Page 16 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

‘And the fact that he did neither?’

I sigh. ‘The six sightings of Jack?—’

‘There have been more than six,’ Tania interrupts.

‘Really?’

She turns back to her laptop. ‘I used to put them in the paper at one point, but with no photographic evidence, there wasn’t much to write about.

Eventually, I stopped. Here we go.’ She angles the laptop to me again to show a table she has made of the sightings.

‘I stopped saving them after a while. I’ve got fourteen known sightings, but speak to Alison: she’s got them all.

She created a Facebook page where people could post their sightings. ’

‘Fourteen?’

‘Mostly local. Though I think Alison had someone message her from Belfast once.’

‘What do they say?’

‘What you expect them to say. They’ve seen a bloke who stands out from the crowd, seems a bit nervy, that’s what draws their attention to him, and he has a familiar look about him. By the time they’ve googled who he might be, he’s disappeared.’

‘And no photographic evidence?’

‘No.’

‘Is he listed as a missing person?’

‘No. The local police believe he was swept out into the storm. Case closed.’

‘What do you believe?’

‘Can fourteen people be wrong?’ Tania asks.

‘Are the sightings still coming in?’

‘You’d need to ask Alison about that. I haven’t had one for a few years.’

‘How well do you know the Pembertons?’

‘Fairly well,’ she says. ‘When Jack and Iain were converting the farm into stables, they asked the paper to run a few features in the hope of generating publicity. They were very different, for brothers.’

‘In what way?’ I ask as I help myself to another biscuit. I can never resist a Bourbon.

‘Iain was the confident, talkative one. Jack was always in the background. He couldn’t make eye contact. Iain told me he suffered with depression. After Jack went missing, Iain turned to the drink. He told me in the local one night that, when they were kids, their father used to bully Jack.’

‘Did he hit him?’

‘I don’t think so. Iain said that Jack was a quiet child.

Iain was always out with a football, playing cricket in summer and rugby in winter, a proper lad, according to their father.

Jack preferred to stay at home and draw or read.

Their father didn’t like that. He wanted his boys to grow up to be real men and real men weren’t creative. ’

‘He sounds like a shit.’

‘He was. There weren’t many tears shed when Granville Pemberton died, despite how he went.’

I frown. ‘How did he go?’

‘He was working himself to death anyway, by all accounts. He was taking pills for his heart. The doctors assumed he had an attack of some kind and collapsed in the pigsty.’

I feel my frown deepen. ‘I don’t like where this is going. You said assumed.’

‘There wasn’t really much for a pathologist to examine. The pigs got to him before Jack and Iain could.’

‘They ate him?’

‘Not all of him. Parts of him.

I decide against another Bourbon. ‘Oh my God!’

‘You can see why the brothers were eager to convert the farm. They didn’t want to be reminded of what happened. I tell you; it was a while before I ate bacon again.’

‘What a way to go,’ I say, giving a shudder.

‘Strangely, it was Jack who took it the hardest.’

‘I’m surprised they all stayed. If it had been me, I’d have sold up and moved on.’

‘People around here either get out while they’re still young or they stay here for life. Trust me, I know that only too well.’

I look at her and notice the hint of sadness in her eyes. Tania clearly wanted to have left High Chapel many years ago. She wasn’t stuck here. She was trapped.

‘If you suspected Jack was behind the disappearance,’ I begin, taking the conversation back to topic. ‘What did the other villagers think?’

‘The majority focused on the tragedy. They couldn’t do enough for Jack and Lynne.

Iain sort of acted as a barrier, stopped the villagers from knocking on their door every five minutes with a cooked meal or a word of sympathy they didn’t want to hear.

I kept popping round, making a nuisance of myself.

Eventually, it got too much for them, too.

Iain started drinking more. Nothing anyone could do could help any of them. ’

‘And when the case went cold?’

‘By then, Jack had disappeared too. A second tragedy. All the attention was on Lynne and Alison and making sure they were all right.’

