Chapter Thirty-Eight
THE THREE DETECTIVES MET IN THE pub. It was late on Saturday, gone eleven, and all the drinkers had left.
Cath was still in the flat with Mag Hooper and Jim was backstage somewhere.
He’d returned from the search and gone straight into work mode.
He said he had baked goods to prepare for the following day’s service, but when Venn glimpsed through the door that led behind the bar, he saw the landlord not in the kitchen, but in a tiny office, sitting in front of a laptop.
Perhaps he was dealing with admin. Perhaps he was communicating with his weird and damaged friends.
Perhaps he was describing the search for the politician’s son, making himself out to be a hero.
Venn was planning. He couldn’t rush this, but his thoughts were racing and different scenarios dropped in and out of his mind, tangled and confusing. He needed information. He needed to be sure.
Venn was running through all the possibilities. This could be something simple, not serious at all. But it had been hours now and even inexperienced searchers like Jim’s team of locals would surely have come across the child?
‘Do we know where Daniel is? Do we know when he left the pub?’
‘I’ve just tried his mobile,’ Jen said. ‘It went straight to voicemail. He left at normal closing time, once he’d got rid of the last drinkers.
He came up to the flat and asked Mag if it was okay.
I didn’t think there was any reason to stop him.
’ Now, she sounded anxious, worried that she’d cocked up by not keeping Daniel on site.
‘Could you get hold of his parents?’
‘They’re not answering either.’
Venn thought then that he should have asked Appleyard to check out Daniel’s parents, the ambitious Londoners who’d escaped to the coast. It was easy to be taken in by respectable people.
Police officers did it all the time. He thought he’d made too many mistakes during this investigation.
He’d made snap judgements and trusted his instincts too often.
He wondered if Daniel’s parents might be described as ‘suits’ then thought that they represented everything Jim Hooper despised, so were hardly likely to have been invited to his winter gatherings.
Venn turned to Ross. ‘So, there was no sign of the boy at the farm?’
‘Nothing, and the Brennans were there all afternoon.’
‘How did you get on chatting to your old guys, the regular drinkers? Did you get back before they left?’
‘Billy and Joe. Oh yes, they’d still be here if Daniel hadn’t sent them on their way.’
‘Anything useful?’
‘Not really.’ Ross shrugged. ‘They said the pub was really busy late afternoon. A minibus full of gig racers celebrating after a competition in Cornwall. They didn’t see the boy in the bar, but then they might not have done. A bunch of tall rowers and you’d easily miss a small child.’
‘Your men were sitting in the window. Did they see Cath Armstrong leave her car?’
‘They say not. Billy’s as blind as a bat and they’re wrapped up in their gossip. Nothing unusual, they said. Everyone going about their business just as normal.’
Venn wondered what that meant. ‘Do you think they’ll still be awake?’
‘Yeah, they were here until they got chucked out and they’ve got a bit of a way to stagger back.’
‘Can you give Joe the drinker a ring and ask him this question?’
Ross listened, nodded, and went to the end of the bar to make the call.
Venn turned to Jen. ‘Has Vicki checked out the Fisherman’s CCTV?’
‘Yes. No sign of the boy. You can see Cath’s car pull in, then the camera view’s blocked by an SUV, which follows her.’
Venn looked up sharply. Now, he was riddled with uncertainty.
That did sound very like the Kinzalows’ hire vehicle.
Perhaps he’d been wrong about them too. Perhaps, like Elaine, they’d decided to stay in North Devon.
If Elaine’s story about Elizabeth’s accident was true, and if the girl had been able to tell them what had really happened, Hannah could have been their target.
It was possible that they wanted the Armstrongs to suffer as they had done, and taking the boy was certainly making the family suffer. ‘Can we see the number plate?’
‘Nah, apparently the angle’s all wrong. Not possible to see if there’s the rental sticker either.’
‘Does anyone get out?’
‘If they do, it’s not caught on the camera. But you can’t see the driver’s door, so someone could have left the vehicle. It was so busy then that they could have been hidden by the crowd in the garden before heading for the pub.’
‘Or gone towards Cath’s vehicle, still masked by the SUV?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Jen understood the implication of the question and looked up, startled. ‘Want me to get Vicki to check CCTV on the roads into Barnstaple? See if the Kinzalows stayed local after all?’
Venn thought again that he could have made a terrible mistake. He nodded.
Ross came back. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was just as you thought.’
Venn relaxed, suddenly certain. He explained his idea to his colleagues, the words coming easily, then he fired out his questions.
No recriminations. No blame. This wasn’t the time.
‘We take it slowly,’ he said. ‘If the boy was going to be harmed, it would already have happened by now. We want no more violence.’