sign for Little Missenden – Please drive carefully through our village – appears at the roadside just before 11 a.m.
I drive through the centre and I’m heading out the other side before I even realise it, out into open country again. I do a U-turn in the driveway of a large manor house and drive back into the village, more slowly this time. Little Missenden is chocolate-box cute, old houses and ivy-clad cottages clustered around a well-kept village green. An old parish church with the flag of St George fluttering against the cold autumn sky. There are two pubs but the Red Lion is nearer, a whitewashed country inn with big brick chimneys at each end near the centre of the village. I park up next to an old red phone box, grab the handbag from the passenger seat and head inside.
The pub is quiet and dark, a low ceiling, thick wooden tables and chairs, padded benches lining the walls. A smell of roast dinners, real ale and open fires. Only a few other patrons, an older couple in Gore-Tex jackets and walking boots, a few middle-aged men watching horse-racing on the TV. A log fire burning low in the grate with a large dog sprawled in front of it, chin on its paws. There are two staff behind the bar. One is barely out of her teens, elbows on the till, thumb-typing on her phone. The other is an older man, early fifties, hair thinning back to almost nothing, writing in careful capitals on a specials board. I order a Diet Coke and wait until he’s poured it before setting it down on the bar in front of me.
‘One-sixty please, darlin’.’
‘Thanks,’ I say brightly, reaching for my purse. ‘Actually, I don’t know if you can help me with something?’
‘I’ll do my very best, love.’ He indicates the thick gold wedding ring on his left hand. ‘But just to let you know, I’m spoken for.’
I nod and smile as if this is the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. ‘That is a shame.’
He cracks a crooked smile. ‘Just teasing, young lady.’
‘I’m actually looking for someone, was wondering if you might know where I can find her?’ I hold out my debit card and he gives me the card machine to tap it against. ‘I got chatting to someone on the train yesterday, going into London, but when she got off she left her handbag behind. I was going to just stick it in lost property at Marylebone but then I remembered she’d said she lived in Little Missenden and since I’ve got a lunch meeting in Amersham today, I thought I’d just drop it off on my drive through.’
The lie feels unconvincing on my tongue, even though it contains shards of truth. I put the handbag down next to my drink and the landlord gives me a blank look, his belly straining against a grey Lacoste polo shirt.
‘What was her name, this woman?’
‘Kathryn.’
He leans on folded arms against the varnished wood of the bar.
‘Kathryn what?’
I start to wonder if this was the wrong place to start. I’ll try the other pub next, The Crown, then the post office, if there is one.
‘She’s probably early twenties?’ I say. ‘Blonde, maybe five foot five? Could have sworn she said she lived here in the village.’
He starts shaking his head and is about to speak again when the young barmaid cuts him off.
‘D’you mean Kathryn Clifton?’ she says. ‘Skinny, pretty?’
‘That sounds like her. Don’t suppose you’ve got her number, have you? I could give her a ring, drop the bag over to her on the way to my meeting.’
The girl shakes her head. ‘Haven’t got her number.’
‘Is there someone who might—’
‘But she only lives around the corner.’ She gestures with a thumb.
My pulse ticks up a notch. The barmaid is about to say more, then sees the landlord giving her daggers and the words die on her lips.
‘I can drop the bag around to her,’ I say. ‘I don’t mind, honestly. If you just point me in the right direction, I can go.’ I give him a smile. ‘Do my good deed for the day.’
‘We’ll make sure it gets back to her,’ the landlord grunts. ‘It’s no bother.’
‘Really, I don’t mind. I’ve got time before—’
‘You a journalist?’ he says suddenly, his expression darkening.
‘What? No.’ I try to adjust to this sudden change of direction. ‘I’m just . . . someone she met on the train.’
‘Because that family’s had more than enough with journalists