the foodstuffs and perishables had been phased off the shelves in the weeks leading up to the final day. According to The Crow , Magda had then gone up to her bedroom to write her diary – apparently a daily event – and been heard taking a bath later in the evening. She had plans, according to the diary, to visit one of the villagers that evening and they’d confirmed they’d seen her about 7.30 to 7.45. One of the youngsters who had attended the dance in the Methodist Hall told police he was pretty sure he’d caught sight of her walking out along the road by the allotments at around 8.30pm. While he had not seen her face, her clothes were a distinctive trademark: a multicoloured pleated dress and a leather waistcoat and bag in harlequin patches of yellow and red.
Mrs Hollingsworth’s children, who worked in the shop but had already moved out of the village, did not discover her disappearance until the next morning when they returned to help her pack the last of her belongings into the family car. She had been planning to retire to a bungalow at Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast. But she was nowhere to be found that morning. The family reported her missing at noon to army officials in charge of the final stages of evacuation. Military police, on the scene anyway, took a statement and contacted the control room at Lynn and a general description was circulated. The army conducted athorough search of the village that evening after the villagers had left. No trace of her body was ever found, her bank account remained untouched, but a police spokesman did say that, having been given access to her diary, they were concerned for her safety and that she may have tried to take her own life. They declined to give further details, except to say that she had been suffering from depression.
Dryden leant back in his chair and studied the stained ceiling of the office, from which hung a single wisp of cobweb. ‘I need more,’ he said.
He needed to find her children. He tried Google for both and found a Jacob Hollingsworth listed as a lecturer at Stoke University, in the Department of Eastern European Languages. Calling the number given he ran into an answerphone – Dr Hollingsworth was in Budapest and would be for a further ten days. Urgent messages by e-mail. Dryden tapped one out and dispatched it with little hope of getting an answer. Ruth Hollingsworth did not appear online, but she was described in one of the subsequent articles in The Crow on her mother’s disappearance as working at Littleport Library. Dryden rang, discovered she was now married and had taken the surname Lisle, and was last heard of working for the Fenland Mobile Library Service. They had a website listing the villages to be visited by the fleet of eight mobiles – each one with a librarian. Mrs R. Lisle was given as attending for the service that day in Coveney, just west of Ely.
Dryden checked his watch. He had time for theround trip but he left the news editor an e-mail explaining where he was, and when he’d be back. He grabbed his mobile phone, summoned Humph and met him by the war memorial at the bottom of Market Street. The rain had fallen steadily overnight, soaking the distant landscape into winter colours, illuminated now by a milky sun. They left the cathedral and zigzagged over West Fen towards the low hill that had once been the island of Coveney. En route Dryden phoned his press contact for the Friends of the Ferry to see if the shelling of the church had changed their decision to drop all attempts to win the right of return to the village. There was an answerphone, so he left a message.
The mobile library, decked out in 1950s cream and blue, sat in a lay-by at the village’s central T-junction. A Methodist chapel was the only building of any size, leaving the village green to be dominated by a netball court and social club with four ugly halogen floodlights. There was a children’s playground, empty at this hour except
Mrs Hollingsworth’s children, who worked in the shop but had already moved out of the village, did not discover her disappearance until the next morning when they returned to help her pack the last of her belongings into the family car. She had been planning to retire to a bungalow at Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast. But she was nowhere to be found that morning. The family reported her missing at noon to army officials in charge of the final stages of evacuation. Military police, on the scene anyway, took a statement and contacted the control room at Lynn and a general description was circulated. The army conducted athorough search of the village that evening after the villagers had left. No trace of her body was ever found, her bank account remained untouched, but a police spokesman did say that, having been given access to her diary, they were concerned for her safety and that she may have tried to take her own life. They declined to give further details, except to say that she had been suffering from depression.
Dryden leant back in his chair and studied the stained ceiling of the office, from which hung a single wisp of cobweb. ‘I need more,’ he said.
He needed to find her children. He tried Google for both and found a Jacob Hollingsworth listed as a lecturer at Stoke University, in the Department of Eastern European Languages. Calling the number given he ran into an answerphone – Dr Hollingsworth was in Budapest and would be for a further ten days. Urgent messages by e-mail. Dryden tapped one out and dispatched it with little hope of getting an answer. Ruth Hollingsworth did not appear online, but she was described in one of the subsequent articles in The Crow on her mother’s disappearance as working at Littleport Library. Dryden rang, discovered she was now married and had taken the surname Lisle, and was last heard of working for the Fenland Mobile Library Service. They had a website listing the villages to be visited by the fleet of eight mobiles – each one with a librarian. Mrs R. Lisle was given as attending for the service that day in Coveney, just west of Ely.
Dryden checked his watch. He had time for theround trip but he left the news editor an e-mail explaining where he was, and when he’d be back. He grabbed his mobile phone, summoned Humph and met him by the war memorial at the bottom of Market Street. The rain had fallen steadily overnight, soaking the distant landscape into winter colours, illuminated now by a milky sun. They left the cathedral and zigzagged over West Fen towards the low hill that had once been the island of Coveney. En route Dryden phoned his press contact for the Friends of the Ferry to see if the shelling of the church had changed their decision to drop all attempts to win the right of return to the village. There was an answerphone, so he left a message.
The mobile library, decked out in 1950s cream and blue, sat in a lay-by at the village’s central T-junction. A Methodist chapel was the only building of any size, leaving the village green to be dominated by a netball court and social club with four ugly halogen floodlights. There was a children’s playground, empty at this hour except
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