Cherringham - No Place to Hide E-Book

Matthew Costello

• Herausgeber: Bastei Entertainment
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Cherringham: Mystery Shorts
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 158

Beschreibung

When Ed Finnlay - computer programmer and devoted father of two - goes missing, there’s not a lot the local police can do. After all, Ed himself told them he would be gone...for quite some time. As the weeks go by with no news, his wife reaches out to Jack and Sarah for help. But they soon learn that there are odd secrets about this missing husband and that he might not only be gone, but also in serious danger. Can Jack and Sarah do what seems impossible...and find Ed Finlay?

Episode 42 will be available for pre-order soon and will be out August, 29th 2022.

Set in the sleepy English village of Cherringham, the detective series brings together an unlikely sleuthing duo: English web designer Sarah and American ex-cop Jack. Thrilling and deadly - but with a spot of tea - it's like Rosamunde Pilcher meets Inspector Barnaby. Each of the self-contained episodes is a quick read for the morning commute, while waiting for the doctor, or when curling up with a hot cuppa.

Co-authors Neil Richards (based in the UK) and Matthew Costello (based in the US), have been writing together since the mid-90s, creating innovative content and working on major projects for the BBC, Disney Channel, Sony, ABC, Eidos, and Nintendo to name but a few. Their transatlantic collaboration has underpinned scores of TV drama scripts, computer games, radio shows, and the best-selling mystery series Cherringham. Their latest series project is called Mydworth Mysteries.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series

About the Book

Main Characters

The Authors

Title

Copyright

1. Late for Dinner

2. Four Weeks Later

3. Huffington’s

4. The Police Report

5. Welcome to Bubblz!

6. Friends

7. Breakfast

8. Discoveries

9. A Secret at

Bubblz

10. And Then … The Truth?

11. More Secrets

12. Revelations

13. Breakthrough

14. The Trail to the Missing Man

15. An Address — and a Climb

16. No Way Out

17. Home

Next Episode

Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series

“Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series” is a series made up of self-contained stories. The series is published in English as well as in German; and is only available in e-book form.

About the Book

When Ed Finnlay — computer programmer and devoted father of two — goes missing, there’s not a lot the local police can do. After all, Ed himself told them he would be gone … for quite some time. As the weeks go by with no news, his wife reaches out to Jack and Sarah for help. But they soon learn that there are odd secrets about this missing husband and that he might not only be gone, but also in serious danger. Can Jack and Sarah do what seems impossible … and find Ed Finlay?

Main Characters

Jack Brennan is a former NYPD homicide detective who lost his wife a few years ago. Being retired, all he wants is peace and quiet. Which is what he hopes to find in the quiet town of Cherringham, UK. Living on a canal boat, he enjoys his solitude. But soon enough he discovers that something is missing — the challenge of solving crimes. Surprisingly, Cherringham can help him with that.

Sarah Edwards is a web designer who was living in London with her husband and two kids. Before the series starts, he ran off with his sexy American boss, and Sarah’s world fell apart. With her children she moved back to her home town, laid-back Cherringham. But the small-town atmosphere is killing her all over again — nothing ever happens. At least, that’s what she thinks until Jack enters her life and changes it for good or worse …

The Authors

Matthew Costello (US-based) is the author of a number of successful novels, including Vacation (2011), Home (2014) and Beneath Still Waters (1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed The 7th Guest, Doom 3, Rage and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Neil Richards has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 20 video games including The Da Vinci Code and Starship Titanic, co-written with Douglas Adams, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.

His writing partnership with NYC-based Matt Costello goes back to the late 90’s and the two have written many hours of TV together. Cherringham is their first crime fiction as co-writers.

