Cherringham--The Vanishing Tourist

by Neil Richards

  “Totally unnecessary,” he said. “But thank you.”

  He had decided that, while he might not love trying to make history come alive for what was generally a disinterested crowd, accepting tips was definitely something that he would not do.

  “Well then,” Babcock said, laughing, “doesn't look like you lost any, hmm?”

  Will had to wonder … doesn't Babcock have to do a head count?

  But instead, the owner/driver went up the three steps so he could peer into the coach.

  “Yup, looks like they’re all here. Room on top only!”

  Babcock raised two fingers to his cap and climbed into the driving seat.

  “On with the show, eh professor? You be good now. And if you can’t be good … don’t get caught!”

  Will nodded, keeping the polite smile on his face as the driver roared with laughter before pressing the button that pulled the pneumatic door shut.

  Then Will watched the lumbering bus manoeuvre out of its parking spot, attempt a three-point turn that took several more attempts, and finally head down the road that led past the Ploughman's and onto the rolling hills just outside of Cherringham.

  When the bus faded from view, Will thought … afternoon free, maybe a spot of research in the library?

  Sounded good.

  Just talking about this historic village always made him want to know more.

  And with that — for now — he completely forgot about Babcock, and his bus full of tourists …

  3. Fishing

  Jack began to reel in his line.

  The sun directly overhead, warm, and feeling so good after what he had been told was a tougher than usual Cherringham winter.

  Not much by NYC standards, he thought.

  “You know, Riley, I'm beginning to lose faith that there are any fish in this river at all.”

  Riley lay at Jack’s feet. Upon hearing his name, the Springer Spaniel raised his head, and looked up almost — Jack thought — as if asking for more explanation.

  “Same bait as always. Hooks, lures, and still nothing. Strange, hmm boy?”

  Truth is, Jack didn't mind that he had no bites.

  More often than not, if he did catch something — and he wasn't looking for a fish dinner — he’d throw the reprieved fish — usually roach — back into the river.

  Though once he did catch a trout. That he knew he would never throw back.

  No, for him, fishing was more about sitting somewhere quiet, concentrating on something simple.

  My form of meditation, he thought.

  Pretty much perfect as it is — fish or no fish.

  He looked at the hook and noted that the lugworm he had used as bait was gone.

  “Hmm, now there’s a bit of evidence,” he said. “Somebody swam by and got a free lunch.”

  Or — quite possibly — the bait had slipped off the hook in the current of the river.

  “Let's give it one more go, hmm?”

  Riley had since lost interest in the conversation and put his head back down on his paws, pondering whatever things Springers did. A time-honoured pairing of fisherman and dog, Jack guessed.

  He reached down to grab another worm when he saw a car pull off the road by the bridge that led to this side of the river.

  A small silver Ford, what they called a Fiesta here.

  Then he saw someone get out.

  A woman dressed as though she was going to church in a plain brown dress, light spring jacket, hat, and shoes not at all suited for the still mucky ground on the path that led past the river boats.

  But she started walking down that path.

  Heading right here, Jack thought.

  He put back the worm back into the can of bait.

  His instincts told him that something was up.

  Even Riley raised his head, now aware that the total quiet was about to change.

  Jack waited, and watched, as the woman made her way to him.

  *

  She came abreast of the Grey Goose’s prow, where Jack had propped a chair.

  “Jack Brennan?” the woman said.

  Her voice thin, the accent American. She sounded tired, as if she had come here after a lot of other stops.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  The woman looked down at the path then over to the ramp that led up to the Goose.

  She looks lost, thought Jack.

  And then …

  She's come to see me.

  Why?

  “Um, I—” her eyes back to him, “I don’t …”

  Whatever was going on, this woman was upset, confused, and a long way from home.

  “Would you like to come aboard?”

  Finally a small smile, a nod. “Yes, very much.”

  Jack stood up and walked to the plank, and watched as the woman navigated the mud then the sloping ramp, as Jack reached down to offer her a hand up.

  A near symbolic gesture, he thought.

  What kind of help is she seeking?

  He could only guess.

  *

  In the saloon of his boat, Jack got the electric kettle going while the woman — who said her name was Mary O'Connor — sat on a chair, still with her coat on, purse in her lap.

  “Take your coat?” he asked. “I can get the little stove going if you're cold?”

  Another small smile, a shake of her head,

  “No. I’m fine. Thank you for talking to me.”

  Jack poured water into his teapot — a pair of Earl Grey tea bags waiting.

  Then he brought the pot, two cups, sweetener, and milk over to the small table next the woman.

  “Fish weren't cooperating anyway,” he said. “You know, I don’t think there's been a better way to waste time than fishing ever …”

  She smiled but her eyes showed that she was preoccupied — even haunted by something.

  And he guessed that he was about to find out what.

  Jack poured tea for both of them.

  One thing he had certainly adopted was the near-magical affect a cuppa could have in easing into a conversation.

  “You're from the States …?”

