Chapter Three
MATTHEW LEFT THE TEAM AT THE scene. The space in front of the house was already crowded with vehicles belonging to the crime scene manager and the first members of the specialist search team to turn up at the locus.
Matthew told his DC, Ross May, that he was going to Millscombe Farm to chat to the neighbours.
Jen was staying with the mother so Venn said the DC was in charge here at the house until the sergeant returned.
Ross loved that. It still didn’t take much for power to go to his head.
As Matthew was walking back up the lane, enjoying the peace and the time to think, he received a text from Jen: Apparently Hannah had some sort of relationship with a lad who lived at the farm. Name of Jacob.
All the more reason, then, to talk to the farmer.
Away from the Armstrongs’ bungalow, everything was very quiet.
He could hear chiffchaffs singing in the thick hedges, and swallows dipped overhead.
His father had been a bit of a birdwatcher, and Matthew still noticed these things.
He paused for a moment at the farm gate and looked back towards the coast. Because of the twist in the lane, the bungalow was invisible.
He took a photo of the scene on his phone, then of the poster advertising MillsFest. He hadn’t heard of any of the groups or singers mentioned.
His sheltered upbringing meant that he’d missed out on popular culture when he was growing up, and he suspected that this festival had been aimed at people of his age, not at teenagers.
Jonathan wouldn’t have been quite so enthusiastic if the music had been more contemporary.
He had to walk a little way along the track before he had a clear view of the farmhouse ahead of him.
It lay beyond a meadow, and the house and outbuildings were sheltered by a strip of woodland.
They were stone-built and solid, the sun behind them throwing a shadow.
Beyond the house, a traditional lowland landscape that might not have changed in centuries.
Small fields where cattle grazed, separated by hedges, sloped to a stream.
The hedges bent away from the prevailing westerly wind and were still flecked with blossom.
Everything looked warm and glowing in the buttery light.
The stream curved and eventually, Matthew thought, would make its way to the sea.
It formed one border of the wide meadow, which earlier in the spring had probably been covered with wildflowers.
This must have been the venue for the festival; the grass was flattened, trampled.
In the distance, beyond the meadow, there was another patch of woodland.
This was indistinct, shifting in a heat haze.
An open-sided barn next to the house must have held the stage.
Matthew could see a figure, a silhouette against the bright morning light, halfway across the meadow.
It was impossible to tell age or gender.
They were walking slowly backwards and forwards.
Matthew had been intending to call first at the house, but instead he went through another gate which was already open and walked towards the individual, who was quartering the ground, head down, focused, it seemed, on some task.
So focused that they didn’t realize anyone was approaching until Matthew was almost within touching distance.
It was a young man with wild hair, dressed in shorts. He was carrying a black bin bag and the sort of instrument used by street cleaners. He looked at Matthew, not hostile, but curious.
‘Can I help you?’ A Devon voice.
‘Clearing up after the weekend?’ Matthew was curious too.
‘Yeah, we did most of it yesterday evening, but there’s still a bit along the edges, and we’ve got more campers arriving this afternoon.’
‘Are you Jacob?’
The young man gave a nervous smile. ‘Jake, yeah. Only my gran and the teachers ever called me Jacob.’
‘I’m a police officer,’ Matthew said. No need now to go in with his rank. ‘I’m looking for Hannah Armstrong. Her parents are worried about her.’
‘Oh!’ He sounded suddenly anxious, intimidated. ‘Is it this morning they were coming?’ He nodded towards the house. ‘She’s sleeping it off. We were really good all weekend, stayed pretty sober, and then when the punters left yesterday afternoon, we had our own party last night.’
‘So, she’s here? Can I see her?’
‘I guess. It’s about time she woke up anyway.’ A pause. ‘Mum’ll go ape if she knows Hannah’s parents are worried. She wasn’t even sure she should let her stay in my room.’
Matthew’s first thoughts were that he’d overreacted.
What a fool he’d look, calling out the search team, putting Appleyard on high alert, and stoking up the parents’ anxieties!
He should let them know at once that Hannah was safe.
But not yet, he decided immediately afterwards.
Let me talk to her first, before the parents rush in with their tears of relief, their hugs and their recriminations.
