The Long Dark Road

by P. R. Black

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  It wasn’t what Georgia had expected – a new, freestanding structure, actually still on wheels, sat in a clearing in front of one of the limestone walls. It was dark green, with a corrugated effect, although it had clearly cost a fortune. Inside it was a large room with a couch on it, a low-hanging light, some tight-packed bookshelves, a kettle and a mug tree. The shepherd’s hut was plumbed, going by the sink in one corner, and connected to the grid. It was cosy; Georgia particularly liked the old-style mahogany-effect radio set into one corner on the table, next to the window; only the pale blue stand-by light gave away that it was actually a digital set, fashioned to look like an ancient wartime wireless, complete with dials.

  ‘Another tea?’ Jed said, hanging up his jacket on a peg.

  ‘I will, thanks. Just milk. Is there a bathroom through here?’

  ‘Yep – dead ahead.’

  Saoirse sat in a basket near the door, and seemed to grin at Georgia as she limped into the door and locked it behind her.

  There was even a shower cabinet in the tight white space. Perhaps he lives here, Georgia thought. She could see the attraction, especially in the summer – a cosy space, but with the promise of travel and adventure. Perhaps it was like Enid Blyton; perhaps he used the Land Rover to transfer the shepherd’s hut here and there on the estate.

  She peeled off her jacket and her training top, surveying the injuries. Some scraping along her back, angry red scratches and raised skin that would form a nasty bruise; a nick taken out of her ear, still bleeding. She pressed some tissue paper to the wound, and winced. In the mirror she spotted a rough patch on her chin, but it felt worse than it looked. ‘Used to do that to myself with a pumice stone, voluntarily,’ she said to herself.

  After she’d bathed her wounds again and tried to look like someone who hadn’t just been eaten alive by the earth, she came back in to find two steaming mugs of tea on top of the table, and a chair pulled out for her.

  Jed filled in a logbook as she sat down. He looked rangier with his jacket and wellies off – though not quite diminished. He was lean as a gunslinger in a red plaid shirt, angular and clearly physically fit, despite the bony bonhomie of his face. He looked kind, though. There was something in him, bizarrely, that made Georgia think of a younger, slimmer version of the late Sir Terry Wogan, though Jed had to be well into his fifties.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, pushing the logbook towards her. ‘Details.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is an accident book,’ he said, colouring slightly. ‘You’ll have to put down what happened to you, and sign it… Also, you need to check to see if what I say seems correct, from your perspective.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Georgia scribbled down a rough version of events, signed it, and after a pause, added her name and address.

  ‘I have to take note of everything that happens – it gets reported. Particularly to do with the ghyll.’

  ‘It’s a dodgy place, that’s for sure.’

  He tapped the sheet with a finger like the head of a shovel. ‘I know you said you weren’t quite sure, just then, but… I still have to contact the police.’

  Georgia paused. ‘I guess you do.’

  Jed nodded. ‘If anyone’s out there trying to shove people into the ghyll, I want to know about it. I’ll take a look anyway, with Saoirse. If anyone’s around, I’ll see signs of them. But there was no one around, apart from you. That was my feeling.’

  Georgia sipped at her tea. ‘Next you’ll say, “I know these woods like the back of my hand”.’

  Jed chuckled. ‘Yeah, something like that. Been working for Sir Oliver for nigh-on thirty years. I was a tree surgeon at first, if you can believe that – out of the forces after five years, then answered a job application. My folks are from Ferngate originally, but they got divorced. I hadn’t been back since I was twelve, maybe.’

  ‘You must have started round about when I was getting close to my final year here.’

  ‘You went to Ferngate? The university?’

  ‘Yep. Medical school. Best days of my life, believe it or not.’

  ‘I can’t imagine the brains it takes to do that – amazes me how someone can be so well read and well qualified, to do something so skilful. I admire that, that’s the honest truth.’

  ‘It’s all to do with graft, really – it gets pretty hands-on. You have to put in the hours. It’s like everything else – do the reading, find the answers, practise all the time, then apply everything you know in the field.’

