said, his stomach cold with disappointment. He’d be going out after all, but not to a woman’s warm bed.
Someone was dying. Sex or death – the only reasons to call someone in the middle of the night.
‘Renshaw here. Renshaw senior. My son asked me to call.’
Tobias Renshaw, his churchwarden’s father, ringing him in the small hours?
‘My son apologizes for not calling himself, and for waking you, but I’m afraid you’re needed at St Barnabas’s straight away. You’ll see the police vehicles in the lane. When you arrive, you should make yourself known to Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’
49
3 November
SIMBA, MILLIE’S BLUE TEDDY BEAR, LAY ON HIS BACK AT THE bottom of the stairs. When Tom had seen him last, not five hours ago, he’d been clutched in his little sister’s arms. So either the soft toy had developed a taste for midnight strolls or something was very wrong. Tom ran across the landing to Millie’s room. The cot was empty.
Downstairs, a door slammed shut. Tom glanced towards his parents’ room. No time to do anything but yell as he ran across the landing, down the stairs and through the kitchen. He’d heard the back door. Whoever had Millie had only just left the house.
He felt a rush of cold air as he dodged his way around the kitchen table. The back door had bounced open again and the wooden floorboards of the cloakroom were wet. It was still raining hard outside and, even in the doorway, looking out over the mass of mud that was the back garden, the wind battered against him, sending volleys of ice-cold raindrops to soak his pyjamas.
His eyes weren’t used to the darkness yet. He screwed them up and could just about make out the churchyard wall and the laurel trees behind it. From the direction of the yew tree and Lucy Pickup’s grave, he heard a grunt.
Someone was out there. Someone with Millie.
‘Dad!’ he yelled. No answering shout. No choice really. He had to go out.
The relentless rain over the past few hours, together with all that had fallen over the previous day or two, had turned the garden into a swamp. Thick black mud surged over Tom’s feet as he stepped away from the shelter of the back door. A few more steps and he could see better. A black figure was trying to climb the wall but it was carrying something in one hand, something that looked like a large, black hold-all.
‘Dad!’ he yelled, as loud as he could, trying to send his voice in the direction of the house but not wanting to take his eyes off the figure at the wall. ‘Dad!’
His dad would never make it in time. Tom ran forward, sinking almost to his knees in mud, and was just in time to catch hold of one of the climber’s retreating legs. The girl – because who else could it be? – began kicking at him, but she was losing her grip on the wall. She made a grab upwards and gave one last kick that caught Tom off guard. Her booted foot connected with the side of his face and he let go. She gave a sort of leap and then she was lying spread-eagled over the top of the wall, kicking wildly as she scrabbled to her feet. She was almost away, but the black hold-all she’d been carrying was still at the foot of the wall.
She looked from it to Tom and then, with a sharp movement of her head, down at the wall she was standing on. She staggered, almost fell, and then jumped down on the other side.
The wall was moving. It wasn’t possible, but it was happening. The bulge of stones, which for years had held back tons of earth, seemed to swell. Tom watched first one stone, then another, then several, topple from the top and fall into the garden. Through the gap they left behind, earth began to spill over from the churchyard. One of the gravestones seemed to be sliding closer. Tom wanted more than anything to run but something was rooting him to the spot.
The bulge swelled more, like a pregnant woman about to give birth to something hideous. The black figure on the other side of the wall took a few steps back as more and more of the earth started to slide away.
Then the wall just burst apart like a tower built by a toddler. Stones flew everywhere and black liquid poured out in a thick torrent.