Cherringham--The Vanishing Tourist (8 page)

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.

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?

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.

Sarah’s ex begrudgingly helped out with cash — but it was never enough.

She enjoyed working with Jack, solving cases, but it didn’t pay the rent, that was for sure. And much as she loved it, it could add hours to the working day, time away from the kids.

Not to mention time to herself.

She knew he was waiting on her to do some background checks — and she hated letting him down.

This case too was so frustrating. What was it? A missing person? An accidental death? Or something worse?

It was hard to get a grip on.

No facts — that was the problem.

She opened the fridge to make a quick salad to go with the pizzas and saw the bottle of Picpoul she’d bought for Sunday lunch with her parents.

The bottle was icy cold. Perfect.

What the hell,
she thought.
It’s a Friday night. And I deserve it. Now.

She poured herself a large glass and went out into the tiny garden to sit in the last scrap of evening sunshine.

*

An hour later, with the supper dishes out of the way and the kitchen table cleared, Sarah sat down at her laptop.

She could hear Daniel in his bedroom on his PlayStation.

A couple of hours of hard work now, then she could hit the sofa, and drift off in front of the TV — that was the deal she’d made for herself.

She got to work.

First she hit the local land registry site and hunted down the details of all the properties on Barrows Lane. Two big farms came up, both owned by a local landlord whose name she recognised.

Then Barrows Cottage — owned by a Peter Taylor.

No mention of the little cottage that Jack had described.

Interesting …

She pulled up the electoral register — and drew a blank. No Peter Taylor. No Richard Latchmore.

And no Karen Taylor.

She poured herself another glass of white wine and sat back to see if she could work this out.

Maybe Peter Taylor was Karen’s husband? Owned the property — died or just left her? She had never bothered to register to vote. Newly married perhaps?

Time to dig deeper. Births, deaths, and marriages …

Suddenly, she was intrigued.

*

Half an hour later she had some answers — of a kind.

Peter Taylor was indeed Karen’s husband. He had died just over a year ago. Only months before the baby Marie was born.

How awful,
Sarah thought.
That poor woman …

But it was worse. Peter had died in Afghanistan on military service — just twenty-three years old.

Sarah could hardly imagine what that must have been like for Karen — to be pregnant, living in that tiny cottage, hearing that your husband has died, a husband who would never see his baby daughter.

No wonder she had never registered to vote.

Too many other things to think about.

But what about Richard Latchmore? The neighbour living in the little cottage just up the lane. Who was he?

She googled the name — not expecting to find much.

And there weren’t many hits — but what did come up was puzzling.

Latchmore too had an army background. A major in the Parachute Regiment — he had been honourably discharged just a few years back, aged forty-five.

After some kind of secret enquiry.

Sarah kept digging. There were brief mentions of Latchmore in the national press. He had been a rising star, veteran of numerous engagements going back to the Gulf War and beyond. He had a string of decorations and by all accounts was heading for high rank.

Then, after a tour of duty in 2011 there was a two-year gap while an enquiry was launched into an action he had been involved in Helmand Province.

Afghanistan.

There was no information in any public record of the exact nature of the enquiry. The details, the documents said, were deemed ‘too sensitive’ to be released.

But just a year later, Latchmore was pensioned out.

Sarah sat back. Two neighbours — connected by war.

Was there something here? Or was it just coincidence?

And what could possibly connect the frail figure of the American tourist with these Cherringham residents?

She reached across to her handbag, which hung from one of the kitchen chairs. Inside the bag was Patrick O’Connor’s camera.

She took it out and ejected the SIM card, then inserted the card into her laptop.

The pictures grouped into albums on her player — going back, it seemed, some years.

Many were shots of New York — friends, maybe family in happier times.

They were good pictures.

But when she opened up the most recent folders, photos taken in the Cotswolds, she could hardly believe they’d been taken by the same hand.