I Am Watching You(7)

The truth is the story has been forgotten. Until the programme tonight, no one else will have given it a second thought. That’s how it works – why it’s so difficult for the police. It’s all people talk about one minute, and then the next, everyone forgets.

Then today another card arrived. Black again, with a nastier message. BITCH . . . HOW DO YOU SLEEP?

So that I see it even more clearly now. This is my fault. This is to pay me back, not just for what I didn’t do for Anna, but for going down there in the summer.

I know exactly who the postcards are from now . . .





CHAPTER 5


THE FATHER

Henry Ballard checks his watch and whistles for Sammy.

In the distance, he can see smoke just emerging from one of the holiday lets – a former barn that was once his father’s destination at this same time of an evening. The final check of the livestock before supper.

Henry still takes the same stroll each night himself, but with a quiet sorrow now.

Anna’s voice haunting him as he walks.

You disgust me, Dad . . .

Henry closes his eyes and waits for the voice to quieten. By the time he opens his eyes there is a stronger curl of smoke from the chimney ahead.

It all made economic sense, of course. The conversions. It became Barbara’s favourite phrase, and the bank’s, too. Makes good economic sense, Henry.

The agricultural success story that was Ladbrook Farm had been four generations in the making. It survived the rise and fall of local mining. It survived the changing tastes of the consumer market. It won rosettes for rare breeds. It even branched out into daffodils at one point. But the segue from full working farm to what his colleagues now dismiss as Still playing at it, H? took but a blink.

Tourism is the business he is in now, not farming. And yes – it makes absolute sense financially. One set of barns was converted and sold to pay off all the outstanding loans more than a decade back. A second set is now rental properties, and that is more than enough income on top of the teashop and campsite – and certainly more regular profit than his father or his grandfather had dared hope for.

The truth? They put in the slog, his ancestors. They paid off the bulk of the debts to the banks with blood, sweat and tears, too. And him? What has he done?

He has reaped the rewards. There isn’t an evening that Henry Ballard has not felt wretched about that.

So yes – he is still playing at it. Messing about on the fringe with his sheep – barely worth the feed – and his tiny rare-breed beef herd.

He has taken this same walk with a heavy heart for years. And now, since Anna?

Henry winces again at the memory of his daughter beside him in the car.

You disgust me . . .

‘So what’s left now?’ he says out loud as Sammy nuzzles his hand, amber eyes turned up to check his master’s. The dog still sits under Anna’s chair every night during supper. Unbearable.

Henry pats Sammy’s head, then sets off for the farmhouse. He is dreading the evening ahead but has promised Barbara they will watch the anniversary appeal together, so he must not be late. They have talked at length about how to handle this, worrying about what is best for Jenny, who has perhaps coped the worst of all. The sister without a sister.

Only eighteen months between the girls – so sweet and so close, especially when they were little. Oh sure, there were fights, too, the usual sibling rivalry, but they were always friends by bedtime, often choosing to share a room, even though there were bedrooms to spare. Henry thinks for a moment of how he used to peek through their door to check on them last thing at night, all arms and legs and pink pyjamas, curled up in a double bed.

That punch to his gut again. Jenny is still not sleeping. Barbara is still not sleeping. He has no idea how they are all supposed to manage it, this TV appeal. The glare of the spotlight all over again.

An invitation to the studios in London was declined as out of the question. Barbara would never have coped with a live interview. No. Henry put his foot down, not least because time around the police made him so very nervous. So all the filming had been done in advance at the house. They had dug out an old video, too, from when Anna was tiny.

He pauses, clenching his fist at the memory of the camera in his hand; Barbara calling directions in the background. A gaggle of friends round for a birthday treat, all of them in fancy dress – cowboys and fairy costumes. A huge chocolate cake with candles. Get some shots of her blowing out the candles, Henry. Make sure you don’t miss a shot of the candles . . . He thinks of that other version of his wife – Barbara beaming and bustling, at her happiest when the house was full of children and noise and chaos.

Henry clears his throat and leans down to stroke Sammy’s head again, feeling the familiar wave of connection. Man to dog. Man and dog to land.

So – yes. They agreed to release some of the birthday video, as the police said moving pictures tended to bring in more calls, which was, of course, the whole point. This first anniversary was a key opportunity, they were told, to resurrect interest in the case. To bring in new leads. To try to find the men from the train. But he and Barbara worry very much about the strain on Jenny. She is also in the clip chosen by the TV producers, smiling alongside her sister, and Barbara and Henry had sat down and made it absolutely clear that if Jenny were even the tiniest bit uncomfortable, they could say no and come up with something else, or ask if her image could be blanked out in some way. But what had broken Henry was how their elder daughter reacted.