42

2 November

‘GO IN PEACE TO LOVE AND SERVE THE LORD,’ SAID Harry. The organ began to play the recessional and Harry stepped down from the chancel. The Renshaws, as always, were first to leave church. As Christiana stood to follow her father and grandfather out of the pew, she appeared to be clutching something in her right fist.

Harry went into the vestry, crossed the room and unbolted the outside door. Stepping outside, he walked quickly to the rear of the church, just in time to shake Sinclair’s hand as he left the building. Christiana held out her hand without looking at him. Nothing in it now. Next came Mike and Jenny Pickup. Jenny’s eyes were damp and she carried a small bouquet of pink roses. A week earlier Harry had put a blank book by the church door, inviting parishioners to write the names of people they wanted remembered during the service. Lucy’s name had been at the top. ‘Thank you,’ Jenny said. ‘That was lovely.’

The rest of the congregation followed, each needing to take the vicar by the hand, thank him and tell him something of their lost loved ones. Almost at the back came Gillian, who never seemed to miss a service these days, which he supposed he should be glad about, one more Christian soldier and all that. Hayley, too, had been remembered during the service. Harry shook Gillian’s hand and, knowing she had no grave to honour, almost bent to kiss her cheek. Except the last time he’d done that she’d turned her head at the last second and their lips had met. It had been an awkward moment, which his hastily muttered apology had done little to smooth over.

A middle-aged, red-haired woman followed Gillian out, and she was the last. Harry walked back into the church. Checking that the nave was empty, he set off up the aisle. Someone had scattered rose petals.

He glanced up. They could almost have been dropped from the balcony. They lay at the exact spot where little Lucy Pickup had died, where Millie Fletcher had almost fallen. Harry remembered Christiana’s clenched fist as she left the building. Leaving the petals where they were, he walked quickly up the aisle and into the vestry once more. He checked that the outside door was locked and started to undress. Three minutes later, he was stepping out on to the path again, bracing himself against the cold and locking the vestry door behind him.

‘And tha’s a quick-change artist as well, lad.’ One of his parishioners, a man in his seventies, was walking towards him. His wife, his parents and two brothers were buried in the churchyard, he’d told Harry earlier.

‘I’m a man of many talents, Mr Hargreaves,’ replied Harry, leaning against the church wall to stretch out his hamstrings.

‘Tha’s not goin’ up ont’ moor, is thee, lad? Tha’ll take off in this wind.’

‘Ah never knew vicars ’ad legs,’ chortled a woman, hobbling her way up behind Stanley Hargreaves.

‘Healthy body, healthy soul, Mrs Hawthorn,’ replied Harry. ‘Sorry I can’t show you a better pair.’

Harry jogged slowly past the two elderly people. As he left the churchyard, he saw Alice taking Millie to their car. He should really have a word with her. He jogged down the hill a few paces and saw that Alice was now talking to the woman with dyed red hair who’d followed Gillian from church.

‘So beautiful,’ the woman was saying, reaching out to touch Millie’s curls. ‘I had one just like her. Breaks my heart to see her.’

Millie squirmed away from the woman, hiding her face against her mother’s shoulder, just as Alice spotted Harry. He approached slowly, not wanting to interrupt, unsure how welcome he was going to be.

‘They grow up so quickly,’ Alice said.

‘Mine never grew up,’ the woman replied. Unable to reach Millie’s face any more, she patted the child’s shoulder. ‘You take good care of this little one. You never know how precious they are till you’ve lost them.’

Alice gave up the effort to smile. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘Well, there’s the vicar. I must just say hello. It was nice to meet you.’ The woman nodded at Alice and then, with one last stroke of Millie’s head, set off down the hill.

‘Don’t know who that cheery soul was,’ said Alice in a low voice, as Harry approached. He glanced at the woman’s retreating form and shook his head. ‘She was in church just now,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never met her before. Listen, about last night …’

Alice held up her hand. ‘No, I’m sorry. I do understand how difficult it is for you. It’s just …’ She stopped. ‘I can’t help thinking there’s something seriously wrong with Tom.’

She bent into the car and put Millie into her child’s seat before buckling the strap round her daughter. Harry leaned closer to the car in the hope that it might offer some shelter. The perishing wind was getting up his shorts. ‘I really doubt that,’ he said. ‘And getting yourself worked up won’t help him.’

‘That’s exactly what Evi said,’ replied Alice.

Harry couldn’t stop. His legs were starting to shake and he had a pain in his chest, but the minute he stopped running the sweat on his body would start to chill down.

He was two miles above the village. Ten minutes after setting off, he’d found an old bridle path and followed it to the road. He’d gone up, climbing higher and higher, until the wind was almost lifting him off his feet. Now he was heading for home.

The walls and hedges offered some shelter, but when the wind hit him full on he almost felt as if he’d stopped moving. His wristbands were soaked through and the cold air was hurting his lungs. This was insane. Even the view was wasted – his eyes were watering so much he could barely see the ground beneath his feet.

High above the trees to the east soared the massive Morrell Tor, a huge collection of gritstone boulders balanced precariously on top of each other. Formed naturally, but once believed to be man-made, tors were particularly common in the Pennines. Morrell Tor, Harry had learned, was notorious locally. Legend had it that in days gone by, unwanted and illegitimate babies would be tossed from its heights, to shatter on the rocks below and be carried off by wolves and wild dogs. Today, it presented a serious problem for sheep farmers, who went to great lengths to keep their livestock away from it. On nights with strong winds, it was said, a singing among the rocks would lure a dozen or more to their death.

He realized he’d stopped running. And that he was freezing. He had to get home, shower and change, then attend an old folks’ lunch in Goodshaw Bridge. And he had a phone call to make. In another few yards he’d be able to follow a footpath along the edge of a field, to bring him out at the end of Wite Lane.

He squeezed through the gap between two tall boulders and set off again along the field edge, heading downhill, keeping his eyes on the ground. At the corner he climbed the low wall into the stubble field beyond. In less than a minute he was at the lowest end. He jumped over the stile and down into Wite Lane. Almost home.

Huddled in front of the burned-out fireplace of the Royle cottage was the thin, trembling body of a girl. Gillian. Twenty yards away he could hear her crying. Except it wasn’t really crying. Keening. That was the only word for it: a high-pitched, heartbreakingly sad keening. The Irish called it the song for the dead.