Alice let her head fall on to one side. It felt like a very familiar gesture, although he didn’t think he’d seen her make it before. ‘Did someone upset you?’ she asked.
He looked at her properly, tempted to tell her about his chat with Tobias, then decided against it. Why ruin her evening too? She was looking happier tonight than he’d seen her since they’d met. He’d have a quiet word with Gareth later in the week.
‘I had a date tonight,’ he said, surprising himself. ‘She blew me out.’
Alice’s small face lit up. ‘A date? How exciting.’
Harry held up both hands. ‘And yet not, as it turns out.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Alice touched his arm briefly. ‘Did she give you a reason?’
‘She just left a message on my answer machine. She said work was piling up. Hoped we could get together in a couple of weeks or so if things calmed down. Didn’t sound hopeful.’
‘Bad luck,’ said Alice after a second. ‘Want another drink?’
‘If I have another drink I’ll be spending the night in the vestry,’ said Harry. ‘But we should get back to the party. Come on.’
Harry and Alice stood up and walked back through the apple trees towards the house. When they were once again approaching the crowd of people Harry became aware of urgent movement, of someone pushing their way though the throng. A second later Gareth Fletcher appeared, holding Tom’s hand tightly.
‘We can’t find Joe and Millie,’ he said. ‘We’ve looked everywhere. They’ve vanished.’
Part Two
Blood Harvest
18
AS HARRY AND TOM MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE HALL, Sinclair Renshaw appeared in front of them.
‘What’s happened, Vicar?’ he asked.
‘The two youngest Fletcher children are missing,’ replied Harry hurriedly.
‘The little girl?’ interrupted Sinclair, speaking softly, in spite of the music and noise in the hall.
‘Yes, and her brother. Their parents have gone home to see if they’ve made their way there. Tom and I are—’
‘One second.’ Sinclair turned to look round the room. ‘Father!’ he called. Then he took hold of Tom’s arm and steered him over to the older man. Tom could hear Harry following, but when he glanced back, he could tell the vicar wasn’t happy. Harry had been told to watch Tom and look outside, and that’s what he wanted to do. It was what Tom wanted to do too – look for Joe and Millie and stay very close to a grown-up he could trust.
‘Father.’ They’d reached the door to the alley. Outside it was too dark for Joe and Millie to be wandering around on their own. ‘The youngest Fletcher child is missing,’ explained Sinclair, still speaking in a low voice. ‘The little girl.’
‘And her brother,’ insisted Harry.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sinclair. ‘Father, get Jenny and Christiana and search the house.’ Then he lowered his voice even further. ‘Lock the door,’ he added.
Tobias nodded once and then made his way (quite quickly for so old a man) across the hall to where Christiana was still twisting straw. Sinclair turned back to Harry.
‘How long has she – they – been missing? When and where were they last seen?’
Harry didn’t know, of course, so he looked at Tom. Tom didn’t know much either, and it was hard to think when the biggest man he’d ever seen was glaring down at him.
‘In here,’ he said. ‘I was …’ He stopped. He’d been told to keep an eye on his brother and sister while his dad fetched drinks. It was all his fault.
‘What?’ said Harry. ‘It’s important, Tom. What were you doing?’
‘I was under the food table,’ said Tom. ‘Hiding from Jake Knowles.’ He looked up at Harry, hoping he’d understand. Jake and two of his mates had come looking for him, his mum was nowhere in sight and his dad had been at the other side of the room, almost in the garden. Tom had ducked under the big white tablecloth and crawled to the other end. When he’d reached his dad, they’d crossed the room again to find Joe and Millie.
‘We looked all round the room,’ he said. And in the alley outside, and in the garden. They’d just vanished.’
As he was speaking, Tom saw Tobias Renshaw and his granddaughter Christiana cross the room and disappear through a large wooden door.
Sinclair Renshaw continued to stare at Tom for a second, then he turned back to Harry. ‘Keep the lad with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll organize a search. We don’t want everyone involved, it would be chaos. Leave it with me.’
