Cold Blood by Jane Heafield (great books to read txt) 📕

chat was over. Liam considered hauling his warrant card, which always had the ability to loosen tongues, but figured Jonesy was the sort who’d definitely make a complaint. Informing this guy he was a policeman wasn’t morally incorrect, but giving the impression he was on official business was another matter. There was a code of ethics to think about. He hated that he’d even considered such action. He left the wallet in his pocket and aimed for the door.

‘Hey,’ Jonesy called. In the doorway, Liam turned to him. ‘Your turn. So why do the police want them? Rob a bank or something?’

‘Or something,’ Liam said as he stepped out.

14

As Bennet approached the alleyway between the pub and the bank, a man exited it right into his path.

‘My apologies,’ the man said as he moved past. Liam turned to watch him go. He was tall, lithe, grey-haired and handsome in a Paul Newman sort of way, and Bennet recognised him. Richard Turner, father of the mechanic in the sandwich shop. Parish councillor and veterinary surgeon, with a thriving practice on the outskirts of the village. And cake-dome fan. Way back, it had been widely known that the eligible bachelor slept with married women from the village and, like his son’s troublemaking, it was something nobody complained about, not even slighted husbands. Ten years ago, the councillor had had a deity-like standing in the village and he reeked of it today.

Lorraine hadn’t much liked Turner because of his sexual conquests, but Bennet hadn’t cared about that. In fact, he’d respected the man because he was a single father, little knowing he’d become one himself soon afterwards. Now, the feeling was much the same. Lucas Turner had grown into a worthwhile adult, it seemed; Bennet only had hope his own son would prosper.

As he walked away, Turner cast his eyes back at Liam, but quickly averted his gaze upon realising he was being watched. Liam shook his head – what, did Lopers have a certain smell or something? He couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

Back in the secret car park, Bennet sat in his car and wondered what to do. He checked Messenger, but Lorraine still hadn’t viewed his message. If the film crew had been and gone, she’d clearly not needed his input for their documentary. Maybe they’d wrangled someone else’s help in getting police files on the missing girl.

He’d entertained the possibility that Lorraine’s access to Facebook and Messenger was via desktop rather than mobile: she hadn’t posted a thing on the social media site since Saturday, so maybe she was unable to while away from home. Now, he found a more worrying idea take the helm. Perhaps there was a way to view Messenger messages without the software acknowledging it, and she’d read his cruel words and something had changed. He’d threatened that his help came at a price: see her son. Had she decided that was a price not worth paying and now wouldn’t ever contact him again?

Having to bribe Joe’s own mother to see him. What a damn joke. And if she had gotten the files, she no longer needed him and he had nothing to bargain with. All he could do was wait for her to call, if she ever would. Meantime, he was far from home for no reason and facing an awkward chat with his son.

He started driving, hoping to be home, feet up, within the hour. But at the end of the track through the Crabtrees’ field, he didn’t make a right turn on Benders Road, for the A6 and home. Instead, he spun the wheel left, for the main road into Lampton’s northern end, and hoped he wasn’t about to make a big mistake.

15

At the junction of Benders Road and Main Street, which ran all the way into Lampton’s Well, there was what looked like a Guy Fawkes effigy by the village noticeboard. A sign on the effigy told Liam he’d missed the Lampton Scarecrow Festival by five days. He’d live. He turned left, towards the village.

Although Main Street led nowhere but the Well and dead-ended there, a sign pointed the way ahead. Just before a run of four modern, red-brick homes with a side street splitting them was a medium-sized Tesco on the right with a Shell garage next door and the Porsche showroom facing both across a wide road of smooth, bright tarmac, all of it indicative of an urban town instead of a remote village. Only beyond the final two houses did the effect change.

Here, the road thinned and its condition worsened, the houses aged and grew further apart, interspersed with small shops, and became a mix of taller and shorter, cheaper and affluent. A hundred metres later was the main residential area and here the land sank on both sides as the road coursed along the spine of a hill, with side streets slipping down like ribs. Once past the final two side streets, the main road veered downwards at a slight curve towards the Well. The view from this spine road, through breaks in the buildings, was breathtaking, and probably the cause of many a vehicular accident.

The Pandora was ahead on his left. It was a timber-framed, three-storey, converted clergy house set back from the road behind its car park. At one time, back before the church had sold it, the house had sat in lush gardens, but in the sixties the new owner had widened the track into what was now Main Street, and built many of the houses along it. Out front, the only remnant of those gardens was a small walled lawn with a fountain dead centre of the cark park. That was as much as Liam knew about the place, despite having lived in Lampton for a year. A lady called Gemma had managed the hotel way back, but if the sandwich shop was anything to go by, she was long gone.

So was the name, or he’d remembered it wrong.