morning they quietly removed a man from the team at Landacre Bridge. Thirty-six-year-old Terry Needles had travelled all the way from Bristol with his flask and his sandwiches and his conviction for downloading child pornography. He spent the next twenty-four hours in a police cell at Minehead. Four hours while the police checked out his disappointingly solid alibis, and another tearful twenty just to remind him of how tentative his grip on freedom really was.
Reynolds had divided eighty-five volunteers into groups of twelve plus one of thirteen – each under the command of a local officer. They covered the seven squares Stourbridge had graciously left them. Progress was slow and sweaty but Reynolds couldn’t help but be impressed by the stamina and determination of the searchers, who provided their own lunches and local knowledge.
Jonas found himself not leading a team that started in Wheddon Cross – the highest village on the moor. The officer whom Reynolds
‘Jim Courier,’ he told his group. ‘Like the tennis player.’
It dated him; Jonas was only vaguely aware that there had ever been a player of that name. Either way, he was uninterested in Courier. He was more concerned that the Reverend Julian Chard was among the searchers. Without once looking directly at the vicar of St Mary’s, he was aware of his every movement. And soon that movement was in his direction. The Reverend Chard grasped his hand and shook it firmly in both of his, looking deeply into Jonas’s face.
‘So good to see you back, Jonas. How
Jonas could barely look at him. Not without seeing the face of the Reverend’s father, Lionel, the deep sockets of his dead eyes twin puddles filled with blood. The killer had struck on Jonas’s watch, and yet Lionel Chard’s son was here now, holding his hand and welcoming him back. Forgiving him.
That was his job, of course. He was a man of God; what else could he do?
Jonas knew what
They started out in the hamlet itself – checking sheds and outhouses and coal bunkers – and moved out to the north-west across fields and through farmyards and barns and hay stores and milking sheds. People came out and helped while they were close to their homes, then waved them off and wished them luck as they went – as if they were troops off to war, not a small and increasingly sweaty search party. Jim Courier took off his uniform jacket and slung it over his shoulder and Jonas did the same.
As they headed up into the heather, Jonas squinted into the sun. It seemed like years since he had felt its heat on his face – years since it had seeped through the layers of his skin to warm the very core of his being. It made him think of long-gone summers and of the sour tang of early apples stolen from the gnarled trees up at Springer Farm. It made him think of Lucy – cold and dead and too deep in the soil ever to feel the sun on her face again, however brightly it shone for him.
He had dropped behind the others. He picked up his pace.
The only woman in their group – a slim, outdoorsy brunette who wore proper walking trousers with zip-off legs – offered everyone a piece of chocolate, and people chatted idly as they walked. Whenever Courier got confused by stiles or forks, Jonas put him back on the right course.
As it got warmer, the adrenaline of the morning dissipated, and they hiked doggedly from outbuilding to distant shed, speaking only when it was necessary.
The Reverend Chard was not a fit man or a young man and by lunchtime was plainly beginning to flag. Jonas had a quiet word with their leader, who suggested to the Reverend that he had done enough for one day. The vicar made a token protest and then set off gratefully back to Wheddon Cross for his car and, no doubt, a pint of cold cider at the Rest And Be Thankful.
Jonas watched him go with relief but also some envy. He had started out with the confidence of memory, but over a year of sitting and staring meant his lungs no longer had the capacity to fuel such exertions comfortably, and his legs ached. The sun, which had been so welcome at the start of the day, further sapped his strength, and he felt as hungry and tetchy as a toddler at teatime.
He had a sudden flash of a baby opening its rosebud mouth for a spoon-train, and of Lucy scooping the drips off its smooth chin. The baby had his eyes, and Lucy turned to smile at him, radiating happiness.
Jim Courier came over and pointed at something on the map. Jonas kept his head low and nodded, although he could see nothing but the man’s blurred finger.
They moved on and Jonas emptied his mind and watched his own feet as they pointed his way across the fragrant hills.
Over the three days, not a single volunteer dropped out.
As his men reported to him by radio, the helicopter team crackled and Stourbridge called on variable phone lines from across the moor, Reynolds placed crosses over the satellite images of tumbledown barns and stands of trees, and watched the area left to search shrink by the hour.
At first he was delighted by the methodical way the ground was being covered. Then as they ran out of barns and copses and the children had still not been found, the relentless march of crosses denoting that a search had been completed in a particular grid took on a whole new complexion. Instead of triumphant, each cross made Reynolds feel more desperate.
The volunteers were thorough and reliable, and – as Stourbridge had promised – the hunt covered the ground faster than anyone else.
But all that meant was that it took them less time to discover absolutely nothing.
Startling, in’t it, the amount of fuss what’s made when it’s all too late? All them people hunting all across the moor. And all for nothing.
I took no pleasure in searching with them; just had to be done, that’s all – to keep things looking right. If I didn’t do that, people might talk. Ask.
Inquire.
Some of them, though … I had to stop myself looking at the stupid hurt in their eyes, just in case they seen something back in mine. But being there and hearing them bleat about the children and the maniac what’s got ’em made me want to kick all their arses – them careless bastards.
No one appreciates a single thing nowadays. No one values what they got. Not until it’s gone, at least.
And them children’s gone, that’s for sure.
Gone for good.
12
IT WAS NIGHT, and Mrs Paddon was in that warm, fluid state between sleep and wake when she heard a child crying.
She was a little deaf, and the walls of Honeysuckle Cottage were three feet thick and made of stone, but the sound was unmistakeable.
Mrs Paddon was nearing ninety and had never had children of her own, so the noise did not pull her from her slumber the way it might someone who had been a mother. Instead she kept her eyes closed, and allowed the faint sobs to take her back to the time when Jonas was a boy …
He’d been a sunny child, but too adventurous for her liking. There was always a tree to tumble from in the back garden, a bike to fall off on the steep lane, or a pony up at Springer Farm that bucked and bolted.
She’d heard him at times like that, sobbing just like this, and had always stopped whatever she was doing and stayed very still until she’d been sure someone was there to comfort him – until she’d heard Cath making soft cooing noises and kissing it better, or Desmond brushing him down and geeing him up. Moments later, she’d see Jonas back up the tree, back on his bike, Elastoplastered and ready for action. Only then had she resumed whatever she’d been doing.
Now, in her single bed, with most of her life behind her, Mrs Paddon drifted back to sleep to the sound of a child sobbing, and dreamed wonderfully of those balmy days when Cath and Desmond were still alive, when Jonas was sweetly innocent – and when she was young again.
