Echoes of the Past by Deborah Mailer Read Free Book Online

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