Dark Peak

by Adam J. Wright

  The place where his sister had vanished into thin air.

  4

  The Key

  “Are we there yet?” Leigh asked.

  “Not far now.” Mitch kept his eyes on the road, struggling to see through the rain-drizzled windscreen between each swish of the wipers. They’d been driving for almost two hours and had spent almost thirty minutes of that time stuck in traffic, crawling along the monotonous motorway past roadworks while the rain beat down on the roof of the Jeep.

  Eventually, they’d left the motorway—but not the rain—behind and now they were driving along a winding road bordered by high trees and hills on the left and a view of rolling, rain-swept farmland on the right.

  According to the Jeep’s GPS, they were less than ten minutes from their destination. Mitch had thought that returning to this area of the country would bring back childhood memories but, despite the fact that he’d spent the first nine years of his life here, he was drawing a blank so far. He remembered bits and pieces of his years in Derbyshire but the memories always seemed fleeting. The sight of the countryside, which must have been familiar to him at one time, didn’t solidify any of the nebulous images that floated around in his head when he tried to remember his childhood.

  He remembered Edge House as a big, rambling place with shadowed corners and dark hallways but he realised he might be remembering it that way because of what happened later. The shadowed corners could be gaps in his memory or things his mind had later blocked out. He was sure the childhood years he’d spent at the house hadn’t been good ones, even before Sarah disappeared. He just couldn’t remember exactly why that was.

  Leigh sighed dramatically. “Is the rain ever going to stop? You said we could go hiking.”

  “We can still hike in the rain,” he said. “We can walk up one of the big hills they have around here and eat sandwiches when we get to the top. We’ll be able to see for miles.”

  “Sandwiches?” Leigh wrinkled her nose slightly.

  “You like sandwiches.”

  “Not outdoors. They don’t taste right outdoors.”

  “Okay, so we can have a meal at one of the pubs. I bet they’ll have fish and chips.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “We’re going to have a fun weekend,” he assured her.

  She was silent for a few moments, watching the trees roll past her window. Then she said, “Mum said you’re going to sell a house while we’re here. Is that going to take long?”

  Mitch shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not going to sell it myself, I’m going to leave someone else in charge of that. So it won’t interrupt our weekend.”

  “Mum said the house used to be your house when you were a boy.”

  “That’s right. I lived there a long time ago but I can’t remember much about it. So we get to explore it while we’re staying there. It’s a big house and it’s got a big garden.”

  Leigh wrinkled her nose again. “Sounds creepy.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” They passed a sign that said Matlock and drove past a pub, then beneath a bridge. Beyond the bridge, the road was lined with various shops and businesses. The GPS said they’d reached their destination and Mitch looked around for Mercer and Robinson Solicitors.

  A couple of people were huddled beneath an umbrella outside a furniture shop but, other than that, there were no other pedestrians. The road ahead continued farther north past a train station and a large Sainsbury's supermarket and that seemed to be where all the traffic was heading. Mitch spotted a sign that said Mercer and Robinson Solicitors and turned onto a side road to find somewhere to park. He slid the Jeep in between a couple of parked cars and killed the engine. The rain drummed on the roof like impatient fingers tapping out an unknown rhythm.

  Mitch grabbed their waterproof jackets from the back seat and they put them on. It was awkward in the confined space of the vehicle but after a couple of minutesMr they were ready to face the rain.

  “Let’s go,” Mitch said, throwing his door open and stepping out into the downpour.

  Leigh followed, pulling the hood of her light blue jacket up over her head. “Dad, you need to put your hood up too.”

  “It isn’t far,” Mitch said, “I’ll be okay.” He led her back to the main road and to the door beneath the Mercer and Robinson sign. The black lettering on the glass door confirmed this was the right place. Mitch opened the door for Leigh and then followed her inside, out of the rain.

  A flight of steps covered in light green carpeting led up to the next floor. At the top, the landing had been converted into a small waiting room with the addition of a half dozen plastic chairs and a low wooden coffee table littered with various magazines. There were two closed doors with black lettering painted on their frosted glass panels, one bearing the name William Robinson, the other John Mercer. An open hatch showed a receptionist’s office. A grey-haired woman in her fifties was typing on a computer. When she saw Mitch, she looked up. “Mr. Walker? Mr. Mercer will be with you shortly if you’d like to take a seat.”

  Mitch nodded and sat down in one of the plastic chairs. Leigh scoured the beauty magazines on the table, picked one, and took a seat next to him. She pulled down her hood and leafed through the glossy pages.

  The waiting area had a damp smell, as if people had come in from the wet street over the course of the day and left behind droplets of rainwater and splashes of mud from the dirty puddles outside.

  After a couple of minutes had passed, the receptionist appeared at the hatch and said, “If you’d like to go in, Mr. Mercer will see you now.” She indicated the door bearing Mercer’s name.

  “Come on,” Mitch said to Leah. He didn’t want to leave her out here on her own while he was in the office with Mercer. A feeling of unease crawled inside him. He’d felt it since they’d arrived in Matlock and had dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him. He was returning to the place where Sarah had gone missing, so there was bound to be some emotion involved. But even so, he took Leigh into Mercer’s office with him.

