Nathan Oliver goes missing

Nathan Oliver goes missing after leaving Peregrine Cottage early in the morning and failing to arrive for a scheduled blood-sampling appointment. His unexplained absence turns a minor medical appointment into an urgent search: Rupert Maycroft must weigh Combe Island’s custom of leaving visitors in peace against the danger that Oliver may be injured. The search leads to the lighthouse, where the fog lifts and Maycroft discovers Oliver’s body hanging there.

The missed appointment and last known movements

At nine-twenty-five, Joanna Staveley telephones Maycroft to ask whether Oliver is with him. Oliver was due at the surgery at nine for another blood sample and has not appeared or called to explain his absence. Joanna had suspected he might skip the appointment, but his failure to contact her leaves the reason unknown. The missed appointment is the first definite sign that something is wrong; it does not establish whether Oliver has chosen to avoid the procedure or is unable to reach the surgery.

Maycroft learns that Miranda Oliver heard her father leave at about seven-twenty. She was in her bedroom, and they did not speak, so she cannot say where he was going. Oliver had not mentioned the appointment the previous evening. Dennis Tremlett, who arrived at Peregrine Cottage shortly after eight to catch up on work, has not seen Oliver since the day before. The ordinary traces of the morning offer little reassurance: Oliver made tea, and the pot was still warm when Miranda entered the kitchen, but he had eaten only a banana. His companions know that he set out; none can account for his destination.

Choosing to search

Maycroft recognizes that Combe Island’s ethos is to leave visitors alone. If Oliver has simply gone for a walk after deciding to miss his appointment, organizing a search would itself be an intrusion and an added irritation. Yet Oliver is no longer young, and he has been absent for two hours without explanation. Maycroft considers the possibility that a stroke or heart attack has left him lying somewhere beyond help. As the person responsible for the decision, he cannot justify doing nothing while that possibility remains open.

He tells Joanna to remain at the surgery in case Oliver turns up, and asks her to alert Guy Staveley. He will telephone others and have them meet at the house. Adrian Boyde offers to call Peregrine Cottage and then search the island’s north-east. The decision marks a shift from waiting for Oliver to reappear to treating his absence as a possible emergency, while still responding to the island’s preference for privacy rather than launching an indiscriminate search.

Five minutes later, a small group assembles outside the house. Arthur Roughtwood declines to help, saying he is too busy. Guy’s wife, Joanna Staveley, Dan Padgett and Emily Holcombe are present; Emily has come to the surgery for her annual anti-flu injection. Jago Tamlyn has been summoned from his cottage but has not yet arrived. The group looks to Maycroft for direction, making him responsible not only for deciding whether to search but for setting the limits of what they can safely do.

Fog and the lighthouse

As the group prepares to move, mist comes up across Combe Island. It varies from a thin veil to a dense, damp fog that hides the sea and makes the house seem like a looming mass. The red cupola atop the lighthouse appears isolated against the obscuring weather. Maycroft decides there is little point in going far until visibility improves; they will try the lighthouse, and no more for now. The fog thus both restricts the search and draws the group toward the landmark that will resolve Oliver’s disappearance.

They move together, with Maycroft in front. Behind him, voices fade as the searchers vanish one by one into the mist. The lighthouse appears suddenly, its concave shaft seeming to stretch upward into nothing. Maycroft feels briefly giddy but climbs anyway. Its door stands ajar. He enters, switches on the light and ascends the first flight, passes through the fuel room and climbs halfway up the second, calling Oliver’s name first quietly, then loudly into the darkness. There is no reply, and he sees no lights.

Maycroft comes back down and tells the others that Oliver does not seem to be inside, asking them to stay where they are. Instead of rejoining them at once, he moves without a clear purpose around to the seaward side and leans against the sea wall. The mist begins to lift as unpredictably as it arrived. Veils drift across the lighthouse and dissolve; the structure and its surroundings return from an indistinct, dreamlike outline to recognizable forms.

Discovery and significance

As visibility clears, Maycroft sees Oliver hanging at the lighthouse. The first glimpse comes through a thin veil of mist; then the scene becomes clear. The search has not found a missing walker in need of medical help but a dead man, and the choice to investigate despite the island’s privacy custom has brought the disappearance to its terrible conclusion. The contrast between the earlier uncertainty and the restored clarity of the landscape gives the discovery its force: the fog had concealed not merely the route ahead but the fact of Oliver’s death.

The episode also establishes the practical tension that shapes Maycroft’s response. Respect for a visitor’s solitude matters on Combe Island, but it cannot absolve those responsible for his safety from acting when the signs point to possible peril. Oliver’s missed appointment, his unexplained departure and the absence of anyone who knows his whereabouts turn that principle into an immediate decision. The lighthouse search resolves the question of where he is, while exposing the far graver circumstances behind his absence.