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

have argued all day, but knew it would all be a waste. Ironically, the very circumstances he was denouncing – a street child able to fend for themself – had applied in his last big case less than a month ago. ‘Do you seriously think Sally Jenkins just left her life and she’s still out there? This is why the police did a shoddy job? Because they were open to other scenarios?’

Turner gave a sly grin. ‘No, Bennet. I don’t know that for sure. And that’s entirely my point. Yes, some of my people theorised that Sally had run away, and the police steadfastly refused to believe it. But they also refused to believe that a stranger must have taken that little girl.’

‘Ah, so the police did a shoddy job because they considered the possibility that a local had snatched her? The police explore all avenues, Mr Turner.’

‘Everybody knows everybody here and she would have been spotted if she’d been with one of our own. Or someone would have gossiped. I asked my people, and they said they knew nothing.’

‘Well, a child abductor is hardly going to admit it.’

Turner gave a wry smile, as if his guest had made a childish mistake. He continued without a response to Bennet’s claim. ‘But, just like with the runaway angle, the police ignored this advice. I can assure you, as someone right here at the time, that the police refused to use extra resources to search in other towns and cities, instead focusing on my people. And even Sally’s father, at one point. And when they hit a dead end, they lost interest.’

‘Lost interest. I can assure you that the police don’t just–’

‘Her disappearance didn’t get the nationwide exposure that some of the famous cases do, and doesn’t even today,’ Turner cut in, angry. ‘The police make a half-hearted show of still trying to solve it by sending a low-level detective to ask useless questions once a year or so, but irreparable damage was already done. Time was wasted, evidence lost. Sally has been missing ten years in March. You’re defensive and blind because you’re a police officer.’

Defensive, yes. Blind, no: he knew police investigations were often flawed. But Turner was missing a point and Bennet saw a route back to the reason he was here.

‘Let’s say you’re right, Mr Turner. Bad police, missed opportunities, and now it’s been ten years. People change, loving relationships end, and opinions get altered. There could be information out there now, or someone who’s ready to speak, and new exposure on the case could help bring it out. A TV documentary about the case would bring it back into the limelight. The film crew should have been accepted here like royalty, but I get the impression they weren’t welcome here.’

‘These reporters and film crews who periodically turn up, do you really think they have justice as their primary motivation? It’s money, detective. They turn up here, asking questions that tear open old wounds, and it’s all to sell a product to a public that craves blood-soaked gossip, creates celebrities out of criminals, and wants to experience outrage that can be shut off by the flick of a TV power button. None of my people are willing to cater to those who sell the trauma of others, especially not a group of amateur film-makers who don’t have the clout or the skills of the police. Ignoring these people was the correct thing to do.’

That reminded Bennet of Sally’s mother’s words along the same line. He’d been here too long and wanted to wrap this conversation up, go home, and forget this place… but a bug had him and he couldn’t shake it. ‘Sally is the Scottish King, isn’t she?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Your people are like actors who refuse to speak the name Macbeth outside of the script, out of fear of getting cursed, and instead use the title the Scottish King. In Lampton, Sally is known as the missing girl, and speaking of her will bring disaster. If someone slips up, do you send them out into the fields to perform a cleansing ritual?’

Turner laughed, but there was loathing in his eyes. Then he got serious. ‘If you hit a brick wall with your questioning about this subject, it’s because people think poor Sally’s mother should be left alone and not hounded. Sally’s father ran away because he couldn’t take the heat, leaving Anika all alone. It’s because we care more for her well-being than the curiosity of morbid tourists and the bank balances of slimeball journalists.’

Bennet leaned forward, his face just inches from Turner’s. ‘Sally’s mother wants to shout about her daughter from the rooftops. She wants to celebrate Sally’s birthday, and plant a tree, and probably talk about her in shops, and she wants people to reminisce about her daughter. It would help her accept her loss. But she couldn’t do those things, could she?’

Uncomfortable with Bennet’s proximity, Turner shifted further down the sofa and folded his arms. ‘Each and every armchair detective who comes here thinks they can solve the case and the word murderer is always bandied around. There is no murderer, Mr Bennet, I can promise you that. Yet every time that word is mentioned on TV or in a paper or in a shop by someone in this village, it fortifies the horrible notion that Sally will never return. And Sally’s mother shouldn’t be allowed to think her daughter is dead. She should believe there’s every chance of Sally’s return alive and well, and not upset herself by talking about death and planting silly trees to commemorate Sally’s life. That is why my people will not talk about poor Sally, for it turns her into water-cooler gossip, as if she is nothing more than a soap opera twist.’

There was all sorts in that statement Bennet could have leaped upon. He chose: ‘Shouldn’t be allowed? She believes her daughter’s dead, and I happen to agree. But everyone here