Missing on Dartmoor

Julian Mitchell

Description

Mary Cranson had done the walk many times before, but now had simply vanished from Dartmoor near the prominent landmark called Haytor. Her boyfriend raises the alarm when she doesn't meet him as arranged in the local pub. For the investigating officer, Detective Inspector Richard King, the intriguing aspect is that many of her friends knew she would be on the moor as she had told them of her intentions the previous evening. King and his small team of detectives begin the arduous task of interviewing the people who would have known her whereabouts that fateful afternoon. Could she have been consumed by one of the notorious bogs on the moor or is the reason for her disappearance something more sinister?The detectives are also dealing with thefts of vehicles and machinery, mainly from farms across Dartmoor. These have continued undetected for over six months and questions are being asked in the local media about the lack of progress in catching the thieves. The profile of these cases increases significantly when a theft goes disastrously wrong. King is also made aware of a barn fire close to Haytor, but is this connected to the other cases? Pressure is mounting on the wily detective from the chief constable who wants progress on both the thefts and the missing woman.

Sujets

• Dartmoor
• Parc naturel du Dartmoor

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 03 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789019001
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2018 Julian Mitchell

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 978 1789019 001

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Cover: Haytor, Dartmoor National Park, Devon. OS grid reference: SX 757770

The moor, cities, towns and tors in this novel are real. The farms and people are purely a figment of the author’s imagination. The resemblance to any people – living or dead – , events or localities is entirely coincidental.
My thanks to Eoin, Debbie and particularly to Len as without his support and encouragement, this book would not have been written.



Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY ONE
TWENTY TWO
TWENTY THREE
THE EPILOGUE
ONE
The sudden and mysterious disappearance from the moor of the young woman walker was to give great cause for concern. Dartmoor can provide a beautiful setting at the right time and with the right weather, but at the wrong time with the wrong weather, it can be a cruel and inhospitable place. On that afternoon, early in February, the clouds were dark and threatening. The whole sky as far as the eye could see was like a shroud hovering above the ground.
An eerie silence had descended over the bleak landscape and a sense of foreboding hung in the air. Even the wild animals in this, their vast habitat, were reluctant to venture too far from their homes. This harshness wasn’t limited solely to the winter months as it could occur at any time from late autumn through to the spring and sometimes beyond: that afternoon was such a time.
This didn’t bother Mary Cranston. She wasn’t about to be thwarted and was happy to be on the moor come rain or shine. However, that day was to be a day like no other as what started as a carefree jaunt was to turn into something altogether far more sinister.
Dartmoor, or to give it its full title Dartmoor National Park, to the uninitiated and ill-informed is perceived as a vast, nondescript expanse of moorland inhabited only by animals. Ponies, cattle and sheep freely roam the moor, only being contained by cattle grids at the entrances, occasional wire fences and some ancient stone walls, many of which are dilapidated. The 368 square miles of moorland is also home to many villages and farms. Far from being flat and featureless, it contains over a hundred and fifty tors, these rocky peaks being topped with bedrock that burst through the surface of the earth millions of years ago.
Haytor, one of the grandest of these hills, itself rising nearly 1500 feet above sea level, was the chosen path for Mary’s trek.
*
Mary Cranson parked her yellow Punto in the car park at the base of the giant rock that is Haytor. It was mid-afternoon on Wednesday the first of February and she intended to walk up the prominent tor and back, before the gathering gloom enveloped the rocky outcrop and made it too difficult to navigate. Mary had supervised lunches at her parents’ hotel in Bovey Tracey in her job as the joint manager, with her twin sister, Alice, of The Bedford Country House Hotel. During her afternoon break she would often drive the fairly short distance onto the moor to enjoy the fresh air and exertion it offered. However, this day was to be very different from all those exhilarating occasions in the past. Although this particular part of the moor is much favoured by walkers, on that fateful afternoon, with the weather closing in, she was all alone.
*
Mary, the younger twin sister of Alice, was a very vivacious young woman who, somewhat unusually, was equally popular with men and women friends alike. Not only possessing a bubbly personality, she was also very attractive.
Although guaranteed a job at her parents’ hotel, she would have been effective with on-the-job training alone, but she had studied for a Higher National Diploma in Hospitality Management, achieving both vocational and professional qualifications. She worked long hours at the hotel but always found time to socialise with her friends and exercise, mainly walking, but sometimes running, up the tors that are dotted around the moor close to her home.
Her boyfriend of one year, Tom Bowers, had brought a new focus to her life and they saw each other frequently, but not daily. At twenty six he was four years older than her. They had met while he was studying for his law degree at Plymouth University, which had taken him three years to acquire, and she was learning how to run a hotel from a theoretical perspective. Although neither was a resident student, most of their course colleagues were and they often joined them in the on-campus Student Union Bar, known as the Lion and the Lamb, but also by its acronym, SUB. The night they met, Mary was a little worse for wear as she had been celebrating a friend’s birthday in the SUB. She knew she would be drinking after her lectures that day, so had been dropped off in the morning by her sister, Alice: this was a very sensible move and was to lead to the beginning of a wonderful relationship.
Tom was in the bar that night with a few would-be solicitors, discussing some obscure legal point that had been raised in class. He had seen Mary for the first time the previous week and was smitten. Although he was contributing to the discussion with his colleagues, he kept an eye on Mary through regular furtive glances in her direction. She, meanwhile, appeared oblivious to this surreptitious attention, but she wasn’t!
When she needed to visit the toilet, soon after and not by coincidence, Tom also felt the need to answer a call of nature. He delayed his arrival perfectly, as Mary came out from the ladies toilet, he was approaching the gent’s. Outside the somewhat grubby loos of the SUB was not the most romantic of places to speak for the first time, but neither cared.
“Hello. My name’s Tom and a friend tells me we have something in common.”
“Have we? Apart from being students here, what’s the link?”
“Well, I understand you live in Bovey Tracey?”
“I do, and have done all my life.”
“So do I, or should I say about a mile from the town centre.”
“Well I never and it’s taken us all this time to meet. I know it’s a small town, but I suppose it’s not easy to get to know eight thousand people. My name’s Mary by the way.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you Mary. Listen, as we live fairly close to each other, if you ever want a lift to the uni or home, just let me know.”
“Funny you should offer that Tom, I was going to get a bus later, as I’m not driving today. I’d be very grateful of a lift home.”
“No problem; what time do you want to leave?”
“As you are doing me a favour, you tell me when you plan to go.”
“How about in half an hour?”
“That would be great. Just give me a wave and a couple of minutes to say goodbye to my friends.” With that they parted and went back to their respective groups, Tom not bothering to carry on the pretence of needing the toilet. The half hour was just enough time for Mary to ring her sister and cancel her lift. Love at first sight is often an overused cliché, but in their case, for both of them, it was true.
*
It had been a year since their toilet encounter and Tom was now a fairly recently qualified solicitor, practising in Plymouth. Since their first meeting, they had seen each other many times and become lovers and soul mates. Tom played rugby for Bovey Tracey Rugby Club, and had done since he was a teenager: he was now captain of the first team. His life revolved around his work, rugby and Mary. He had arranged to meet her in The Rock Inn, Haytor Vale, that February afternoon. The pub was a stone’s throw from the giant rock where Mary planned to walk, and it retained much of its mid-eighteenth century coaching inn charm and peaceful, old-world ambience. When they first started seeing each other, they had many enjoyable assignations there, and it continued to be a regular meeting place for them.
Lighting up time that day was soon after 5.15 p.m. and as Tom was hoping to meet up with Mary before nightfall, he left the practice where he worked slightly earlier than his normal leaving time. He planned to arrive at The Rock Inn just before 5.30, where he expected to find her waiting for him. However, when she wasn’t there he wasn’t unduly concerned that she hadn’t arrived and ordered a pint of his favourite beer. In anticipation of her imminent arrival, he also ordered a half of lager, which was Mary’s drink of choice.
By 5.45 he began to get a litt