Page 52 of Worse Than Murder

‘We were just a normal family,’ she says, barely audible between the tears.

Gill looks to Iain. He shakes his head.

‘The car belonged to Travis Montgomery. You were close to him, yes?’

Lynne puts her head down. She wraps her arms tightly around her own body, hugging herself, protecting herself.

‘It’s Travis’s car in the lake?’ Iain asks. ‘It’s been there all this time?’

‘It would appear so.’

‘And the girls are in it?’

‘We don’t know that at present.’

‘Travis worked with us on the farm,’ Iain says. He leans back against the desk. His face is pale with shock. ‘The land was in a mess. It needed digging over and levelling. He worked as hard as me and Jack.’

‘I didn’t know Travis all that well,’ Gill says. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

Iain shakes his head as he thinks. ‘I… I don’t know. He was a hard worker. He’d turn his hand to anything. He was quiet. He played guitar. Not very well,’ he says with a faint laugh. ‘He was just an ordinary, normal bloke.’

‘Did he get on with Celia and Jennifer?’ she asks, looking at Lynne.

Lynne slowly raises her head and makes eye contact with the inspector. ‘He was in our house all the time,’ she says. Her voice is soft, her words sound as if they’re causing her pain. ‘Granville employed him as casual, and he took the spare room here. Whenever Granville came over for a meal, he brought Travis with him. He helped cook. He…’ Her words are lost to emotion.

The small office falls silent, yet the atmosphere is charged and heavy.

‘We’ll leave you to it for now. I promise I’ll keep you informed every step of the way. However, please try to think back thirty years. Even if you remember something you don’t think is important, it might be. Tell me anything and everything.’ She proffers a sympathetic smile then ushers Alan out of the office.

‘He helped with the search,’ Lynne says.

Gill stops in the doorway and looks back. ‘Sorry?’

‘When the girls went missing. The whole village turned out to search for them.’

‘I remember,’ Gill says.

‘Travis organised for a group of men to search the woods and walk up the peaks. Why… why would he…?’

There’s nothing Gill can say. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, but the words won’t come.

‘Leave it with us, Lynne. I’ll be in touch.’

She leaves the office quickly, as if eager to be away from grief and difficult questions.

Lynne and Iain are left alone in silence.

‘I need to talk to Alison,’ she says, suddenly jumping up.

‘Not like this, Lynne,’ he says, coaxing her back down into the chair. ‘Have a few minutes on your own. Take some deep breaths and compose yourself. You don’t want Alison seeing you like this.’

‘It’s all going to come out, isn’t it?’

Iain doesn’t say anything.

‘What am I going to do, Iain? Alison will never forgive me when she finds out.’

According to the satnav, it should take one hour twenty-three minutes to get to Seascale. Tania Pritchard arrives just over the hour mark. She cares very little for the laws of the road and takes corners in fourth gear, speeds up when a green light changes to amber and overtakes slow-moving vehicles without a care for what’s coming in the opposite direction.