missperegrine'shomeforpeculiarchildren

When someone goes missing in a town as small as Cairnholm, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

That’s why on Wednesday, when Martin failed to open his museum or stop by the Priest Hole for his customary nightcap, people began to wonder if he was sick, and when Kev’s wife went to check on him and found his front door hanging open and his wallet and glasses on the kitchen counter but no one at home, people began to wonder if he was dead. When he still hadn’t turned up the next day, a gang of men was dispatched to open sheds and peer beneath overturned boats, searching anywhere a wifeless man who loved whiskey might sleep off a binge. But they’d only just begun when a call came in over the short-band radio: Martin’s body had been fished out of the ocean.