11
To visit the nearest local library meant a return to Tavistock. Slim found himself alone in an archives room, poring over enormous files of old broadsheet local newspapers, browned and crisped by age.
Each file contained a year’s worth of weeklies. As he had expected of small-town newspapers dominated by ads for local estate agents and farm machinery rental firms, there was little sensationalism about the brief reports on Amos Birch’s disappearance. Local clockmaker disappears in mysterious circumstances read the title of one, before continuing with a report so bland it was almost an oxymoron of its title, focusing on Amos’s background as an artisan of rare skill and a well-respected local farmer, but leaving out any trace of speculation.
He found the most interesting report in a fil
