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

far more often than Bennet had realised. In one letter Joe mentioned that a friend had suggested his mother had left the family home in order to pursue a career of greatness, something Joe was keen to believe. He wrote of how ‘amazed’ he was by her commitment to ‘saving the world’ and his eagerness to welcome her back once her ‘mission’ was completed. It tugged at Bennet’s heart to be reminded of how innocent and naïve and fanciful a ten-year-old could be. A major source of his constant tension the last two days had been his inability to come down on one side of the fence, but no more. All anxiety dumped out of him as if a trapdoor had opened. He’d chosen a side, finally.

Sitting at Joe’s sticker-covered desk, he called a detective constable named Hooper. The young man had stalled his career with a number of errors during a double murder investigation a month ago, but since then had redeemed himself with long hours and dedication. The kid had promised Bennet he would be available for anything, anytime, and had since never failed to accept an out-of-hours task.

‘Hooper, I need a favour. There was a missing person’s case in March 2010, at a village called Lampton, up in the Peak District. A young girl. Get onto Derbyshire Constabulary and see what they can give us from the files. All of it, if you can. See if there’s anyone connected to the investigation who will agree to be interviewed. For a TV documentary.’

‘TV? Is this about the Buttery case?’

‘No. Don’t ask. But make sure you stress that this is a personal query. I’ll explain later. Email me whatever you get. Don’t tell any of our team about this until I say it’s time. Thanks.’

Hooper didn’t need to know any more. After the call, Bennet opened Messenger, ticked Lorraine’s name, and this time there were no nerves when he wrote his message.

You win. I’ll do it. I can get you the police files you need, and there’s a chance I can get you an interview with one of the detectives who ran the investigation. I’ll help your documentary. But you have to do something for me. No, not for me. For Joe. He’s your son and I want you to meet with him, even if you don’t care for it. He misses you and he deserves better than this.

10

If he’d been relegated to house clothes and a day indoors, Bennet might not have made the decision. But his boss decided things with a strange phone call that Tuesday morning, although Bennet didn’t know it at first.

Superintendent Hunter launched with, ‘The Buttery Park victim’s parents just called the station. They’ve heard that we had a suspect and released him, and they’re not happy. They’ve threatened to turn up at the station this morning, with a reporter. I know it’s your day off, but any chance you could come in? Andrea’s at the hospital.’

Andrea, the family liaison officer assigned to the Turtons, had blood tests scheduled for today, Bennet remembered. ‘To talk to them? Did they give a time?’

‘Well, no, it’s just a threat. But it would be great to have you here just in case. Just hang around the station. That pool table is still in the rec room, right?’

‘No. That got bust months ago.’ Actually, Hunter had donated it to a charity shop after banging footsteps and laughter – the rec room was above his office – had interrupted a meeting between him and a caseworker from the commissioner’s office. ‘You want me to hang around the station all day on the off-chance that the parents will come in?’

‘It’s just to appease them. I don’t think they’d like being fobbed off with someone who doesn’t have all the answers. Free food at the canteen. Watch TV. I’d take that deal. And we’ll call it overtime. I need this, Liam. Help out a friend.’

Bennet was the Buttery Park stabbing’s senior investigating officer, but he didn’t have all the answers, either. But, Andrea aside, his was the face the parents knew best, even though on the three occasions he’d met them, it had been as the bearer of inert news.

So, there he was, dressed, in his car, with the world available to him, and that was when he made the decision. That morning he’d woken to find that the message he’d sent Lorraine still didn’t display the telltale tick indicating it had been read. Sometimes Facebook hid messages from a user if their algorithms figured the recipient didn’t know the sender, so Lorraine might not even know Bennet had contacted her. Or she’d blocked him. Or she simply hadn’t opened Messenger. Whatever the reason, her lack of reply gave him that itchy craving to act, to work, to… do something.

With the bitter taste of Joe’s letters to his mother still forefront in his mind, he didn’t make a right turn out of his driveway, for the station. Instead, he spun the wheel left, for the motorway, and hoped he wasn’t about to make a big mistake.

11

10 must-visit Peak District villages.

4: Lampton in the Peak District is a postcard-worthy tiny community, once a milling epicentre, with maze-like streets of stone-wall cottages and an enclosed village centre. In 1924, some forty years after the first freedom to roam bill was presented to Parliament and vetoed, moorland around Lampton was the scene of a mass protest by ramblers determined not to be denied by landowners. You can find Lampton, where a nomad planted a lamp and built a town, by turning north onto Benders Road off the A6 just west of Bakewell and following the signs (page 84).

The closest major road to Lampton was the A6 near its south border, but there was no entry from the south for vehicles, so Benders Road hooked around the village on the east side and speared it from the north. Unmentioned in official guidebooks was a much shorter route: a private farm track beginning