Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(23)

‘DC Ebony Willis?’

‘Yes . . .’ Ebony replied.

He finished filling hay nets and tied them inside the horse’s stall then he picked up his rifle from the woodshed and walked past her.

‘Follow me.’

Ebony had her eye on the gun. It was very like the rifles they used in the Police Force, with a shorter barrel and only a metre in length. But it was definitely made for hunting: it had a powerful looking scope attached. Judging by his eyesight and the way he’d read her warrant card, Ebony thought that he could probably hit her running at a mile away with or without a scope.

She followed him into the house. The farmhouse was Spartan, austere. It was certainly never going to make it onto the top of a biscuit tin.

‘I won’t take up much of your time, Mr Carmichael, and then I’ll be on my way.’ They walked through the tack room, up a step and into a stone-floored scullery. Carmichael propped the rifle next to him as he sat on a stool and pulled off his boots. He said nothing as he washed his hands in the sink.

He looked at her as he dried them on a towel above the sink.

‘Relax . . . If I wanted to kill you I’d have done it by now.’ She watched him with the same intense look she always had, but he didn’t know her. He took it to be anxiety. ‘Besides . . .’ He hung the towel on a hook to the right of the sink. ‘There’s no way you’ll be going anywhere tonight. The lane is almost impassable already; surprised you made it. In half an hour it will be sheet ice. In that car – you’ll be lucky to get ten metres.’ He wiped the mud and debris from the gun barrel with an oiled cloth. ‘It will be more trouble to drag you out of a ditch than it will be to put you up for a night.’

He unclipped his hunting knife and placed it on the shelf. Walking up the few steps and into the kitchen he indicated that she should follow.

‘You hungry?’ He went across to the Aga and pulled the pot of stew from the hotplate. ‘Sit down. Make yourself useful . . .’ He set the loaf of bread and a knife in front of her on the scrubbed table top.

Ebony sat down and took the opportunity to look around the kitchen while Carmichael was busy. It looked like no one had decorated for a hundred years. It was clean and functional. It hadn’t made it to the rustic chic pages of a magazine: no hanging copper pans or bunches of dried herbs. No unread recipe books. Carmichael walked past her carrying the logs he’d been chopping. She heard him stacking them beyond the kitchen. When he returned he took two bowls from an oak dresser and spooned in some stew. He opened two bottles of beer and placed one in front of her. Then he sat down opposite.

He didn’t hide his scrutiny. Ebony wished she had a napkin, kitchen roll, anything; she’d splashed her chin and had wiped it lots of times but her hand still felt wet.

‘You’re very young.’ He paused while breaking his bread open. ‘How long have you been a detective?’

‘Four years. I’ve been in the Force six altogether.’ She looked at Carmichael’s face just a few feet away across the table from her. She was re-reading his file in her head: the keenest marksman in the Metropolitan Police Force. His photo taken with the rest of the firearms team. His smile proud, his gaze steadfast. Thirteen years looked like twenty. He was weatherworn, bearded, sunburnt from the wind and the rain. Special Forces before the police: SBS. He had once taken out four members of the top Iraqi military. He had sat in one spot for a week and waited to kill one man.

‘You’ve done well to get into the Murder Squad so quickly.’

‘I have a degree in Criminal Justice and Law. I think that helped.’ Ebony was feeling like the inexperienced copper she was. Carter must have known it would be like this. Why had he sent her on her own?

‘There are lots of people with degrees but not everyone knows how to make them count in police work – or in everyday life.’ He finished eating his stew before her and he sat back in his chair and watched her eat. She never left food. Carmichael continued to scrutinize her. ‘So you could have chosen to go into a career in Crime Analysis instead or in Profiling? You could have gone into the law side of things?’

‘I could have.’

‘But you chose to go for less pay and longer hours and join the force?’ For a minute he thought she wasn’t going to answer; he could see her mind mulling things over. You could never accuse her of being loose-tongued. That was an admirable quality in Carmichael’s books. He hated pointless chatter. He lived most of his life in silence out of choice. It seemed to him that he was the one asking the questions. She looked at him, her expression unchanged:

‘I wanted a challenge.’

Carmichael smiled. ‘Fair enough. What about your family? You’re mixed race, aren’t you?’ She nodded as she dipped her bread into the stew. ‘I know the name . . . Willis . . . you’re the officer whose mother was convicted of murder? I read about it.’

She looked up and saw his eyes drilling into her.

‘Yes.’

‘Finished?’ He stood and took her plate from her and stacked the dishes in the sink. She stared at his back. She wondered what he would ask her about it and what she would say when he did. But, when he turned back she could see he’d finished with the subject.

‘Great stew,’ she thanked him.

‘One of my lambs.’ Ebony wondered if it had had a name. ‘This way . . .’ He picked up a basket of logs and led the way into the sitting room. Apart from a sofa and an armchair, the only other piece of furniture was a desk in the corner. The fireplace dominated the room, ancient, imposing. A massive oak beam framed it. Carmichael stacked the logs either side of it. To the left of the fireplace was the doorway to the upstairs, to the right was a dresser. On it were several books about farming, lambing, looking after sheep. There was one about the Yorkshire Dales. There was another about medical procedures in the field. The History of War. The Times Atlas had a shelf all to itself. There were travel books about South America, Argentina. Above all the books she saw a photo of his wife and child. She recognized it from the case file.