The article was far less eloquent than the one from the paper, but the information still lined up. And it said that Matthew had been moved to New Hall. The same place Matthew was calling from—there was no way this wasn’t real.
The only thing Robin didn’t—and no doubt wouldn’t—find among the articles was Matthew’s link to Sam. If Matthew was telling the truth about Sam, she had called him out of the blue. He didn’t know her. He had said she was “flustered.” Why hadn’t Sam called Robin? If she was in trouble, why hadn’t she called him?
Robin spent the rest of the day and evening on the internet. When Emma rang him, he ignored it. He started to print out the important articles he found and opened a folder to put them in. The Standedge Incident seemed to be somewhat of an anomaly—an unusual crime that was not covered by the national news. Most of the information he found was on The Red Door, a site that only got weirder the longer he spent on it. Why were no official outlets covering this? When he did find a more official article—newspapers and websites—the snippets were always short and vague.
Robin found a group picture of the missing students with one of The Red Door articles. They were standing by Standedge Canal Tunnel—Robin recognized it from the Visitor Centre website. In the foreground stood Tim Claypath, a dominant force in the picture with everyone else seemingly gravitating toward him. He was youthful, attractive, alive. His eyes seemed to glint, even on the screen. Next to him was his sister, Rachel. Robin could tell, even without the caption. She shared the same eyes as her brother, the same fire, the same beauty. Beside the Claypath twins were three more young people. Edmund Sunderland, sandy haired and tall, stood close to Tim, looking into the camera with a strong intensity that made Robin feel his slight smile was deliberate. On Rachel’s side, two people stood, slightly turned into each other as though in conversation just before the photo was taken. This was Pru Pack and Robert Frost, and their beaming smiles indicated their sheer joy at just being there. If Robin had to guess, Pru and Robert were in a relationship, and weren’t exactly hiding it. At the front of them all, jumping up to fit in the frame and therefore being immortalized a little fuzzily, was a gray Bedlington terrier. The caption said: Amygdala (Amy). The date of the picture was June 26, 2018. The day of the voyage, and the day these people (minus the dog) vanished.
Robin stared at the faces of the Standedge Five, his eyes sliding across the picture, and then he noticed that someone else was in the picture. If the caption hadn’t pointed him out, Robin may have missed him. Behind Edmund Sunderland, a few steps away, standing next to the canal and looking over it and not into the camera, was another young man. He was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, in comparison to the others’ smarter shirts and trousers and dresses, and he had his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t smiling—he had an entirely blank expression, as though he were thinking absolutely nothing. He obviously wasn’t aware of the picture being taken. The caption said that this was Matthew McConnell.
Robin peered at him, getting closer to the picture, turning it, as though that would help him to better see past Edmund Sunderland. Something in one of the articles nagged at him, and he looked at the expanding mess of printed articles scattered across the table. A few minutes and he found what he was looking for. The Red Door article that said Matthew may have had something against the rest of the group. This picture seemed to illustrate that, and what was more, maybe the rest of the group had something against him. Matthew hadn’t mentioned anything to indicate that. But seeing as he was in prison charged with their murders, Robin guessed it wouldn’t be the first thing he’d talk about.
Robin scratched his chin, feeling the stubble that had appeared since the morning. The natural light in the kitchen was dying, and he got up to turn on the overhead light. From his new vantage point, he looked down at the table. It was a mess. And it didn’t really amount to anything.
All Robin knew was that it was real. Matthew was telling the truth about Standedge. His friends were gone. And he was left. He’d left out the dog, but that hardly seemed important. His friends vanished—they were gone. They went into the tunnel and they didn’t come out.
It was definitely a mystery—a rather tantalizing one. One of the articles had detailed how long the journey took—two hours and twelve minutes. Two hours and twelve minutes of untracked, unseen and unknowable events. And the only lifeline into that world, that chunk of missing time, was Matthew McConnell, unless the dog started talking anytime soon.
Of course the police would suspect Matthew. Of course they would arrest him. Because, with all the facts Robin had, there was no possibility other than Matthew killing his friends. The puzzle for the police would be where the bodies were, and they would lean on Matthew until he told all the truths he had to give.
Did Robin think Matthew was guilty? Or innocent? He didn’t have enough to go on. But he was intrigued. Even without the fact that he had questions for Matthew. About Sam.
“Are you leading me somewhere, Sam?” Robin muttered, under his breath.
There was no answer. Except from the traffic noise on the street and a whoop from a passerby who was no doubt enjoying the benefits—and not yet suffering the drawbacks—of alcohol on a Saturday night.
Robin turned the light off again and decided to go to bed.
After a quick shower, he climbed into bed, lying on the right side of the double. Three years later and he still kept to his side, even when he was fast asleep and not consciously thinking.
He thought of Matthew McConnell and he thought about what he had said to him, and more important, how he’d said it. If he took everything Matthew said as true, Sam had told him that he, Robin, was someone to trust.
