Sam's attention switched to a number of photographs over the bar. One showed a group of people smiling for the camera aboard a yacht. Another displayed a youth football team, each player beaming proudly in front of a trophy on the ground. Sam studied one photo after another. Then a particular one caught his eye.
Sam couldn't believe it.
He had spent the last couple of days scratching around for clues, getting whacked over the head, half-strangled and slammed head first into a door in the process. Yet, within minutes of arriving in this village, he had already heard a story possibly involving the man he was trying to find more about.
Now he was looking at a picture of him.
Danny, stood on a pier, dressed in wet weather gear, proudly holding aloft an enormous fish. He was clean shaven, and his fair hair was slightly shorter than when Sam had found him, but there was no mistaking it was the same man.
'Hello, what can I get you?'
The man Sam had seen open up the pub appeared behind the bar.
'I'll have a whisky please,' Sam told him.
The barman served him his drink.
'I see you're interested in the pictures,' he said, taking Sam's money. 'We like to celebrate our village in here, so we put up mementos of local achievements.'
'I see,' said Sam, glancing back up at the picture of Danny.
'Is there one that's caught your eye?'
The question was the opening Sam needed. Fortunately, every photograph had the name of those pictured printed on the bottom.
Danny Findlay.
It meant Sam didn't have to be creative with the truth.
'I was talking to a woman outside...she was cleaning the memorial stone out there.'
The barman shook his head, nonplussed.
'She told me about the boating accident. She mentioned one of the children orphaned was called Danny.'
Realisation dawned on the face of the barman.
'Yes, that's the same Danny Findlay,' he said dolefully. 'That family has suffered so much since that day.'
Sam tried to appear nonchalant.
'That's what the woman outside said,' he stated casually, allowing incredulity into his voice. 'Something about Danny's sister disappearing, then his aunt passing away. I don't think I've ever heard such a sad story.'
'That it is,' the barman sighed. 'The only one left of the family is Roger, Danny's uncle. He's got a place out on Cherry-'
The man stopped himself and gave Sam a hard stare.
'You're not a reporter, are you?'
Sam had been asked that so often he took it in his stride now.
'No, I'm not,' he told the barman, sounding aggrieved.
The man caught the insulted look on his face.
'Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you,' he said, a trace of guilt in his voice. 'It's just we've had so many people from the press sniffing around the village over the years...after the accident...then again when the girl disappeared and her aunt died. At least Danny leaving didn't make the news...'
The barman excused himself to attend to something down in the cellar. Sam watched him disappear and decided it was time to leave. Too much interest in Danny Findlay would only make the barman suspicious.
Outside, he glanced over at the memorial, struck by a conflict of emotions. He felt heartened by the progress he was making, yet touched by the tales about Danny's family.
The sun finally broke through the clouds, its weak light taking the edge off the cold snap. More people were spilling into the centre of the village now, leaving Sam in need of somewhere quiet. He took solace in the church cemetery.
The barman had given him the start of an address.
Cherry.
He searched on his phone. It didn't take him long to find what he wanted.
Cherry Lane.
It was only a few minutes drive away. The place where Danny had spent his formative years. The next part of the puzzle was going to be the most important.
Finding out why Danny had left this village.
Chapter 13
Sam had just risen from the cemetery bench when he recalled something the barman had told him.
'...we've had so many people from the press sniffing around...'
He sat back down and did another search on his phone. The result was a multitude of news reports.
There had been mass press coverage, both local and national, of the boating tragedy. The captain of the vessel had been absolved of any blame. The freak storm had arrived out of the blue, catching everyone off-guard, battering the coastal village of Morehampton for just minutes, long enough to leave a small community grieving for a handful of its residents.
Sam found grainy photographs of those who had perished that day, twelve years ago, the captain, two elderly couples, and Derek and Christine. The pictures of Danny's parents struck a chord with Sam, especially that of Christine Findlay. The resemblance between mother and son was unmissable. There was little about the Findlay children in the articles, just passing comments explaining the orphaned sixteen year old boy and his six year old sister were being looked after by relatives.
Ten years later, the stories were of a different nature, focused on one person in particular.
Sam had typed the words 'girl', 'missing' and 'Morehampton' into a search engine. The headline of the first article it generated sent a shiver down his spine.
Searching For Hope.
Searching.
Two years ago, on a balmy autumn evening, sixteen year old Hope Findlay vanished into thin air. She was last seen leaving the secondary school she attended in Witcham, a village five miles from Morehampton. That afternoon, instead of walking to the nearby shelter to catch the school bus back home as usual, witnesses recalled seeing her head in the opposite direction, taking her further away from Morehampton. She had nothing with her but the school clothes she was wearing.
Within hours, the alarm had been raised and a hunt for the missing girl was under way. The police faced an uphill struggle from the start. There were few cameras lining the country lanes in the area. No strangers had been sighted lurking in the vicinity. Nobody witnessed Hope getting into a vehicle. The schoolgirl had not confided in any friends she intended to run away.
