Cherringham--The Vanishing Tourist Read online

  “So … you’re saying that when you left him — he was ok?”

  “Nothing wrong with him. Me — I got a bruise!”

  “You didn’t see what he did next?”

  “I was half way back to Cherringham, mate, not my problem.”

  Jack nodded.

  A few minutes ago, he’d thought they were about to crack this missing person case.

  But now it seemed more mysterious than ever. Ferris might have been the last person to see Patrick — but this wasn’t the end of the trail.

  “What about the bag?”

  “Got rid of it.”

  “Sold it?”

  “Took the cash. Few quid. Chucked the rest in the river.”

  “And the camera?”

  Jack watched Ferris shrug.

  What a bad liar …

  “I can get the cops here in minutes, Rob. What you’ve told me — you could even be on a murder charge, I reckon. Missing person and all. Last one to see him was you.”

  “All right, all right,” said Ferris, getting up and going over to a small fridge that stood in the corner.

  Jack watched him open the door then pull out the salad drawer at the bottom and rummage around.

  When Ferris stood up — he had a small plastic bag in his hand: Jack could see it contained a compact camera.

  “Bloody good model, it is,” said Ferris handing it to Jack. “You’ll get a few bob for that.”

  “I’m not going to sell it, Rob.”

  “Crying waste, that is.”

  Jack took the camera out of the bag, flicked it on and hit the play button.

  “There’s a few shots of me and Terry. Muckin’ about,” said Ferris. “You can delete them if you want.”

  Jack scrolled back through the photos until he reached shots of Cherringham — and then the coach.

  One picture was of Patrick with a couple of other tourists either side of him. The tourists were smiling. Patrick looked grim.

  Somebody on the coach must have persuaded him into a group shot. Jack imagined the moment. Now you make sure you email this to us the minute you get home, Mr. O’Connor …

  But Patrick O’Connor was never going home.

  Jack sighed and turned the camera off, put it in his pocket.

  “One last thing, Rob,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “You got any idea what he was doing down there — on Barrows Lane?”

  Jack watched him think for a while.

  “No,” said Ferris. “But he was up to something all right. And wherever it was he wanted to get to — he couldn’t get there fast enough.”

  Jack doubted he’d get anything more out of Rob Ferris. Despite promises made, he wondered if he should just hand him over to the police.

  But then he figured that Rob wasn’t going anywhere. And he had no reason not to believe the young punk’s story.

  “You’ve been a big help, Rob,” said Jack, getting up.

  “No problem,” said Ferris, standing.

  Then: “You think I’ll get a reward?” he said eagerly. “I mean — without me you wouldn’t have a clue, would you? I’m like helping you solve the case.”

  For a second Jack considered hitting him — a quick one to the gut — then decided that, though it would be entirely justified, it wouldn’t be helpful.

  He might have more questions.

  “I’ll make sure everyone knows your role in the disappearance, Rob, don’t you worry,” he said as he headed for the door.

  Let him figure that one out …

  “Appreciate it,” said Rob as Jack left.

  He couldn’t get away from the guy fast enough.

  11. Chopping Wood

  Out in the sunshine Jack took a deep breath of clean summer air.

  Then he walked up the high street to Sarah’s office.

  The door onto the street was always open during the day, and he went up the two flights of now familiar stairs in the tiny terraced building. Jack knocked on the door marked ‘Edwards Design’ and walked in.

  Sarah was on the phone, and he waited while she finished. Her assistant, Grace, was in the little kitchen at the back of the cramped office and gave Jack a wave.

  “Coffee, Jack?” she said. “I’m making some.”

  “Not stopping Grace, but thanks anyway.”

  He watched her come through and put a mug down on Sarah’s desk.

  Then Sarah finished her call.

  “God. Not enough hours in the day, here, Jack,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Soon as we deliver one project, another two come in.”

  “I won’t hold you up,” said Jack, handing over the camera. “But I thought I’d leave this with you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Patrick O’Connor’s camera. Courtesy of Rob Ferris.”

  “What? So Ferris stole it from him?”

  Jack took a few minutes to bring Sarah up to speed on Ferris’s encounter with the missing tourist.

  “You believe him?” she said.

  “He’s not the sharpest knife in the box,” said Jack. “But I think he told me pretty much everything that happened.”

  He watched her flick the camera on.

  “Very neat. Expensive. Full memory card too.”

  “Stroke of luck that Rob Ferris didn’t get to sell it yet.”

  “So we’re none the wiser,” said Sarah. “We know that Patrick went down Barrows Lane — but we don’t know why.”

  “Or whether he went somewhere else after.”

  “Jack — maybe we should bring in the police now? Get them to start searching the road, the fields down there …”

  “I had thought that,” said Jack. “But here’s what would happen. They’d arrest Ferris on a suspected murder charge, for sure. Though not any real evidence of that. Then they’d close off the whole area for days. And shut us out of the case.”

  He watched Sarah as she realised the implications of what he’d said.

  “You don’t think we’re going to find Patrick alive, do you?”

  “I think it’s unlikely,” he said.

