Echoes of the Past (6 page)

“No,
it’s not.” Lee shook her head. “It was the strangest thing, I felt ill when I first woke, but it cleared. Then I had a strong feeling that there was someone else there in the room with me. It felt, uncomfortable, unpleasant I think is the word.”

“I
used to get that love, then after 40 years together he died.”

“Elsie!”
Lee smiled as she put the tea down. “I’m only telling you because I know you don’t
normally
make fun of this type of thing.”

Elsie
looked over the top of her horn rim glasses. “How could I make fun of it? My mother visits me more now than she did when she was alive. So what happened?”

“It
wasn’t much, just an awful sensation. I felt positively ill, but I could feel someone there.”

“Maybe
someone is popping in to say hello.” The small bell range above the glass door as an older gentleman walked in.

“Usual,
Elsie, when you’ve got a minute, love.”

Lee
stood up. “You have a break, Elsie. Coming up, Jim.”

*****

Tom headed back to the station to see Danny. He thought he had better tell him that he was going to look into the Angela Harrison case after all. Plus he could gain access to the police main frame from the station. Danny logged him on and left to go on his rounds.

Tom
checked through Angela’s case, and then the three other girls.

Susanna
Wheeling had been working at the Arrochar hotel as a barmaid. She disappeared after her shift in 1968. She rented a bungalow a few minutes walk from the hotel, which she shared with two other women.

Tom
knew he would have to track down her flat mates. The fact that forty-five years had passed would be difficult.

He
sipped at his bitter coffee as he went through the usual steps of locating someone. First, he checked for a criminal record for the flat mates, then DMV. No criminal record, but both had current driving licences. One lived in Dorset, the other had settled in Arrochar. Tom picked up the phone to call her. After a few moments, the voice of Valerie Grey was on the other end. She paused for a moment at the mention of her old flat mate, Susanna Wheeling. However, she did agree to an interview.

The
only road out of Coppersfield was treacherous for the less experienced driver. After you crossed the small brick bridge to leave the High Street, you were on a single-track road with turning points placed at spaced intervals. At the top where Coppersfield was, the drop down the hillside was easily a couple of hundred feet. The road wound down the cliff side with views over the lochs that could only be described has humbling. Snow poles followed the curve of the road, reminding drivers of how severe the weather could get up here. Sometimes the snow could lie three foot deep, completely cutting Coppersfield off from the rest of the world. Half way down, Tom could see another car, heading up the hillside. Pulling over at the first passing point to allow him to pass, the other driver, a local farmer, gave him a wave as he passed Tom. The only people on this road were either going to or coming from Coppersfield. There was nowhere else to go on it. The only thing that worried Tom living here was the thought of Jess learning to drive. He didn’t like the idea of her commuting to and from university on this road. No matter how good a driver you were. It wasn’t the first driver that ended at the bottom of ‘Miners Drop’. Tom reached the junction at the bottom of the hillside and the road opened up into something much more civilised. After the ten minute drive from the hilltop, Arrochar was only another fifteen minutes away.

The
village of Arrochar was eye catching. It was built on the banks of Loch Long, affording its residents a spectacular view across the water to the untouched hills and mountains beyond. The calm water of the loch, belied the treachery that lay beneath its smooth indigo surface. Tom parked his Jeep and stopped to admire the majestic colours of the heather, that slipped down the hill side to compete with the beauty of the loch below. It occurred to him, that it would be easy to make someone disappear in a place like this, even somewhere as beautiful as Arrochar, could hold many dark secrets.

He
headed passed the hotel and veered left up a winding hill with large villas on either side of the road, the pavement lined with trees, offering some shade from the bright winter sun. Turning right at the top of the hill, he came to a row of cottages, very traditional, with the climbing rose over the gate, and the small attic windows peeking out from a red tiled roof. As Tom got out of his car, all he could hear were the sounds of birds singing from the hedgerow at the other side of the road. He passed two cottages, the third being Mrs McKenzie’s. The girl who used to share a flat with Susanna Wheeling.

Tom
rang the doorbell and a tall woman in her late sixties answered the door.

“Mrs
McKenzie? I’m Tom Hunter.”

Tom
offered his outstretched hand. The woman shook it and invited him in.

“I’m
Valerie McKenzie, used to be Grey before I married. I’ve made a pot of tea.” The woman led him up a small narrow hallway, Tom ducked as he entered a low-ceilinged, but large kitchen. He accepted a cup of tea, wishing it had been coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

“I
don’t know what I can tell you, Mr Hunter, this was a very long time ago, and my memory isn’t what it used to be.” The woman was very polite and well spoken.

Tom
did not believe there could be much wrong with her memory; he sensed a certain intelligence and fitness about the woman despite her years.

“Call
me Tom. I’m just looking for you to go over what you remember about the days leading up to Susanna’s disappearance.”

“Well,
Tom, you can call me Val, now I told the last officer all I could remember, is it not on record?” Tom puzzled over who the last officer could possible be. There hadn’t been any investigation on her file since 1970, at which point they had deemed the case was cold and had no new leads to investigate.