Why had she told that to a total stranger? Why had she called Matthew?
He lay in bed for half an hour—sleep nowhere to be found. One question swirled around in his head: How could six people go into a canal tunnel and only one come out?
Robin thought for a moment of the voice on the phone that morning, the young man asking for his help, realizing he had known what he would say for hours now.
Yes.
Chapter Four
“I don’t know, Robin. This sounds very odd,” she said, on the other end of the line. “I think this guy is manipulating you. I don’t know why you can’t see that—maybe you just don’t want to. But he’s using Sam to get you to do stupid things.”
“You’d never heard of Standedge. You said that yourself. I spent six hours researching the case. It’s real. Matthew is real. What happened is real.” Robin shifted the phone into his other hand so he could hike up the strap of the backpack onto his shoulder.
“Then why have I never heard of it?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe someone stopped it getting out to the wider media.”
“This isn’t the ’90s, Robin,” she said with an icy tone that reminded Robin of their mother. She and Emma had never got along—probably because they were so similar. They were both pragmatic—seeing the world in front of them as a problem to solve. He loved his sister, but sometimes she looked at him more as a project than a brother. “Things get out on the internet—every single hour, every single minute. I don’t see how we can’t have heard of this before.”
“I think this Red Door website is run by some kind of whistle-blower. Do you want me to send you the link?”
“No,” Emma said quickly, “I don’t want any part of this. Look, why don’t I come over? I can be there soon. We’ll just talk this through together.”
“You can’t come over,” Robin said bluntly.
There was a long silence. “Why?” Emma said, in their mother’s voice.
Robin opened his mouth, but at that moment an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying that a train was boarding. King’s Cross was the busiest he had ever seen it. The fast-food places, the restaurants, the bars—they were all overflowing with commuters. Robin was amid the
sea of people looking up at the departure boards. At the announcement, about twenty people headed toward the platforms. Robin didn’t have to say anything—he knew Emma had heard.
“You’re going today? You’re going now?”
“Yes,” Robin said.
“What about your meeting with your publisher?”
“I canceled.”
“Robin, what are you doing? Really?”
“I’m doing what I feel I need to do. Can you just support me in this?”
Emma sighed. And was quiet for about a minute. He knew what she was thinking—that he was crazy, and that this was a fool’s errand. “Of course,” she said, “but please be careful, Robin. If what you said—if what you found—is really true, this guy could be dangerous.”
“I know how to handle myself,” Robin said with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up, wondering if Emma was right—if he was making a terrible mistake.
But the wondering wasn’t enough to stop him going through the ticket barrier, finding his train and getting on.
Chapter Five
Samantha had been due to call him when she got into Huddersfield. And she did. But Robin didn’t pick up. He was still so absorbed with his stupid article, about planning permission for a new multistory in Camden right next to residential land, which had somehow escalated into the political battle of the century. At least it had seemed at the time. That multistory never got built, and was never talked of again.
He should have picked up the phone.
When a thirty-three-year-old woman, perfectly capable, mobile and mature, goes missing, it takes a lot to get someone to listen. But the moment he called back and she didn’t answer—in fact, the phone didn’t even ring and went straight to voice mail—Robin knew, somehow, that she was in trouble. And having to wait seventy-two hours to report her missing killed him.
At the police station, he was shuffled between four different police officers, each more bored than the last. He repeated the story over and over, and each time he uttered it, it became more real to him. He answered their inane questions—What time was the phone call from the university to say Samantha hadn’t arrived? When did you first realize there was something wrong? Did Samantha act any differently before she left?—even though they had all been addressed already. They wrote notes in countless black notepads. And alluded to things like a secret lover, or the even more heartbreaking prospect that maybe she just ran away?
Their blunt monotone responses were what Robin thought of when he first spoke to Terrance Loamfield, Matthew’s appointed barrister.
“You have been put on Mr. McConnell’s approved visitor list—just give your name and identification at the gates. You will have to complete some paperwork when you arrive at New Hall, but should be good to go from there.”
Robin was on the phone again, in a packed carriage heading for his connection at Leeds Central. He was standing—he had a seat reservation, but the train didn’t happen to have the carriage his seat was in.
“Thank you, Mr. Loamfield.” He wanted to ask Loamfield so many questions, but he didn’t really think he was in the right environment for it.
“Mr. McConnell has not requested my presence at your meetings. May I ask what your relation is to Mr. McConnell?”
Robin didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t really anything to Matthew—hadn’t even known of his existence for a full twenty-four hours yet. And Matthew hadn’t told the lawyer either—meaning he probably didn’t want Loamfield to know. Robin assessed, from the five minutes he had been talking to the man, that Loamfield seemed to be a very closed person, spouting protocol instead of emotion, fact instead of opinion. It was clear he really didn’t have a personal stake in seeing Matthew go free, or indeed be convicted. But in spite of this, Robin thought it wise not to tell Loamfield he was going to be sniffing around. “I’m a...friend.”
