‘Did your dad teach you that too?’ Rob asked. Kelly nodded. She hadn’t come up here to reconnect with John Porter. She’d forgotten the times he’d brought her here and taught her what he knew of the history of the place, which was relatively little. Lacking real knowledge, he’d made up stories and filled her head with witches and wizards to make her squeal and laugh. The memories, along with the stories, came flooding back now.

‘So, what’s under here?’ Rob asked.

‘No one knows.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘It’s not a pressing matter.’

‘You mean no one has the money to invest?’

‘Quite.’

‘What a crying shame. There could be ancient kings and queens under here.’

Kelly laughed. The romantic notion was an attractive one and that’s why so many poets and writers had made stories up about Castlerigg over the centuries. Tragedies and dramas had unfolded in fiction alongside the stones, but still no one came up with funding to excavate them, and perhaps that was a good thing: it might ruin the illusion.

‘Do you think she had some kind of connection with this place then?’ Kelly asked Rob.

‘It’s a pretty specific place to “happen upon”. Not knowing it before, it seems glaringly obvious to me that you’d need to know it well to find it.’

‘Good point.’

She knew there was a good reason to bring him up here.

Chapter 11

Kelly sought permission from HQ to have the belongings found in the field adjacent to the stone circle examined, despite not having established if a crime had been committed. She’d been given a tentative green light but was told to be mindful of budget. As if she could ever ignore budget. Lab results were expensive but the longer one was willing to wait, the lower the price. They had time, oodles of it. There was no rush, and so the evidence was sent away along with thousands of other inquiries filed around the county. There was a safeguarding element to the missing woman, and so she was able to tick at least one box.

It was agreed that the clothes left were about the right size for the young woman, and suitably fashionable for someone around her age: jeans, crop top, a puffer jacket from Topshop and a pair of Air Force Nike trainers. No socks. There was no jewellery found with the pile of garments and nothing else in the wallet apart from the photo. Kelly requested that a picture of the Topshop jacket be released along with the story about the missing woman. The nearest Topshop was either in Carlisle or Cockermouth. The photograph taken of Carla Rigg in hospital was sent to the two retailers.