The Ferryman: A DCI Tom Jacob Mystery (Wild Wiltshire Book 3) by Rob Jones

Author:Rob Jones [Jones, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

In the late afternoon, Jacob and Innes drove into Tetbury, approaching from the south and headed towards the address where the red pickup truck was registered in the small town’s east. They drove past the Tetbury Town Football Club and then turned right on the Cirencester Road and found themselves driving along a long narrow unsealed track. The vintage car’s ageing suspension handled the job well enough and they soon found themselves pulling up to an isolated and fairly rundown cottage about half a mile east of the town, situated in front of a narrow band of woodland which divided the town from a large swathe of agricultural land.

Jacob climbed out of the car, closed the door behind him and walked to the front door with Innes beside him. The door was no more inviting than the rest of the building, with large flakes of paint peeling from it and putty crumbling away from a frosted glass window set into its upper half. Jacob rang the bell and then looked around him one more time as he waited for someone to open the door. There was a roll of rusty barbed wire dumped carelessly in the front garden, which was overgrown and hadn’t seen a lawn mower for many months. Jacob could see that the barbed wire had been bought to repair a section of fence that was missing on the property’s northern boundary but must have been sitting out in the rain for a long time to get into such a decrepit state.

Seeing no one had come to the door, Jacob now leaned his tall frame towards it once again and this time knocked on it hard several times. A dog barked from inside the property and then they saw its black blurry form through the frosted grass as it ran to the front door and began barking and snapping and snarling at them as they stood on the doorstep.

“Why do houses that look like this always have dogs that sound like that?” Innes asked.

Jacob thought this was a good question but not one that deserved a detailed response. “I’ll ask Sophie when she gets back from Italy. She’s the psychologist.”

He leaned back towards the door and hammered on it one more time, this time with the heel of his hand and banging the wood as hard as possible. This set the dog off all over again who now began turning in circles and growling and barking even louder. Then Jacob heard a man’s voice calling out but not from inside the property. The voice was coming from outside, somewhere around the back.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming! Keep your hair on!”

Jacob heard the voice again and determined it was coming from the side of the house where the barbed wire fence was broken down, to the north. He turned and began to walk towards the corner of the house hoping to meet the man halfway, which he did. As soon as he saw the man’s face he knew instantly that this was the person who had bought the coins in Marlborough.

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