Let me find out if Hannah is really safe and what happened to Lottie.
Jake led him through a back door into a cramped room with coat pegs and boots, a cage for a dog and a large chest freezer, and then into the kitchen.
A middle-aged woman was frying bacon in a pan on the Aga, her face red from the heat of the range.
She wore jeans and a T-shirt, covered by a floral apron, and she turned when she saw her son.
‘Breakfast in ten minutes.’ Her voice wasn’t local. Northern. Broader than Cath Armstrong’s but from the same end of the country.
Then she noticed Matthew. ‘Are you one of our guests? We weren’t expecting you just yet, but no problem. Give us half an hour and Jake here will make sure everything’s ready for you.’
Matthew thought that very little would throw her.
Now Jake looked as red as she did. ‘He’s a policeman, Mum. Hannah’s parents have arrived, and they called her in as missing.’
The woman looked across at Matthew and shook her head, implying, Young people today. No thought for their elders.
She wiped a hand on her apron and held it out. ‘I’m Tess. Tessa Brennan.’ A little laugh. ‘They’ve no manners, have they, these young things.’
She looked over Matthew’s shoulder to her son. ‘Well, you’d best go and get her then. Her parents must be in a dreadful state if they called the police. Poor things. I suppose in their position, with all the hassle politicians get these days, they have to be careful.’
Jake walked on through the kitchen and Matthew heard footsteps on wooden stairs.
He was tempted to follow, but Hannah was probably not dressed.
He might be almost comfortable now with his own nakedness, but the thought of confronting a seventeen-year-old girl in her bedroom horrified him.
Jake had left the kitchen door open, and he expected to hear voices.
The woman lifted slices of bacon onto a plate and put them in the bottom of the oven to keep warm.
There were more footsteps and Jake appeared in the doorway.
‘Well?’ The woman sounded impatient. ‘Is she on her way?’
‘She’s not there.’ Jake frowned. ‘I checked the bathroom. And her clothes have gone.’
‘That’s very thoughtless. Not like Hannah at all. I suppose she remembered her folk were turning up this morning. Must have been early, though. She didn’t come this way while I was here.’ She reached for the pan again and was about to crack eggs into it.
‘She was still fast asleep when I got up.’ Jake seemed confused.
‘Could I have a look?’ Matthew thought they’d almost forgotten that he was there.
The pair stared at him.
‘This is about more than a missing teenager,’ he said. A hurried explanation. ‘Hannah’s friend Lottie is dead. Mr and Mrs Armstrong found her when they arrived this morning. It really is very important that we find Hannah. You do see?’
The woman seemed to take in the implication of Matthew’s words before her son. He continued staring, stunned.
‘Of course! Take the man upstairs, lad!’
Matthew was already at the door. ‘Could you show me?’
Jake showed him into a front bedroom, with two windows that let in the light.
It was obviously his room, and the couple had been sleeping here together.
His clothes were piled on one of the chairs, and a pair of trainers lay next to the double bed.
The cover was old, handmade patchwork. The work perhaps of the grandmother who always called him Jacob.
It had been flung back. There were bare floorboards painted white and coloured rugs bright in the sunshine.
This didn’t seem like the room of an angst-ridden teenager, but Matthew thought he knew nothing about young people. There was no sign of Hannah.
‘I don’t understand.’ Jake’s voice was confused, distressed. ‘Where is she?’
‘What time did you leave her?’
‘Five-ish. It was already light. I hadn’t really slept, and I thought I’d get the site cleared before she woke, so we could spend the full day together.’ Now his voice was wistful.
He loves her! Matthew thought.
‘And she was definitely still there when you left?’
‘Oh yes!’
‘You hadn’t had an argument? There was no reason for her to have run off.’
‘No!’ He had light, sandy hair, and the sort of face that flushed easily. He was blushing now. ‘We’d had a lush evening. You know, the sort of time you know you’ll remember for ever.’ He stared at Matthew. ‘You say her friend is dead?’
Matthew nodded. ‘Was she here last night too?’
Jake shook his head. ‘She was here during the day, but she left at about six. This wasn’t her scene, she said.
