The Girls Who Disappeared(33)

He shakes his head. ‘No. Just you.’

‘But …’ That can’t be right. ‘Has the person left?’

He looks puzzled. ‘What person?’

‘Someone was there when I arrived. I assumed it was a man by their height and build but it was hard to tell. I saw him yesterday too. He had a German Shepherd dog with him. Whoever it was, he was wearing a long hooded coat.’

Jay’s face darkens. ‘Nobody else is booked into these cabins and there hasn’t been anyone for weeks. It’s just you here. Could you have been mistaken? Lots of dog-walkers use the forest.’

‘Definitely not mistaken. There were lights on in the cabin. I saw the person go in there myself.’ Now I’m freaked out.

Jay’s face is serious. ‘You’re sure about this?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Could it be squatters?’

He straightens. ‘I doubt it. These cabins are checked on regularly by myself mostly, and if not me, then my team. Stay there. I’m going to look.’

He marches off across the uneven dirt track to the cabin opposite and I quickly pull my front door to, making sure the key is in my pocket, then jog after him.

Jay takes what must be a master key from a chain in his pocket and opens the door. I flinch, expecting a dog to charge out, but there is silence.

‘Hello,’ calls Jay almost theatrically, walking further into the cabin which is a mirror image of mine. I shadow him. He pushes open the main bedroom door but it’s empty. He does the same with the next bedroom and then the living room. They, too, are empty. The whole cabin looks unlived in.

Jay stands in the white gloss kitchen, looking into the living room that is so similar to mine, except the sofa is lime green and there is no animal head on the wall. Instead there is a cow-hide rug on the wooden floor. ‘It looks perfectly empty.’

I put a hand to my head. My brain feels frazzled. ‘I don’t understand it. Someone was here yesterday.’

‘Well,’ he says, a note of irritation in his voice, ‘there’s nobody here now.’

I can’t believe this. Surely whoever was here would have left some sign. I return to the main bedroom. The duvet on the bed is unwrinkled. The wardrobe is empty. There’s nothing under the bed. I sniff the air. Not even the smell of dog. I go into the en-suite, open the cupboard under the sink and check the shower for signs of use. Nothing. I do the same in the twin room.

‘Well?’ says Jay, standing at the doorway, his brow creased.

I shake my head. ‘It’s weird. Someone was here. But now there’s no sign of them.’

‘The lock hasn’t been tampered with. There’s no sign of a forced entry.’ He sighs. ‘This is sadly the kind of thing that goes on here.’

I turn to him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, just strange happenings. Talk of the supernatural, the paranormal.’ He shrugs as if he doesn’t believe any of it.

I remember Ralph’s talk of alien abduction. ‘Ah, yes, I’ve read a few things,’ I say. ‘For research.’

‘You said on the phone when you booked that you’re making a podcast on the Olivia Rutherford case.’

I nod.

‘Well, if you’d like an interview I’m more than willing. I wasn’t living here when Olivia’s friends went missing, I moved here the year after, but I know the town very well. And the people in it. All the crackpot theories and the charlatans.’

‘The charlatans?’ I’m intrigued.

‘Oh, there’s a medium who vows she knows something. She’s got a lot of people fooled around here. Not me, mind. I don’t believe for one moment that she’s got the second sight or whatever it is she claims she has.’

I think back to the sign on the high street I noticed when I first arrived. ‘Do you mean Madame Tovey?’

‘Yep.’ He clasps his clipboard to his chest. ‘She might be worth talking to, but take everything she says with a pinch of salt.’ He sniggers. ‘She’ll definitely add a … How shall I put it nicely? Some local flavour to your podcast.’

‘Great,’ I say, pleased that someone actually wants to be interviewed. ‘Can I meet you later? I need to get my car. I’ve left it in the forest.’

‘Oh?’ He raises his eyebrows questioningly.

‘Long story,’ I reply. I wonder if he knows about Ralph Middleton. I’m assuming he must, considering he was found dead on his land. I decide to wait until later to ask him about that.

‘I’ve got a few things to do this morning but why don’t you come by the offices around two p.m.?’ He opens his briefcase and extracts a card. ‘Here, the address is on there. But if you turn down Halfpenny Lane and make a right, opposite Stafferbury Stables, and keep going until you get to the end of the road, my offices are on the industrial estate there.’

I take the card and return to my own cabin, suffused with unease and paranoia. I change quickly, without showering, suddenly desperate to escape the cabin, the forest and the unshaken sense of being watched.





21



Olivia


When Olivia opens her eyes she is instantly hit with a sense of impending doom, fear and regret. And then she remembers why. It’s the twentieth anniversary today. She wishes she could go back, close her eyes and wake up on this day in 1998. She would do so many things differently.