Chapter Thirty-Seven
MATTHEW VENN TRIED TO FIGHT THE helplessness that had descended since he’d heard that Alex Armstrong was missing.
Helplessness and guilt. And a sneaking resentment towards Jonathan.
If Jonathan hadn’t insisted that Matthew should be with him for his first meeting with his mother, Matthew would have been here, able to take charge as soon as news of the boy’s disappearance had come through.
He knew that he’d have done nothing differently from Jen, but that hadn’t stopped him blaming his husband in a strange, illogical way.
It hadn’t helped that Jonathan had refused to discuss Ellen on the journey back.
Matthew had driven fast, towards the limit of safety, while Jonathan had sat, brooding and silent.
When Matthew had asked what had happened to make him miserable, Jonathan just said nothing had gone wrong, but he didn’t want to talk about it, so Venn had just focused on getting back as quickly as possible. Fuming a little too.
Now, Jen had gone back to the Hoopers’ flat to be with Cath and Venn made his way to the bar.
Most of the drinkers had been persuaded to leave before closing time, but Daniel was still there, clearing up, and Matthew saw the two elderly drinkers, the former farm labourers Ross had interviewed at home.
They were the last customers left, an inch of beer still in each glass to give them an excuse to stay and watch.
Venn was going to speak to them, then thought Ross should be the person to do it.
The DC would get more out of them. Besides, Venn was restless.
He’d spent too long driving, too long sitting, too long waiting.
He got on the phone. Ross answered straight away. ‘Nothing here at the farm. I’ve been with the Brennans. They haven’t seen the boy, and we’ve searched all the possible hiding places, the barn and the outhouses.’
‘If you’ve finished, can you get back to the pub. Ask your old drinking mates what they know about Hooper. And if they’ve seen any strangers hanging about the place. Not just recently, but over the past few months.’
Then he set off towards Tide House. There was still just enough daylight to see.
The sky was cloudless, faded pink and grey at the horizon.
The holiday home was lit by security lights and the fairy lights around the empty pool must have come on automatically at dusk.
In any other circumstances, it would have been idyllic.
Exactly a week ago, the girls had been swimming here at midnight.
Daniel had watched them, entranced. And the Kinzalows had watched them too, had driven halfway down the track in their SUV in the hope of finding out what had happened to Elizabeth. This was where it had all started.
The uniformed officer standing guard at the entrance must have recognized Venn because he came across and nodded.
‘We’ve been over the house and no sign at all of the kiddie. Besides, we had to unlock it, and the alarm was set. Nobody could get in.’
‘You didn’t notice anyone earlier? Maybe in the combe?’
‘I thought I heard someone earlier, but that was before the boy went missing. Some days, it’s like Picadilly Circus round here despite the cordon.
We’ve had press coming through the trees from the Fisherman’s car park with their long lenses and ghouls who think they can solve the case just by walking all over our crime scene. ’
‘We’ve kept someone at the old mill where Hannah was found?’
The man nodded. ‘The crime scene tent is still there, and we have a PC manning it twenty-four/seven. A drain on manpower, though. Especially at a time like this.’
‘The local search team is still in the combe?’
‘If that’s what you can call them. Bloody pointless.
And they’re getting in the way of the professionals now.
They’d scare a child shitless with their shouts and their dogs.
And if someone is hiding out with the kid, he’d hear them crashing through the undergrowth a mile off.
You’d think they deliberately wanted to warn the bastard.
’ A pause. ‘That’s the trouble with civilians.
But Jim Hooper started them looking before any of us got here. ’
‘Can you call them off now? Thank them and get them back to base? As you say, they’re doing more harm than good.
’ If the boy was alone in the woods, the searchers would be terrifying.
Venn couldn’t quite believe in a kidnapper.
If this was a crime, it was opportunistic.
Cath hadn’t planned to follow Elaine Cauldwell into the car park.
Nobody would have known in advance that Alex would be left in the car alone.
And Venn still wasn’t sure that Cath hadn’t dreamed Elaine, conjured her up in a fevered, grief-stricken imagining.
