Page 68 of The Girl in the Woods

‘Maybe around the village?’ Ana smiled.

‘Yeah, maybe.’

The door opened, and a man in grubby overalls strolled in. ‘Afternoon,’ he said, taking in their uniforms. ‘Something wrong?’

He glanced over at Needles.

‘Richie Benson?’ asked Ana.

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said gruffly. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘We’re enquiring about a Golf, reg beginning with an S,’ said Matt. ‘Possibly involved in an accident on the 14th of April.’

‘Driver most likely a woman,’ added Ana, but already she had seen his face blanch. He knew something.

‘Would be in the ledger,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ said Ana, smiling. ‘So you didn’t repair a Golf in April?’

His brown, beady eyes met hers. ‘Like I said, it would be in the ledger.’

‘Nothing in there,’ piped up Needles.

‘What about a change of ownership?’ persisted Ana. ‘You wouldn’t keep those in a ledger, would you?’

Benson gave her a dirty look. ‘We keep those in the filing cabinet, but everything in there would be logged in the ledger.’

Ana was getting irritated. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t mind checking the filing cabinet for us?’

Benson looked put out. ‘Right,’ he said, walking towards the back office. Ana and Matt followed. ‘It’s all alphabetical. You’re welcome to check.’

Ana did precisely that while Benson patiently waited.

‘No, nothing.’

‘Thanks for your help,’ said Matt.’

They returned to the panda and Ana said, ‘He knows something, but the question is what?’

Back at the station, she pulled the note she’d made of the registration and phoned DVLA.

‘Doughnuts or custard tarts?’ Matt asked. ‘I’m off to get some.’

‘Custard tarts. Lots. I’m on hold, and this crackly repetitive music is driving me to slash my wrists.’

‘Hello,’ said the DVLA woman. ‘I have those details for you. That car was scrapped in June of this year.’

‘Who was the owner?’ asked Ana.

‘Hold on,’ said the woman.

Ana was about to turn to Matt when the woman said, ‘Miss Beth Harper, address–’ Ana didn’t hear the rest. Instead, she vaguely heard herself saying yes to a Costa Coffee to Matt and then felt her head swim.

‘Bet you’ll still steal a doughnut,’ Matt was saying.

It didn’t mean it was the same car that had hit Vanessa. Loads of people drive a Golf, Ana argued with herself. All the same, it was the same year, the same area, and there was this rumour that Beth had been drinking a lot the past few months, supposing, just supposing…

She forced herself not to lift her head and look across at Beth’s office. It would explain a lot. The sudden piece of evidence she was sure she hadn’t missed that said the Bladon CCTV camera wasn’t working that night. What if Beth had removed incriminating evidence and added the evidence that said the Bladon CCTV wasn’t working? Christ, thought Ana, am I working for a bent cop?

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