With the police struggling to make a breakthrough, the locals organised searches of their own, scouring every inch of ground from first light until dusk for any sight of Hope. However, the following days proved fruitless. Hope remained missing, leaving the press to portray a picture of an innocent girl abducted in broad daylight. The teenager's disappearance had remained a mystery ever since.
A week after Hope went missing, the story took a turn for the worse.
The girl's aunt, Rose Carpenter, suffered a fatal heart attack in the kitchen of her home. Doctors believed the stress brought on by her niece's disappearance had simply been too much for her. Rose and her husband, Roger, had been legal guardians to Hope and Danny since the boating accident years earlier. A reconstructed family unit, forced together by circumstances, finally destroyed by events two years ago.
Sam put his phone away, thinking of Danny, feeling his heart tug for a man he had barely known. Danny had suffered so much hardship in his life. The loss of his parents as a teenager. His younger sister going missing ten years later. Then the death of his aunt, the woman who had taken him in. By his mid-twenties, Danny had endured more tragedy than most experienced in a lifetime.
Then Danny had moved on.
As the barman had inferred, there were no articles about Danny leaving the village. It just wouldn't have been news, one man's decision to move on to pastures new.
***
Sam found Cherry Lane easily enough. It was typically scenic, semi-detached cottages lining one side, empty, rambling fields the other. Sam cruised down the lane. At the end, he pulled over, got out of his car and ambled over to a low bridge. He sat down on the cusp of the bridge and watched the stream trickle underneath, contemplating a dilemma.
How to approach Danny's uncle.
>
He had spotted Roger Carpenter's cottage halfway along the lane, recognising the whitewashed building from the archive video footage on his phone. In the aftermath of Rose's death, the press had descended on the cottage, forcing Roger to step outside and request privacy as he grieved for his wife. This the media appeared to have done. The only articles Sam had found from the following months were odd snippets stating no progress had been made in the search for Hope.
For once, Sam was thoroughly stumped. The next logical step was to talk to Roger Carpenter, the only remaining family member. Sam had all the background information about the family and their suffering, but he wanted to hear it from someone personally involved.
But how to go about it?
He couldn't think of a way to get Roger to talk about Danny without revealing his nephew was dead, and Sam certainly didn't want to be the one to break that news. He stared down the lane in frustration, gazing at the spot where Roger had been filmed two years ago.
A car turned into the lane and pulled up outside Roger's cottage. Sam watched as both occupants remained in the car. Then another vehicle rolled up. Again, nobody got out. When a third car parked up near the cottage, Sam was totally confused.
Then a young, bespectacled man in a suit got out of the last car to arrive and approached the cottage. At the same time, the occupants of the other two vehicles also got out. The young man, clutching a sheaf of paperwork, shook hands with them before leading the small group down the path to the cottage. At the front door, he addressed the others with the aid of his paperwork, gesturing lazily with his hands at the building before them. The rest of the group listened attentively, nodding, surveying the property.
An estate agent.
The cottage was being shown to perspective suitors, despite no board outside advertising it was on the market. Sam watched the agent let himself in. The others followed him obediently.
Sam decided to take advantage.
He walked briskly towards the cottage, aware now why the people he had met today had been so willing to talk about Danny's family. A close-knit community usually remained tight-lipped about one of their own. But if Roger wasn't around any more...
Sam drew up alongside the agent's car and peered inside. On the front seat was a glossy property brochure. He noted the heading. Lintons Estate Agents.
The front door to the cottage was ajar. Sam pushed it open and walked straight into the front room.
He was instantly disappointed.
The property was empty. Although curtains still hung in the windows, not a scrap of furniture remained elsewhere. Even the carpets had been taken up. Sam looked in the back room. Nothing but fading wallpaper and bare floors. He had hoped to discover a souvenir of former family life on display, perhaps the odd photograph. No such luck.
Sam heard the back door open. The group were coming back into the cottage from the garden. The agent appeared in the kitchen doorway and froze when he saw Sam.
'Er...can I help you?'
Sam blew out his cheeks, feigning breathlessness.
'I thought I'd missed the viewing,' he panted. 'I rang Lintons and they told me if I hurried over I might catch you.'
The agent didn't look too sure.
'Well, you're normally supposed to book-'
'I know,' said Sam, cutting in, 'but I'm going away tomorrow and won't be back until-'
'Okay,' said the agent impatiently. 'We're going upstairs next. I'll leave the back door open so you can have a look at the garden.'
Sam stepped back to allow the small group to pass, then nipped out into the garden. It was a simple affair, a neat lawn with low fencing on either side.
'Jamie! Are you up yet?'
Sam looked over the fence. A skinny woman in a baggy sweater and jogging bottoms sucked on a cigarette in the adjoining garden. Sam heard a muted reply from indoors.
'Well, hurry up and get ready!' yelled the woman, rolling her eyes. 'You've got to be there in half an hour!'
Sam set off on a stroll down Roger's garden. The woman next door called out to him.
'Are you looking at the place as well?'
Sam turned and flashed her a smile.
'That's right. I'm looking to move into the area. I want somewhere quiet...but not too far from the beach.'