  “What do we do with this?” said Sarah, holding up the camera.

  “We should let his sister Mary have it,” said Jack. “But you might want to copy the pictures first. It proves he was on the coach, and that he ended up here in Cherringham.”

  “I’ll take a look tonight. Haven’t had time to do anything else this afternoon though.”

  “No worries.”

  “What’s the plan now?”

  Jack shrugged. “Head back to the boat, I guess. Need a bit of space and quiet to think.”

  “Let’s talk tonight,” said Sarah. “I’ll give you a call when I’ve fed the kids.”

  “Sure,” said Jack. “See you later.”

  And he headed out of the office and walked up to the car park, where he’d left his Austin Healey Sprite.

  When he reached it, he folded the top down, then climbed in, and started up the engine.

  Then he had an idea.

  He knew the perfect spot to do some thinking.

  Even better than on The Grey Goose.

  He spun the wheel and headed out of the village.

  And took the road to Mabb’s Hill.

  *

  Jack crossed the ring of standing stones, their shadows long in the late afternoon sun.

  Thousands of years ago Druids had held ceremonies here on this ridge that looked down upon Cherringham and the flat plain beyond.

  Jack had been up here many a time for picnics with Sarah and her kids, for walks with Riley, and — a few times — even to close a case.

  Today the place had two virtues.

  It was somewhere quiet — apart from the ever-present Cotswolds breeze — and it also gave a perfect view of Cherringham Road, the toll bridge, the Thames — and Barrows Lane.

  The crime scene itself, thought Jack. All laid out for me.

  Somewhere down there, something bad had happened to Patrick O’Con
nor.

  And Jack had an instinct it had happened on that pretty little country lane.

  He took off his rucksack, found himself an old tree stump just below the ridge, sat down against it — and breathed deep.

  This view — how he loved it.

  He looked down at the stretch of the river below the village, where the Grey Goose was moored. From there the thick line of silver water looped its way across the plain to Oxford, which he knew lay twenty miles away, beyond the far line of hills.

  In between, a hazy patchwork of fields, woods, streams, and villages.

  He turned from the distant horizon, to look down, to the fields in the valley below.

  There was Cherringham Road, leading down to the toll bridge. And there — that hedge-lined lane — must be Barrows Lane.

  The lane wound its way into dense woods — where he’d seen that hawk with Sarah — and beyond to the young woman’s house.

  Jack reached into his pack and brought out his new binoculars — a gift to himself last Christmas, an aid in his newfound hobby of bird watching.

  Swarovski.

  Nearly fifteen hundred dollars. A real extravagance.

  But what a joy to use.

  He took off the caps and aimed down at the woman’s little house on Barrows Lane. Through the viewfinder the image was bright — brilliant almost. He could see plastic toys in the garden, a sandpit, a table with an open book on it. Maybe left there by the mum, Karen, as she’d gone to tend to her daughter.

  He remembered that the lane had petered out at the tiny cottage.

  But now, from up here, he could see that the hedge line that followed it continued well past the cottage and on into the countryside through another patch of thick woods.

  Binoculars pressed against his face, he tracked its path.

  And waddya know — the lane appeared again a hundred yards further down the valley.

  So it wasn’t a dead end.

  Barrows Lane continued.

  It ran through the woods, along the side of a couple of fields until it reached another building. Not much more than a shed, but with a chimney in its roof and a small garden.

  A garden where a man, stripped to the waist, was chopping wood, his axe swinging confidently, relentlessly, through the air with practised ease.

  The man was tall, powerful. Broad shouldered. At his side Jack could see a pile of logs, ready to be split. And stacked high in a woodshed at the end of the garden, more logs in neat rows.

  Karen Taylor had said nothing about a house further up the lane.

  Or about a man living there.

  As Jack watched, the man paused, rested the head of the axe on the ground, and turned slowly to look up at Mabb’s Hill.

  And now he seemed to be looking straight down the barrel of the binoculars, staring into Jack’s eyes.

  Jack lowered the glasses.

  Crazy thought.

  How could someone that distance away know they were being watched?

  But Jack didn’t move an inch.

  And only when the man had eventually turned away, hefted the axe again, and continued chopping, did Jack pack away his binoculars, pick up his rucksack, and head back to the car.

  Time to pay another visit to Barrows Lane, he thought.

  12. The End of the Lane

  Instead of driving down Barrows Lane from the Cherringham side, Jack looped around on the main road and found the turning off the main road to the south.

  The Ordnance Survey map he kept in the car showed clearly how the lane disappeared in the middle for a few hundred yards as it entered woods, then reappeared as a proper road again, servicing a couple of farms.

  But there was no sign of the wood-chopper’s cottage on the map. Maybe it didn’t even qualify as a building? Or perhaps it had been put up as a farm building without permission, designed for storage, not a place to live?

  When he pulled up outside the little dwelling, the man had disappeared.

  Up close Jack thought the place looked home-built: a timber frame with a corrugated plastic roof. He could see a deck to one side with a rocking chair on it.

  It was the kind of place you’d expect to see in an old photo of the Blue Mountains, complete with guitar playin’ good ol’ boys sitting out on the step drinking hooch.

