All Things Undying

TWELVE

‘It has long been said that once a year the River Dart demands a human life and when it is ready for “a heart” it will “cry out” and summon its victim. The sound of the river can usually be heard near the “broad stone” or brad stones. An old saying goes: “Dart, Dart, cruel Dart, every year thou claimst a heart.”’www.Legendarydartmoor.co.uk

The Dartmouth Public Library occupies the ground floor of the Flavel Arts Centre, a modern, tastefully designed building with a dramatic zig-zag roof over a glass façade that exposes each of its three floors to public view, like a doll house. I had to pass by the police station to get there, and as usual, I looked in. Although the station was open, the young officer manning the counter would tell me nothing about their progress on Susan Parker’s case except to say that the investigation was ongoing.

Damn, I thought, as I crossed the street and headed for the library. I’d learned more than that from the woman reading the news on television that morning. Forensic analysis was being done of the victim’s clothing, the reporter had told the viewing public over their Weetabix, toast and orange marmalade. Furthermore, an accident reconstruction expert had been called in from Croydon, and his report was expected shortly.

As I waited for assistance at the library reference desk, I began to case the joint. I was surrounded by shelves crammed with books, magazines, DVDs, and other material, so closely spaced that the effect was almost claustrophobic. If e-books didn’t become all the rage, I figured it wouldn’t be long before the library ran out of shelf space. Nearby, a rank of computers was provided for public use. I’d come at a good time, apparently, as only one of the machines was occupied.

A librarian materialized from somewhere in the stacks and greeted me with a friendly, ‘May I help you?’

I explained that I was looking for old newspaper reports.

‘I suggest you start with Newsbank,’ the librarian said. ‘That’s our most comprehensive resource, and it’s online.’ She pointed to a terminal. ‘Click online resources and you’ll find Newsbank among those listed.’

I sat down and followed her instructions.

Newsbank came up immediately, filling the screen with a multicolored map of the UK. Because I wanted to see newspapers in the South West, I clicked on the turquoise section of the map. Of twenty-two newspapers in that general region, almost all had come online in 2007.

Rats.

Surprisingly, the Dartmouth Chronicle wasn’t listed at all, and of the others, the one of most likely interest, the Western Morning News out of Plymouth, went back only as far as 1999. I figured Beth Hamilton had gone missing around 1994, so that was no help at all.

‘I guess I should have been more specific,’ I told the librarian when she reappeared at my elbow to ask how I was getting on. ‘The articles I need would have come out in 1994 or 1995.’

A few minutes later, I found myself seated at a microfilm machine, having flashbacks to my college days at Oberlin as I reeled my way through newspapers on film, starting with the paper closest to home, the Dartmouth Chronicle.

Elizabeth and Jon Hamilton had been avid sailors, that I knew, but finding numerous references to sailing races in which they had participated brought that fact into sharp focus. Jon’s Contessa 32 was a sprightly little craft, I realized as I scanned the results of race after race. When she wasn’t winning outright, Biding Thyme was consistently placed in the top three. No wonder Jon was loathe to part with her.

Halfway through the Dartmouth Chronicle for 1994, I found what I was looking for: ‘Local Woman Presumed Drowned in Solo Sailing Accident’. When I noticed the date on the article, all the breath left my body.

July 30. The date of Janet’s dinner party, when Susan Parker had been guest of honor. No wonder Beth’s spirit had been sending out vibes that evening. No wonder Jon had freaked.

Beth had been seen by several people, the newspaper reported, sailing out of the marina alone. Several hours later, Biding Thyme had been discovered, sails still set, at Stumpy Steps not far from the Castle. There was nothing in the article that I didn’t know already, except that Jon and his daughter had been away at the time, visiting his mother in Exeter.

I paged forward to the following week’s Chronicle to find, as expected, that police were still searching for Beth’s body. The shore on both sides of the Dart had been thoroughly combed by police and volunteers, I learned, but to no avail. A tiny spot of blood that proved, upon analysis, to have come from Beth, had been found on the stern of Biding Thyme, but there was no way to tell how the blood had got there, or when. ‘There is no evidence of foul play,’ a police spokesman said.

The week after that, the Chronicle reported, an expert on wind and water current patterns had been called in from Oxford University. Cardiff University in Wales sent the top tide man from their Hydro-Environmental Research Center. When the two experts put their heads together, they produced a series of graphs and hydrographic charts with circles and arrows, and the joint opinion that Beth’s body had floated out to sea.

The week after that, nothing. Ditto the week after that.

As far as the Dartmouth Chronicle was concerned, Beth Hamilton had vanished off the face of the earth.

I sat back and gnawed on my thumbnail. The way I saw it, there were four possible explanations for Beth’s disappearance:

Beth had tumbled overboard and drowned. An accident.

She’d jumped overboard and drowned. A suicide.

She’d been boarded, clobbered, and thrown overboard. Murder.

She went sailing, leaped overboard, swam to shore and disappeared. A runaway.

‘Beth is a strong swimmer,’ Jon had been quoted as saying. Is, I noticed, and not was. But what could she have been running away from? A bad marriage? From what Alison had told me, their marriage had been perfect, so there was little likelihood of that.

If not running from something, was there anything she’d been running to? A lover, perhaps?

I wanted to slap myself for thinking such vulgar thoughts, but the idea must have occurred to the police, too. Two weeks after she went missing, the Chronicle had published a picture of Beth with the caption, ‘Have you seen this woman?’

Only four explanations for Beth’s disappearance. I rubbed my tired eyes and went over them again in my head. Accident, suicide, murder or AWOL. No, wait a minute. Five. Beth could have been abducted by aliens.

Maybe I needed a break.

As I was returning the microfilm reels to the reference desk, I remembered something Janet Brelsford had said the night of the party: each year the Dart takes a heart.

Back at the computer, with Newsbank on the screen, I put my fingers on the keyboard and typed in ‘Dart’ and ‘Drowning,’ then scanned the search results covering the past ten years. One death a year was about right. A tourist falls off a luxury yacht; a widow drowns near her favorite spot; a canoeist is trapped under his overturned canoe; a drunken youth tumbles off the Embankment. In most cases, the body of the victim had been recovered in a few days. In one case, rescue teams used an Air Force search and rescue helicopter equipped with thermal imaging cameras to help find the body.

Alas, no such technology had been called into play when Beth Hamilton went missing. Gradually, everybody seemed to forget about poor Beth, except for Jon Hamilton and his daughter, Kitty, age six.