Page 50 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

I make my way back to the restaurant and Sally hangs up the phone from cancelling another booking for tonight. She looks tired, bless her. She always has a smile and a bounce in her walk. It’s gone. She’s missing Philip.

‘Tania’s called for you. She’s asked if you’ll pop round to see her.’ She hands me a Post-it note with Tania’s address on it.

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘I thought I’d make us pizzas for tonight. What do you think?’

‘It depends on the toppings.’

‘Pineapple, green olives, anchovies,’ she says. There’s a smile in her eyes. The old Sally is still there.

‘I’d arrest you for making a pizza like that.’

* * *

I drive Adele’s Porsche to Tania’s house.

I can’t park directly outside so have to use the pub car park and walk back.

Tania’s cottage is gorgeous. I don’t recognise the weather-worn brickwork, but it’s a building James would have loved.

The chimney stack is centred and stands tall, reaching into the sky.

The roof looks bowed as if it’s about to cave in at any moment, but it’s all authentic. Period. It’s a real house.

I knock on the pale blue door using the heavy iron knocker and marvel at the tiny leaded windows and the pitched roof of the open porch.

I can almost picture the tiny rooms inside, the period details and the open fireplace, the cornicing and hardwood floor.

I hope Tania isn’t a gaudy decorator and hasn’t thrown up flock wallpaper and Artexed ceilings.

Tania opens the door in a halo of cigarette smoke. She stubs out what’s left on the door frame and tosses the tab end into a pot by the door. She smiles and beckons me to enter.

Through a small, dark hallway, I’m led into a large living room at the back of the house.

I’m right about the open fireplace, but wrong about everything else.

The room is a clutter of mess. Picture frames and overstocked bookcases adorn every wall.

It’s difficult to see what colour they’ve been painted.

The carpet is an assault on the senses. A mess of gaudy colours, it would bring on a seizure if stared at for too long.

There are two sofas, both far too big for the room, and they don’t match.

There’s a fustiness in the air. A mixture of stale cigarette smoke, dust and old paper. It’s claustrophobic.

‘Have a seat,’ Tania says, picking up a few files from the sofa and dumping them on the floor. ‘I won’t apologise for the mess. This is how I live. I know where everything is. Give me the name of any Thomas Hardy novel and I’ll be able to get you several copies of it within a minute.’

‘If only I knew the name of a Thomas Hardy novel.’

‘Oh. Not a fan of the classics?’

‘More of a contemporary reader.’

‘I’m a huge Hardy fan,’ she says, sitting down on the opposing sofa. ‘I went on Mastermind in 2004. Reached the semi-finals.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘I sweated buckets in that leather chair. I can still remember the question that robbed me of a place in the final: what was Thomas Hardy’s father’s profession?

How the bollocks am I supposed to know that?

I read his books. I’m not writing his sodding biography.

Bastards. It turns out he was a stonemason. I said he was a vicar.’

I smile. My eyes wander around the room and land on a framed photograph on the mantel. I think I recognise the people in it and go over to pick it up.

‘Is that a young Alison Pemberton?’

‘Yes. The girl next to her is Claire Daniels. They’ve been inseparable since little school.’

‘How come you have this?’

‘If you look in the background at the lanky woman with the awful hair, that’s me.’

I lean in for a closer look. ‘Oh, my goodness.’

‘It was the nineties. I bet even you had embarrassing hair back then.’

‘I believe I had a fringe. My favourite going-out jacket was pink with shoulder pads.’

‘Bloody hell, shoulder pads. What were we thinking? Anyway, that was taken at an event on the lake the paper was sponsoring to get kids outdoors doing more active things. I shared a paddle boat with them. We fell in. I’ve got plenty of other photos of that day somewhere.

I’ll dig them out. I love looking down Memory Lane, don’t you? ’

‘Sometimes,’ I say, replacing the frame back on the mantel.

‘Anyway, the reason I called is because there’s been a new sighting of Jack Pemberton.’

‘What? Where?’

‘Right here in High Chapel.’

‘Who told you?’

‘A call came through on the main phone line for the newspaper.’