“Well, you appear to be the only friend Mr. McConnell has,” said Loamfield, not showing a hint of emotion.
“No one else has visited him?”
“No.”
“Not his parents?”
“Mr. McConnell is an orphan. His parents died in a traffic pileup in 1996. He lived with his aunt, who has since disowned him and left the county. I’m surprised you don’t know this?”
“Ah, yes, quite,” Robin said, squishing himself against the wall of the train as the snacks trolley passed. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget.”
Loamfield paused for a long time. Robin would have thought the call had disconnected, if he didn’t hear the man’s short, sharp breaths. “You know, Mr. Ferringham, if this were any other case, I’d be asking if you were a journalist, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. There’s only a matter of days before McConnell’s court date.”
“And when is that?”
“This Friday. He goes before the court to receive a date for his trial, and to decide conditions, if any, for bail.”
Friday. Today was Sunday. Five days. Five days until what was probably the best chance of helping Matthew. And five days to get answers about Sam.
“And do you think he’s likely to get bail?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Loamfield said, almost like he was smiling on the other end. It was the first time he’d shown anything even vaguely akin to a personality, and Robin far preferred the emotionless android he had been mere seconds ago.
“Thank you, Mr. Loamfield,” Robin said, closing out the conversation.
“Not at all, Mr. Ferringham. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Robin put the phone down. It wasn’t until he changed trains at Leeds and was on his way to Marsden that he realized Mr. Loamfield hadn’t given him his phone number.
Chapter Six
Marsden Station was merely a freestanding train platform with no buildings—only a ticket machine placed haphazardly against a board with a chart of train times pinned to it. Robin was the only one to get off, and he watched as the train left him there in solitude.
He looked to his surroundings to see that he had been dropped by a small parking lot and a pub called The Train-Car, which stood just over a small stone bridge. Past that, there was a steady hill lined with residential houses looking to lead down into what he would guess was Marsden proper.
He started to make his way over the bridge and looked down to see a body of water. The Huddersfield Narrow. He had seen it on Google Maps, when he had sought out a map of Standedge and the surroundings. The Narrow snaked its way through Marsden until it disappeared into the tunnel. This section ran almost parallel to the train line, segmenting it off from the rest of Marsden.
From the map he’d seen on his phone screen, Standedge lay off to the right. He wanted to go there and see the tunnel for himself, but first he decided he should really find somewhere to stay.
The Train-Car, a very traditional British pub with green lacquered awnings, weathered benches outside and a sign depicting three train-cars on a track and the name in gold lettering, appeared to be open. The door stood ajar, but no noise came from within. Although it did have a sign saying rooms were available, Robin decided against it, opting instead to walk into town.
He started to walk down the hill, seeing a shortcut to the left, between two houses that seemed to lead off to a wooded area. As Robin looked through the gap between buildings, a loud baa cut through the relative silence.
Robin started and looked around. Behind him, standing a few feet away, and looking unimpressed, were two rather fat and woolly sheep. They both had scarves on—one blue and one pink—making Robin think they weren’t likely to be anyone’s meal, but rather pets. They stared at him with their black marble eyes, and Robin stared back, locked in a battle over who seemed more out of place here. Robin was the first to look away.
The sheep with the pink scarf seemed to take this as its cue, and trotted
past Robin, followed by the blue-scarved sheep. They disappeared down the cut-through and Robin watched as they ducked into the woods.
He looked around, wondering what to do, and saw a woman who had come out of her door and was emptying some plastic into her recycling bin. She caught Robin’s eye.
“I’m sorry,” Robin said, “but I think someone’s sheep must have gotten free.”
She looked him up and down. “Not from round here, are you?”
“No, but...”
“Those sheep go where they please. They belong to the town.”
Robin took a look toward the woods again. “Right.” Sheep wandering around freely? That was new to him. “I’m looking for somewhere to stay. Is this the way to the town center?”
“Follow the hill down. Pub called The Hamlet has the best rooms,” the woman said, like she’d said it a dozen times before to inexperienced tourists such as himself.
“Thank you,” Robin said, but the woman had already gone back into her house.
Robin did as he was told and got to the bottom of the hill. At first, the town presented itself as a series of pubs. He came to two buildings, either side of the road. The Lucky Duck and The Grey Fox stood watching each other, acting as an unofficial gateway to the commercial part of the small town.
Past them was a main street filled with shops—a bakery, a charity shop, a co-op, three cafés and many other small businesses. They all led up to a crossroads, where a tall clock tower stood, white with red corners. The clock had stopped at three fifteen, and Robin had to check his watch to see the real time.
It was just past 6:00 p.m., but Marsden was already deathly silent. There was no one on the streets and the shops had shut for the day. Robin walked up the street, expecting to see some sign of life somewhere. He passed the clock tower, seeing a crossroads but deciding to keep going straight, and kept going up the road, finally hearing a gentle thrum of noise coming from somewhere.
Now You See Me Page 3