‘I’ll send someone to bring in the friend, Helena Reed, shall I?’
‘Yup. I’ll go and talk to the parents. Urgh, this is the bit I hate – they’ll be frantic. Then I’m meeting Fergus in the press office. We’ll probably do a short briefing at 11 a.m., just me and the agencies and locals. Got to get those photos of the girl out and an initial appeal. We need to look at her bank activity. Can you start someone on that?’
Manon and Davy slip into interview room one, where Sir Ian is pacing in a navy wool coat.
‘So, hang on a minute, you’re saying there isn’t a DCI on duty to run the search for my daughter?’ He has an imperious face, straight nose, pale eyes and thin lips. Charles Dance without the ginger colouring.
‘DC Walker and DS Bradshaw enter the room,’ says Harriet to the recording device. ‘It’s quite normal, Sir Ian, for a DI to run a case such as this. If you’d like to sit down, there are a number of things we’d like to ask you.’
‘What I want to know first is who is conducting the search. Who is actually out there in the snow, searching for her, because if she’s injured—’
Lady Hind, who sits at the table opposite Harriet, takes his hand and holds it to her cheek, then kisses the back of it and this seems to give him pause. Her hair is grey, in a straight bob, with a beautiful streak of white framing her face. Her coat hangs expensively, her fingers glinting with diamonds.
‘Sit down, darling,’ she says, her voice quavering with suppressed tears. ‘We must help them in any way we can.’
Sir Ian takes up a chair next to his wife.
‘Thank you,’ says Harriet. ‘Edith’s phone shows a few missed calls from you over the course of the weekend, Sir Ian. Were you having trouble reaching her?’
‘We always have trouble reaching her, don’t we?’ he says to Lady Hind. ‘She’s terrible at calling back. So we call, and we call.’ At this he gives Harriet a strained smile. ‘We were anxious to know her plans for Christmas, weren’t we, darling?’
‘She hadn’t told you her plans for Christmas?’ Manon asks, directing the question at Lady Hind.
‘Edith’s fond of prevaricating. She can be … non-committal, would you say, Ian? With us, anyway. We’d agreed she and Will would spend Christmas with us in London and then she’d said, “You never know”, or something to that effect.’
‘You never know what?’ asks Manon.
‘I took it to mean she couldn’t be certain Will would join us.’
‘So there was trouble between them?’ Harriet says.
‘No, not trouble,’ says Lady Hind. ‘Ambivalence, I’d say. They’re only twenty-four, after all. They’re not married.’
‘And this ambivalence,’ says Harriet, ‘would you say it was more on her part than his?’
‘Yes,’ says Lady Hind.
‘Has there been any violence between them – heated rows, say? Would Edith have reason to be fearful of Mr Carter?’
‘No, no, no,’ says Sir Ian. ‘It’s not like that. It’s ordinary stuff. Will is a marvellous fellow, devoted to Edie.’
‘But if he sensed her feelings were cooling, perhaps—’
‘Detective, we are not that sort of family. I’m sure you deal all the time with people whose lives are chaotic, who drink and brawl and abuse one another. But none of us – these things are not part of our lives, our experience. I’d be very surprised if Will is involved in this.’
‘Right,’ says Harriet. ‘Can you think of anyone who would want to harm Edith?’
The Hinds look at each other, their expressions bewildered. ‘No, we really can’t,’ says Lady Hind. ‘Can you tell me, how do you … Please, you have to find her, I can’t … The thought of her lost, you see …’ Her eyes brim as she looks at the officers, one to the other.
‘I’ll explain how we go forward from here,’ says Manon. ‘Search teams will work in concentric circles out from the house and, at the same time, we’ll be building a picture of Edith, working outwards from her most intimate circle – yourselves, Will Carter, Helena Reed. We’ll look at all aspects of her life, based on what you tell us, her phone, computer, bank cards. So it’s important you leave nothing out.’
‘She doesn’t have any bank cards,’ says Sir Ian. ‘She feels the whole banking industry is corrupt. According to Edie, if none of us used banks, then the whole global economic collapse wouldn’t have happened. It’s not a view I share, but she holds these beliefs very strongly. If she could pay everyone in muddy vegetables and repaired bicycle tyres, she would, but her landlord wouldn’t have it.’
‘OK, so how does she live? Where does her income come from?’ asks Harriet.