and human voices washed over them before Grimes disappeared through the door and it swung shut behind him.
“You wanted to talk to me, Inspector?”
Day sighed. “You’ve already antagonized the local police, Nevil.”
“I haven’t either.”
“But you have. You’ve taken an instant dislike to Mr Grimes, and he to you, and it won’t help us in the least.”
“He doesn’t like me?”
“Well, he doesn’t seem warm toward you. And you must admit that you dislike him, don’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t he like me?”
“You haven’t been kind toward him.”
“I didn’t realize. If that’s true, I’m sure it’s not his fault. He does seem eager enough to find the missing child.”
Day stepped back and looked out over the snow-covered fields. From far off, the sounds of the forges came echoing down the grey wind.
“Were things as bad as all that,” Day said, “when you were a child?”
Hammersmith looked around and pulled his overcoat still tighter to his torso. When he sighed, Day could see the breath steam from his nose and rise against the sky.
“This place does take me back,” Hammersmith said.
“Did you grow up near the Black Country?”
“No, nowhere near here. But the sounds, the scents. . I hear the smelters and I’m back there again, back in a hole, alone in the dark, waiting for the coal carts to come up through the tunnels.”
“How old were you? When you started in the mines?”
“Oh, three or four. I forget. Too young.”
Day opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He watched his unspoken words drift away like smoke and he avoided Hammersmith’s eyes. After a long moment of silence, he tried again. “I suppose there’s not much difference between one coal mining village and another?”
“The houses here,” Hammersmith said. “Their homes are different.”
“That’s something, then. Something different. Remember, you’re a policeman, not a miner.”
“Aye.” Hammersmith nodded. “It has been a long time.”
“And you are not the person that you once were.”
“Maybe not. But the child is the father of the man.”
“Is that a saying?”
“From a poem I read.”
A figure reeled at them from out of the dusk. The man wasn’t wearing a coat, but he had woolen mittens on his hands and he waved at them as he passed by. His face was cherry red, and he staggered, went down on one knee, and righted himself, a fresh glaze of snow on his trousers. He smiled and blinked and shuffled off out of sight.
“Drunk,” Hammersmith said.
“I can think of worse ways to keep warm in a place like this,” Day said. He clapped his hands together and stamped his feet. “I miss my wife, Sergeant. I’d like to finish this case and get home. I very much fear that my child will come into the world before we return.”
“You have time. Claire’s got weeks to go, and we’ll be leaving Blackhampton on Friday.”
“True enough, I suppose. Still, I worry.”
The two men stood side by side in the snow, quietly studying the crystalline landscape. The setting sun reflected through a million tiny prisms and sparked an electric red wire on the horizon. Behind them, out of sight over the hills, the train they’d arrived on sounded its bell and chuffed slowly away.
“The child is the father of the man,” Day said. “I quite like that.”
4
Anna Price shivered and hugged herself against the cold breeze from the open door. A few brave snowflakes circulated through the room as Constable Grimes slammed the door shut, and Anna edged around the small crowd to get closer to the fire. When Peter touched her shoulder, she jumped, but before she could turn around, he said, “Where’s the other policeman? The one from London?”
“Mr Grimes has his bag,” Anna said.
The children watched Constable Grimes cross the room, stamping snow from his boots, a black suitcase dangling from one meaty hand.
“So he has luggage,” Peter said. “I don’t care about luggage. Where’s the detective?”
“If he has the detective’s luggage, then the detective must be close behind him. Use your head, idiot.”
Peter ignored the insult. He was practically thirteen years old, but his sister often treated him like a baby, even though she was a year younger. “He could be out there talking to her even now,” he said.
“How would he even know to talk to her?”
“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”
“But he’s just now got here.”
“What if he does talk to her?”
“She’ll be quiet.”
“There’s evidence.”
“What evidence? A shriveled eyeball? That means nothing.”
“And there’s Hilde. He’ll talk to Hilde.”
“God, you’re such a numpty,” Anna said. “Let him talk to Hilde. All she knows is that she found an eye and then she fell down onto her great round bottom and broke it.”
“Be nice,” Peter said.
“Yes, let’s do be nice. Let’s be as considerate as we can be to the constable’s new friend from Scotland Yard and, while we’re about it, let’s tell him all we know. Then we can continue to be nice to all the people in prison for the rest of our lovely nice lives.”
“You’re in a fine mood today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is all such a mess, and now we have this new policeman to muck about in it and make everything ever so much more difficult for us.”
“Well. .”
“Well, what?”
“There’s the reverse of that to consider, isn’t there?”
“The reverse of what? Oh, please do speak in complete sentences, would you?”
“That was a complete sentence.”
“But it made no sense whatsoever.”
“Only because you’re too busy pouting to use that pretty little head of yours.”
“Do you really think I’m pretty?”
“Do shut up,” Peter said.
“Tell me,” Anna said.
“All right, if the detective can make things difficult for us by stomping about in it and asking questions, then can’t we also make it difficult for him by answering his questions?”
She almost hugged him. Instead, Anna smiled for the first time in weeks and clapped her hands. “Of course. I mean, of course we would have lied to him if he’d asked us anything, but it didn’t occur to me. . We can lead him round in circles by the nose, can’t we?”
“Right. We’ll be ever so helpful.”
“I’ve never felt more helpful in my life.”
“And when he tires of chasing his own tail, he’ll retreat back to London and everything will return to
