by Jack Benton
Les sighed. ‘Girl was a bad seed. Old Birch, he had money. Girl didn’t want for nothing. Ran around like nobody’s business. All sorts of things got said about her.’
‘Like what?’
Les looked pained, grimacing as though the words were a fruit rotten on the inside that he had no choice but to swallow.
‘She liked her men, so they said. Preferred them married. More than a couple of houses got sold while she was around, families going their separate ways. She was only nineteen when Amos disappeared, and there were plenty who said he’d had enough.’
‘Do you think she killed him?’
Les slapped the table hard enough to make Slim jerk back, then let out a barking laugh. ‘Oh God, no. You think she’d get away with something like that? Girl had her skills, but couldn’t think her way out of a paper bag.’
Slim wanted to ask if Les knew Celia’s new address, but the old man was frowning as he stared off into space. Slim glanced around, looking for signs of a woman’s presence and found none. He wondered if the tales of Celia Birch’s decadent lifestyle were coming from more than just hearsay.
‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll let you be about your day.’
Les led Slim to the door. ‘Come around anytime,’ he said. ‘But if you want my advice? Don’t dig too deep.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Doors around here are always open for a stranger. But if you pry too much into what goes on behind, they tend to slam closed.’
8
Slim ate lunch beside a stile overlooking the distant green baize of Bodmin Moor. Footprints in the soft mud at the field’s corner told him the route was a popular one, but he’d seen no other walkers yet.
He felt a little uncomfortable knocking on the door of Worth Farm, but the footpath down into the valley angled around the back of the farmyard before cutting across a stream and heading onto the moor, so Slim could look through the hedgerow as he passed.
A farmhouse fronted a concrete yard encircled by outbuildings: two large barns for animals, one for machinery, and a couple of others whose uses Slim could only guess at; grain silos or a dairy, perhaps. At the back of the main courtyard, a gravel path led down to a cluster of smaller outhouses that had the feel of personal use about them. Slim squinted through the fence, wondering if the largest of them—a brick shed with two windows either side of a door, and a small chimney protruding from the roof at one end—had once been Amos Birch’s workshop.
With an instinct for possible clues developed over eight years as a private investigator, Slim pulled out his digital camera and took a few shots of the farmyard. He had slipped it back into his pocket just a moment before a woman’s voice hailed him.
‘You know, you could get stuck up there.’
Slim jerked, twisting around. He slid out of the hedge to land in a heap in the mud at the bottom. As he turned, grimacing at the brown smear reaching from his ankle halfway up his thigh, he found himself face to face with an elderly lady decked out in tweed hiking garb. She leaned on a walking stick and peered up at him, eyes squinting through spectacles that sat low on her nose.
Slim climbed to his feet and wiped the mud off his clothes as best he could. The woman continued to watch him, frown deepening, head cocked to one side like an auteur examining a rival artwork.
‘Did you spot anything of interest from your vantage point?’
‘What?’
‘From your spot in that thicket.’ She waved her walking stick toward the moor. ‘You know, most people on this path are looking over yonder, up at those spectacular tors. I wondered what you could possibly find so interesting about a few farm buildings hidden away behind a hedge pruned in such a way that someone with even a shred of intelligence might ascertain as an attempt at privacy?’
The woman’s tone had turned from general interest to one bordering on anger. Slim was tiring of her airs and graces, but it suddenly dawned on him who he was talking with.
‘Mrs. Tinton? You own Worth Farm, don’t you?’
The woman gave a sharp nod. ‘Clever, aren’t you? I do indeed. And I’ll tell you something: I don’t care who used to live here. I’m sick of you treasure-hunter-types snooping around. I’ve been telling Trevor for years that the erection of an electric fence is the only way to go, but he always thinks each Peeping Tom we catch sniffing around our property will be the last. Honestly, sometimes he’s too kind for his own good.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And so you should be. Now, you get away from that hedgerow at once. The right to roam might protect you on the path, but that hedgerow is part of my property, and by climbing it you’re committing a trespass. You do know you can be fined up to five thousand pounds for trespassing, don’t you?’
In a moment of urgency related to a prior case, Slim had once trawled through a beginners’ guide to Britain’s laws and remembered no such thing, but calling her on it would achieve nothing. He spread his hands, gave her his most apologetic smile and said, ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’
‘Worth Farm is not a tourist attraction!’
The woman stabbed her walking stick into the ground for emphasis, splashing mud over Slim’s already-soaked boots. He considered another protest, but decided not to bother. She hadn’t noticed the camera, so it was best to get away while he could.
‘I’d better be getting home,’ he said, backing away down the path while she shook her stick at him. ‘Again, I apologise. I didn’t mean any harm.’
‘Get away with you!’
Slim stumbled away down the path. Once among the trees at the bottom of the field he risked a glance back. Mrs. Tinton had walked up the path to the stile, but there she had resumed her sentry duty, leaning on the walking stick with both hands like a soldier with a rifle.