It was as if she was too sophisticated for us.
Like we were yokels. Quite a lot of the holidaymakers are a bit like that.
They come for a taste of rural life, but they don’t like it so much when they get it.
The smell of cow muck and silage. I was worried that Hannah would leave too, but she didn’t.
Lottie was upset about that. I think she was used to getting her own way. ’
‘They had a row?’
Jake shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Nothing quite like that.
Hannah just said she was staying, and she’d see Lottie back at Tide House – that’s what they call that place.
’ A pause. ‘Lottie kind of flounced off.’ Another pause, his voice uncertain, dazed.
‘You’re saying she’s dead? How did she die? ’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘You will find Hannah?’
‘Oh yes.’ Matthew hoped he sounded reassuring. ‘We will find her.’
When they returned to the kitchen, Jake’s father had just come through the door.
Tessa was pouring boiling water into a teapot.
Venn had his own expectation of a farmer – a taciturn man, dressed in overalls, more used to dealing with animals and the soil than people.
Matthew might have been born and raised in North Devon, but he’d been a town boy, living in Barnstaple with his devout parents.
He knew very little about the countryside apart from walks with his father.
This man was quite different from the image he’d created.
He might have been a rock band’s roadie.
His hair was dark and long, tied back into a ponytail, and he wore a T-shirt with a dragon on the front and shorts.
‘Mr Brennan.’ Matthew held out his hand. ‘I’m DI Venn.’
The man walked across and shook it. ‘Bob Brennan.’ He grinned. His teeth looked very white in his suntanned face. ‘What are you doing here, then?’ His voice was broad Devonian, rich and creamy. Curious but not anxious.
‘We’ve been looking for Hannah.’ Jake sounded panicky now. ‘She’s not upstairs.’
‘She’ll have gone back then, won’t she, to her fancy-pants parents? Did they call the police to check where she stayed the night? They wouldn’t send a detective out looking for one of our girls. But an MP’s daughter, that’s different.’
The tone was still slow and easy, but Matthew could sense the bitterness beneath it.
‘Hannah’s friend is dead,’ Matthew said. ‘Of course we’re concerned.’
‘That Lottie? You’re saying she’s dead?’
Matthew nodded. ‘You knew her?’
‘I met her on Saturday at the festival,’ Brennan said. ‘Hannah introduced us. A sparky little thing. Hard to believe …’ His voice tailed off, then he looked up. ‘What happened?’
‘We don’t know yet, but that’s why we’re here.’ Matthew was speaking to both parents now. ‘Neither of you saw Hannah leaving this morning?’
‘No,’ Tessa said. ‘I assumed she was in bed, maybe with a bit of a hangover.’
‘What time were you up?’
She looked at her husband. ‘You were away before me for milking. I didn’t come down until about eight. It was a late night and a relief to have a bit of peace with all the visitors gone.’
‘Would she have come through the kitchen to leave the house?’
Tessa gave a little laugh. ‘The only way. The front door’s locked and I can’t remember the last time I saw the key. Everyone comes in through the back. The postie leaves any parcels in the porch at the front, but we have to go round to fetch them.’
So, Matthew thought, Hannah must have left between five and eight. They didn’t have an accurate time of death for Lottie, and the Armstrong family had arrived at Tide House at seven-thirty. In theory, Hannah was still a potential killer. They needed to find her.
‘Do you have anyone staying in your glamping pods?’
‘Only in one. An American couple. Geoff and Karen Kinzalow. The rest left yesterday afternoon as the festival was winding down. The Kinzalows are here for another three days.’
‘Thanks.’ Matthew moved towards the door. A collie was curled up in the little room beyond and looked up at him. ‘Someone might be along later to chat to you.’
Jake was on his feet and following. ‘Can I come? I want to help look for Hannah.’
‘Tide House is out of bounds for the moment. But please do look for Hannah on the farm. I’ll let you know when we find her.’
If we find her.
Matthew walked slowly back down the track and through the gate. Someone had torn down the MillsFest poster.
He’d started walking down the lane towards the smart white house when his phone buzzed. There was a text from Jen Rafferty.
We’ve found another body. Hannah Armstrong.