‘Who are the main players here apart from Lynne, Jack and Iain? Who else was involved? There was someone in the articles I read… Travis?’

‘Travis Montgomery. Also known as Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’

‘Really?’ I can feel my eyebrows disappear sky high. I should be on the stage with my acting skills.

Tania stifles a smile. ‘No. I’m probably reading more into it than what was there.

Travis was employed by Iain and Jack’s father as a farm hand not long before Granville died.

He stayed on for a while afterwards and helped with converting it into stables.

There was rumour Travis and Lynne were having an affair. ’

‘Any truth in it?’

‘It depends who you ask.’

‘Where’s Travis now?’

‘No idea. He did a moonlight flit when the gossip started. He was only young. Mind you, he was a handsome young man: firm jawline, amazing cheekbones, dark floppy hair and his body was a bloody work of art.’

‘It sounds like you had a bit of a crush yourself.’

‘He was proper pin-up material. He could have made a calendar. Everyone lusted over him, but he was so shy with the attention, poor puppy.’

‘He wasn’t local?’

‘No. He had a lovely Liverpudlian accent. Granville only employed him temporarily after his heart scare. He stayed on after he died to help out. Hang on a minute,’ Tania suddenly sits upright and glares at me.

‘My journalistic skills must be on the wane. I should have asked this right at the start: why are you asking all these questions about the Pembertons? What’s going on? ’

‘Alison wants me to help. I did say I wouldn’t get involved, but… I don’t know, something isn’t sitting right with what I’ve read so far.’

Tania’s face softens. ‘My heart really goes out to that lass. I’ve known her since she was little.

She was there. She saw them get taken and there was nothing she could do about it.

If you think about it, she’s got all the answers locked away somewhere in her head and she can’t find the key to access them.

It must be torturous for her. So, what does your detective instinct tell you? ’

It’s a few long moments before I answer. ‘I’m not sure. But Jack’s disappearance and more than fourteen sightings of him, plus Travis doing a moonlight flit, are leading to more questions.’

‘Who are you going to ask?’

‘Lynne. Iain. Alison. You?’

‘Me?’

‘You were there at the time. You know all the key players.’

‘If I help, will you let me write about it?’

‘Something tells me I wouldn’t be able to stop you.’

She rubs her hands together and grins. ‘What’s the first plan of action?’

‘We need alibis for Lynne, Jack, Iain, and Travis for the time the twins went missing.’

‘That’s not going to be easy. Jack’s possibly dead and I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for Travis.’

‘But, surely, you’ll have in your archives your interviews from the time. Maybe something is in there.’

‘I’ll have a look.’

‘Celia and Jennifer’s teacher at the time of their disappearance: male or female?’

Tania looks up to the ceiling as she thinks. ‘Male.’

‘Was he a suspect?’

‘You’re really testing my memory skills today. What was his name? Abbot? Anson? Ashton, that’s it. Something Ashton. Damien Ashton. Wow. My memory is better than I thought,’ she grins. ‘I’m assuming he was interviewed by the police. Everyone was.’

‘Is he still at the school?’

‘No. He left for pastures new a long time back.’ Tania turns the laptop back to her and hammers at the keyboard. ‘Oh.’

‘What?’

‘In 2010, Damien Ashton was working at a school in Newcastle when he was forced to resign for having an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy.’

‘Wow.’

She spins the laptop back around to me. There’s a photo of a tall, plain-looking man in a navy suit and a sombre expression walking into a court building.

‘Where is he now?’

‘No idea. I can do some digging, if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ I turn to look out of the window and see that it’s pitch-dark and a strong wind is blowing. ‘I’d better be getting back before this storm breaks. You can ring me at the restaurant.’

‘Will do. Can I ask you a personal question before you go?’

I nod.

‘Why are you really here and not in Sheffield tearing the city apart looking for the person who killed your family?’

Normally, I wouldn’t answer such a personal question like that from a journalist. The fact that I’m about to proves that I’m not my usual self.

‘Because, the way I feel right now, I’m worried about what I might do when I catch him.’