  ‘That said… I would question how smart someone was, going right up to the ghyll, and ignoring all those signs. The ones saying Danger of Death, and such like.’ He took a long draught of his tea. Nothing had changed in his tone of voice, but there was something in his eyes that made Georgia feel as if the temperature had dropped a little. Just for a second, the shepherd’s hut felt a little less homely.

  ‘I came here to find out more. You were right first time,’ Georgia said. ‘I’m retracing Stephanie’s steps. Or, the steps she was supposed to have taken, according to the theories.’

  ‘And what do you reckon to those theories, now you’ve done that?’

  ‘I’m in agreement with you. I think on that night in particular, in the middle of a storm, it’s unlikely she would have come anywhere near the ghyll. The only reason she would have done that is if she had a pressing need to be there – meaning, she meant to kill herself. And as you say, there’s little evidence that she did that, and there was no sign of a body. There is that slight chance she got washed out into the river, but even at that, it would be unusual for a body to completely vanish from the waterway. Not out of the question – that’s the bit that tortures me. But unlikely. There’s a chance that’s all I’ll ever know. That’s all I might have: that it’s possible she jumped down the ghyll during a storm. That’s what the police think, you know.’

  He placed his mug on the table, then leaned forward. He moved his hand, and might have touched Georgia’s arm, but he stopped himself, then said: ‘For what it’s worth… well, I already told you. I don’t think she came onto the land, here.’

  ‘Do you remember that night?’

  ‘Of course.’ He scratched his chin. ‘I guess this is where I provide you with my alibi?’

  ‘If that’s the way you want to put it, I won’t stop you.’

  He chuckled. ‘You know something? I admire your honesty. For that reason, I’ll tell you – I was working on the flood channels up at Chessington Hall. It’s flat, up there, even though they’re at a higher elevation – had problems with drainage in the past. Too many trees chopped down, you ask me, but Sir Oliver had this idea of a showground. Somewhere people could hold weddings, or even a festival. He’s a canny man – but losing the trees around about the hall leaves it prone to flooding. That’s just my opinion. He told me what I could do with it. So anyway, that night, the Friday, me and some of the farm workers helped dig a trench. At one point, we wondered if it was ever going to stop raining. Sir Oliver even wanted to come out and help, the mad bugger, but we talked him out of it. Me and the rest of the boys who work with the sheep were all there, digging the ditch, well into the morning. Lots of witnesses.’

  ‘That’s a little bit defensive, Jed. Just a little bit.’

  He shrugged, amiably. ‘If I was you, I’d be a little bit suspicious. The cops certainly were. I’m the only person around here, after all.’

  ‘But they cleared you.’

  ‘’Course. I don’t know what happened to your daughter. Anyway, the day after, I helped coordinate the search. It was my job to take a look at the grounds, scour as much of it as possible, talk it over with the cops and walkers’ groups and God knows who else to think about where she could have gone. Or where she might have been taken. Sir Oliver and the previous groundsmen were called out, too. No sign of her. And I might add, they turned my place over, too.’

  ‘You actually live here?’

  �
��In the warmer months, yeah. See that sofa over there? It opens out into a comfy bed.’ He coloured again. Strange, Georgia thought, that he should have such a shy reaction, and yet talk over Stephanie’s possible murder with barely a stutter.

  ‘You’re not married, then?’

  ‘Nah. Kicked that habit a while back. Missus packed up and left. Haven’t seen her in, God, fifteen years now. I don’t blame her, in a way. It’s not an ideal life, this, for some. But it suits me.’

  ‘I can see the appeal, sometimes. You live rent free?’

  ‘Yep. I love these hills and these woods. Best place in the world, far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘I used to think that, too. I used to have a dream of coming back here, and opening a practice.’

  He nodded. ‘They all say that. Great place to study – or, it would be, if I was the studying type. My boy is. You’ll probably see him out and about. Some head of hair on him – he got my hair, but he’s been dying it all colours. Jesus. Anyway, beautiful town. All this countryside nearby… breath of fresh air.’

  ‘Bit lonely, though. Compared to the big places. It was for Stephanie, anyway. Horrible how it’s turned out, really. That I used to think this place was a dream. Now it’s the opposite.’

