Read Cherringham--The Vanishing Tourist for Free Online Page A

living here.
    Jack was about to knock when Sarah took a step forward and — as if by instinct — decided to be the one who rapped on the splintery front door.
    And with the few sharp knocks, they heard another sound besides the gentle burbling of the nearby brook.
    A baby crying.
    She looked at Jack, not knowing what to think.
    The door opened — just a crack.
    It felt so very isolated here.
    A woman, short, with blond hair tied back, blue jeans, and a Walking Dead t-shirt answered, seeming out of place with the wailing, red-cheeked baby girl she held in her arms.
    The baby wore a pink top with leggings; bare feet, nose running from the sobbing.
    The woman, her voice quiet.
    “Yes, um … What is it?”
    The tone guarded, the door held open just the few inches necessary for them to talk to her.
    “Hi. Sorry to bother you.”
    The baby’s eyes tracked the conversation, looking from her mum then to Sarah.
    Good thing, she thought … that she had done the knocking. Whatever would the tiny baby make of a giant of a man standing in the doorway?
    Sarah smiled at the baby.
    “I mean, I hope we don’t wake your little one.”
    The woman shifted the baby in her arms, using her hips both for balance and added support to hold her child.
    “No. She just woke. Always a bit cranky, wanting her bottle and all.”
    Sarah nodded.
    This next part would be hard.
    Sarah wondered whether she should even say it.
    There could be nothing here that had anything to do with Patrick O’Connor’s disappearance.
    But then — as soon as she thought that — she realised that if there was one thing Jack had taught her, it was never rule anything out.
    Because you just never know.
    “My friend and I are helping someone … an American woman. She's looking for—”
    The young mother nodded. “I know. I heard from my friend. That bloke who went missing.”
    Sarah smiled.
    Then she felt Jack move closer to her, to the open doorway as if it was now a bit safer for him to enter the picture.
    “Yes, that’s the one,” Jack said. “Went missing. And we’re trying to find out where.”
    The woman nodded. “It happened here then? Right in the village?”
    Jack took a breath.
    “Might be better if we could come in. Talk to you a bit?”
    Jack’s instincts kicking in, Sarah thought.
    Foot in the door.
    She had seen him do it so many times.
    The woman looked back into the interior of her cottage.
    Was she alone? Was someone else there?
    Or was she simply worried about the inside of the place, what it must look like …
    Then back to Jack and Sarah.
    A small smile.
    “Bit of a mess inside. But yeah, all right, if it might help. You can come in.”
    She stepped back, one arm wrapped under the legs of the baby, who now had somehow magically given up crying as the woman opened the door with her other hand.
    “I’ll leave Riley out here,” said Jack, attaching the dog’s lead and looping it around a fence post.
    Sarah watched Riley lie down, glad of the rest. Then Jack joined her, and they went into Barrows Cottage.

8. Questions in the Cottage
    Sarah looked around the tiny cottage. The size of the place made Jack look like a giant who had wandered in from the nearby woods.
    A small plastic changing table sat to the side, with a box of wipes and a stack of nappies.
    And she thought … how quickly those days go.
    And yet — when you are in them — they can seem like forever.
    She saw a few toys scattered on the floor, though she imagined that the baby girl didn't do much actual playing. Some stacking cubes, and a plastic wheel with an arrow that could spin towards cartoon farm animals, and probably make their sound.
    An even smaller kitchen at the back of the cottage showed a sink with dishes, a bit of morning light making the white curtains there glow.
    No sign of a husband or partner, Sarah thought.
    Just this woman, her name, she said, Karen Taylor. Not much more than a girl herself, struggling to raise her beautiful baby.
    “What's her