Free Crying Out Loud by Cath Staincliffe Page A

know,’ he said.
    â€˜I could be there by one,’ I pressed on. ‘It’s been a terrible shock for her and she really appreciated how you kept her informed during the enquiry. You could help me set her mind at ease.’ What’s a little emotional blackmail between investigators?
    â€˜I’ll need to be done by two,’ he said flatly. ‘And you’ll have to park in the pub car park on Crown Street.’
    Result!
    I left Jamie in Abi’s care and made the trip out along the A6 through the suburbs beyond Stockport. The road narrows frequently and is choked with traffic. It got easier once I forked left and climbed up past Lyme Park, scene of the famous white shirt fandango with Mr Darcy in a television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice . If you didn’t see it think hunk with smouldering eyes and a manly chest drenched in wet white cotton. On through Disley and from there the road clung to the hillside as the valleys opened out and the peaks came into view. New Mills is famous for its textile mills and sweet factory (Swizzles, home to Refreshers, Love Hearts and Drumstick lollies) and, more recently, renowned for the innovative hydroelectricity scheme sited on an old weir.
    Geoff Sinclair looked like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings movies – well, a middle-aged version. Bald-headed with wide cheekbones, big ears and a long, scrawny neck, bulbous startling blue eyes and rubberiness to his lips. Large hands with spidery fingers. Unlike the ghostly creature in the films, his complexion was sallow, yellow. It was hard to tell his age: his face was wrinkled but I’d have guessed fifties rather than sixties. Police can retire after twenty-five or thirty years on a pension, so if he had joined up as a young man he may only have been fifty or so now.
    We didn’t shake hands but he invited me in with a nod of the head. His cottage was on the outskirts of town and the living room had a broad window running across the main wall at the back, facing out on to the hills and the valley below. Nature in wide-screen. It was another breezy day and a stand of hawthorns to the left of Sinclair’s garden, bent low to the hill, shivered in the wind.
    â€˜Would you like a brew?’ he offered. ‘There’s a pot just made.’
    I thanked him and he disappeared into the kitchen while I sat and drank in the view. As the hills rose from the valley floor, I could see where farmland gave way to the moors, the green and tawny pastures replaced by dark splashes of peat bog, swathes of purple heather and orange-coloured bracken. I made out the hulk of Kinder Scout, the area’s highest peak: a gritstone plateau, a sometimes wild and treacherous place to walk. Clouds like boulders, dense and rounded, swept over the mountain. It’d be a punishing commute to work in Manchester from here but maybe the trade-off was worth it.
    The tea came, hot and strong, bitter on the tongue. Just the way I like it. Aware that my time was limited, I began by showing him Chloe’s letter. He read it and snorted, a plosive ‘pah’ from his lips.
    â€˜I went to see her, then I visited Damien,’ I told him.
    â€˜He still in Strangeways?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜So, what’s his story?’ he sounded deeply suspicious as he lifted his mug.
    â€˜Garbled, to say the least. He says Charlie was already dead when he entered the cottage. He claims he confessed because he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms and it was the easiest way to end the interview and get some medical attention.’
    â€˜He entered a guilty plea,’ Sinclair said deliberately. He blew on his tea and took a sip.
    â€˜Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but then he told his sister he’d made it up.’
    â€˜He’s mucking you about,’ he said.
    â€˜Maybe. But if you set aside the confession and his presence at the scene, what other evidence did you have? You didn’t have the