Free Devil's Game by Patricia Hall Page B

up to a dozen vehicles, including the forestry workers’ heavy tractor and trailer, plus it’s been raining heavily, so they’re unlikely to get any usable tyre tracks. Are you sure it was wise to keep the lid on the dogging angle? We might get something from the other people who must have been up there if they realise that someone has gone missing after their fun and games.’
    ‘Fat chance,’ Thackeray said. ‘If they went to all the trouble of meeting in a remote spot like that you can bet your lifenone of their partners know what they’ve been up to. Even leaving murder out of the equation, there won’t be many of them volunteering for an interview with the police.’
    ‘But we’ll have to trace them,’ Mower said. ‘If the husband’s the prime suspect, as usual, that group must provide the rest of the cast. Do you want me to start inquiries door to door up there? Or farm to farm in this case, I guess. It’s not exactly inhabited, in any real sense of the word, is it?’ For all his years in Yorkshire, Mower still had the mindset of a Londoner unable to grasp with any certainty the concept of wide open spaces, like those that surrounded the town of Bradfield, hemmed in by rolling hills and moors.
    ‘Give it twenty-four hours,’ Thackeray said. ‘By that time, we may have found her body, or she may have called in to say she’s run off with the milkman, or whoever.’
    ‘I suppose the car details may jog someone’s memory,’ Mower said. ‘Someone may have seen her driving up there. Or they may nudge the conscience of someone who was up in the forest with her. People are pretty shameless about sex these days, but I think death at a dogging party’s a bit over the top for your average swinger.’
    Thackeray glanced at the sergeant with a hint of amusement in his eyes.
    ‘I didn’t think anything shocked you, Kevin,’ he said.
    ‘You’d be surprised, guv,’ Mower said. ‘Though I suppose this could still turn out to be a missing person; a bit of extramarital that’s run into extra time. Let’s hope so.’
    ‘Let’s,’ Thackeray said.
    But within hours of the decision to wait for a public reaction to Bastable’s appeal, Thackeray and Mower found themselves driving once more to Bently Forest, summoned bythe search team which was slowly combing through the plantation from its western edge, near the summit of Bently Pike, one of the high fells that separated Yorkshire from Lancashire, to the valley floor, where Bently Beck tumbled down from the hills to join the River Maze.
    ‘You’ve found her?’ Mower had said, not able to hide a momentary excitement when he fielded the call from the uniformed inspector in charge of the search.
    ‘No,’ his colleague said. ‘But we’ve found summat a bit odd near the clearing. I think you ought to take a look. It looks as if the party had an audience, someone who didn’t want to be seen.’
    Thackeray had decided to make the trip himself, as much to get out of the office as because he thought his presence would be useful. He had spent most of the morning, since Terry Bastable had been sent home, staring out of his office window across Bradfield’s town hall square, where the trees were just beginning to bud, smoking cigarette after cigarette and wondering how he could prevent Laura from tearing herself apart at the state of their relationship. He knew only too well what she wanted, and was equally certain that he could not give it to her.
    ‘Damnation,’ he muttered under his breath suddenly, as Mower swung the car sharply up the hill towards Bently.
    ‘Sorry, guv,’ Mower said, thinking his driving was to blame for his boss’s discomfort. ‘Bit sharp, that turn. Didn’t see it coming.’
    ‘What?’ Thackeray said, sharply. ‘Sorry, I was thinking about something else.’
    Mower shrugged. He was getting used to Thackeray’s abstracted self-absorption, guessed the cause, and worriedabout where it would lead. In some ways, he thought, Laura