Mr Stephen Mallow.
A very strange man who, when Graham first met him, he didn’t like one bit. Mainly because he was a nosey journalist. As a detective, Graham knew how meddlesome and difficult journalists could be, especially when they sunk their teeth into a juicy story,especiallyone that could potentially catapult their career into the stars. That’s what he thought Mr Mallow was after and he’d judged him too quickly.
Mr Mallow was also rather peculiar and, as much as he regrets it now, at the time when they met Graham had no understanding of what ADHD or OCD was. He just thought the man was ridiculous, a menace and somewhat stupid, but once he understood the error of his judgement, he realised Mr Mallow was one of the most intelligent and unique individuals he’d ever met.
In fact, Graham wouldn’t have solved his last case in Cherry Hollow without the meddling, questioning personality of Mr Mallow, whose mind just happened to be wired differently to his. Perhaps that was why they had butted heads at first, neither one of them willing to back down and Mr Mallow had that sheer determination to find out the truth, not caring who he pissed off in the process. Graham, included.
Mr Mallow had taught Graham a lot about mental health during their last case. Back in Graham’s day, mental health wasn’t spoken about as widely as it was today and Graham admitted that, to begin with, he thought of it as nothing more than people being weak. His father told him to never cry because boys, men, didn’t cry, didn’t show emotion, nor did they act weak or admit when they couldn’t cope. They just got on with things. Now, it was more important than ever to talk about because the more a person kept their inner, dark thoughts trapped inside, the more the darkness took over, the more the creeping creature would torment them.
As an ex-detective, Graham knew more than most about that. There was always a dark cloud of pressure bearing down on his shoulders, never letting up for a moment. Everyone had expected so much from him. Ever since he was a young sergeant in the force, he’d wanted to help people, to solve crimes, bring people to justice, but it was never as simple as that. Often, crimes didn’t get solved. Sometimes, people got away with murder or missing children were never found, or, if they were, they were found dead, and he had to deliver the news to their grief-stricken parents.
Some days, it had all gotten too much. But he never spoke about it with anyone. He carried that heavy burden all by himself. Until Mr Mallow showed him the error of his ways.
Graham shakes his head, dispelling the dark thoughts of the past, then turns and walks down another path, headingback home. Now he thinks about it, perhaps it will be nice to touch base with Mr Mallow. They had casually mentioned last year that they’d keep in touch, but seeing as they were both blokes who found friendship with other blokes a bit awkward, neither of them had taken the first step yet.
When Graham moved out of Cherry Hollow, he put the whole town behind him, including its residents. Nothing on God’s green earth would make him go back there, but perhaps Mr Mallow fancied a trip to the middle of Wales to investigate a weird scarecrow found hanging in a tree, not once, but twice and to discover why the residents of this town didn’t seem concerned about a potentially missing girl. Karen may have dismissed her disappearance, but Graham isn’t so easily persuaded otherwise. There’s something not quite adding up.
Graham arrives home, puts on a pot of coffee and scrolls to Stephen Mallow’s number.
Chapter 10
STEPHEN
The next morning, once Rachel leaves for work, Stephen takes his coffee and sits at his desk, which overlooks the street outside. He and Rachel only live a few minutes' walk from the centre of the town. He likes to people watch, often seeing the same residents walking past at the same time of day.
Like clockwork.
Mr Clayton, heading off to open the shop at five minutes to seven; Penelope Forthright, a posh older lady who likes to be the first in line at the bakery when it opens at eight; and Katherine Mills, the woman who owns the local haberdashery store, which does surprising well.
He switches on his laptop and scans his emails, raising his eyebrows at several of the subject lines. He opens a few that catch his eye, all of which are pleas for help in discovering the answer to strange occurrences. Maybe there will be something worth looking into today.
One person writes that there’s a weird noise coming from the bottom of a well in the Yorkshire Dales that demands his investigation skills. Another mentions a dark shadow that only appears on Wednesday evenings on a driveway in the Scottish Highlands.
While both are amusing, they don't warrant him travelling to visit the areas. Instead, he emails them back, asking a few questions and, within a few minutes, has easily busted the mysteries of both.
The strange noise at the bottom of the well turns out to be a gurgling water pipe in need of unblocking and the dark shadow on Wednesday evenings is revealed to be the woman's husband sneaking back after seeing the next-door neighbour. Nothing remotely challenging or interesting, but nonetheless, the email recipients are grateful for his help.
His phone vibrates, the sound amplified against the desk.
Stephen picks it up, but pauses when he sees the name on the screen. A small smile creeps across his thin lips as he raises the phone to his ear, leaning back in his chair.
‘Detective Williams, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?’
‘Mr Mallow, good to hear your voice too.’
Stephen chuckles, enjoying their faint jibes at each other from the start. He hasn’t spoken to him since the detective left Cherry Hollow last year. They parted ways, promising to keep in contact, but they never did. Just one of those things.
‘Of course, it is good to hear from you, Detective.’
‘It’s just Graham now, remember? I’ve retired, as I’m sure you know, Mr Mallow.’
‘Hmm, yes, I remember, but I’m afraid you’ll always be Detective Williams to me, unless you feel the need to call me Stephen now?’
‘Mr Mallow has a nicer ring to it, I’ve always thought.’
‘Very well. I suppose this entire conversation so far has been moot, then.’
‘Indeed,’ says Detective Williams with a grunt.
