Scaring Crows by Priscilla Masters Page A

the next question. ‘Do you think ...?’ Joanna desperately wanted to deny that Ruthie Summers might be lying somewhere in the fields, shot too, but she wasn’t sure the old lady would have believed her.
    Hannah’s fingers seemed to have formed lives of their own, twisting and knotting. ‘Maybe she’s on a holiday.’
    â€˜But you just said—’
    â€˜I know what I said.’ There was something wild in her face. ‘But I can’t think where else ... Unless.’ Her face was unbearably bleak. ‘The Landrover,’ she said. ‘Is it there?’
    â€˜Parked outside.’
    â€˜So she hasn’t gone out in that.’
    â€˜No, Miss Lockley.’ Joanna felt a surge of sympathy for her. ‘At the moment Ruthie Summers is officially classed as a missing person. If you can think of anything – anything that might help us find her, that might help us work out what happened we’d be very grateful.’
    She nodded then sat silent for a moment before her pale eyes found Joanna’s face. ‘Was it that Art Person?’ she asked fiercely. ‘Was it him?’
    â€˜Who do you mean?’
    â€˜That Art Person,’ she said again. ‘We’ve all noticed how things have been different since he’s come. I told Aaron at the time it was a big mistake letting him rent the Owl Hole. I warned him. I told him these city types don’t belong here. Money. That’s all it was. Just money. He waved a few twenty pound notes in front of Aaron’s greedy long nose and that was that. What Aaron couldn’t see was that he was mocking us. Mocking us country types, laughing at our ways of doing things. But Aaron always did worry about money.’
    Joanna pictured the emaciated body of the farmer and understood what Hannah Lockley meant. Even in death her brother-in-law had looked worried.
    And now Hannah had decided to talk it was as though flood gates had burst open and as Joanna listened the picture of the inhabitants of Hardacre Farm grew steadily clearer. ‘Aaron was always complaining about the milk cheque and his bull going missing. Said he was having trouble keeping the farm going. Three mouths to feed and the price of hay awful after last year’s rain.’ Hannah Lockley’s mouth twisted in wry humour. ‘Trust him to go and die before gathering the best harvest we’re likely to have for the rest of the century. That farm would have been fine, properly managed. That was what it needed, to be properly managed. But from the minute that Art Man came he brought nothing but trouble in his wake. Oil and water, I said to Aaron. Oil and water. The day they mix will be the same day those sort of city folk see eye to eye with us. How can they understand us?’ She appealed to the two police officers. ‘They are so different. We are different. Put them out here and it causes nothing but trouble.’
    Mike licked his pencil and repeated Joanna’s question. ‘Who are you talking about?’
    â€˜I can’t remember his name,’ Hannah said impatiently. ‘Some silly art name.’
    â€˜And where will we find this person?’
    She looked even more irritated. ‘I told you. He’s at the Owl Hole. It’s one of the outlying farm buildings. Was used as a grain store once. He got hold of it at the end of last year and messed it up but he does pay rent,’ she finished grudgingly. ‘Though what Ruthie will do with him when she takes over the running of the farm I don’t know.’
    Joanna was startled to realize that Hannah firmly believed her niece to be still alive, and if alive – innocent. But she let the subject pass unchallenged for now and allowed Hannah to continue. Maybe it was a means of releasing her grief. And maybe she would let something slip that would help them find out who had shot Aaron and Jack Summers.
    â€˜Place used to be full of Barn Owls years