‘What did they say?’

‘They were walking their dog in the woods off End Lane, and they saw someone lurking behind a tree. They thought it was a hiker having a pee, but he was spending too long there for that. They walked closer and it was when their dog barked that he turned and looked directly at them, before running off in the opposite direction.’

‘Description?’

‘Tall, thin, dark walking trousers and dark anorak. Shaggy grey hair. Lined face. Spitting image of an old Jack Pemberton, according to the caller.’

‘Who was the caller?’

‘He said his name was John. It wasn’t a great line. He talked with a stammer and, when I asked him for more details, he said something about not being able to hear me properly. To be fair, I couldn’t hear him very well either. The call ended.’

‘Did he call back?’

‘No.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘A couple of hours.’

‘Long enough for him to have gone home and used a landline,’ I say. ‘Or pop into the newspaper office.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘And why ring you and not the police?’

‘Well, that’s me being a nosy journalist. If you google Jack Pemberton sightings, one of the first hits is the extensive coverage on the newspaper’s website and a link to report any sightings to yours truly. Alison has something similar on Facebook.’

‘Do they often tell you who they are when they call with a sighting?’

‘Usually. Most are tourists. The ones from further afield usually email in.’

I sit back and fold my arms. ‘Are there many Johns in High Chapel?’

‘Plenty.’

‘Do they have dogs?’

‘Most people have dogs around here.’

‘You don’t.’

‘No. But then I’m a hard-faced journalist with no emotions.’

I smile. ‘Who are you trying to kid?’

‘So, is Jack Pemberton in High Chapel and is he going to make himself known?’ Tania asks.

‘Why would he? What’s his motive? From the point of view of the police, he’s a wanted murderer. Iain told me this morning he’d tear him apart if he ever saw him again. Lynne is hardly going to welcome him back with open arms. There’s no reason for him to come back.’

‘Unfinished business.’

‘Such as?’

Tania blows out her cheeks. ‘Maybe he wants to finally confess. Unburden himself.’

‘Then just do it. Why hide? Look, I’ve been thinking, all this time I’ve thought of Jack being a serial abuser, that he was abusing his kids and went too far, killed them and did a runner.

However, both Iain and Lynne, this morning, told me that Jack didn’t show any signs of having tendencies towards young children until Travis came along.

It’s possible that young, good-looking Travis was a manipulator who saw something within Jack and brought it out of him. ’

‘So, let me get this clear in my head,’ Tania says, a look of confusion on her face. ‘Travis comes along, worms his way into the Pemberton family, sees a fellow paedophile in Jack and gets him to live out his fantasies on his daughters. Jack, disgusted, then kills his daughters and runs away.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Where does Travis’s stolen car come into it?’

‘My only guess is that he planned to abduct Celia and Jennifer, kill them, and use his car to hide their bodies. He said it was stolen to cover himself.’

‘And what happened to Travis?’

I tell Tania Lynne lied about having an affair with Travis and Iain told me he literally drove Travis out of the village.

‘I knew it,’ Tania says, looking almost smug. ‘No offence to Lynne or anything, but I didn’t think Travis would go for someone like her. Why saddle himself with a married woman who had three kids?’

‘When he could have had a sexy reporter with no ties.’

‘Precisely. Although I did have a perm in the early nineties. Maybe that put him off. So, why is Travis missing, then? Is he dead?’

A thought springs to mind. ‘Unless the sightings of Jack are really sightings of Travis. How old would he be now? Mid-fifties? If he’s been living rough all this time, he’s going to look older.

He could look like how people might expect Jack to look and not everyone realised Travis was missing.

To all intents and purposes, he left the village and returned home. ’

‘And Travis would have unfinished business as he’s angry with Iain for driving him out in the first place,’ Tania says. ‘But why now, after thirty years? You know, I’d love to find out what really happened on the night of the storm all those years ago.’

‘There is one person we can ask.’

‘Who?’

‘The person who was there. Alison.’

‘Will she really remember, all this time later?’

‘I’m not sure. But there is an interview technique we can try.’