He strode away. Harry and Tom looked at each other and headed for the open door, pushing past a woman wearing a bright-yellow sweater. Outside, the high walls seemed to make the alleyway even darker than they’d expected and Tom was grateful for the tiny lanterns on the wall.
‘Your mum and dad would have gone that way,’ said Harry, pointing towards Tom’s house. ‘Let’s go down here.’
Harry and Tom turned left and the sound of the party faded until they could hear nothing but their own footsteps. The spaces between the lanterns became wider and the alley darker. They turned a corner and reached a dead end.
‘Joe and Millie couldn’t have got over that,’ said Tom, looking at the high stone wall in front of them.
‘No,’ agreed Harry. ‘But they could have gone through here.’
Tom turned and felt as if his insides had fallen out. He could almost imagine he’d see them, if he looked down, lying splat on the ground. There was a tall iron gate in the churchyard wall. A padlock lay open on the ground in front of it. Beyond the gate he could see gravestones, shining like pearls in the moonlight.
Harry looked into the graveyard and then down at Tom. ‘Tom, run back to the hall,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch till I see you’re safely back.’
‘No, I want to stay with you,’ said Tom, without thinking, because the truth was, he wanted to go into that graveyard like he wanted someone to poke a stick in his eye.
‘Tom, it won’t be very nice. Go back.’
It was a graveyard, for God’s sake! And not just any old graveyard, but the one at the back of their house where something decidedly odd liked to hang around. Of course it wasn’t going to be nice. But Joe and Millie were in it. Somehow Tom knew it. They’d gone through this gate.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Tom. ‘We have to find them.’
Harry muttered something that, had he not been a vicar, would have sounded an awful lot like swearing and then picked up two of the candle-lanterns. He held one out to Tom. ‘Hold this away from you,’ he said. ‘Hold it high.’
Tom did what he was told and then they were pushing at the gate and stepping into the churchyard.
It was so quiet, as though the world had had its volume turned down. Then Harry spoke and Tom couldn’t stop himself from jumping.
‘This would have been one of the monks’ private entrances to the church in the old days,’ he said. ‘Now, we’re going to walk slowly, we’re going to keep to the path as much as possible and we’re going to listen hard. Only I’m allowed to shout. Is that understood?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Tom and they set off.
They’d been walking for several minutes before Tom realized they were holding hands. And the silence felt unnatural. They should have been able to hear something, shouldn’t they? Wind in the trees? Something? Tom could have almost imagined he’d gone deaf if it hadn’t been for their footsteps on the path and the sound of Harry’s breathing. Then Harry stopped and so did he.
‘Joe!’ called Harry. ‘Millie!’
From somewhere nearby came a rustling sound and Harry’s head shot round. ‘Joe?’ he called. They both waited. No one answered Harry and, after a second, he and Tom set off again.
‘Tom!’ called a tiny voice from a few yards further up the hill.
Harry stopped sharp. ‘That was Joe,’ he said. ‘Where did it come from?’ He let go of Tom’s hand and began to turn on the spot, holding his lantern high. ‘Joe!’ he yelled, louder this time.
‘
Tom,’ called the voice again.
‘That was definitely Joe,’ said Harry. ‘Did you hear where it came from?’ Harry was still turning this way and that, looking more like a gun-dog than a man, as though any second now he’d put his nose to the ground and start sniffing. Tom, on the other hand, hadn’t moved.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ he said.
‘What?’ muttered Harry.
‘It wasn’t Joe,’ Tom repeated, looking back at the gate, trying to work out how far it was and if, once they started to run, Harry would leave him behind. ‘Harry,’ he went on, ‘let’s get out of here.’
Harry either didn’t hear or decided to ignore Tom. He caught hold of his hand again and began to pull him away from the path and up the hill towards the Renshaw mausoleum. ‘He’s not far away,’ he was saying. ‘Stay with me, Tom. Watch where you’re walking.’
Tom and Harry began to stumble across the uneven ground and soon their feet were soaked. Dew had already formed on the long grass and was gleaming silver where the moonlight touched it. The cold softness brushed Tom’s legs and headstones leered up at them. They didn’t look like pearls any more; they looked like teeth.