  Her voice hadn’t cracked this time, but Jed saw something in her that prompted him to pat her arm. She didn’t stop him; didn’t mind. After a pause, he said: ‘I’ll make a quick phone call. See if Sir Oliver’s around. He’s not a bad guy, so far as they go. Bit abrupt, but I always kind of liked that about him. He didn’t skirt the issue. He was gutted, you know. What happened to your lass. Devastated. He puts everything into this town. It’s his birthright; the university and the town and the Chessingtons are hand-in-hand, over history. He took it personally, you know. Close to depressed as I’ve ever seen him.’

  ‘I spoke to him at the time. But I don’t remember much about it. A handshake. A promise to do all he could. Everything is a bit blurred, really, from that time. I wouldn’t mind a longer conversation with him.’

  ‘You could’ve gotten in touch through the university. Or Twitter; I think the estate has an account, now they’re looking at holding weddings and parties in the hall.’

  ‘It’s all short notice, this,’ Georgia said.

  ‘Trying to catch him out?’ Jed caught her look, then said: ‘Ah, I’m just joking! I’ll make a call. Hang on now.’

  He went outside to do it, leaving the door ajar. She couldn’t make out much of the conversation.

  Saoirse watched her with one wary eye, chin resting on her front paws, as still as stone.

  Jed gave her the thumbs-up when he came back inside. ‘You’re on – this afternoon, in fact. Finish up your tea and I’ll drive you over. He’s got a spare hour.’

  11

  There’s a world out here you couldn’t dream of. But you’d smack your lips over it, just the same. Cornfed’s the key to it all, really. I shouldn’t be so surprised. One door leads to another, each one narrower than the last. But we all want to go through them. Come on. Don’t lie.

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  It was a grand building, several miles away from Jed’s rolling shed. The house was open to the elements with the nearest trees perhaps one hundred yards away on three sides; it had two storeys but was broad, Victorian in scope, with grandiloquent Greek pillars up a short flight of steps. The stonework was a mellow colour in the bright sunshine, and had surely been cleaned not too long ago. A long gravel driveway enhanced the building’s sense of grandeur and broad scope. An ornate fountain provided an obstacle in the middle of the driveway, depicting what seemed to be a mermaid and a porpoise at play, amid jagged waves, the patina on the face of the carving rendering it all in aquamarine. The effect was so extraordinary that Georgia only realised as they turned around it that the water in it had been stilled. To the right of the house, a candy-striped marquee loomed, larger than the house itself, and behind that thick, forbidding forest, as far as the eye could see.

  The grounds were busy, with white vans parked to the side of the house, and people making their way into and out of the tent. Others worked on the periphery, tending to the lawns that fringed the driveway, although to Georgia’s eyes these looked immaculate as they were.

  ‘I had no idea this was here,’ Georgia said. ‘I had a vague idea of the chancellor and I think he’d appeared on the local TV now and again. But I didn’t know this house was here. It’s incredible.’

  ‘Private estate,’ Jed said. ‘The Chessingtons had plenty of money swirling around – no need to open it up to the public, like so many of the stately homes. They liked to keep themselves to themselves. Sir Oliver’s a bit of an oddity in that regard. He doesn’t need the income, but he wants people to come and see the place. He’s even thinking about donating it to the National Trust in his will, though his kids weren’t amused by that, I can tell you.’

  ‘It looks like the best hotel you ever fantasised about staying in.’

  ‘That’s one thing Sir Oliver didn’t want,’ Jed said, sternly. ‘He doesn’t want the house proper turned into a hotel. He’s open to the idea of hosting weddings and conferences, but he wants the place to keep its… what’s the word? Mystique? Allure?’

  ‘I get what you’re saying.’

  Jed pulled up at the front steps. A woman in her early twenties whose wide-lapelled trouser suit made her look as if she’d dressed up from her mother’s wardrobe came down the steps to intercept the Land Rover. She had glasses and wild curly hair, clipped down and tamed, but only just. She already had her hand held out, ready to shake, by the time Georgia had gotten out of the car and before Jed had even opened his mouth.

