s in my DNA.’

‘I understand. Some things are just in us.’ They walked along the lane together.

‘I’m getting a lift back with you when you go, by the way,’ said Willis. ‘I thought we could go through my approach with Douglas, seeing as you made a study of him. I’ve been in touch with the governor, they can’t speak highly enough of Douglas and all the work he does with the other prisoners.’

‘Are you going to tell him about here?’ asked Maxwell. ‘If you do, don’t tell him any details yet. We lose the surprise element otherwise, which means we lose control, and Douglas is all about control.’

‘Yeah, I get that about him,’ replied Willis. ‘It’s control over people less bright than himself, or the really young and impressionable like on Hawthorn Farm.’

‘And the other farms he visited,’ replied Maxwell, getting animated. ‘Douglas could be responsible for so many disappearances. He was definitely involved with the disappearance of Darren Slater.’

‘It was never proven,’ replied Willis.

‘Slater was last seen getting into Douglas’s van.’

‘But who was with him, besides Darren?’ Willis had stopped to face Maxwell, interested. She’d decided she liked him. He was eccentric and she wondered if he had a touch of Asperger’s about him. It wasn’t a problem for her. She liked the way he was so interested in everything to do with the case, so earnest.

‘Ash, he was there. I don’t know about anyone else,’ he answered.

‘How do you know that? I’ve never seen it anywhere. Also, what happened to Ash?’ Willis asked.

‘I know because I talked to the detective who worked on the case, when I was working towards my degree. I befriended one of them, she helped me with little insights into the case and why they never got Douglas. As for Ash? I think he became one of Douglas’s casualties. I think he’s probably dead.’

‘What about the trail when his mother went into hospital?’ asked Willis.

‘After she left, the trail went cold. The trouble is we don’t have any DNA to match either him or her, not unless we put out an appeal again and then perhaps a relative might come forward. If we do find them in the ground it could take years to identify them.’

‘They burned his van, according to statements at the time. Ash left and his mum went into hospital and his van was burned to the ground. That was over a month before Heather disappeared.’

‘That’s right,’ answered Maxwell. ‘He was never considered a suspect. But,’ he stopped to look across at Willis, ‘was he inside the van at the time?’

‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘He and his mother were easy to lose in the system with him being home-taught and being on the fringes of the traveller community. I’m going to have to go and see Truscott, the owner of Hawthorn Farm, as soon as I can now. I’m really interested in what happened to them. We need to know what became of the seventh disciple. Carter is meeting Davidson now, I wonder how that’s going.’