She might have seen another well-dressed woman stepping out of a grand car.
‘Sure.’ The officer seemed relieved.
Venn walked on, taking the path that Cath Armstrong had followed that first day, when she was looking for her daughter.
When she’d still believed that Hannah might be alive.
This was ridiculous of course because Hooper and his people would already have searched here.
But Venn continued walking just the same.
He needed the exercise and the time alone to think.
In the distance, through the shadowy trees, he heard voices.
People shouting that the volunteers’ search was over until first light tomorrow.
The sound of boots walking away from him.
He stood for a moment, waiting for silence.
Listening. For a child crying. For quiet movement.
There was nothing, except far away a tawny owl calling.
A little later, vehicles rumbling away. The locals would be heading home to share the excitement of the night with their loved ones.
It was completely dark by the time he approached the shore.
Perhaps he should have been more prepared and brought a torch, but his eyes were quite used to the shade now and there was a moon.
The Lundy lighthouses were flashing to their familiar beat in the distance, and there were other lights – buoys and small boats – in the bay.
Life continuing. He felt the beach under his feet and stood to listen again.
This time there was a noise. Someone was crying.
Matthew walked slowly and quietly over the soft sand, stopping after every couple of steps to pinpoint the sound.
He didn’t want to frighten away the weeper.
In the dark, it would be easy for a small boy to fall and to hurt himself.
It occurred to him that Alex might have arrived here just as the tide was coming in.
He could have been exploring the rockpools on the edge of the cove and become trapped when the water reached its height.
If the tide was full when the searchers came to the beach, they wouldn’t have known he was there.
The water had receded now, and Matthew crossed the wet sand and made his way towards the sound.
There was sufficient moonlight to make out a figure, no more than a shadow, sitting on one of the rocks. But this wasn’t a child. Matthew’s shoes were making sucking sounds as he pulled them out of the sand, and at last his approach was noticed.
‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ The voice at once frightened and imperious. He thought of Daniel’s description of this woman’s daughter. Dangerous and sad.
Suddenly, Matthew was blinded. The woman was using the torch on her phone and shining it straight into his eyes.
‘Elaine,’ he said. ‘It’s Matthew Venn. Shall we go back? We need to talk.’
There was a moment of silence before she answered, and then her voice was needy, almost pleading. ‘Can we go into Tide House? I wanted to see where Lottie died. But I couldn’t get in.’
Matthew had to help her up the steep path from the cove. She wasn’t dressed for the scramble. She’d put a light wrap over the dress and it kept slipping from her shoulders. Her shoes were suitable for a business meeting in town.
‘I can’t take you into the house, but we can sit on the terrace and see where we found Lottie’s body. Would that help?’
‘Yes.’ A pause while she caught her breath. ‘Thank you.’
When they emerged into the light, Matthew sat her in one of the white wicker chairs on the terrace and told the officer on duty what they were doing.
‘Can you get word to Jen Rafferty that I’ve found Elaine Cauldwell, but there’s no sign of the boy?’
He could see Elaine from where he was standing. He watched her light a cigarette, and pull the wrap closer around her, although it was still warm. She hardly seemed to notice when he sat beside her. She was staring over the pool.
‘She drowned in there?’ she said at last.
‘Yes. That was where the Armstrongs found her. They pulled her out, hoping they might save her. We had to drain it, looking for evidence.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘You didn’t go back to London on Thursday?’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t stand that hotel in Torr.
It was like going back to the fifties. Crap facilities.
Dreadful food. The only room they had for me was a gloomy single the shape of a coffin.
And I had to see the Armstrongs treated like visiting royalty.
But I didn’t want to leave North Devon. Just because I wasn’t a nervous wreck like Cath, it didn’t mean I could just go home and forget about Lottie.
Start work again as if nothing had happened. ’
Matthew thought that Elaine had probably been a nervous wreck too. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been drinking gin for breakfast.
Elaine was still talking. ‘Lottie was all I had. Nobody seems to realize that. The Armstrongs have other children. They have each other. My husband, the love of my life, left me for a mousy little woman with no style or substance. Now I’m entirely alone.’