  She nodded. “Brooklyn, like you Mr.—”

  “Jack,” he offered quickly.

  She accepted that with a nod. She had clearly done her homework on him.

  But why?

  “Long way to find me,” Jack said.

  He took a sip, trying to give Mary the time she obviously needed to organise her words.

  “I—I came over days ago. I’m still so tired. First time crossing the Atlantic. The jetlag really hit me, I guess. But—, I had to …”

  Jack nodded, keeping quiet for now, questions at bay.

  Finally Mary leaned forward.

  “I'm afraid something has happened to my brother, Patrick. He came to England over a week ago, just a vacation — and vanished.”

  Jack nodded. Thinking: Why did she come here? To Cherringham?

  “You’ve gone to the police?” Jack said, keeping his voice steady. He knew the number of missing people, the tens of thousands who vanished, most of whom reappear.

  We all have our reasons to disappear for a while.

  Even Jack related to that. After all, what was this — living in a Cotswold village on a riverboat — if not a big escape from his old life?

  And all those memories.

  “Yes. They were — well, they weren’t much help. Posted his name. Said he could have done anything, gone anywhere. But I told them …”

  Jack noted that she had taken the serviette he’d put beside her cup and had wound it around her fingers, tight.

  “I told them that Patrick wouldn't do anything like that, not without telling me. We're very, very close. He …” she shook her head as if the very idea was impossible, “he wouldn’t ever just disappear.”

  Jack nodded.

  Mary O'Connor may believe that, but Jack knew that sometimes people acted in a way that even those closest to them would have thought impossible.
/>   “So why did you come here, Mary? To Cherringham?”

  “With the police doing, well, nothing really, I tried to retrace Patrick’s steps. I found the hotel in London where he had been staying. Then they told me that he had signed up for a bus tour to the Cotswolds. And Cherringham was on that tour.”

  Jack had seen the weekly tourist coaches pull into the village square, like invaders from a different planet.

  The tourists, though, were certainly good for local business.

  “And anything else?”

  “The people at the hotel said he never came back. His room was exactly the way he had left it, clothes, luggage, everything all there. I mean, if he was going away somewhere, he'd have taken his bag, right?”

  “It would make sense,” Jack said.

  For a moment Mary O’Connor said nothing, looking down at the floor of the boat.

  “I think something has happened to him, Mr., um, Jack. I think something bad has happened.”

  Jack nodded. While any number of things could have happened to her brother — including nothing — Jack now felt for this woman.

  The fact that she came from Brooklyn as well didn't hurt either.

  “And, just curious now, what made you come to me?”

  “When I stopped at the police station here, pretty much hearing the same thing as I did in London, they’d put Patrick’s name on a list, bus company said everyone came back, not much they could do about it. But I’m afraid I broke down then. I’ve been so tired –— and worried.”

  “I bet …”

  She raised her eyes to Jack.

  “One of the policeman there, an Officer Rivers, mentioned your name. That you were an American. And –” big breath –“that you had been with the New York police and that you’ve helped people here.”

  “Sometimes,” Jack said.

  The woman nodded at this.

  “Can you … I mean, would you help me, Jack?”

  “Okay, Mary. How about I look into things,” Jack smiled back, knowing though there could be nothing harder than a missing person case — especially if someone wanted to go missing. “But I’m not making any promises …”

  And though Jack expected what happened next, he was still incredibly moved when the woman started crying as she reached out with one hand and touched Jack’s folded hands, barely able to whisper “Thank you …”

  4. The Missing American

  “So what do you think? Worth our time?” Jack said.

  Sarah sipped at her coffee and watched Jack while she considered his question. The little sofa in the corner window of Huffington's had clearly not been designed for the tall, bulky frame of the American sitting opposite her.

  Every time they came here together, Sarah had to restrain a laugh as Jack tugged at the cushions and piled them up out of the way to one side.

  “Missing person?” she said. “Sounds like a wild goose chase to me.”

  “Oh, could be worse than one of those,” said Jack. “I tried to catch many such a goose back in New York.”

  “And this month, well … It’s June, you know, Jack?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said.

  “School exams. Sports days. Plays. Fetes. Daniel’s got cricket three times a week. Chloe’s doing a French exchange.”

  “Uh-huh. I hear you. Mom on duty.”

  “Absolutely. Then there’s work. We’ve got more than we can cope with. Which is a good thing! Grace is doing weekends and we still can’t keep up.”

  “Well, that is good to hear,” said Jack, leaning forward to sip his coffee.

  Sarah realised that Jack seemed disappointed that she wasn't ready to jump into this case, which — honestly — didn’t even seem like much of a ‘case’.

  Not compared to most of them they’d been doing lately.

  “And we don’t even know the guy really went missing here, Jack. I mean — he could be in London. Or anywhere.”

  “True. His sister sounded pretty convincing to me though. Not sure why but there was something about her …”

  Sarah sat back.

  Now that was interesting.