Tom fixed his eyes on the ground and concentrated on staying on his feet. Harry was going too fast and Tom wanted to yell at him to stop, that he was making a terrible mistake and that—
‘Tom,’ called the horrible voice, from right behind them. Tom pulled away from Harry and sprang round, ready to fight as hard as he could, because he’d had enough, absolutely enough this time and—
It was Joe. Real Joe. Half walking, half running across the grass towards them. Stepping forward, Harry had scooped Joe up off the ground and was hugging him tight, muttering, ‘Thank God, thank God.’ Tom was saying it too, in his head, Thank God, thank God. And then, suddenly, he wasn’t. Because Joe was on his own.
19
‘YOU’RE OBSESSING, YOU SILLY COW,’ MUTTERED EVI TO herself. ‘Shut it down and go to bed.’ She looked at the JL clock in the bottom left-hand corner of her computer screen: 9.25 p.m. She couldn’t go to bed at half past nine.
Would there be anything on TV? She spun herself round in the chair and glanced across the room at the set. Was she kidding? It was Saturday night. And there was nothing on her bookshelves she hadn’t read at least four times.
She looked back at the screen, at the picture of Harry that she’d found on the Lancashire Telegraph’s website. He was wearing a black shirt, clerical collar and black jacket. The photograph was perhaps a year or two old. His hair was a little longer and in the lobe of his left ear he wore a tiny metal cross. The accompanying story told her that the Reverend Harry Laycock had been appointed to the living of the recently united benefice of Goodshaw Bridge, Loveclough and Heptonclough, and that in his previous post he’d been a special assistant to the archdeacon in the Diocese of Durham. Earlier in his career, he had spent several years working at an Anglican ministry in Namibia. He was unmarried and gave his hobbies as football (playing and watching), rock-climbing and long-distance running.
She could print the photograph off.
Except that she was absolutely, positively, not going to do anything that pathetic. She scrolled up the page and typed ‘Heptonclough’ into the search engine, pressing Return before she had time to think about what she was doing. The site found several entries. This wasn’t obsessing, this was legitimate research. She had a patient in the town.
Heptonclough didn’t make the news too often. The most recent story was the reference to Harry’s appointment. She passed over it quickly before she was tempted to open it up again. Heptonclough man fined for poaching, New bus service linking Heptonclough with nearby Goodshaw Bridge. He lived in Goodshaw Bridge – oh, get a grip, woman. She found the story about the fire in Gillian’s house, and then a follow-up article reporting that Barry Robinson had been discharged from hospital but remembered nothing about the fire. Search continues for missing Megan; Heptonclough pub’s warning to under-age drinkers …
Evi scrolled back up the list. Search continues for missing Megan. Why did that ring a bell? The story was six years old. And – she scrolled down the list – there were several follow-up stories and one that preceded it: Child missing on moors.
She opened the link and read the first few lines. She’d been working in Shropshire when the story first made the news, but she remembered a young girl going missing on the Pennine moors. The search had gone on for days. The child, or the child’s body, had never been found. Evi had even mentioned it in a lecture she’d given at the university – the particular stages of grief people suffer when their loss is unquantified and unconfirmed, and the difficulties of closure when hope – however unrealistic – lives on.
Dozens of local people joined the police search for missing four-year-old Megan Connor. Megan, who wandered away from her family during a picnic, has blonde, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a red raincoat and red wellington boots. Photographs are being distributed throughout the north-west, and in the meantime, Megan’s family have asked the public to remain vigilant and pray for their daughter’s safe return.
The picture accompanying the story showed a girl in a Snow White costume, no longer a toddler but still with the plump, soft features of the very young. If Gillian had taken part in the public search for Megan, it might explain why, three years later, she’d become obsessed with the idea that her own daughter might be similarly lost.
