Missing on Dartmoor Read online

  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.

  Matador

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  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 little anxious as darkness had now descended. He rang her mobile for the third time, but once again it went to voicemail. Five minutes later he finished his pint and asked the barman if he could leave the lager on the end of the bar, as he would be back shortly. He had decided to go and look for her and, as he left the pub, he rang her sister, but she hadn’t had any contact with Mary either. He convinced himself that she may have had car trouble. Nevertheless, the lack of contact was nagging away at him as it was uncharacteristic of her not to ring or text. A quick call to explain her no-show was all it would have taken to allay his growing fears. He had a strong signal on his mobile, but knew she was on a different network and didn’t know if that, or the poor weather conditions, was the reason for the lack of contact.

  Tom got in his car, which was parked outside the pub, and re-joined the B3387 road that passes almost in the shadow of the ominous colossal rock. By now it was completely dark and he could afford to use full beam as there was no approaching traffic. Moving quite slowly and glancing left and right, he curbed his natural instinct to drive too quickly in his desire to reach his girlfriend who may be stranded. He thought she may still have been walking on the tor, unlikely, or, more likely, his first inclination that she was having trouble with her car. He had travelled barely half a mile when, through the peripheral light cast by his headlights, he saw her yellow Punto.

  It was the only car in the car park and as he pulled in, his headlights illuminated it like a beacon. Parking with the light still trained on the apparently abandoned little Fiat, he got out and was suddenly gripped with a growing sense of disquiet: there was no sign of Mary.

  Standing still for what seemed an age, but was only a matter of seconds, he decided what he would do next. Though everything appeared to be normal, as he gazed through the driver’s side window, he felt compelled to dial 999. He was connected immediately and was asked which service he required.

  “Police please.” He was transferred straight away.

  “Could I have your name and address please sir?” He gave it to the operator.

  “How can I help?” she said.

  “I had arranged to meet my girlfriend, Mary Cranson, in The Rock Inn at Haytor Vale at 5.30, it is now 6.15 and she hasn’t arrived.” He continued uninterrupted. “She hasn’t contacted me and I can’t get her to answer her phone. I’ve now found her car in the lower car park near Haytor, but there’s no sign of her and I’m very worried.”

  “Please give me her full name and address, together with a description of her.” Tom duly obliged.

  “Can you think of any reason why she didn’t meet you as arranged?” Tom answered that he couldn’t.

  “Okay sir, I’m arranging for a patrol car to be with you as soon as possible. Are you still in the lower car park not the top one at Haytor?” This question suggested the operator had knowledge of the vicinity. Tom should have been able to answer it from memory, but that was in tatters. He looked around and saw a sign over to his left. Briskly walking across to it and using the torch on his mobile, he was able to confirm exactly where he was.

  “Please stay where you are, sir, and they will be with you shortly.” The call ended and using a drop-down menu on her computer screen, the operator logged a missing person report. This was recorded as a vulnerable missing person or ‘mis per’ in police parlance. The vulnerability was due to it being a lone female on the moor after dark. This report triggered other activity besides the police car being despatched from nearby Ashburton. Intelligence checks would be made into Tom, Mary, her vehicle, the location and any suspicious activities in the area. All this data would be available to the officers who were first on the scene thanks to the marvels of modern technology.

  It was now nearly 6.20 and the place was eerily quiet. Tom kept peering into the darkness in the vain hope that Mary would somehow materialise, suddenly appearing out of the blackness to rush into his arms: it never happened.

  *

  At just after 6.30 the police car arrived at the car park, announcing its approach well in advance with its two-tone siren blaring and blue lights intermittently illuminating the moorland in a swathe either side of the road. This light show and fanfare was not normal procedure, but the officers wanted to scare any wandering animals off the road, as they were doing more than the forty miles per hour limit.

  They also had a sense of urgency as a woman alone on the moor after dark demanded such a response. Despite the racket and light show, the sheep grazed on.

  Two officers got out of their car and established that Tom was the person who had made the emergency call; somewhat unnecessary confirmation as there was no one else around. He explained the sequence of events, or non-events as Mary had not met him as arranged, and answered follow-up questions along the lines of had they had a row, had she gone missing before and how well did she know this particular part of Dartmoor? They were satisfied this was a genuine emergency, but as they did not have the authority to sanction a very costly full-scale search, contact was made with a senior officer back at the main police station in Plymouth.

  Eventually, the incident was reported to Superintendent Colin Edwards, who asked a few questions and pondered for a short while as he weighed the information. Normally, the authorisation would not automatically be given as he had no way of telling whether a serious crime had been committed: if it had, the incident would have quickly escalated the police activity. The superintendent rationalised that if the woman had gone missing mid-morning, he would have waited and given her time to appear. However, at night in the cold, if not freezing, temperature on a desolate part of Dartmoor, waiting until morning to see if she returned was not th
e best, or most sensible, option: the search was duly authorised. Having made his decision, he needed to appoint an inspector to oversee the operation: there was only one man he wanted to lead the case and he reached for his phone.

  *

  Fortunately, although it was early February and there was a chill in the air, if Mary had become lost on the moor, her chances of survival were a lot better than if the temperature had dropped below freezing, as it frequently did at this time of year, in this sporadically bleak environment.

  By 7 o’clock that evening the police helicopter could be heard hovering overhead with its searchlight piercing the darkness. Below, eight police officers, suitably attired in cold weather clothing and walking boots, were being briefed in the car park.

  They all had torches and the organising officer had a map spread out on the bonnet of one of the police cars. He was preparing a provisional plan of how to search the immediate vicinity. If necessary, the search area would be extended at first light. While that plan was formulated, a police handler arrived with his dog, Max. Soon after about a dozen members of the Dartmoor Search & Rescue Teams, in their distinctive red windcheaters, arrived in their Land Rovers with red and white chequered livery. Teams from Plymouth and Ashburton attended and they too received a briefing from the main organising police officer. He was very pleased to see them as he knew that these brave men and women are the land-based equivalent of the RNLI and they had come ready for action. The rescuers always worked in tandem with the police, going out in all weathers, often in hostile environments, to save lives. Their heroic acts were not always to rescue people, but occasionally animals, who may have become trapped in quagmire, injured in a fall or some other mishap: on this occasion they just wanted to find Mary and as quickly as possible.

  Tom was standing motionless as a flurry of activity sprang up around him. He was mightily glad to see all the searchers arrive, but in another way, this made him extremely perturbed, as they brought home to him the seriousness of the situation, escalating to a full scale search for his girlfriend.