“It
was the young man from your village. He was the policeman up there a while back. He came down to see me about a year ago asking all the same questions. Anyway, I told him that none of us had noticed that Sue had gone. It wasn’t until her boss called the following evening to say she hadn’t arrived for her back shift that we began to worry. After the police came we noticed a small suit case was missing from her room and it was widely believed that she had gone off for a weekend with someone.”

“Was
that all that was missing.”

“As
far as we could determine.”

“What
made you think she would have just gone off with someone for a weekend? Did she do things like that often?”

“Good
grief, no. Sue may have worked in a bar, but she was really a very quiet girl. The last few weeks she had been a bit secretive; we had joked with her that she had a fancy man, you know. She never denied it, nor did she tell us anything about him. We never saw her with him. But when we noticed the small case gone, we suspected that maybe he was married or prominent in some way and they had gone off in secret. When she never returned ... Well, I had always hoped they had run off and got married and were living a happy life somewhere. But I suppose in light of what the officer found, that seems highly improbable.”

Tom’s
ears pricked up. “What did the officer find?”

Valerie
looked over the brim of her teacup. “You don’t know?”

“There
seems to be some information missing from the file I have.”

Valerie
rose from her seat. “Can I ask to see your identification again please?” Tom fished his warrant card out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“I
can assure you, Val, I am a police officer.” He said, putting on his most charming and trustworthy smile. The woman looked at the identification; she knew very well that she would not be able to tell a fake from the real thing, cautiously she handed it back to him.

“Can
I ask, did you work at the bar as well?”

“No,
I worked at the post office. That’s where I met my husband, he was in the army. He was home after a tour of duty in Northern Ireland. That was about two years after Sue disappeared, not long after we met, we were married. I’m sorry, Mr Hunter, but I really can’t tell you any more than that.”

Tom
put his cup down and thanked her for the tea. She led him up the same narrow hallway and opened the door. He could sense the woman’s discomfort.

“Oh,
Mrs McKenzie, before I go, you never said what the last officer had found.”

Valerie
paused for a moment as if sizing him up. Obviously, she decided now that he was outside her front door she could let her guard back down.

“I’m
sure you could ask your predecessor about it; he found a picture of her with an older man. He believed it had been taken the night she disappeared.” Her voice became a little more sombre as she added, “He said he thought the man in the picture with her was a killer.”

The
woman stepped back in and closed the door. Tom knew that he could never ask his predecessor. He had been dead for a little over a year.

Tom
wandered down to the hotel. The business had changed hands many times over the years and no one there knew Susanna Wheeling. He crossed over the road and walked down a small lane to the cottage that Susanna had rented. It was unremarkable. Directly across from the cottage was a small grocer. An old man sat outside reading a paper. He was wrapped in a coat, scarf and hat.

“Excuse
me, can I ask, have you stayed round here long?”

The
old man looked up and turned slightly in his chair. “All ma life.”

“Do
you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Copper
are you?”

“That
obvious?” Tom smiled. “I am, I hope you wont hold it against me.” he joked. The man said nothing. “I’m looking for information on a young woman that lived here about forty-five years ago.” Tom pulled the picture of Susanna from his pocket and handed it to the old man.

The
old man ran his twig like fingers across the picture. “Suzie,” he whispered.

“You
know this woman?”

The
old man did not look up. “She was my friend. A lovely girl she was. So sweet.”

“Were
you close?”

The
old man looked up and handed the picture back. “Not in the way you think. We were just friends. When she vanished, the police said she had run off with some man. But Suzie wasn’t like that. But they didn’t want to know.”

“What
do you think happened?”

The
old man thought for a moment. “She had been excited for a couple of weeks. Some man had offered her a job. It was meant to be a great opportunity. He was going to hire her as his personal assistant. Back in 1968, that was a very good job for a woman. Not like today when they want to be running the business.”

“Was
Susanna able to do that job?”

“Oh
yes, she had gone to secretarial school, she could do that shorthand stuff and type, she was very bright.”

“Why
was she working in the pub?”

“Oh
just passing time, waiting for the right job I suppose.”

“Do
you know who this man was?”

“No,
but he had money. I saw him pick her up one day and head out of town, down toward that little village, Luss. Back then not many folks had cars never mind big fancy ones like that.”

“Do
you recall what he looked like, or what kind of car he drove?”

“Look,
son, its over forty years ago. I never saw him, and I don’t remember what the car was; only that it was flash. Anyway, are you not a bit late looking into this now? Your lot didn’t want to know at the time.”

“You
all right, Granda?” A young woman appeared at the doorway of the shop, she reached over and lifted the old mans empty teacup from the garden table in front of him.

“Aye,
love. This man was just askin directions.”

Tom
nodded at the old man and walked back to his car.

*****

At 5pm, Elsie and Lee were closing the tearoom. It was already getting dark outside.

“Are
you going to see if your visitor is still at home?”

“Oh,
don’t remind me, Elsie.”

“Do
you want the company of an old witch? Maybe I could even help you with it.”

Lee
laughed. “If you like, are you up to the excitement?”

“Don’t
know, its been so long since I had any.”

The
two women crossed the High Street to Potters Lane and into Lee’s house.