It was no good, she couldn’t sit still any longer. For some reason the pain in her leg seemed worse tonight. She had Tramadol in her bathroom cabinet. She hadn’t taken one, hadn’t needed to take one, for nearly six months. Did she really want to start using them again?
20
‘WHERE’S MILLIE?’ SAID HARRY, PUTTING JOE BACK ON his feet. ‘Joe, where’s your sister?’
‘I think they went up there,’ said Joe, giving his brother a nervous look and pointing uphill towards the church. ‘Who?’ said Harry. ‘Who went up there?’
‘I didn’t see,’ said Joe, again looking sideways at Tom. ‘I saw Tom go under the table and then Millie was gone.’
‘Did she go outside? Did she leave the party?’
‘I looked outside,’ said Joe. ‘I thought I saw someone coming in here, but they went too fast.’
Harry took his eyes off Joe for a second and looked towards the older boy. He really didn’t like the look on Tom’s face.
‘Do you know anything about this?’ he asked. ‘Do you know who took Millie?’
Tom wouldn’t make eye-contact with Harry, wouldn’t take his eyes off his brother. Slowly, he shook his head.
Harry pushed himself upright. ‘Hello!’ he yelled into the night. ‘Can anyone hear me?’ They waited. ‘Where the hell is everyone?’ he muttered, when no one answered him. ‘OK, are you two all right to come with me?’
Joe nodded immediately, followed – a second later – by Tom. Harry bent down again and picked up Joe. Leaving the lantern behind and holding tight on to Tom’s hand, he set off.
‘Millie!’ yelled Harry, stopping every few seconds. They reached the top of the hill and stopped in the shadow of the ruined abbey, ten yards or so from the church door. Joe, tiny though he was, had become heavy. Harry lowered him to the ground.
‘Millie,’ he yelled and heard his own voice bounce back from a dozen different directions. ‘Millie, Millie, Millie,’ called the echo.
‘Millie,’ called a voice that was loud and clear. Definitely not an echo.
‘Who said that?’ asked Harry, spinning on the spot.
Joe and Tom looked only at each other. ‘Has she taken her, Joe?’ said Tom, in a low voice. ‘This is serious. Where are they?’
‘And who are they?’ said Harry, who was walking backwards away from the boys towards the church. ‘What’s going on here? Millie!’
‘Tommy,’ called a high, thin voice and Tom sprang to Harry’s side.
‘OK, this has gone far enough, guys.’ Harry made sure he wasn’t yellin
g, but it was difficult to keep the anger from his voice. ‘There is a child missing and the police will be called, if they haven’t been already. Come on out now.’
They waited. In the distance a dog barked. They could hear a car engine start up. Then suddenly a high-pitched wailing broke through the night.
‘That’s Millie,’ said Tom. ‘That’s really her. She’s somewhere close. Millie! Where are you?’
‘She’s in the church,’ said Joe. ‘The door’s open.’
Harry saw that Joe was right. The door to the church was open just a few inches. Which it shouldn’t have been at this time of night. He sprinted across, aware of the boys following close behind. In through the doors he ran, pressing the light switches as he went. He ran into the nave and stopped dead. Above his head, someone was whimpering.
‘Oh, God save us,’ said Harry, looking up.
Tom and Joe lifted their heads to see what Harry had spotted. Way above them, on the wooden balcony rail, her little face screwed up in terror, sat Millie.
21
Dear Steve,
I’d really love your advice on something. I’m attaching two newspaper articles to give you background, although you may recall the case of Megan Connor. From what I can recall, she was never found.
I have a 26-year-old patient from the town where Megan went missing, whose daughter was accidentally killed three years after Megan’s disappearance. I can’t help thinking the prolonged grief my patient is experiencing might have been influenced by her memories of the earlier event.
I seem to remember the whole country was pretty traumatized by it, and it must surely have been worse in the area itself. My patient may even have taken part in the public search.
My question is this: can I bring it up in our discussions or should I wait for her to mention it herself? On the surface, she seems to be making progress but there’s a lot I still don’t understand. I can’t help thinking she’s keeping something from me. Any thoughts?
S. J. Bolton Page 10
