Chapter Text
The day began like any other; John Barnaby kissed his wife goodbye and gave his daughter a big hug and off to work he went. Arriving at work, all seemed well; police officers coming and going from the building and greeting John as he walked to his office he shared with his sergeant, Jamie Winter. Glancing over at Jamie’s desk, it was clear he wasn’t in the office yet. John sat at his desk and started up his computer with a mountain of paperwork to his side. Sighing internally, he got to work writing up reports from the previous case which he and Jamie had wrapped up 3 days ago now. John knew that paperwork had to be done but he would rather be solving a case than writing about one.
A cup of coffee was delivered to his desk which put a smile on his face and helped with brain power. He’d been so glued to his screen and keyboard that he hadn’t noticed the lack of Jamie in the office. Half way through writing a sentence, John stopped and looked around his monitor to see an empty desk opposite. He frowned and looked down at the small clock on the edge of the computer screen. He had been in the office for around half and hour and Jamie was now late. Huffing, John dialled Jamie’s number and to his annoyance, it went straight to voicemail, but annoyance was soon replayed with concern as Jamie never had his phone switched off and very rarely let it run out of charge. Something felt off, something wasn’t right and John could sense it.
Quickly typing out an end to his sentence, John marched out of the station and drove in the direction of Jamie’s house, well it was more of a cottage really. Approaching the small cottage, Jamie’s car was parked outside and all windows on both house and car were closed. John parked next to Jamie’s car and got out, looking at the car as he did so. Nothing seemed out of place or wrong with it, not that John was expecting anything to be wrong. He made a point of knocking loudly just in case his sergeant had overslept. The seconds turned into a minute and then into two with no answer and no noise from inside. John practically pounded on the door but still there was nothing. He sidestepped to the window that looked into the living room and kitchen; all looked normal and tidy. John knew that a spare key wouldn’t be found under the mat or a plant pot so getting inside was going to be a right task. Trying the front door and of course it was locked. Going round the back, John frowned at the slightly overgrown state of the garden. Maintaining it shouldn’t be a hardship; the garden was practically the size of John’s patio.
For the sake of it, John knocked on the back door before turning the handle and to his surprise, it was unlocked. Cautiously he entered calling Jamie’s last name. The place was clean and tidy, nothing looked out of place or disturbed. John stood in the kitchen with his hands on his hips surveying the place. He called out again and was met with silence. He made his way around the floorplan; bathroom was empty and so was the bedroom. All rooms were clear and no sign of Jamie. John furrowed his brows and frowned, was he just overthinking or had something happened? For all he knew, Jamie could be out on a run, or he could have been kidnapped. An endless stream of scenarios raced through John’s mind.
John made his way outside again and checked Jamie’s car which was locked. Looking through the windows, there was nothing of importance in there. John stood there stumped. Taking out his phone, he dialled Sarah’s number.
“Hello John” the voice of his wife came through.
“Hi, Sarah. By any chance have you heard from Winter since yesterday evening?” he asked.
A pause. “No, I haven’t. Is everything ok?” her voice confused and concerned.
“He is currently nowhere to be seen.”
“Oh…”
“Let me know if he contacts you” John cut her off.
“I will, I’m sure there’s an explanation for his disappearance” Sarah reassured him.
John hummed and hung up. The next person he called was Fleur. She too had no idea on Winter’s whereabouts. Jamie never really spoke about his family so John had no idea who, if anyone, to call. For now, he headed back to the office and jumped onto his computer to do some digging on Jamie. Much to his annoyance, Jamie’s next of kin was blank so that was a dead end. John thought long and hard on who Jamie’s friends were, but no particular person came to mind. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. After pondering for a moment, he decided to continue working on reports till around lunch time and see if Jamie had turned up by then; if not, then he would do something about it.
Four hours later, at 1pm, John felt a pit of dread growing as Jamie still hadn’t appeared or been in contact. First and foremost, he went to ask tech for a last known location on Jamie’s phone; that would give him a place to start at least. While waiting for that, John travelled back to Jamie’s cottage to do a more thorough search of the place. He started to look in kitchen cabinets and drawers, living room side tables and the sides of the sofa, the side tables in the bedrooms and the wardrobes. Everything was where it should be, no clues to be found. Luckily, John’s phone rang and gave him some good news. Tech had traced the last known location of Jamie’s phone; it was near some woodland south of Midsomer Barrow. John, confused and concerned as ever, started the drive to said location with a thousand questions. Why was Jamie’s phone there, how did it get there, was Jamie there? Hopefully some questions would be answered.
John parked his car in a dirt layby next to an entrance for the woodland area. It was a sunny day with scattered clouds and it hadn’t rained in a while so the woods were going to be dry and would be a nice walk if it wasn’t for the fact that John was looking for a missing sergeant. Sticking to the path, John scanned his surroundings and watched where he stepped just in case there was a clue. After 10 minutes of walking John stopped and did a 360 on the spot. All around him were trees and just trees. If Jamie or his phone were in the woods, he was going to need some help to cover the area. He yelled out Jamie’s last name and only heard some birds call back. There was little to no signal in the woods, so John began the walk back to the car to call for assistance. On the walk back, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, something about the woods made him feel on edge and uncomfortable.
John relaxed a little when his car came into view. He called the station and managed to get 6 PC’s to come give him a hand. They arrived 15 minutes later and they all spread out across the woods. A couple of hours went by with no sign of Jamie ever being in or near the woods, much to John’s dismay. Just as he was about to give up for the day, a PC hurried up to him with a phone in his hand.
“Sir, found this just down the road a bit on the very edge of the woods” the male PC panted out.
John took the phone and recognised it as Jamie’s. The screen was cracked and dirty and wouldn’t turn on. John instructed the PC to call of the search for now. He hoped the phone was just out of battery. Hurrying back to the office, John plugged the phone in and it did light up but the bottom left of the screen was glitchy. Immediately, John went to recent calls and messages. The last message Jamie sent was a quick text to John about some training course he was interested in. John hadn’t replied as he was already in bed and dozing off as Jamie had sent that text around 11:40pm. The last message Jamie received was an offer from the local pizzeria at 4:20pm, and before that was a text from John in the afternoon. So, the texts weren’t that helpful. The calls were a bit more interesting. Apart from the calls between Jamie and John, the most recent call was from a number with the caller ID as ‘Ellie’. The call lasted 2 minutes and 16 seconds to be precise. John punched the number into his phone and pressed call but unfortunately, it went to voicemail. John cursed mentally.
Whoever this Ellie was, they were a person of interest as Jamie was definitely a missing person now. He passed the number onto tech in hopes they could trace its last known location. As far as John knew, Jamie didn’t have a partner or a friend called Ellie. He looked through the texts again to see if they had chatted but there was nothing and by the looks of it the number had only called Jamie this one time but the number was stored in Jamie’s contacts so he must have known this person. John had a gut feeling that this Ellie person was involved somehow in the disappearance of Jamie.
The day was drawing to a close with various people leaving the office and PC shifts ending and starting. Tech hadn’t got back to John yet with the location of the phone and probably wouldn’t get back to him until tomorrow now anyway. John got up from his desk and stared at the empty desk where Jamie should have been sitting. He and Jamie had been working together now for almost 2 years and he had grown quite fond of him. Jamie was pretty much part of the family, like his predecessor Ben was. As John drove home that evening, he hoped that nothing bad had happened to Jamie but deep down he knew something was really wrong here.