and out of curiosity he had visited the sites they were promoting. He had been absolutely amazed at what he had found. Amazed and guiltily fascinated. There had never been anything like that in the house at Cargreave, certainly not when Mum was alive.
‘If a TV programme got a bit saucy, we had to switch it off,’ he said.
Then Owen learned how to download images on to his hard drive. He had found that he was spending more and more time on the net, surfing from site to site. He realized he was becoming addicted, but he couldn’t stop. He had missed parish council meetings for the first time, and people in Cargreave had thought he must be ill. He had been spending entire evenings on the internet, forgetting to eat, staying up into the early hours of the morning.
DCI Tailby nodded at that. The police team had found Owen’s latest phone bill - it showed three hundred hours of calls to an 0845 number.
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Owen said he had given his address several times when asked to register for free access to new sites. Then he had suddenly found that he was in contact with other people around the world, people he had never heard of, who sent him e-mail messages. He was delighted that they addressed him as if he were an old friend. They seemed to regard him as someone with the same interests. He had become part of their community.
When Mark Roper had been sent home and Owen Fox had been allowed a break, Diane Fry found DI Hitchens already in the DCI’s office. They watched her warily when she produced a report sheet from the folder she carried.
‘Yes, Fry? What have you got there?’
‘This is the latest surveillance report on Ringham Edge Farm.’
‘Have we still got that surveillance on?’
‘We have. This is the report from last night.’ ‘Riveting stuff, is it?’ said Hitchens.
‘Well, judge for yourself. On Friday, the two boys left for school at the usual time in the morning. Their father saw them off. After that, Warren Leach went about his normal work on the farm, as far as could be ascertained by the officers on surveillance duty. Their reports are a bit lacking in technical detail, but some of Leach’s observed activities did involve cows and a tractor, so I suppose we have to take it on trust.’
Tailby didn’t seem interested. ‘We could get Ben Cooper to de-brief them, I suppose. He might spot some anomalies, if you think it’s worthwhile.’
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‘Maybe. The report goes on to say that the only visitors to the farm were the postman and the milk tanker driver, both early in the morning. That was it until the boys came home from school, when they were dropped at the bottom of the lane by the school bus. There was nobody at all for seven hours, apart from Leach. Not even a feed sales rep. It must be a pretty quiet life at Ringham Edge.’
‘It sounds idyllic to me at this moment.’
‘I’d call it downright tedious,’ said Hitchens. ‘Saturday was even worse. The tanker driver came as usual, but not the postman. There was no school for the boys.’
‘We can’t justify continuing surveillance on the basis of that sort of report. Call the team off, Paul.’
‘There is one thing, though,’ said Fry. ‘Yes?’
‘DC Gardner was the last officer on surveillance duty. She has added a note on the report at the end of her shift yesterday.’
‘What did she see?’
‘It’s more a question of what she didn’t see.’
Tailby began to get irritated. ‘Don’t play Sherlock Holmes with me, Fry. That’s my role.’
‘Sorry, sir. Gardner says that she understood there were two adults and two children resident at Ringham Edge. She observed the movements of the boys and their father, but not their mother. She never saw any sign of the mother at all, on either of her shifts. DC Gardner queries the whereabouts of Mrs Yvonne Leach.’ Tailby sat up straight. ‘Damn.’
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‘Do you think it might be important?’ said Hitchens. ‘It’s something we’ve overlooked. Check the rest of
the surveillance reports, Paul. But I’m pretty sure that you’ll find she was never mentioned. Not in any of them. But nobody thought that was in the least remarkable, did they? Not until Toni Gardner.’
‘The others probably assumed Mrs Leach was slaving over the kitchen sink or something,’ said Fry.
‘Idiots.’ ‘If she was there, she would have seen the boys off to school in the morning, at least. In fact, she would probably have walked them down the lane to the bus. There’s a killer about somewhere, after all. Any mother would do that. If she was there.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Fry. Let’s establish when she was last seen. We’ve all been going up and down that lane for a week, right past the gate. Somebody must have seen her.’
‘Can I take Ben Cooper with me?’ asked Fry.
Tailby nodded. ‘Good idea. Keep his head down and his mind focused.’ He looked at Hitchens. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Paul.’
‘There’s probably an innocent explanation. She may have gone away to stay with a relative or something for a while. She may be ill in bed. There’s a bit of flu about, they reckon.’
‘I’ve still got a bad feeling. Everything about this case gives me a bad feeling.’
When they finally let Mark Roper leave, he knew exactly where he had to go. Though Owen had said the local
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farmers were important, and that Rangers had a good relationship with them, Ringham Edge was one farm where Mark could see it wasn’t true. Warren Leach reminded him of the man his mother lived with, his so-called stepfather - a man who needed everyone to be submissive to his will to be at ease with himself.
Leach regarded the Ranger with unconcealed hostility when Mark found him in the tractor shed.
‘Well, if it isn’t Ranger Junior. What do you want?’ Mark tried to recall Owen’s advice about dealing with aggressive reactions. Sometimes you had to turn the other cheek, he said, to ignore rudeness and provocation. He