Matthew CostelloNeil Richards

CHERRINGHAM

A COSY CRIME SERIES

No Place to Hide

Digital original edition

Bastei Lübbe AG

Copyright © 2022 by Neil Richards & Matthew Costello

Copyright for this editon © 2022 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

Written by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards

Edited by Eleanor Abraham

Project management: Kathrin Kummer

Cover illustration: © GettyImages L_Mirror | iStock/Getty Images Plus; ettyImage NgKhanhVuKhoa | iStock/Getty ImagesPlus; RobertSchneider|iStock/Getty ImagesPlus; GettyImage Azure-Dragon | iStock/Getty Images Plus; GettyImages RuudMorijn | iStock/Getty Images Plus;GettyImage Kat72 | iStock/Getty Images Plus

Cover design: Guter Punkt, Munich

eBook production: Jilzov Digital Publishing, Düsseldorf

ISBN 978-3-7325-9026-1

Follow the authors:

https://www.facebook.com/CherringhamMydworth

1. Late for Dinner

Emma Finlay placed the plate of what she hoped were two perfectly cooked poached eggs — each one sitting on a piece of wholegrain toast — in front of her husband.

She recognised that this scene — the dutiful wife serving breakfast to her waiting husband and two young children — might appear to a lot of her friends as a bit old-fashioned, but she did not mind that at all.

Ed — her husband of ten years — despite how fastidious he could be, was a good and warm partner and loving father. She watched him slice through the first egg, the yolk pouring onto the butterless toast that he preferred, and smiled.

This breakfast routine had barely changed in all their married years.

“How’s the eggs?” she said, as usual waiting as he popped the first forkful into his mouth and started to chew.

“Not sure,” he said, and then, after appearing to ponder the question for a few more seconds he frowned. “I’ve got to be honest with you, love. I think they’re …”

She watched him as he looked from her to the children, their faces serious. Both of them waiting.

Then he winked. Olivia and Theo, knowing their cue, both clapped their hands and shouted out: “Perfect!”

And everybody laughed.

She sat down at the other end of the table, her own place set with a bowl of plain yoghurt dotted with blueberries, and a mug of mint tea.

“What’s your day looking like, love?” he said to her, sipping his one cup of coffee. Ed — never one for too much caffeine.

Or too much of anything, for that matter.

“Busy,” she said. “Lots of kids in, and then we’ve got a couple of new parents coming to look round. For next September. So, I just might be a bit late home. You okay sorting the kids’ supper?”

He frowned as if confused.

“Hmm, I don’t know. Really?”

“Oh, no big deal if you can’t,” said Emma, quickly.

“Might be a bit late myself, you see …”

“Sure, don’t worry. I’ll sort something.”

“Sorry, love.”

“It’s fine.”

He smiled at her, clearly relieved. But then his eyes seemed to linger on hers, and she wondered … was there something wrong?

For a second, she was about to ask him if he was okay. But this wasn’t the time or the place. Yes, better tonight, when he came home from work.

Work …

She knew work had been full-on for Ed these last few weeks — long hours, trips away, and more stress than she felt was good for him.

Especially working for Bubblz, the big social media company with its headquarters just outside the village. Ed had been with them from the beginning — seen the company grow and grow!

Though exactly what he did in those long hours, she had to admit, she barely understood. She knew he wrote code — whatever that really meant. Apparently, he was brilliant at it.

But, really, she didn’t get it.

Kids had always been her special subject: the kids at the pre-school where she worked, of course; but, most of all, her own two precious darlings, Theo, just turned five, and Olivia, in her own words, “I’m seven-point-five years old”.

So sharp, and great at maths.

She could be a coder like her dad, for sure, thought Emma.

She glanced at them both now. They still looked sleepy. They certainly weren’t morning kids (if there were any such beings); eating their cereal slowly, sipping their orange juice, neither of them enthusiastic about hurrying to school.

She took a breath and — for no reason particularly that she would later be able to recall — took in the room, the moment, as if capturing a photograph as a keepsake.

There was Ed, wiping the last trace of egg from his plate with the final square of toast, so focussed on the task, the plate clean.

And there were the kids: eating, dreaming, miles away. She was in the picture too — good old Mum at the end of the table.

That picture — for her — perfect.

The morning sun cut through the window behind her, dotting the bright, cheery kitchen — lighting it like it was a stage set.

In minutes, she knew, this moment would be gone — the day suddenly started. Ed would put on his work fleece to head out — laptop in shoulder bag, car keys in hand.

They would kiss at the kitchen door as they did every morning, a brush of lips on cheeks; a rushed “love you”.

Then the kids would be dashing around last-minute, in and out of the room, looking for projects, stories, bags, packed lunches.

All of it happening so fast!