Only the longer route around the back of the farm would take him back to the road without passing her. The path followed a narrow, treacherous riverbank with a steep drop into the stream. The tall hedgerow bordering the farm offered only handfuls of brambles to support him, while a line of trees planted on the farm side laid a confusing web of shadows on the uneven ground. In places the stream had washed away part of the path, and one section of the hedge near the southeastern corner was supported by a newer stone wall, suggesting it had once been undercut and collapsed.
The first spots of rain began to patter around him as the path opened out into another field. From inside a quaint conservatory with a plate of scones or even a bottle of whisky in front of him, it would have been a welcome, romantic sound. Now, though, it reminded Slim of the long bike ride back to Penleven. He wondered if it wasn’t about time to ditch Cornwall and head back up the country, but he couldn’t face the hassle of flat hunting or the temptations that the stress might bring. Instead, he glowered at the murky sky, and stepped out of the last cover of the trees into the rain.
On returning to the guesthouse an hour later, Mrs. Greyson berated him for getting mud on the doormat, but otherwise seemed pleased to see him back before dark. In his room he snacked on crisps and chocolate while uploading his pictures to his laptop. He didn’t expect to find much of note, but when he enlarged the image of the small brick building, a couple of things caught his eye.
Inside the windows to either side there appeared to be bars, while the door was adorned with a heavy padlock.
9
Amos Birch’s disappearance had proven too uneventful to cause much stir on the internet. Through some extensive trawling and a little bit of sorting the fan sites and speculation from the reputable sources, Slim was able to determine the exact date as the second of May 1996, a Thursday, twenty-one years and ten months ago. According to historical weather reports, it had been cloudy in the morning, with a light drizzle from around four o’clock onward.
The only detailed article related to the disappearance itself was on a blog for clock enthusiasts, a where-are-they-now post about amateur clockmakers which covered little that Slim didn’t already know. On
the night of Thursday, May 2nd, 1996, Amos Birch had eaten dinner with his wife and daughter, then retired to his workshop to continue working on his latest clock. He was never seen again.
Speculation ranged from murder to abandonment. He was fifty-three years old at the time, and shared the family home with his wife, Mary, then 47, and daughter, Celia, 19. A police investigation took place, involving an extensive search of Bodmin Moor, but came to the conclusion, in the absence of evidence to suggest otherwise, that Amos Birch had simply got up and walked away from his life. The workshop was left unlocked, and only his walking boots and jacket were missing. He had taken no identification with him, and his wallet was later found in a kitchen drawer. However, since it was believed that he sold a lot of his clocks cash-in-hand to local collectors, the absence of any ATM withdrawals in the days afterward meant that he most likely ran with cash on him, later setting up a new identity.
The article had no other details of note, but the last line struck a chord with Slim.
It appeared that Birch had simply got up and walked out of the door, taking his last clock with him.
There was nothing to suggest the author knew about the clock. Nowhere else was there mention of a clock left unfinished in the workshop, so it could have been a line of fanciful imagination.
Was the last clock the one Slim found out on the moor?
Geoff Bunce had agreed with Slim’s assessment that the clock was unfinished. What if Amos Birch’s last clock now lay under Slim’s bed?
Slim stood up, feeling suddenly nervous. He paced the room a few times. There was no knowing the circumstances of Amos’s disappearance, but Slim had not been quiet about what he had found. What if Amos had hidden the clock for a specific reason?
What if someone was after it? Could Amos have disappeared, taking the clock with him, to hide it from someone?
Slim took the chair from under the room’s little desk, then tilted and lodged it under the door handle. He hadn’t considered the absence of a lock to be a problem, but it couldn’t hurt him to be cautious.
He wondered if he ought to say something to Mrs. Greyson, but thought better of it. He was only likely to worry her, and in any case, he would be the person sought after, not her.
Unless, of course, Amos had been murdered. Bodmin Moor and the surrounding area had allegedly been heavily mined in the past, and the ground was dotted with old shafts, many of which were not mapped or identified. How hard would it have been to dispose of Amos’s body where no one would ever find it?
10
At breakfast the next morning, Slim judged that Mrs. Greyson was in a good mood, so he called her over. At his request, the whistling that had drifted from the kitchen like the song of an aging but joyful bird abruptly died, and she stomped over, wringing her apron as though to remind Slim of the inconvenience he had dared to cause.
‘Mr. Hardy … I trust everything is to your liking?’
He smiled. ‘Of course. These eggs remind me of my long-dead mother and the culinary delights I was subjected to on a daily basis.’
‘That’s … good. How can I help you today?’
‘Yesterday I went up to Trelee. I got a little lost on the moor, but an old lady was kind enough to offer me directions. I wanted to send her a note of thanks, but I’m afraid I forgot her name.’
‘And how do you think I would know it?’
‘She said she lived at Amos Birch’s old place. Worth Farm. I don’t suppose you know the name of the new owners?’
‘Hardly new; they’ve been in there a dozen years.’
Slim held his smile, but nodded as though to encourage further comment.
‘Tinton,’ Mrs. Greyson said. ‘Maggie Tinton. I can only say you must have caught her on a good day. As sour an old crone as you’ll find round here. And I bet you were thinking I was bad.’
