I stood on the hotel terrace in the dawn light, the screeching chorus of birds that had woken me early in the first place now silent, allowing clarity of thought on what would have seemed a glorious morning if there had been no shadow cast by the ever-present spectre of the missing girl. Towel around my neck and skin still sweating from my morning run, I sipped a cup of tea, gazed across the river (which in different circumstances would have soothed the mind), and listed the few facts I did know about Angel Blackwood’s disappearance.
Firstly, she had disappeared on Sunday not long after three o’clock in the afternoon, so almost four days ago. Secondly, police investigations of staff and pupils, plus search officers and tracker dogs, had failed to shed any light on her disappearance, despite the police being called in quickly, and despite more than the usual police resources being allocated due to Sir John’s influence with the powers that be. And it seemed to me they had no real reason to actually suspect their one ‘concrete suspect’, the anonymous old man with the beard, who was anyway apparently able to elude all of their enquiries. Thirdly, the academy was a relatively secure facility, and no apparent way out of the grounds for the girl, let alone a would-be abductor, had been identified.
But Angel was nevertheless missing, so I added other elements into the mix; the children, with (as my wife had seen), their almost superhuman abilities, the police (apparently diligent but painting by numbers), plus the age of the academy building itself (why I included this last factor I didn’t know, but intuition told me it mattered).
Different thinking was definitely needed.
And as I looked at the creek, the brightening dawn across the calm and reflective water touching the hopeful parts of my mind, and despite the near certainty of the previous evening that the girl was lost, I now felt Angel still to be alive. Then I shook myself. How could I know, especially now that it had been several days since her disappearance? I was talking out loud about this in an attempt to be more rational when I felt a large hand clutch my shoulder.
“A bit moist, Sangster,” said Sir John. “Your shoulder that is. Want to have a wash before you drive me to the station?”
“Morning, Sir John,” I laughed. “Yes, better had do, give me ten minutes, then…” My answer was cut short by the sound of furious revving, which in turn prompted raucous cawing as a mass exodus of birds flew up from the river. It was the motorcyclist priest, dressed in a long leather coat and goggles, starting his machine, then tearing off down the road, long hair flying in the wind.
“Infernal noise,” huffed Sir John, as the sound eventually tailed off into the distance. “Shouldn’t be allowed in a place like this. Chap had a dog collar on as well.”
*
“So, Sangster,” said Sir John as we stood on the station platform about half an hour later. “Just waiting for… ah, here he is.”
I turned around to see a middle-aged man, perhaps not quite of Sir John’s epic proportions, but nevertheless tall and well built, and wearing a wide brimmed fedora hat and what looked to me like an ankle length Australian cattle drover’s raincoat (under which I could see a suit, shirt, and tie).
“Tremayne, good of you to come.”
“Granville,” he answered in a richly melodious, deep, mild but (it seemed to me) nevertheless super-confident Cornish accent. Here, I thought, was a man who would give Sir John a run for his money if it came to dominating the room. “Always a pleasure, got my surgery this morning so not too much time to talk. How’s this awful business going?”
“This is Sangster,” said Sir John, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “Sangster, Charles Tremayne, Member of Parliament for Truro, Liberals you know.” I nodded. “And Tremayne’s been helping me mobilise the local rozzers.”
“No, no, no,” said the MP with a wave of his hand. “Just a few suggestions in the right ears.”
“Piffle,” Sir John replied, making the MP wince a little. “You got the ball rolling. Made sure they sent Pentreath and his crew down here.”
“Local force no good then?” I asked.
“Truro lot are very competent,” Tremayne replied quickly. “Very competent indeed, but Pentreath’s the best in Devon and Cornwall by all accounts. Heads up our CID.” He looked uncomfortable, which I could see by the way he shuffled from side to side, despite the coat and hat largely providing cover. “I, er… anyway, when John asked, I spoke to a few people and, well, Pentreath was assigned.”
“Aye, Tremayne,” Sir John almost shouted (his Lancashire accent always grew stronger when he shouted). “I knew I could rely on you.”
“Well, Granville, you know I believe in your academy.” Tremayne then looked at me. “I’m a great supporter, Sangster.”
“What is it you like?”
“Why, to bring the cream of our country’s youth down to Truro and invest in the facilities, staff and so on the way the Granville Institute has. What’s not to like, Sangster?”
“When you put it like that I—”
“Anyway, Granville,” Tremayne interrupted, pulling his coat collar up. “Nothing else you need for now?”
“Nothing for now.”
“Well, just tip me the wink if something comes up and, Sangster?”
“Yes?”
“I hear good things of you, very good things, and a happy ending to all this is as important for Truro as it is for the academy.” He stared hard. “Make it happen.”
“If I can, for the girl and her family.”
“Of course, now goodbye.”
He turned, walked down the platform and, as I watched him go, I wondered how Tremayne had mobilised Pentreath so quickly. After all, it had only been about thirty-six hours since I’d been told of Angel’s disappearance, so presumably Sir John hadn’t known before that either. This thought played on my mind for some minutes before being displaced by other, more immediate concerns.