She would be rounding them up, wiping stray cereal from shirts, buttoning coats, grabbing house keys.

And Emma thought: This life here? Yes. Maybe old-fashioned … More than a bit quiet …

But she loved it, and — like so many people, she imagined — she hoped it would never change.

Though, she knew, that hope? Things not changing?

Impossible.

*

The day had been normal. Later, Emma Finlay would remember that quite clearly. “Just a day like any other,” she would say, when asked.

She came home from pre-school earlier than she’d feared — the prospective parents had cancelled, much to everyone’s relief. Then, shortly after, the kids were back from school — Olivia dutifully hitting her homework before playing outside with Theo in the garden.

Being such a good big sister to him.

Then, as the evening drew on, back inside for some TV before dinner and Ed returned.

She was — she knew — by no means a remarkable cook.

But she had mastered some basics that seemed to satisfy everyone and, over the last few years as they’d gone more and more vegetarian, she’d become more adventurous.

Tonight, she had made — with a handy shortcut of leftover soup, beans and some frozen soy mince — a veggie meatloaf, along with broccoli bubbling away in a pan of boiling water. Some potatoes baking in the oven.

Not a bad dinner to come home to, she had thought, checking the wall clock, listening out for Ed’s car pulling up in the driveway, the engine stopping.

Even with Ed working late these past few weeks, she still so looked forward to the usual evening ritual. In this household, dinner occurred as soon as Ed came home. Fleece off, and hanging on the back of the chair. His insisting on a few words of Grace, with their hands held.

(And yes, she knew that, too, would seem so old-fashioned to her friends.)

Then they’d chat about everyone’s day — a conversation that was pretty much the same from evening to evening. How was your day? Anything unusual happen? What did the kids do at school?

The veggie meatloaf would disappear in far less time than even its easy preparation took.

But tonight — she looked again at the clock on the kitchen wall — she realised it really was getting late for Ed to be back.

No sound of the car. No door opening, shutting.

The kids were enjoying this bonus time watching TV, unaware — maybe except for their growling stomachs.

But not Emma.

Ed was not just late.

He was worryingly late.

*

It had got dark. Emma had gone to the window, clutching her phone in her hand.

She had sent half a dozen messages to her husband, each one with a notch more alarm and concern.

Messages like: “On your way?”“Home soon?”Before, after a time, they disintegrated into the simple and stark: “Where are you?”

When she’d made an actual call to him — something she knew Ed didn’t like at all, much preferring the simple back and forth of text messages — the call went to his voicemail right away.

After two voice messages — one where she’d made every effort to hide her worry, and a second where she could no longer do that –there was still no result.

Now she was at the window again, peering into the darkness, as if she might spot him. Justwhere the heck was he?

Finally, Olivia popped up behind her. “Mum, where’s Daddy? It’s dinner time, right?”

Emma looked down and quickly smiled. Though she herself felt alarm, there was no reason to worry Olivia.

“Probably something came up at work. It’s all right, sweetheart.”

Emma saw from Olivia’s face that she was not exactly reassured by those words.

Meanwhile, all sorts of ideas raced through Emma’s head — from some terrible accident on the main road to a more benign late meeting on a project, his phone misplaced.

She tried to nudge those thoughts in the latter direction.

Except …

Ed never misplaced his phone.

There was something she absolutely knew about her husband: any delay, anychangeandhe would be sure to call her.

At the window, she looked down at her phone, and fired off yet another message, not caring about how desperate it might sound.

“Ed — call me? I’m so worried.”

It was getting late. She went back to the kitchen.

Time to feed the kids … carry on … even though her worry kept growing.

*

It was only later — the kids in bed, with both children clearly sensing something was up — that she realised that the time had come to do something.

So, moving well away from the kids’ rooms, near her own bedroom, standing in the hallway, she located the direct number for Cherringham police station.

No need for a 999 call, she thought. Not while there will be — must be — a perfectly logical explanation.

Doing her best to control her voice, she told the policeman on duty — someone she had never had a reason to speak with before — Sergeant Rivers, what had happened.

Or in this case, what hadn’t happened.

Then, after Emma tried to describe just how unusual — impossibly so — this all was, Sergeant Rivers asked, in what she thought was such a calm and gentle voice …

“Mrs Finlay — do you have any idea where your husband could have gone, after work?”