  In spite of everything she’d said, now she actually felt intrigued.

  Sarah and Jack had now worked on quite a few cases, but they’d never had to track somebody down.

  This would be different.

  And if this guy really had come to Cherringham how could he just … vanish?

  “Show me the picture again.”

  Jack reached into his pocket, took out the small photo and handed it over.

  She stared at it. It looked quite a few years old and the colour had faded. A tall guy — maybe in his forties — with a big grin and a Yankees cap. He had his arms around a dark haired woman and a tall teenage boy.

  In the background, she recognised the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

  “Patrick’s the one in the middle. Taken in the Battery, I guess. Some time before 9/11 of course,” he said. And then as if to explain: “Have a look at the background, and you’ll know what I mean.”

  Sarah nodded — the context, the smiling faces, the soft colour, now taking on an extra poignancy.

  That quick ripple of amazement … of horror.

  The thought: how could those buildings just vanish?

  “Happier days, huh?” said Jack.

  Sarah suddenly realised the emotional connection Jack had made with this missing New Yorker. He once said to her, late at night, that on that day, every New Yorker changed forever.

  A city of strangers, famed for their brusque ways.

  Now united.

  She knew that she had to take the case. That she wanted to take the case.

  “That the sister?”

  “No, it’s his wife.”

  “Pretty,” said Sarah. “I guess that’s his son?”

  Jack nodded. “Both passed away, according to Mary.”

  Sarah’s eyes lingered on the photo. That smiling, sunny New York day not really so long ago.

  “I’ll scan it and blow up Patrick’s face,” said Sarah putting the photo in her handbag. “Be useful when we’re talking to people. Might want to hand them out.”

  She watched Jack nod.

  “What makes you think he really disappeared here?”

  “Well, Mary said she managed to speak to someone who was on the same tour. Said he definitely remembered helping Patrick off the bus in Cherringham.”

  “Helping him?”

  “Wasn’t in the best of health apparently,” said Jack. “Looked older than he was.”

  “So this tourist — the witness — he didn’t notice the guy had gone missing when they got back on the coach?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Then he could have disappeared later in the day. Where else did they go?”

  “Usual suspects. Great Tew. Bourton-on-the-Water. Burford …”

  “Then back to London?”

  She saw Jack nod.

  “He could have disappeared in any of those places. Not a lot to go on, Jack,” she said. “What does Alan say?”

  Sarah knew that her one-time school friend Alan Rivers, the local cop, might not be the sharpest detective in the region, but he was pretty solid when it came to common sense advice.

  “He says what you’d expect him to say: no foul play, no crime, missing person. Thousands of them every year.”

  “What about those guys?” said Sarah, nodding through the window to the car park where two tourist coaches were lined up side by side. “Think they might be able to help?”

  “Ah, the brotherhood of the road,” said Jack. “I talked to them on my way here.”

  “Any use?”

  “Saw nothing, heard nothing, know nothing.”

  “Can’t blame them,” said Sarah. “Losing tourists is bad for business.”

  Jack nodded, taking a sip of his tea. “I did find out one useful thing though.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Jack.”

  “The coach Patrick came in that da
y is the pride of the Babcock fleet. State of the art.”

  “So?”

  “Guys across the road there were showing me the CCTV set-ups on these new coaches. Technology has come a long way since I last rode a bus …”

  “You mean the coach company will have the whole trip on camera?”

  “They should,” said Jack. “Question is whether they’re going to let me see it.”

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  “Babcock’s is in Oxford — thought you might fancy a drive over there this afternoon with the top down?”

  “Wouldn’t I just,” said Sarah. “But I’ve got a ton of pictures to edit for a site launch.”

  “Shame,” said Jack. “And I was going to buy you lunch.”

  “Hate to disappoint you — and me. Why don’t you pick up the tab for my coffee instead?” said Sarah, getting up.

  “You’re a cheap date, Sarah,” said Jack laughing.

  “So I’m told — but where does it ever get me?”

  She watched him prise himself out of the sofa, then drain his coffee.

  “You get to work. I’ll see you later.”

  “Let me know how you get on,” she said as she headed for the door. “And let’s meet when you’re back — I should be through by five.”

  Out in the street, the sun was shining and Sarah could see the tourists from the coaches bustling in and out of the shops.

  She was so used to their presence — like migrating birds arriving in May and leaving in September — that she realised she never really looked at them.

  Not as human beings.

  But now, having seen Jack’s photo — that smiling family in front of a New York cityscape with the Twin Towers still standing — she was suddenly aware of these tourists as individuals.

  Not a flock, or a herd. Not just irritating, or different, or noisy.

  But real people.

  People who’d maybe lost loved ones, who travelled alone, who travelled to forget.

  People who sometimes just … vanished.

  5. Now You See Him …

  Jack swung his Austin Healey Sprite off the Oxford ring road and followed the signs for the City Centre.

  With the top down, the ride across the Cotswolds had been a real joy.