Epilogue

FEBRUARY HAD BROUGHT EVEN MORE SNOW TO THE MOORS and men had been out since early morning, clearing the path from the church to the graveside. Even so, the mourners walked gingerly as they made their way down.

Following the low-pitched instructions of the funeral director, the six pall-bearers lifted the coffin from their shoulders and lowered it. The roses on its lid shivered as it came to rest on the thick, flat tapes suspended over the open grave. Harry straightened up and rubbed his hands together. They felt like ice.

The elderly priest who had taken his place in the benefice, who would serve until a permanent replacement could be found, began to speak.

‘For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take from this world the soul of our sister here departed …’

The young woman in the coffin hadn’t died on the night of the winter solstice, the evening Joe Fletcher had been returned to his family. Her injuries had been serious, but for a few weeks there had been confident hopes of her recovery. Early in the new year, though, she’d caught an infection that had quickly turned into pneumonia. Her badly damaged body hadn’t had the strength to fight it and she’d died ten days ago. When he heard the news, something in Harry died too.

As he and the other pall-bearers began to lower the casket into the ground, Harry realized that Alice was standing directly opposite. It might be the last time he saw her. The family was leaving Heptonclough in a matter of weeks. Sinclair Renshaw, who still faced the possibility of a police investigation and charges, was nevertheless determined to maintain his hold over the town. He’d made the Fletchers a generous offer for their house and they’d accepted.

The boys were doing well, Alice seemed to be constantly reassuring everyone who asked. Their new counsellor kept telling them to keep talking, admit when they were scared, be honest when they were angry. Above all, not to expect miracles, it would take time.

Of all the Fletchers, only Millie seemed the same as ever. If anything, she seemed to be growing noisier and cheekier and happier by the day, as though the energy missing from the rest of her family had found a way to channel itself into her. Harry sometimes thought the family wouldn’t have survived the last few weeks without Millie.

Standing beside Alice, her oversized hand clutching Alice’s tiny one, stood her new goddaughter: Heather Christine Renshaw. Early in the new year, in his last official duty as minister of the benefice, Harry had baptized Heather. The service had been short, attended only by the remaining members of the Renshaw family: Christiana, Sinclair and Mike, and also, at their own insistence, Alice, Joe and Tom. Heather – or Ebba, as he would always think of her – was getting medical treatment now. It was too late for the damage caused by years of neglect to be entirely reversed, but the medication would help. More importantly, her days as a prisoner were over.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw movement further down the hill. Mike Pickup, who’d been in church earlier, hadn’t followed the mourners. He was standing instead by the grave that was Lucy’s new resting place and that now held her mother as well. Tobias lay like a fallen king in one of the stone coffins of the family mausoleum.

The priest had finished speaking. He glanced over at Harry, who forced his lips into a smile. The funeral director was handing round a casket of earth. People were gathering up handfuls, throwing the earth on to the coffin and stepping away. One by one, the mourners turned and made their way back up the hill until Harry was almost alone. A tall, heavily built man he didn’t know muttered something and then walked away a few paces. He glanced back once at the two people left at the graveside and then turned to stare across the valley.

‘When do you leave?’ asked the pale young woman in the wheelchair. Her eyes looked too large in her face and had grown dull since he’d last seen her. They didn’t look like violet pansies any more.

‘Today,’ said Harry. Then he looked up the hill to where his loaded car was parked. ‘Now,’ he added. He’d said his goodbyes over the previous few days. This one would be the last.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

‘Not really. You?’ He hadn’t meant to sound angry – she had problems of her own, he knew that. He just hadn’t been able to help it.

‘Harry, you should talk to someone. You need to—’

He couldn’t look at her again. If he looked at her he’d never be able to leave. ‘Evi,’ he managed, ‘I can’t talk to God any more, and you won’t let me talk to you. There really isn’t anyone else. Look after yourself.’

He turned from the grave and found the path. The other mourners had all disappeared. It was far too cold to be outside for long. As he strode up the hill, he heard the sexton begin to shovel earth on to the coffin. Thud, thud.

He thought perhaps he heard the squeak of Evi’s wheelchair, but he wasn’t looking back.

Thud, thud. Harry quickened his pace and the sound of earth falling on to wood seemed to follow him up the hill. The sexton was working fast. Before the hour was done the new grave would be complete, a soft mound of soil covered with flowers. They’d fade and die, of course, flowers always did, but people would bring others, they’d keep the grave neat. The people who hadn’t cared much for Gillian in life would look after her grave.

They honoured their dead in Heptonclough; some of them, at least.