The woman threw her cigarette down on the ground and crushed it with the sole of her trainer.
'Well, this place sounds right for you then,' she said, brushing lank, blonde hair off her face. 'God knows you should get it for a good price. It's been on the market long enough.'
'Is that right?' said Sam, nodding thoughtfully. 'I presumed it had only just gone up for sale.'
The woman took a couple of steps towards him, chewing her nails absent-mindedly.
'No, not at all,' she said, giving the side of her neck a good scratch. 'Roger put it up for sale about three months ago. I'm sure it would have sold straight away, but people are put off when they hear what happened in the place.'
Three months. Something resounded in Sam's head.
'What happened?' asked Sam innocently.
The woman readily told him the now familiar story of Hope's disappearance followed by Rose's death days later in the kitchen just yards away.
'Are you looking forward to having neighbours again?'
The woman shrugged.
'Anybody will be better than Roger. He was a miserable man...always shouting at the kids...complaining to Rose about them. He never wanted them here. It wouldn't surprise me if Hope did run away...just to get away from him. Danny certainly couldn't wait to leave once Rose passed away. I can't say I blame him, either. Are you thinking about putting in an offer, then?'
Sam watched the woman in awe. She had hardly taken a breath. Her mouth had formed into a crooked smile, revealing several rotten teeth.
'I'll...er...have to look at the rest of the place...then give it some thought...'
Something caught Sam's eye in an upstairs window. The estate agent, gazing down at him inquisitively.
'Better join the others,' Sam told the woman. 'I don't want to get left behind.'
The woman laughed. A horrible cackle that went right through Sam. Suddenly, he wanted to be away from here. From this house full of sadness. This unappealing woman. And yet, there could be so much more....
'Did they ever find the missing girl?' he asked hastily.
The woman shook her head.
'Not that we ever heard. Who knows what happened to her? I remember her getting into a lot of trouble before she disappeared. Her brother tried to help her out. He thought the world of her.'
Sam absorbed the last few words.
'I still think the police could have done more...'
The statement took Sam by surprise.
'What makes you say that?' he asked, aware he had been outside far too long now. The woman was biting her nails again, somewhat agitated.
'A few days before Hope went missing, I saw a car driving up and down outside...'
'Up and down this lane?'
The woman nodded.
'A blue car...driving slowly. It turned at the end of the lane, came back down, then drove off. The woman a few doors down had seen a car do exactly the same two days earlier. The same blue car, by the sound of it.'
'I take it you went to the police?'
'We went together after Hope disappeared and told them what we had seen. They asked us about the make of the car...the number plate...'
The woman shook her head sadly.
'We weren't able to help much. Neither of us know much about cars. We couldn't tell them what make it was. We hadn't even noticed the registration. The police said they didn't have enough to go on. A long blue car was too general a description. I don't know, though...surely there must have been something they could have-'
'Did you see who was in the car?'
'No, the windows were blacked out. That's how we knew it was probably the same-'
The woman closed her mouth and narrowed her eyes at Sam
. In that moment, he knew he had overstepped the mark. After a slow start, the information had flowed his way today. He had lost his discipline.
The woman on the other side of the fence certainly felt something was amiss.
'You seem very interested in what happened,' she said, watching Sam intently, 'considering you're only here to look at the cottage.'
She glared at Sam, waiting for a reply. The group inside the cottage could be heard coming back down the stairs.
'Sorry, got to dash,' he muttered, turning his back on the woman. 'I want to catch the agent before he leaves.'
'Hey! Are you up to something?'
Sam went back inside the house with the woman's question ringing in his ears. He hurried through the cottage just as the viewing party reached the bottom of the stairs.
'Excuse me!'
Sam ignored the estate agent's shout, left the cottage and headed for his car, reprimanding himself for his slip-up. It was a cardinal sin for a man of his experience. Frustration had given way to over-exuberance. He had allowed emotion to creep in.
He should never have started out on this case.
Finding the victim had made it too personal.
Sam drove back down Cherry Lane, eager to get home and leave all thoughts of Danny Findlay behind. He passed the estate agent in the cottage doorway.
Bemusement written all over his face.
Chapter 14
The intercom buzzer woke Sam from a deep slumber the next morning. He sat up in bed, shaking off his lethargy, knowing instantly he had made the right decision yesterday. He had rung Andrew Rodgers to confirm he would join him on his next flight out to the Caribbean. Rodgers had been delighted, telling Sam the flight details would be arranged in the next day or two.
Sam threw on some clothes and strolled over to the intercom.
'Yes?' he said, pressing the button.
'Mr Carlisle, I'd like a word.'
Sam let out a small sigh.
'Come on up, detective. I'll open the door for you.'
Sam wasn't surprised to hear Detective Inspector Robins outside his flat. Nor was he as disheartened as he might have been. He had accepted Andrew Rodgers' offer after concluding he would not investigate Danny's death any further. Any guilt he might feel at dropping the case was going to be balanced out in the next few minutes when the police picked up where he had left off. A result of sorts. No, the hardest part was going to be tolerating his visitor's gloating.
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