  Mercer was tall, white-haired and balding, with small gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He wore a crumpled dark blue pinstripe suit. His desk, devoid of anything other than a gold pen and a closed hardbound notebook, took up half the space in the small office. Mercer was standing beside it when Mitch and Leah walked in.

  “Mr. Walker,” he said, coming forward and extending his hand, “it’s good to see you. It’s a shame that our meeting is under such sad circumstances.”

  “I told you,” Mitch said, “I didn’t know my father.” He shook the proffered hand, noting Mercer’s weak grip.

  “And who do we have here?” Mercer asked, bending over to look closer at Leigh.

  “This is Leigh, my daughter.” Mitch reflexively put his hands on her shoulders and drew her slightly closer.

  “Hi, Leigh. Has your daddy told you about the house you own now? It’s a lovely house with a big garden. I’m sure you’ll enjoy playing there.”

  Leigh shrugged but said nothing. Mercer retreated behind the desk and sat down, inviting them to do the same by waving his hand at two seats on the client side of the desk.

  “Now then,” Mercer said when they were all seated, “do you have any questions, Mr. Walker?”

  “Just one. Will you be able to handle the sale of the house after I return home to Leamington Spa on Sunday?”

  Mercer looked shocked. “You want to sell Edge House? But you haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “That place holds nothing for me other than bad memories. Leigh and I are going to stay there this weekend and do some hiking but after that, I want the place gone from my life.”

  “Well, yes, if you’re sure that’s what you want.” Mercer removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “We’d have no trouble selling the property, no trouble at all.”

  “Good,” Mitch said.

  “Now if I can just see some ID, we can get the papers signed and I’ll give you the keys.”
Mercer opened a drawer in the desk and produced a sheaf of papers. “As well as Edge House, your late father’s estate includes his vehicle and a sum of money. So I’ll need your bank details to get the amount transferred into your account.”

  “Of course,” Mitch said, reaching into his jeans pocket for his wallet. “Exactly how much are we talking about?”

  Mercer put the glasses back on his nose and peered through them as he leafed through the papers. “After paying his creditors, taxes, and solicitors’ fees, the amount of cash your father left to you comes to two hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds.”

  Mitch stopped himself from saying anything because he wasn’t sure he could trust his mouth to work properly. Leigh said, “Wow,” for both of them.

  Mercer smiled and nodded. “Michael Walker was a wealthy man. As well as the cash, there is a safe deposit box held at one of the banks in town. Its contents are unknown. This is the bank’s address and phone number.” He passed Mitch a business card. “Safe deposit boxes are being phased out and your father was only allowed to keep one because of who he was.”

  “Okay,” Mitch said. He wondered how much the contents of the safe deposit box would add to the £233,000 he’d already inherited. Whatever was in that box had to be worth a lot of money for his father to lock it away in the first place.

  “Exactly how much is the house worth?” he asked Mercer.

  The solicitor raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s difficult to come up with a figure off the top of my head. The property will need to be valued, of course.”

  “Yes, but you must have some idea.”

  Mercer contemplated for a moment. “Well, considering the location and size of the house and the surrounding land, I suppose the property is worth something in the region of two and a half to three million pounds.”

  Leigh gasped. “Dad, we’re rich. Like, really rich.”

  “Yeah, I guess we are.” Mitch had always wanted to be able to provide for his daughter’s future and had squirrelled money away whenever he could for that purpose. But his gardening business was seasonal and his savings dwindled during the years when the cold bite of winter arrived early or lingered longer than usual. But now, that didn’t matter. He’d been given a means to provide for Leigh, even if it had come from an unexpected source.

  He reached for the gold pen on Mercer’s desk and said, “Where do I sign?”

  Ten minutes later, Mitch and Leigh were on the street again, only now, Mitch had a simple metal keyring in his hand and on that ring were two keys: the key to the front door of Edge House and the key to his father’s safe deposit box, which was inscribed with the number 208. The keys to the other doors in the house, and his father’s Land Rover, were apparently inside the house, hanging on a hook near the back door.

  It was still raining so Mitch walked quickly along the pavement, Leigh following close behind. “Let’s get some supplies from the supermarket before we go to the house,” Mitch suggested as they reached the Jeep. “You want pizza tonight?”

  Leigh nodded. “Will they have ham and pineapple?”

  “I should think so, although I have no idea why you’d want that when there’s such a thing as pepperoni.” He unlocked the vehicle and climbed in.

  Leigh got in and shot him a mock exasperated look. “Really, Dad? You’re going to diss ham and pineapple?”

  “Can that even be called a pizza?’ he asked, starting the Jeep.

  “You know it can! It is. It’s a recognised type of pizza,” she said.

  As soon as the engine kicked into life, a beep sounded from the dashboard. Mitch looked down and groaned when he saw the vehicle info display. Apparently, the rear tire nearest the kerb had zero air pressure.

  He opened his door and leaned out to take a look at it. The tyre was totally flat. The Jeep’s computerised monitoring system hadn’t warned him of reduced pressure, so he was sure there hadn’t been a slow leak. And if the tyre had blown, surely he’d have heard it.

