There was snow on the ground here, blown around roots and plants into tiny drifts, like ripples on a pond. No footprints, but that might be because the snow had started to fall after they’d arrived here. Because there was somebody in the mill. A light flickered in the window and Vera could smell woodsmoke. She switched off her torch and waited for a moment, partly because she was knackered after the walk, partly because she wanted to decide the best way to deal with the situation. She hadn’t planned much beyond getting to the place. Brown clouds parted and suddenly there was moonlight. If anyone looked out of the mill, she’d be visible. She moved back into the shadow of the trees and waited for the clouds to blow over the moon again. In the brief moment that it was caught in the moonlight, the cottage had looked idyllic, an illustration from a children’s fairy tale. Except in the story Vera was remembering, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, a child had been held captive and put into a pot over the fire to be eaten.
She stood, motionless, for ten more minutes to be sure that nobody had seen her, then made her way carefully towards the mill. She kept away from the windows at the front and slid to the back of the building. It was so close to the burn that she was in danger of ending up in the water. She could hear the stream moving under the ice. It was dark here. No windows. She listened, hoping to hear a child crying, some sign that Thomas was in there and safe. There was complete silence apart from the wind in the forest beyond. She moved around the building, feeling her way, close to the wall. She was wearing gloves but the stone was still chill against her fingertips. She needed to know if there was a back door, some other way in, but there was no change in the texture of the surface.
She’d reached a corner and was making her way to the side of the building when she was hit on the cheek, just below her eye, a sharp stab that almost sent her into the water again. The pain was so intense that she couldn’t help crying out. She put her hand to her face and felt blood. She froze, stunned and confused, a moment of panic when she almost stopped breathing. She’d heard nobody approaching and still there was silence. She stood for a moment, then ran her fingers over the wall again, felt rusty metal, and risked switching on the torch.
She’d walked into an ancient hook, fixed to the house, some remnant from the mill’s working days, part of a winch perhaps. If there’d been anyone in the building, they’d surely have heard her cry out, but nobody had appeared to check. She moved to the front of the cottage again, and looked through the window into the room where she’d been the day before. A candle stuck in a bottle lit the space. The range had been lit. There was coal in a bucket and logs piled to one side. On the battered table stood a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. This stirred in Vera ideas that were faintly religious. Hector would have said religion was another form of fairy tale – he’d been a raging atheist – but she liked to keep her options open. Nobody was there.
She moved past the door to the other window that looked into the room she hadn’t seen on her visit. No candle here, but light filtered through from the kitchen beyond. She saw the bed with the brass headboard Billy Cartwright had described. Beside it was the wooden cradle on rockers that she’d seen in the photograph. It was handmade, beautifully painted. Very recently painted, she thought. It hadn’t looked like this in the picture. It was larger than she’d thought; not a small crib for a tiny baby, but big enough for Thomas, who was lying inside it, still in his bright red snow suit.
He was motionless, pale. She stared, holding her breath until he stirred in his sleep. There was no sign of anyone else. He was alone in the place. Vera felt the anxiety drain away. It would be hard to carry the boy all the way back to the Land Rover, but not impossible. She was picturing the relief on the Falstones’ faces as she walked with him into their kitchen, when there was a shout from the edge of the clearing and somebody was running across the meadow towards her.
She turned towards the person, who was too far from the house for her to make out in any detail. Then the clouds cleared again and she saw a figure covered in outdoor clothes. A shotgun.
‘It’s me,’ she shouted. ‘Vera Stanhope. Police.’
A crack as the gun was fired and the pellets bounced off the wall behind her. She started to run, because she was a perfect target, caught in the candlelight coming from the mill, and close enough for the gunman to hit her with accuracy. But also, because she needed to pull the shooter’s attention away from the cottage where Thomas lay. The killer was unpredictable now, desperate, and Vera had no idea what might follow. She ran away from the figure, who was blocking the only path she knew, the one that led back to Brockburn, and headed into the cover of the forest. Here the dark was as deep as water and she felt she was drowning in it. It was impossible to move quickly, so once she’d stumbled away from the clearing she stood quite still, listening, half-hoping and half-fearing that the killer had followed her. Here, they’d
