‘We’ll help ourselves then,’ said Minnie. ‘Sort you out with breakfast in a minute, Vicar.’
Harry turned just as Evi drove past without even glancing his way. Stanley Hargreaves, another of his parishioners, was walking down towards them with two other men. Then a Land Rover appeared from the moor road and pulled up outside the butcher’s shop. Jenny and Mike Pickup sat in the front. Lights flickered on inside the shop. Dick Grimes and his son appeared from a rear door and came out into the street.
‘They won’t wait for the police,’ said Minnie’s companion. ‘They’ll start just as soon as you’ve finished prayers.’
‘Prayers?’ said Harry.
‘Prayers for the little lad,’ said Minnie, taking his arm and leading him towards the church. ‘For his safe return. Come on, Vicar, you seem a bit dopey, if you don’t mind me saying so. I think you need a cup o’ summat hot inside you.’
Evi wiped her eyes as she drove round the corner and could no longer see the church in her rear-view mirror. They filled again in seconds. Gillian was standing outside the front door of her flat. As their eyes met, Evi took her foot off the accelerator and the car slowed down. But she couldn’t stop – what on earth would she say? She put her foot down again and the car shot forward.
Was Gillian planning to join the search? I’ve spent years walking over the moors, I know all the best hiding places. She certainly wasn’t dressed for it, in a thin denim jacket and high-heeled boots.
A sudden vision filled her mind of a small boy’s body, lying under a hedge. The collies would sniff it out, probably even before the police dogs arrived, and it would all be over.
Stop it. Stop it. It’s not over.
She looked at the clock. Saturday-morning surgery ran from ten a.m. to twelve noon. John Warrington was the GP on duty today. The press conference started at ten and would probably run for around forty minutes. It would be tight, but do-able. There was time. It wasn’t over.
So why couldn’t she bloody well stop crying?
The church hadn’t been empty since before dawn. Within half an hour of Evi’s departure, Harry had been fed bacon sandwiches and strong coffee and was holding an impromptu service for the search party. Someone had cleared away his makeshift bed of the night before. Someone else had told him not to bother with robes; in the circumstances, jeans and a sweater would do just fine.
Five minutes after he started, the building was nearly full. Most people had just remained standing at the back and down the sides, as though they could spare the time to pray, but not the time it would take them to sit down. After eight minutes, the police arrived, filing in silently at the back.
Sinclair and Christiana Renshaw entered through the vestry door and took their usual pew. Gillian slipped in behind the police and stood, shivering, at the back. He could see people starting to get fidgety. A movement in the gallery caught his eye. Gareth and Tom Fletcher were standing there. A second later, Alice joined them, with Millie in a rucksack on her back. The family was due to make a television appeal for Joe’s safe return later in the morning. Until then, they weren’t wasting any time. Harry closed his book.
‘Let’s go and find Joe,’ he said. He was the first to leave the building.
81
AGRIM DETERMINATION SEEMED TO HAVE GRIPPED THE people of the moor. ‘We’ll find him,’ Harry had heard muttered more than once. ‘We’re not losing another one.’
He certainly couldn’t fault the efficiency of the police. DC Andy Jeffries had taken thirty of the more able-bodied men and older boys to the highest point above the town. Once on the top road, they’d spread out and begun making their way down the moor. They were looking for anything unusual, they’d been told: clothes, toys, a shoe, anything that might suggest Joe Fletcher had passed this way. When they reached the bottom of the field they turned west and did the same thing again, heading upwards this time.
The sky had been thick with cloud. Harry didn’t want to think it could be holding snow, but every time he looked up the lump in his chest seemed to harden. Just before eight o’clock a yellow glow in the east told him the sun was trying to make an impact on the day. He couldn’t even