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

slammed closed, Liam got a glance inside, and he saw the ragged armchair where the old lady had been sitting. Empty. On the floor beside it was what looked like a grey wig.

Crabtree grabbed his coat off a hook on the wall and punched into it, but after that didn’t move. The two men faced each other in the cramped hallway, two feet apart, each with their back to a door. Crabtree looked nervous, but Liam knew it wasn’t because of their proximity. Bennet heard the car start up and make a sharp escape.

‘I think I remember you,’ Crabtree said. ‘You used to date a woman that lived here.’

Crabtree remembered him from a decade ago? Or he’d heard the gossip that a nosey Loper policeman was asking questions? ‘I’m looking for some people and I need information.’

Crabtree suddenly squeezed past him and opened the front door. Bennet thought he was about to be ejected, but instead Crabtree walked outside. The car was gone, but Bennet could hear it off in the distance. It wasn’t lost on him that Crabtree had dragged him inside so he wouldn’t see the escaping woman, then back outside so he didn’t get to see the living space.

‘You deal with vandalism?’ Crabtree asked. ‘I got some for you.’

‘I’m not here about vandalism. There was a four-person film crew staying in Lampton on Sunday. They left the same night. Tell me what you know about them.’

It wasn’t a question. Bennet had no doubt Crabtree had heard about the crew: he knew of Bennet’s visit from someone. Crabtree lit a half-smoked thin cigar that Liam hadn’t noticed behind the man’s ear because of thick, curly, grey hair. One such was stuck to the chewed filtered end.

‘I know they’re destructive bastards. It means you’re here about vandalism after all. Let’s go.’

Crabtree left the porch and stopped on the dried mud, waiting for Bennet. ‘Vandalism?’ Bennet said. ‘Are you telling me the film crew destroyed some of your property? Where?’

‘My ranch, my wife’s beautiful ranch,’ Crabtree spat. He stamped the ground in anger. ‘They smashed it up for no damn reason. But now you’re here, you’re going to fix these bastards for me.’ He pulled something from his pocket, and waved it, and then threw it on the ground and stamped on that too.

Bennet stepped off the porch and plucked it out of the mud. His heart skipped a beat.

It was a business card. Black with white text and a picture of a video camera. Along the top was a clapperboard image. There was an email address and website. And a name.

Francis Overeem, specialist in direction, production, casting and editing.

‘Did the film crew give you this?’ It seemed strange that Overeem would hand over his details when so much effort had been made to hide his reason for being in Lampton.

‘Sure did. Which makes them idiots for trashing my ranch, doesn’t it? Come on, I’ll show you.’

26

Francis Overeem’s website was a dot org blog, black background with white writing, heavy on the eyes. Top of the main page was a photo of the man himself standing beside a white motorhome in a field, grinning for the lens. A mini-biography beneath the photo said he had become a doctorandus at twenty-five, before a diagnosis of ME forced him to abandon a medical career. Then a chance encounter with a world-famous 1st AD – whatever that was – changed his fate; spin forward a few years and Overeem was now a director himself, with a popular YouTube channel, and a host of music videos under his belt.

The blog was a list of once-weekly links, posted every Thursday, so Bennet clicked the latest, from six days ago. It was a half-page paragraph of Overeem talking about his Weinsberg CaraHome, which was fixed now he had new high tension leads and a new exhaust pipe, and he was ready to roll. Missing or Murdered? would wrap filming in a few days in the glorious Peak District.

So, that was the name of the documentary he was shooting in sunny Lampton. The blog contained three pictures of the motorhome, its fresh parts, and a new piece of camera equipment he’d bought on eBay.

In the previous blog entry, one Thursday back, Francis discussed how his training was going for something called the Arrow Climb. A picture showed him scaling a tree half-naked. Missing or Murdered? had acquired some chap Bennet had never heard of, but he was an award-winning soundtrack composer. The film was on schedule for its March 6 posting to Dark Saint to mark the tenth anniversary of Sally Jenkins’ disappearance.

Liam googled Dark Saint. It was a YouTube channel covering true crime cases. There were five films posted over the last three years, each forty-five minutes long, or the length of a one-hour TV show with advert breaks. This, then, was where Overeem’s Lampton tale would wind up. Hardly prime-time TV, but each video had over a quarter of a million views and that wasn’t to be sniffed at.

Bennet clicked on the latest entry, called Don’t Believe Her. It was about the sister of a missing man accusing his wife of murder. Not a case that Bennet recalled making serious headlines, but the sound, narration, music and cinematography looked pretty professional. He wondered about the earnings of someone whose channel got a quarter of a million views every four months or so.

‘Are you coming or what?’

Bennet looked up from his phone. Crabtree was standing nearby, watching, impatient. Bennet had told him to wait while he surfed the internet. Now, he put the business card away.

The CaraHome was a problem. If the crew had a motorhome, why did they need Crabtree’s ranch? If they had the ranch, why had Overeem rented a room at the Panorama? If Overeem planned to stay at a hotel, away from his crew for whatever reason, why had he checked in with only a camera bag and a file folder?

‘Hey, are you awake?’

‘Watch your mouth,’ Bennet snapped at the farmer.

‘Well