Box 88 : A Novel (2020)

soon gliding through the English countryside, passing signs for Brighton and Glyndebourne and Firle, the gentle, well-tended hills of the South Downs dotted with sheep and compressed by a low grey sky. She kept thinking of The Holiday, the romcom with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz, wondering if it had been filmed in Sussex. She paid the driver at Jevington and set out on the short walk towards Kite’s house, dressed in sturdy hiking boots and a dark weatherproof jacket so that she looked like a common-or-garden rambler. She had a long lens camera in her backpack as well as books about trees and birdwatching in case anybody got suspicious and stopped to ask what she was doing. On a training exercise in Wales, she had role-played the part of a camping enthusiast, sleeping rough, pitching a tent, eating food cooked on a gas stove. This job was a breeze by comparison: she got to stroll around in the fresh air in some of the prettiest countryside in England. It was like taking a day off.

As Cara was emerging from a copse of beech trees a couple of miles from Jevington, it began to rain. She pulled up her hood, continuing along a straight, uneven path strewn with leaves and shards of flint. She saw that the cottage was nestled in a forested bowl with sloping hills on all sides; perhaps Kite had chosen it so that he could see who was approaching from every point on the compass. The most direct route to the front door lay across a fallow field running down to a stream at the northern edge of the property. Cara did not want to be exposed in the open field so instead walked in a slow corkscrew loop towards the narrow road on the far side of the house.

After five minutes she stopped and took out the camera. In the shelter of a large oak tree, Cara trained the lens on the cottage, pulling focus from a distance of four hundred metres. The curtains were closed on the ground floor. Blinds were also down and curtains closed in the upstairs rooms. The property had been photographed only once, by Vosse and Tessa. Cara knew from those images that Kite and Isobel did not keep the curtains closed during the day. It was possible the house was locked up and Kite’s wife had gone to London to look for him.

Cara had bought a cheese sandwich at the station in Lewes and now took it out. It was dry and tasteless but she was grateful to have had something to eat. The rain showed no sign of easing up as she put the camera back in the rucksack and made her way down to the road. She tried to text Vosse to give him an update but there was no signal in the valley. Ordinarily Kite and Isobel were able to send and receive messages at the house on 4G; maybe the network was down. Vosse had asked her to try to make contact with Isobel, so she walked towards the cottage with the intention of seeing if she was home.

There was a vehicle parked in the drive. A car fizzed past on the short stretch of road running in front of the cottage, spraying Cara with droplets of puddled rainwater. She rang the doorbell. No response. The blinds and curtains were also closed on this side of the house. She waited for almost a minute then rang the bell a second time. A bird was singing in the trees on the far side of the cottage. There were no other sounds. The sky was grey and lifeless. It was obvious that nobody was inside.

As she was turning away, Cara thought that she heard a noise inside the cottage, but concluded that it was just her ears playing tricks on her. She waited a few more seconds longer then went back to the road. Still no signal on her mobile. She decided to walk back to Jevington and to call a cab from a phone box.

Four hundred metres from the cottage, she heard the sound of an approaching car and stepped up onto a grass verge to allow it to pass. To Cara’s surprise she saw that it was the same vehicle – a burgundy Skoda Octavia – which had driven past her only moments earlier. The vehicle slowed as it came towards her. There was a middle-aged black woman at the wheel, a male passenger in the back seat. Perhaps it was an Uber and the driver was lost. She stopped beside Cara, but it was the man in the back seat who wound down the window.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. He was good-looking and had an American accent. ‘Are you Miss Jannaway?’

Cara was astonished. Had something happened in London? Had Vosse sent a car for her?

‘I am,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

The American opened the back door. Cara leaned down and saw that the driver was pointing a gun at her.

‘Get in,’ he said. ‘Move.’

24

Michael Strawson checked out of Killantringan Lodge early on the morning of Monday, 27 March 1989. He caught a flight from Prestwick to London, couriered his letter to Billy Peele and went back to work at The Cathedral.

Kite spent the rest of the Easter holidays hidden away in his bedroom revising for A levels. Mornings and afternoons were the best times for this: Cheryl and Wilma could cope with any guests who turned up for lunch or tea and Kite was only required to leave his desk if a delivery van turned up and needed unloading. The evenings were different. Cheryl wanted Kite to work in the hotel and he would often not get to bed until after midnight. Waking early each morning, he would make his way through Mansfield Park or a booklet on the Tudor monarchs, distractedly thinking of Des tracking leopards in the Serengeti or Xavier skiing powder in the Swiss Alps, a glass of glühwein in one