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

village, he was hardly going to bring her out and say, hey, look what I found in my shed. But saying such a thing wouldn’t keep the people sweet, so we went with trying to convince them that our searchers would do a better job. This meant we didn’t just jump at their insistence we go search other towns and villages, and you want to know their response to that?’

‘Mass protest in the streets?’

‘Not far off. Turner complained to the media. They already had the story and they had people in the village, and he spoke to them. He accused the police of laziness and not accepting help from the locals.’

‘Because you wouldn’t effectively let him dictate how you did your job?’

‘Yes. And you know how it is with the media, detective. They give you heart-shaped eyes that turn to daggers.’

Different police teams had other terms to describe this, but Bennet knew what the former detective was saying. At the start of a serious investigation, the police were given space and time to work the clues, gather the evidence, and arrest a suspect. In that honeymoon period, they got left alone to work. But a couple of days or a week or so in, the tone would change. The public and the media would get impatient and demand answers, and the police would come under fire, accused of failure. A man with Turner’s clout could stoke this fire into an inferno with ease.

‘I know what you mean, Mr Ford. Turner’s a man who craves complete control and if you don’t heed his counsel, you’re wrong. Did it ever seem as if he was trying to deflect attention away from himself? Did you look into him as a suspect?’

‘Of course. We were interested in him briefly because Sally used to spend time on his land, riding horses. But he had a cast-iron alibi. He was at a function some miles away until close to ten o’clock. Thirty people there. They were all cleared. We tracked his phone. It went from the function to his home and stayed there all night. He was very consoling and helpful to the mother. I think he paid for the funeral. But he also had an affair with her within weeks of the disappearance. Apparently he bought her a dress for press conferences, but she wore it out to dinner with him about ten days after, so who knows his real reason.’

‘The dress, yes, but I didn’t know about the affair. And you looked into the family? I know the parents drifted apart soon after.’

‘I was about to say that. Yes, yes, we checked out all the family too. Always the first port of call. Only a mother and father anywhere close. They alibied each other because they were at home, but Turner was on their side and wouldn’t let a bad word be said. The husband soon left her though. And the thing with the husband wasn’t about drifting apart. A couple of years before, he’d been investigated by the Child Protection Service – a neighbour claimed to have witnessed him physically abusing Sally one day.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘It was. But the CPS investigation found nothing. However, we still had to question him, and we had dogs search their house for human remains. Again, nothing, but shit sticks. Some believed him to be dodgy – why didn’t he pick his own daughter up from the club? The old abuse charge and our early interest in him and all the gossiping became too much. So he left the area. But that just raised more eyebrows, although it soon became the local opinion that he wasn’t a likely suspect in the abduction. The police never had him as a person of interest, but he was never wholeheartedly ruled out, either. Apparently he’s doing okay now, new family, new job, new life. Tabs were kept on him for a couple of years after, but nothing in his behaviour since he went to Germany raised any flags.’

‘You keep using the word “abduction”. Was this not upgraded to a murder enquiry?’

‘We upgraded the scope of the investigation within a couple of days of Sally’s disappearance, and treated it much like a homicide enquiry. Less emphasis on where she might have gone, more on who might have snatched and killed her. But we were basically told by higher-ups not to make it official. So it stayed a missing person’s enquiry. Months later we were still getting reports of sightings of her all over the country, and we had to follow them up even though we doubted they were credible. Anytime anyone talked about murder, there was a complaint, so today Sally Jenkins is still a missing person.’

‘Turner again?’

‘Everyone. But he runs things behind the scenes. You and I and know Sally is likely dead, but saying it out loud would get a lashing. So I wouldn’t go around talking about murder. That film crew should be careful, too, or everyone will clam up.’

‘I’ve learned that. And I think the film crew knew they’d get the cold shoulder. It looks like they came in on the quiet to do their shooting, possibly under the guise of simple tourists, and didn’t try to ask too many questions. Not sure they even spoke to people about that missing girl.’

‘From the very outset, the village didn’t welcome the publicity. The police and journalists were all over the village, but all for the wrong reasons. Journalists took all the hotels for the first few days, but even the extra money coming into the village annoyed the locals. Their cars were parked all over the place. But even after a few days, when we didn’t find a body or arrest anyone and the story lost momentum and the reporters left, the village went through a change. The dark cloud over the village forced people out. Local businessmen with the ability to up and move did so. Some business enterprises cancelled. People sold homes and shops and left. Nobody wanted