*
Sir John and I stood alone on the platform.
“So, the local MP pulled strings with the police, got their best assigned?” I asked, and Sir John nodded. “How did you get him to do that?”
“Known the chap for a while, met him, er…” Sir John looked over my shoulder in the manner I’d become used to when his ever-active mind was focused on multiple ideas so that he lost his thread of thinking.
“You met Tremayne where?”
“Oh, in London at the Liberal Club. Tremayne’s made of the right stuff. Trust the man.”
“And he trusts you?”
“Course,” said Sir John with a snort, that told me the MP’s reciprocal trust had never entered his mind. “But his ideas, his morals, Sangster – we can trust the man.”
“Such as?”
“Well, he’s against nuclear power but right behind the nuclear deterrent. Shows common sense.”
“I suppose so, Polaris submarines and everything, I mean—”
“Course. This buffoon of a Labour prime minister Harold Wilson and his cronies have no idea what they’re doing.”
“Perhaps,” I said, wondering why Tremayne’s general morals and politics mattered, but nevertheless trusting Sir John’s instincts, which I’d never seen fail in the past (as he spoke it occurred to me that pressure on Pentreath from such a high level certainly explained the chief superintendent’s defensive, self-justifying manner). “But anyway, Tremayne supports our academy project, so he’ll help again if we need him to I take it?”
“Quite, Sangster. Now then, it’s some minutes until the train arrives, so long enough for you to tell me about those instincts you mentioned last night. Come on, spill it please?”
“I need to do more checking.”
“Nonsense, tell me what you think, our work is on the line here. I didn’t set up the Granville Institute for nothing. I was a problem child too you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“By the way, Sangster, never asked you. Were you, er…?”
“Was I what, Sir John?”
“A problem lad. You know, unhappy, difficult teens, couldn’t establish empathy and so on?”
“No, sorry, model school pupil, model naval cadet. Followed all the rules. Thought you knew all that.”
“Perhaps I did once. Can’t remember everything we check up on our people. But you don’t now, do you. Follow rules that is. Not always?”
“I follow what I think to be the right rules,” I answered, irate from both the grilling and plain fatigue. Sir John nodded.
“Very well, and I suspect this case needs someone who doesn’t follow all the rules. But anyway, tell me your ideas thus far.”
“I can’t give you facts, but my instinct, well, I’m not sure…”
“Go on, man, go on.”
“Oh, it’s somehow a combination of the children and the place itself.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Sangster.”
“What I mean is, that due to their intellects these children, and from what I hear, Angel especially, are capable of doing things outside of our understanding. Incredible things, so that the police are applying procedures that might work for, say, a child missing from a standard environment like their own home, a boarding school or even a care home. But,” I paused, wondering whether I was about to say too much, “DCS Pentreath’s approach simply won’t work for the kids at the academy.”
“And?” said Sir John, as the approaching train made the rails click beside us.
“The place itself. As we’ve said many times, the layout is actually super secure, but somehow more importantly for me…” I struggled for words.
“Yes man?” shouted Sir John as the noise of the train grew louder.
“Many things,” I answered, suddenly feeling a flow of ideas. “It’s antiquity for a start, then the building being right by the creek, and the very dense woodlands, the strangely warm climate, the site’s isolation, the er… history and general ambience of the place I suppose.”
“That’s still riddles to me.”
“Well, they have some very odd ideas down here you know, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s imagined.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing really, people here just have different ways I suppose.”
“No, come on, Sangster, you must have meant something by that remark, I mean…” Sir John was stopped from telling me what he ‘meant’ by an announcement over the tannoy.
‘Eight-fifteen London Paddington service arriving Platform One. London Paddington service.’
“Well… okay,” I said, now finding it hard to talk over the noise of the approaching train. “Here are just a few things I’ve heard in the last week alone. Locals are convinced there are ghostly dogs roaming the moors and woodlands, that you can find old lost Roman trackways using a lead weight on a string, and, last but not least, that Jesus visited this area, as a boy, to the very place where our academy now lies. I mean, Jesus, here.”
“Superstitious poppycock. Just ignore it all, Sangster,” yelled Sir John, as the train pulled up beside us.
“Guess so,” I said, thinking perhaps he was right, and also that I was letting myself get a little bit too immersed in the locale.
“And use that intuition of yours, Sangster, get me a result,” he added, climbing into the carriage. “And please, man, keep me posted.”
“I will,” I called as the train pulled away, then turned and tripped, realising too late Sir John had left his picnic hamper on the platform. Guessing Sir John would only have brought the very best in victuals. I picked myself up, brushed gravel off my knees and smiled in anticipation of some leftover treasure trove. I then bent down and opened the basket, only to find empty space where the food and wine had once been, plus dirty plates and cutlery. I dropped the hamper in a dustbin by the ticket office and strode to my car.