‘Afraid not, Robert. I’ve spoken to the woman Tamsin told Kelly she was looking for. Drew a blank. She didn’t do anything to check the car registration number she had from Kelly. I’m sorry. And listen, Robert, if they want to search the farmhouse and your house, don’t be offended. It’s a formality they’ve gorra observe.’
‘They done that already. They wanted to know everywhere she went. Well we din’t know – she used to go running on her days off, to keep fit, up in the hills, everywhere. To keep fit for her job.’
Something choked off in the background suggested Tamsin’s mother had clocked the expression on Robert’s face. Bliss bent his head, his right hand wrapped tightly in the unfastened seat belt. No worse side of the job than this.
‘And I’ll stay very much in touch,’ he said. ‘Anything you think of, please come back to me at any time.’
‘Mr Bliss, my mother would like a word.’
‘Well, I do need to… Of course.’
Bliss squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Inspector Bliss…’
‘Mrs Winterson, can I just assure you—’
Mrs Winterson said, ‘I just wanted… I just need to ask you if you can tell me if she’s… do you know of any actual danger she might be in?’
‘No, I don’t. Not at all. And I… I know it’s daft to say this, but I don’t want you to worry, ’cos we’re gonna find her.’
‘She was very excited to be working with you,’ Mrs Winterson said.
Bliss’s head was hammering.
He said to Annie, ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for gerrin’ you involved in this.’
‘You’ll need to go in and make a report.’
‘I know. But how much is gonna be in it?’
He pulled down the sun visor against the sodium street-lights and told her everything this time, all the details. It took about twenty minutes. Annie sat back, letting down the side window.
‘Not exactly what I wanted to hear,’ Annie said. ‘And there’s hardly time for a considered opinion. But my feeling is that if you went babbling on about an old woman from Hardwicke and… satanic neo-Nazis… well, I know how I’d react.’
‘Yeh. What I thought.’
‘Francis, I’m trying to help. People like Mrs Watkins get paid – albeit a pittance – to listen sympathetically to this kind of drivel. We get paid to lend half an ear on the occasions when someone’s trying to enter a plea of insanity.’
Bliss nodded. Annie started the engine.
‘My feeling is that it would only complicate the search for Winterson by diverting attention and manpower from where they need to be focused.’
‘I’m forced to agree.’
‘There’s no evidence that Winterson’s disappearance is in any way linked to the non-suspicious drowning of a man in his nineties. You should have walked away from that before you did, but I understand why you didn’t. And you obviously shouldn’t be back at work, but that’s a side issue. Right now, someone needs to find Winterson’s car, her phone, her friends, boyfriends. Search her parents’ farm outside and in, and… well, you don’t need me to tell you.’
Bliss nodded. Rich Ford, the uniform inspector, rang.
‘Jesus, Francis, she’s a relation. Well… her dad’s the wife’s cousin, kind of. She couldn’t be hiding something from the family, I suppose? Personal problems?’
‘She could, but I don’t see it, Rich. She’d promised to babysit for her brother, and she struck me as a conscientious kid.’
‘All right,’ Rich said. ‘Let’s not bugger about. You can leave these situations too long. We need to put the troops in. I’m going to have to wake somebody up, talk to headquarters.’
‘I only wish I could think of something more expedient.’
‘This bloody drowning, Francis…’
Bliss took a breath.
‘What that comes down to is that when she was a kid, her and her mates used to make up stories about Rector. He was eccentric, he was known to have an interest in the occult and he knew about herbs and fixing dislocated bones. Tamsin thought the circumstances of his death might be worth a second look. It was her own backyard. Talk to Kelly James, she’ll tell you what she told me. She took down the registration of a car belonging to a woman Tamsin thought might be the last person to see Rector alive. Tamsin said she’d look into it, and that seems to be the last anybody heard from her. I’ve talked to the woman. The woman says she’s never seen her.’
‘And this is a barrister? Has she prosecuted for us?’