  A wooden plate on the gate said ‘Barrows Mill Cottage’.

  Jack turned the engine off, climbed out and approached the front door.

  Before he reached it, the door opened and the man appeared, wiping his hands on a towel.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “You lost?”

  The tone — anything but friendly.

  Jack made his appraisal quickly — force of habit for a cop.

  Tall, fit, hundred and fifty pounds, wrong side of forty, hair clipped short at the sides, fringe flopping at the front, and an English accent which Jack knew now signified “posh.”

  “No,” said Jack. “Not lost. In fact, you’re just the man I came to see.”

  “Really?” said the man, raising his eyebrows. “Well, now I’m intrigued.”

  Wary is more like it, Jack thought.

  “Jack Brennan,” said Jack, offering his hand.

  “Richard Latchmore,” said the man, reaching out and shaking it. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’m trying to trace a missing person,” said Jack. “An American. He was last seen a couple of weeks ago now, here on Barrows Lane.”

  “That explains the accent,” said Latchmore. “You’ve come a long way to find him.”

  “No,” said Jack. “That’s just coincidence. But you know who I’m talking about then?”

  “I do. Sure. Plenty of talk about him in the village. But I had no idea he came down here. I thought he was a tourist?”

  “He was.”

  Jack took one of the screenshots of O’Connor out of his pocket and handed it to Latchmore.

  “Nothing much for tourists down here,” said the man, staring at the picture.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Jack. “But we had a sighting on the other end of Barrows Lane.”

  “Really? You sure?”

  Jack nodded.

  “How very odd. Perhaps he thought there was a short cut to the river?”

  “Possible,” said Jack.

  “No sign of him anywhere else?”

  “No,” said Jack.

  “Doesn’t bode well.”

  Jack shook his head and watched Latchmore closely. He seemed genuinely concerned. Caring.

  But there was a hint here of something else going on. A sense that the man was almost … playing a part.

  “You’re a New Yorker, huh?” the man said.

  Jack nodded.

  “Thought so. Long way from home. So what are you? Police liaison?”

  “No,” said Jack. “I’m just helping out. The man’s sister contacted me.”

  “It’s a sad business,” said Latchmore. “I mean — to be honest — two weeks missing. Doesn’t sound so good, does it?”

  “No,” said Jack. “You said you had no idea he came here. So I’m assuming you didn’t see him?”

  “Afraid not, old chap.”

  “You sound very sure.”

  “To be honest — down here — there’s no direct way from the village. Just the path through the woods. I don’t get casual visitors.”

  “You must like it that way?”

  “Absolutely. Not that I’m anti-social, you understand. Just like my privacy.”

  “So you don’t mix with the neighbors?”

  “If you need to know if they saw him then you’ll have to ask them yourself.”

  Jack nodded and realised he was at another dead end.

  He sure wasn’t going to get invited inside for a cup of tea. He looked across at the garden and the neat stack of wood he’d seen from Mabb’s Hill.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” he said.

  He watched as the man swivelled to inspect the pile, then turned back to Jack,
and laughed.

  “Keeps me fit. What is it they say? Warms you three times. Once when you chop it down. Once when you split it. And once when you burn it.”

  “I guess you don’t have any modern conveniences down here?”

  The man laughed. “That’s how I like it. The simple life.”

  “You lived here long?”

  “And some,” said Latchmore. “How about you? You staying in the village?”

  “I own a boat down on the river.”

  “Aha,” said Latchmore with a smile. “So you’re really a local too?”

  “Not in the same league as you.”

  “Boat, hmm? Sounds like you like the quiet life too.”

  “Can’t beat it,” said Jack.

  Jack watched the man nod. “Time I was heading back.”

  And Jack walked towards his car. Latchmore came over and stood watching.

  “Used to have a Sprite myself, once upon a time,” said Latchmore. “Devil of a job to start in the winter though.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Jack. “On the really cold nights I take the plugs home, keep ‘em warm.”

  “Ha! Wish I’d thought of that!”

  Jack started the engine, and turned the car round, then paused.

  “Let me know if you do happen to remember anything,” he said.

  “Will do,” said Latchmore.

  Then Jack let in the clutch and drove back down the little lane.

  Richard Latchmore had been pleasant. Likeable. Relaxed.

  But every instinct in Jack’s bones told him that the man was lying.

  The question was — why?

  13. Family Connections

  Sarah parked her RAV-4 outside the house, climbed out, and waited while Daniel unloaded his cricket gear from the back seat.

  “Pizzas okay?” she said.

  “Great,” said Daniel as he trudged ahead of her down the garden path and went into the house.

  “Coming right up …”

  Friday evenings in the summer months depended for their mood on whether Daniel had won or lost his weekly school cricket match. These last few weeks there’d been a lot of defeats.

  She watched him head upstairs for a shower and put the frozen pizzas in the oven.

  Sarah felt totally exhausted. She and Grace were working long days in the office, but the business still operated on a hand to mouth basis. And with Chloe’s school trip to France the family finances had taken quite a hit.