Slim’s smile was starting to make his face ache.
‘Her husband, Trevor, he’s far more pleasant. Used to drink in the Crown until the … well, that was a while back.’
‘Until what?’
Mrs. Greyson unrolled her apron, snapped it out and then frowned as though Slim was asking her to cross a moral line.
‘There was talk … people said they’d had a hand in it.’
‘In what?’
‘In Amos’s disappearance.’ Before Slim could respond, she added, ‘Which is ridiculous, of course. The Tintons come from London. They can’t have known anything about Amos. After all, Mary was living there for a decade after Amos disappeared. The Tintons just spotted a bargain.’
‘Do people really think they had something to do with it?’
‘Of course not. It was just a silly rumour, but they both took offence, and after that, they isolated themselves from the local community.’
‘It sounds like you know them well.’
‘I used to play bridge at the legion hall with Maggie, but she stopped coming and never came back.’
‘It’s almost like an admission of guilt.’
‘They were affronted, that’s all,’ she said. ‘They moved here to retire into the archetypal country life you see on television. I think they envisaged a community of local simpletons waiting with open arms to take them to village fêtes and coffee mornings. When they didn’t get what they wanted they gave up.’
‘But there’s no way they had anything to do with Amos Birch’s disappearance?’
Mrs. Greyson shook her head. ‘Absolutely none.’
‘So what do you think happened?’
Mrs. Greyson rolled her eyes. ‘I thought we were talking about Mrs. Tinton?’
‘You must wonder. It sounds like you knew them.’
Mrs. Greyson shrugged and sighed. ‘He ran out on his family. What is there to know? Amos had plenty of money tucked away, and he was often off on his business trips, clock conventions and all that. You want my opinion? He had some floosy overseas and he ran off to be with her.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to just divorce Mary?’
Mrs. Greyson wrung her apron again. ‘I don’t have time for this,’ she said. As she turned and headed for the kitchen, she added, ‘Enjoy your walk today, Mr. Hardy.’
Slim stared after her, frowning. He would get no more out of her, he felt sure, but on mention of another woman, her cheeks had taken on a reddish hue that definitely hadn’t been there before.
11
According to Mrs. Greyson, the nearest library worth visiting meant a return to Tavistock. Slim found himself alone in an archives room, poring over enormous files of old broadsheet local newspapers, browned and crisped by age.
Each file contained a year’s worth of weeklies. As he had expected of small-town newspapers dominated by ads for local estate agents and farm machinery rental firms, there was little sensationalism about the brief reports on Amos Birch’s disappearance. Local clockmaker disappears in mysterious circumstances read the title of one, before continuing with a report so bland it was almost an oxymoron of its title, focusing on Amos’s background as an artisan of rare skill and a well-respected local farmer, but leaving out any trace of speculation.
He found the most interesting report in a file for a newspaper called the Tavistock Tribune:
“Local farmer and renowned clockmaker Amos Birch (53) has been missing since the evening of Thursday, May 2nd, it has been reported to police by his wife, Mary (47). Well-known both domestically and internationally for his intricate, handmade timepieces, it is believed that Amos may have taken an evening stroll across Bodmin Moor and become lost. He was considered to be in sound mind and had no health issues, but, according to his wife, had become increasingly agitated in the week leading up to his disappearance. The family requests that any information regarding Amos’s disappearance be passed to Devon & Cornwall Police.”
Slim read the article over a couple of times, then frowned. Agitated? Had Amos been aware something might be about to happen? Did it mean he had planned to run away, or did something happen to him?
&nbs
p; Remembering a quote an old military colleague had told him about how the clues to a crime were often laid long before the crime itself, he cycled back a few weeks, scanning over the news pages for anything at all relating to Amos Birch. Barring a two-inch column over a month before the disappearance which recognised a national clockmaker’s association accolade awarded to Amos, there was nothing.
By lunchtime, his eyes ached from staring at age-blurred print, so he relocated to a nearby coffee shop to recuperate. There he called Kay, but his translator friend had no information yet on the contents of the letter.
The mind he had turned to private investigation a few years after his dishonorable discharge from the military was beginning to whir with fanciful ideas. No one got up and left a stable relationship without reason. You were either running to something, or from something.
The possibilities were endless. A lover was the obvious ‘to’, a disgruntled client or a competitor the obvious ‘from’. Without much of a picture of Amos himself, it was hard to make judgements. From Slim’s conversations so far, the clockmaker had been a shadowy figure in the community, the very obscurity of his profession bringing with it a label of mystery. Even the lane down to Worth Farm and the high hedgerows surrounding it gave the Birch family an air of seclusion, one that the Tintons had continued.
The café had a payphone. Slim took a phonebook from a shelf beside it and returned to his table. There were a couple of dozen Birches listed, but none with a C.
Slim was walking back to the bus station when he heard someone shout behind him. Something in its urgency made him turn, and he found Geoff Bunce waving at him from the other side of the street. Slim waited while the man crossed.
‘I thought it was you. A long holiday you’re on.’