  ‘You’ll be Mrs Healey?’ She smiled, her red lips struggling to contain her teeth. ‘I’m Susan, Sir Oliver’s personal assistant.’

  Georgia shook hands. ‘Thanks for letting me come over – I appreciate Sir Oliver’s a very busy man.’

  ‘Not at all, we’re delighted to see you. Follow me, please.’

  ‘This is goodbye, then,’ Jed said. He shook Georgia’s hand more heartily. ‘You take care now, lass, you hear? However it all works out, be well.’

  She was absurdly touched. Now that her nerves had settled since the incident at the ghyll, she felt on the verge of tears again. ‘Thank you. You probably saved my life.’

  ‘Ah not at all. You’d have found a way to get out. You’ve got the good stuff. I can tell.’ Then he was gone with a last wave. In the back of the car, Saoirse barked joyfully as her master returned.

  Heading up the stairs and into the doorway behind Susan, Georgia spied a long, rich red welcoming mat, with marble underneath, and a white spiral staircase at the far wall. Everything gleamed. Georgia looked down at her Frankensteinian boots and shivered.

  ‘Um… should I take these off?’

  ‘No, you’ll be fine,’ Susan said. Then she paused, and stared. ‘Um, actually… If you wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘I’d be the same,’ Georgia said, unlacing the boots. It was a relief to dump them in the doorway and stretch her toes. She half expected white-gloved servants to fly out from the doorways to right and left, bearing silver dust pans, brushes and moues of disgust as they picked up her shoes between pinched fingers. No one appeared.

  ‘Sir Oliver’s on a break at the moment – he’s helping prepare the grounds. There’s a lot going on, as you can see.’

  ‘A wedding, I think Jed said?’

  ‘Private function, yes.’ Susan indicated a creamy leather sofa in an alcove. ‘If you’d like to wait there for a minute or two, Sir Oliver will be along to see you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Georgia took a seat beneath a granite statue of a figure from Greek antiquity, short sword poised, preparing to take a swipe at a terrible monster with a tessellated hide that reminded her of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. Looking at the face, she snorted in astonishment; he had the exact likeness of a young Clint Eastwood, down to a cheroot perched on one side of the mouth.


  ‘Do you like it?’ A voice boomed across the space – incongruously northern. ‘That there’s Hercules fighting the dragon. I had it made when I was going through a Sergio Leone phase. Some days I think it’s awful. Some days I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done with this place. It usually depends on whether or not I’m drinking.’

  Sir Oliver Chessington was not quite the man Georgia remembered – he had been in a sober suit, with his silver hair neatly parted, short but wearing well for his age, every inch and every ounce the country squire he was.

  That had been two years ago, in the days and weeks following Stephanie’s disappearance. The man who came down the spiral staircase now might have been a completely different man, in utterly different circumstances. He was short, possibly even shorter than Georgia, with a jumble sale off-grey polo shirt over the top of boot-cut blue jeans frayed at the hems, which did nothing, nothing at all for him. The toe-tips of his black socks peeked out from beneath these unruly hemlines like a diffident mammal in two minds about leaving its burrow. The once well-groomed white hair was in all directions now, and the all-salt-no-pepper stubble completed the picture of a tradesman approaching retirement who still enjoyed his work.

  ‘I heard The Good, The Bad And The Ugly soundtrack, when I noticed the cheroot,’ Georgia said, rising to meet him.

  ‘I’ll have it piped in at the front door for visitors.’ He stuck his tongue out, and grinned as they shook hands. ‘How lovely to see you, Mrs Healey. You’re looking very well.’

  ‘And you – thanks for agreeing to see me. I know you’ve got loads on.’

  He brushed this aside. ‘Ah not at all. You’re always welcome here, always. How is your husband? Rod, wasn’t it?’

  ‘He’s fine – away on business at the moment.’

  ‘Keeping busy, keeping busy. A man after my own heart. Now – you’re a milk, no sugar type person with the tea, would I be right?’ He clapped his hands and pointed his index fingers at her.

  ‘Ah, no tea for me, thanks. Jed made me a couple of cups in his shed. That’s plenty for me just now.’