  When he got out and crouched down next to the tyre, he saw why he’d had no clue about the puncture. It had been just fine when he’d parked here earlier. But since then, someone had come along and slashed through the side of the tyre with a knife. There was a two-inch-long straight-edged tear in the rubber.

  “Dad?” Leigh shouted. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, leaning in through his door. “I’m just going to have to put the spare tyre on the Jeep before we go anywhere.”

  “Oh. Did we drive over a nail or something?”

  He nodded. “We must have.” No need to upset her.

  Returning to the rear of the Jeep, he opened the boot and took out the spare and the jack. Squinting against the rain, he peered along the street in both directions. Nothing but rain hissing down onto empty pavements.

  Yet Mitch felt as if he was being watched.

  The rain pounds the street outside the cafe. It bounces off the pavement where Mitch Walker crouches next to the rear wheel of his Jeep and loosens the wheel nuts with a tyre iron. It’s too warm in the cafe. There’s condensation on the windows. I have a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of me.

  Because of the weather, the cafe is busy. Most of the customers are only here to escape the rain. But being inside the cafe is almost worse than standing outside in the downpour. The air in here is heavy with the smell of grease. The fluorescent light tubes set into the ceiling are too bright. Someone has turned the heat up but instead of being pleasant, it’s stifling.

  There’s a radiator right next to my booth, belting out enough heat to melt the polar ice caps. I’m hot but I’m not going to move. There aren’t any other unoccupied window seats from which to watch Mitch deal with my handiwork.

  The Swiss Army knife I used to slash the tyre is in the pocket of my raincoat, folded on the bench next to me. It’s a good knife. Reliable. I’m still not sure why I used it to slash the Jeep’s tyre but my not knowing doesn’t bother me. Sometimes we have to act without thinking. Sometimes the best things in life come from acting emotionally, with no fear of consequences.

  Watching Mitch labour in the rain isn’t exactly one of the best things in life but it’s satisfying enough for now. How dare he show up here after all this time? Perhaps he thinks he’s going to carry on where his father left off. That won’t do. That won’t do at all. So my welcome-home present in the shape of a rip through the rubber of his tyre is just a warning.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  The voice startles me and I look up to see the blonde waitress who served me the tea. There’s a smile on her face, expectation in her eyes.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I tell her.

  She looks past me to the street where Mitch is sliding the jack under the Jeep. The little girl—I don’t know her name yet—is sheltering from the rain in the doorway of a closed antique shop.

  “Oh, that poor man,” the waitress says with genuine concern. “What a dreadful day to get a flat.”

  I nod noncommittally and sip my tea.

  She leaves me alone and goes to serve the family at the next table. I watch her as I drink more tea. She’s tall and moves with confidence, nodding slightly like a flower in a breeze as she writes on her order pad. What flower does she remind me of? Something bright and tall. A cornflower. Yes, that’s it.

  I close my eyes and conjure the image of a field to my mind. It’s a field I know well. Isolated and away from the beaten path. I imagine a patch of bright blue cornflowers in the corner of the field, swaying slightly in the breeze. How nice it would be to visit those flowers and run my hand over their nodding heads. I would nod back at them, just a slight movement of my head. A secret nod. Just enough to tell them I know their secret. I know what lies beneath, buried in the soft earth where their roots burrow and quest.

  Cornflower—that’s what I’ve decided to call her now—goes to the kitchen to place the family’s order. I turn my attention back to the show outside where Mitch is struggling to get the tyre off
the Jeep. He glances up and down the street every now and then, as if he knows he’s being watched but doesn’t know where from.

  He’s grown up a lot since the last time I saw him. His face is more mature, obviously, but it looks like some of that maturity was hard won. His eyes are wells full of emotion. His body, which looks trim and fit, seems to be weighed down by something that is beyond the physical. He’s been hurt in the past. I recognise it all too well, just as I can see it in the eyes of the still-smiling Cornflower as she reappears from the cafe kitchen. Just as I can see it in my own face when I look in the mirror.

  I don’t want to think about that now. I just want to watch Mitch struggle in the rain. If he thinks he’s going to return here after thirty years and it’s all going to be plain sailing, needs to think again.

  I’ll make sure he leaves again soon.

  One way or another.

  5

  Edge House

  After hurriedly changing the tyre in the rain, Mitch threw the flat into the boot along with the jack and drove to the supermarket, where they picked up some essential supplies, including a pepperoni pizza for himself and a ham and pineapple for Leigh.

  He knew he should go to the nearest garage and buy a new tyre, because now he’d be driving without a spare and if he got another flat, they’d be stuck. But something inside him, some deep-seated instinct nestled in the back of his brain, made him fear staying too long in Matlock. The fear was irrational, he knew, but it was strong enough to make him constantly glance at the rear-view mirror after they left the supermarket, checking to see if someone was following them out of town toward the Peak District.

  It was only after they’d left the main road behind and been driving for twenty minutes along narrow roads that wound around rolling hills and through tiny villages that Mitch was sure there was no one behind them, no dark car driven by a person unknown following them to Edge House.