Emma didn’t answer that for a moment because she had no idea at all!

Ed wasn’t one to stop at the pub, or make some last-minute trip to Tesco without telling her.

“No,” she said. “None at all. I just don’t know …”

The officer, perhaps not understanding how orderly and measured their life was, said, “Don’t know what, Mrs Finlay?”

She took a deep breath, the words to come … themselves frightening.

And she said: “I don’t know what’s happened to him. But I think it might be … something bad.”

2. Four Weeks Later

Sarah pulled up in her Toyota, right in front of the Spotted Pig, to see Jack Brennan standing outside, but not alone.

He had his springer, Riley, beside him.

It was mid-morning — still an early spring chill in the air but brilliantly sunny. The restaurant behind Jack was closed, of course, at this time of day, but it was where they were about to meet the co-owner Julie.

For what reason — despite Julie’s cautious sense of urgency — Sarah didn’t have a clue.

She got out of the car. It had been a while since she and Jack had met for mysterious purposes, let alone one of their always-so-enjoyable dinners at the Pig.

Sarah — even with her daughter Chloe’s help — was swamped with work for the upcoming summer season. Concerts, fêtes, web page redesigns, social media campaigns to organise and run: a steady flow, that was certainly great financially.

But now, as she shut the car door behind her, seeing Jack standing there, tall, squinting in the sun, she also knew this:

As the days had gone by, she had missed him very much.

“Riley joining the meeting?” she said.

Jack grinned. “Got the idea that he wanted to do a bit of exploring, been a long winter for him.”

“Spring fever,” she said, coming beside him. A hug, then a kiss on the cheek.

“And don’t worry,” Jack continued, “I know how Sam and Julie — bless their hearts — feel about dogs in their dining establishment. I’ll leave him out here, enjoying the sunshine.”

A quick tie of Riley’s leash to the side of the building, then Jack grabbed the restaurant’s door, held it open and they walked in.

*

Sarah spotted Julie sitting with a woman at a back table, near the kitchen. The overhead lights — those stylish tungsten things that made the tables glow at night — were off. Just a few dim lights were on in the hallway that led to the kitchen.

Sarah didn’t know the woman Julie was with, but she did see that Julie had covered the woman’s hand, comforting her, as she looked up to see them walking over.

Julie smiled quickly. The other woman did not.

“Hi guys — so good of you to come,” said Julie as Sarah and Jack joined them at the table.

“Glad to swing by,” said Jack, then he gave a nod to the front windows. “Beautiful morning for a walk.”

Julie kept her smile as she made a quick introduction.

“Um, yes. And this—” she gave the woman’s hand a quick squeeze, as if to fortify her “—is my friend, Emma. Emma Finlay.”

Sarah smiled at the woman: she looked around the same age as Julie — her hair pulled back, a plain spring coat still on, a prim blue dress.

But not at all like the charismatic, vibrant manager of the Spotted Pig. Which prompted Sarah to wonder just how Julie and this Emma were connected.

“I know Emma from Bluebirds,” said Julie, as if reading her mind. “You know — the pre-school where our little Archy goes?”

Emma added, “I’m one of the assistants there.” Another gentle smile. “Do a bit of this, bit of that, helping with the little ones. Good for me — keeping busy — with our own two kids at Cherringham Primary.”

Julie looked at Emma as she talked, clearly waiting for a moment to step in.

“Emma has been talking to me about … something that’s happened. Well, she can tell you herself, of course, and anyway, I thought maybe you two might be able to help her.”

Emma chewed at her lower lip, clearly anxious.

Sarah saw Jack nod and lean forward, his hands on the table folded together. She’d seen him handle delicate conversations so many times — with a victim, or a distraught relative, or shocked bystanders — always with a mix of warmth, strength and, yes, an amazing gentleness.

And he did that just now.

*

“Thank you, Julie. And Emma, maybe you can share with us what you talked to Julie about? See if we have any ideas about helping you? With whatever it is.”

Sarah heard a loud thwack from the back of the kitchen area and she saw Julie shift in her seat, look behind her.

“Sorry about that,” she said, standing. “Sam’s getting ready for lunch service. I’d better go and give him a hand.”