Black dog

enough. From the terrace, none of

12

the houses in the village were visible. The only human habitation in view consisted of a couple of farms high on the opposite slope, their weathered stone walls blending into the hillside as if they had LTOwn there. No wonder Charlotte hadn’t wanted the helicopter to go away. It was the only sign of life she could see from the Mount.

‘You hear of girls running off and disappearing for ever,’ she iaid. ‘To London. Would she go to London, Graham? How would she get there?’

‘She’s only fifteen.’ he said. ‘They would bring her back.’

J ‘ o

‘How would she get there?’ she repeated. ‘Where would she get the money? She could have hitched, I suppose. Would she know how to do that? Why didn’t she take any clothes?’

For two days she had asked too many questions that Graham couldn’t answer. He would have liked to tell her that he was sure Laura could have got no further than Bake well, and that the police would pick her up before the night was over. He had tried to tell her, but the words dried up in his throat.

‘Don’t you want to come in now? It’s time to eat.’

‘Not just yet,’ she said.

‘It’s starting to go dark. You’ll want to change at least.’

‘I want to be out here,’ she said.

‘Charlie ‘

‘As long as they’re still looking,’ she said. ‘I want to be out here.’

A book had been turned face down on to the table. Very little of it had been read, but it didn’t need to be. Graham could see from the cover that it was the latest in a best-selling scries about an American pathologist who was for ever dissecting dead bodies and catching serial killers. The illustration showed a barely identifiable part of a naked body, set against a dark background.

“I can’t think of anywhere else that she might have gone,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’ve been trying and trying, racking my brains. But we’ve tried everywhere, haven’t we, Graham? Can you think of anywhere else?’

‘We’ve tried them all,’ said Graham.

‘There’s that girl in Marple.’

13

‘We’ve tried there,’ said Graham. ‘Her parents said she was in rrance tor the summer.

‘Oh yes, I forgot.’

‘If she’s met up with the wrong sort of people …’

‘How could she?’ said Charlotte quickly. ‘We’ve been so careful. How could she meet the wrong people?’

‘We have to face it, it does happen. Some of her friends … Even if thcv’re from the best families, they can go astrav.’

1 , o

‘I suppose so.’

‘I’ve heard there are these rave things. Some of them go on all weekend, they say.’

Charlotte shuddered. ‘That means drugs, doesn’t it?’

‘We’ll have to talk to her about it seriously, when she’s back.’

After the helicopter had moved away to hover somewhere along the valley, the faint sound of voices could be heard, carried towards the house on the evening breeze. Graham and Charlotte

o

could see no one because of the heavy tree cover, but both of them knew, without discussing it, that there were many men out there on the hillside, calling to each other, searching for their daughter.

o

‘Of course, there were probably friends she didn’t tell us about,’ said Graham. ‘We have to face up to that. Places she went that she didn’t want us to know about.’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘Laura didn’t keep secrets from me,’ she said. ‘From you, of course. But not from me.’

‘If you say so, Charlie.’

A small frown flickered across Charlotte’s face at his calm acceptance. ‘Is there something you know, Graham? Something that you’re not telling me?’

‘Of course not.’

He was thinking of his last conversation with Laura. It had

o

been late on Thursday night, when she had slipped into his study and persuaded him to let her have a glass of his whisky. Her face had been flushed with some other excitement, even before the whisky had begun to take effect. She had perched on the edge of his desk and stroked his arm, smiling at him with that mature, seductive smile she had learned had such an

14

effect on their male visitors. She had dyed her hair again, a deeper red than ever, almost violet, and her fingernails were painted a colour so dark it was practically black. Then she had talked to him, with that knowing look in her eyes and that sly wink, and told him what she wanted. The following morning,

‘ O O