The girl’s howl tore at his heart. He stayed where he was, watching her thin body sob and her tears fall on to his hands. For five, maybe ten minutes she wept, and he held her hands until he felt her pulling away from him. He didn’t have tissues but somewhere in the vestry there was kitchen roll. He walked quickly back to the vestry, found it beside the sink and, returning, handed it over. She wiped her face and tried to smile up at him. Her eyes, washed by tears, were almost silver. Dr Oliver’s eyes had been blue. A deep, violet blue.
In the pocket of his shorts, his mobile started to ring. He should ignore it, let it go to the answer service, get back to whoever it was later. Except he knew who it was.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’
He walked a few paces down the aisle and pressed Answer.
‘Harry Laycock.’
‘Berengaria speaking.’
‘Did you make it back safely, Dr Oliver?’
‘Now that’s… a bit spooky. How’d you do that?’
Harry glanced back up the aisle to where Gillian was staring at the floor. She was too close, she’d hear everything he said. ‘Like my boss, I work in mysterious ways,’ he answered.
There was a second’s pause.
‘Right, well, thanks for your help,’ came Dr Oliver’s voice. ‘But Duchess and I are both back where we belong and none the worse for our adventure.’
‘Delighted to hear it.’ Gillian was looking at him now. She wouldn’t like the interruption. The bereaved could be selfish. Not great timing, Princess. ‘You take care now,’ he said. ‘And say hello to Duchess for me.’
‘I’ll do that.’ The voice on the phone had fallen flat. ‘Goodbye.’
She was gone. And he had to get back to Gillian. Who was no longer sitting calmly on the front choir stall but was on her feet, staring round in what could only be described as horror. It was as though something had pulled the skin on her face tighter, made it mask-like. She was striding towards him. ‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded. ‘Did you hear it?’
‘I? What?’ He’d been on the phone. What was he supposed to have heard?
‘That voice, calling “Mummy,” did you hear it?’
Harry looked all around, astonished and a little alarmed by the change in Gillian. ‘I heard something, I think, but I was saying goodbye.’ He held up the phone.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What did you hear?’
‘Well, a child, I thought. A child outside.’
She clutched his arm, her fingers tight on his bare skin. ‘No, it was inside. It was coming from inside the church.’
‘There’s no one else here,’ he said slowly. ‘These old buildings can be deceptive. Sound echoes in funny ways.’
Gillian had spun away from him, was half running back up the aisle. She reached the choir stalls and started searching them, peering down the length of first one then the other.
What on earth?
She was crossing the church, dragging out the organ stool, back again behind the altar, pulling up the cloth. He’d almost reached her when she seemed to give up. She sobbed once and almost fell to the tiled floor. Then she drew herself up and opened her mouth.
‘Hayley!’ she screamed.
Harry stopped. He’d heard voices in this church too. And the sound of people he couldn’t see moving around. Why did he have this overwhelming urge to look behind him?
He turned. There wasn’t a soul in the church but Gillian and himself.
‘Let’s get you home,’ he said. ‘You probably need to rest.’ If she gave him the name of her GP he could phone him, explain what was happening, see if he could get her immediate help. He could try and call in on her himself tomorrow after morning services were done. As he reached her she clutched at him.
‘You heard her, you heard Hayley.’ She was almost begging him, pleading with him to tell her she wasn’t losing her grip on reality.
‘I certainly heard a child,’ he said, although in all honesty, he wasn’t that sure. He’d been listening to a change in inflexion in a woman’s voice on the phone and wondering what it might mean. ‘It’s possible I heard the child saying “Mummy,” but, you know, the Fletcher children have been playing around the church for most of the afternoon. It could easily have been Millie that we heard.’
Gillian was staring at him.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get some fresh air, I’ll walk you home.’
Muttering a silent prayer that the Fletcher children, including the youngest, would be outside, Harry led Gillian out of the door and into the sunshine. They were halfway down the path when a toy arrow whizzed past them, making Gillian jump. Harry turned to the Fletchers’ garden on his right and found himself staring into the blue eyes of Joe Fletcher. A few yards away Tom was kicking a football against the wall of the house. Their sister sat on bare earth, digging in the soil.
‘Missed,’ said Harry, grinning at Joe.
Joe’s head shot round to see if his mother had noticed. She was hanging out washing and didn’t turn round.
‘Sorry,’ he mouthed. Harry winked.
‘Mouse,’ said Millie, her gaze fixed on something just a foot or two away. Her eyes gleamed and she reached out a chubby arm.
‘Millie, no, that’s a rat,’ called Harry. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alice spin round and drop what she was holding.
Tom stopped kicking as Harry jumped over the wall and landed in the soft earth of the Fletchers’ garden.
‘Gone,’ said Joe. The rat was scurrying towards the wall. Its fat, grey tail hovered for a second in the gap between two stones and then disappeared. Harry looked back at the churchyard. Gillian had disappeared too.
12
21 September
FIRST THE WHISPERS WERE IN A DREAM. AND THEN THEY weren’t. Tom had no idea when it changed, when he went from dream to real, but one minute he was fast asleep and then he was awake and the dream was slipping away. He thought perhaps there were trees, and something in the trees that was watching him. Maybe there was the church, but definitely whispering. He was totally sure about that. Because he could still hear it.
He sat up. The luminous numbers on the desk alarm clock told him it was 02.53. His parents were never up at this time. They’d be fast asleep, the house closed up for the night.
So who was whispering?
Hanging upside-down, he stuck his head into the space above Joe’s bunk. His brother had his own room, right next door. He kept all his toys in it and played in it a lot, but he never slept there. Every night he climbed into the bunk below Tom’s.
‘Joe, are you awake?’
Even as he opened his mouth he could see that the bottom bunk was empty. The quilt was pushed back and there was a dent in the pillow where Joe’s head had been.
Tom swung his feet round and dropped to the carpet. All seemed still on the dark landing. Three doors were slightly open – the doors to the bathroom, to Millie’s room and to his parents’ bedroom – but behind each door there was just darkness. As he stepped closer to the top of the stairs, a cool breeze swept through the house; the front door was wide open.
Had someone come in? Or gone out?
The top step gave a very loud creak. Half hoping his parents would wake up and hear him, Tom took another step and then another.
Who had been whispering? Where was Joe?
As he reached the bottom step a wind swept past him into the house. Tiny hairs on his arms stood up to make goose bumps. Then the wind was gone and the air was soft and almost warm again. No need to shiver, really, except he couldn’t stop.
He knew he should wake his mum and dad. Joe’s leaving the house in the middle of the night was too serious for him to deal with alone. Except when he and Joe were involved in a scrape, the blame was never shared 50:50. A good 90 per cent of it invariably came in Tom’s direction and the facts of the case were rarely allowed to get in the way. If he woke his parents up now, he knew exactly who would find themselves in the you-know-what the minute Joe was found and returned home.