Stephen holds up the pages so Graham can glance at them. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking at here …’
‘Well, I do … when we get there, we need to find a barn that looks like this and I think that’s where we’ll find the answers we’ve been looking for.’
‘What are you expecting to find down there?’ asks Graham.
‘I believe we’ll find Sophia.’
‘Her body …’
‘No, I believe Frank has been keeping his own daughter locked away underneath his barn floor in a secret room for the past decade.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I am.’
Graham mutters a few indecent words. ‘What about the scarecrow and the clues we’ve found inside the pockets of the coat? What does your unique brain think about that after everything that’s happened over the past few days?’
Stephen is silent for a moment. ‘How heavy would you say the scarecrow was, Graham?’
Graham frowns at his odd question, but knows better than to question him. ‘Not that heavy. Just … cumbersome.’
‘Hmm. Would a man be able to get it up high into the tree by himself?’
‘Not unless he had some sort of pulley system set up to help. Even a full-grown man would struggle to haul it up into the tree without a rope.’
‘So, what you’re saying is that it would take at least two adults to drag that scarecrow up into the tree without a rope or a pulley system?’
Graham nods. ‘I’d say that’s a fair assessment.’
‘Hear me out for a moment.’ He holds up his hand to signal silence, even though Graham hasn’t made a move to speak. The tarmac is rushing past them, the white lines a blur. ‘According to John Hammel’s diaries and journals, he wascollecting information about the village council and wrote it all down, which he then hid behind a secret wall in your cottage. Sophia also hid her drawings in the tree. The diaries and the secret room were never found, which means that none of the members of the council knew about it, not even Sophia’s father who owned the cottage at the time. Or, perhaps he did, and decided to keep it hidden, away from the other council members, I don’t know.’
Graham’s aware that Stephen is repeating what they already know, but saying it out loud obviously helps him compartmentalise all the pieces, which, at the moment, are flying around his own brain with nowhere to go. He, like Stephen, needs to catch them all and force them to be still.
‘A hundred years ago, this all started because of one man – John Hammel. He was the first to be hung in the tree. Someone killed him, but why? Because he knew too much. I believe that other members of the village committee wanted to do the same thing to Sophia. To hang her in the tree as a human sacrifice to help stop the curse on them and their farms and livelihoods. But Sophia knew too much and you can’t just string up a person in a tree anymore without any repercussions – so Frank made her disappear instead, but I don’t believe he did it with malicious intent.’
‘How is locking someone up in a barn for a decade not considered malicious intent?’
‘Because I think he did it to save her from her fate …’
Chapter 47
GRAHAM
Graham parks the car in front of the wooden farm gate of Blackberry Farm. It’s locked with a chain and padlock, heavy duty, so he and Stephen climb over it, then walk through the yard towards the barns.
‘No police presence, so I’m assuming word hasn’t got out that he really is dead yet,’ says Graham.
Stephen holds up the drawing of the barn. ‘There are a lot of barns here,’ he says. ‘The grid reference is roughly over there.’ Stephen points to the other side where there are several buildings.
Graham scans the yard and checks the drawing in Stephen’s hands, scanning the outlines. ‘If these were drawn a hundred years ago by John Hammel, then it’s safe to say that a lot will have changed since then. The original structure may not even be here.’
‘Then there must be another way to access the underground bunker. She’s here, I just know it,’ says Stephen.
‘How about we search each barn in turn?’
‘I think that’s as good a plan as any. I don’t think these drawings are going to be of much help anymore, but the grid reference will at least narrow down our search area.’
Graham sighs, realising it was never going to be as simple as following a map, and takes a step, but as he does, a dog growls nearby. He puts his hand out, stopping Stephen in his tracks. ‘Stand perfectly still.’
