There was no reply, so he walked towards two doors at the end of the landing. He knocked gently at the first and pushed it open. Joe sat in the middle of the carpet, surrounded by tiny toy soldiers.
‘Hey, buddy,’ said Harry. ‘Mum says lunch is ready.’
Joe looked back down and moved several of his soldiers to new positions.
‘I heard you being sick,’ he said. ‘In church. Everyone heard.’
Great, thought Harry. ‘Well, I hope it won’t put anyone off their lunch,’ he said. ‘Are you coming down?’ He stepped back to the doorway. The room next door must be Tom’s.
‘They died, didn’t they?’
Harry walked back into the room and crouched until his head was almost on a level with Joe’s. The child hadn’t taken his eyes off his game of soldiers. Time to die.
‘What do you mean, Joe?’ he asked. ‘Who died?’
Joe raised his head and looked back at Harry. There were dark shadows under his eyes.
‘Who died, Joe?’ he asked, keeping his voice as soft as he could.
‘The little girls in the church,’ replied Joe.
‘Joe, were you in church yesterday afternoon?’ asked Harry. ‘Did you hear me talking to Mrs Pickup?’
Joe shook his head. He didn’t look as though he was lying. In any case, Jenny had told him about her daughter when she and Harry had been outside.
‘Harry, boys, lunch,’ called Alice from the bottom of the stairs. Harry began to push himself to his feet.
‘Not that one,’ muttered Joe, talking to his soldiers this time. ‘Everybody knows about that one. I meant the other ones.’
Harry was back down on his knees again. ‘Which other ones?’ he asked. ‘Joe?’
Joe looked up at him again. He was the sweetest-looking boy Harry had ever seen, with his pale freckled face, blue eyes and red hair. But there was something in those eyes that didn’t look quite right.
‘Is nobody in this house hungry?’ yelled Alice.
Harry got to his feet. ‘We have to go, buddy,’ he said, pulling Joe to his feet and steering him towards the door. On the landing a noise behind them made them turn. The door to Tom’s room was pulled open. The room beyond was in darkness, the curtains drawn. Tom appeared in the doorway, crossed in front of them and walked heavily down the stairs. It was the first time he had ever ignored Harry.
‘Mummy, after lunch can we do the lanterns?’ said Joe.
Alice was leaning across the table, cutting Millie’s chicken into smaller pieces. She glanced at Tom and then at Harry. A frown line had appeared between her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure, sweetie,’ she replied. ‘Not everybody likes Hallowe’en. We can’t upset the vicar.’
‘I’m fine with pumpkins,’ said Harry, watching Alice look nervously back at Tom. ‘I’ll give you a hand if you like, Joe,’ he went on. ‘Although, given how talented your mum and dad are, I’ll probably be a big disappointment.’
‘We do trick-or-treating on Hallowe’en,’ said Joe. ‘You can come with us if you like.’
‘Actually, Joe, I haven’t promised anything yet.’ Alice was looking at Tom again. Her eldest son’s plate hadn’t been touched. ‘What do you think, Harry?’ she said, turning to him again. ‘Is Heptonclough likely to celebrate Hallowe’en?’
‘Oh, I’d put money on it,’ Harry replied. ‘Everything OK, Tom?’
‘Tom has to go and see a special doctor,’ announced Joe. ‘Because he’s been making up stories about monsters and last night he was historical.’
‘What?’ said Harry.
‘Joe, that will do,’ said Gareth at the same time.
‘Tom had a bad dream,’ explained Alice quickly. ‘We got home late and the lane was very noisy. It was our fault for leaving him in the car.’ She turned to her eldest son and ran a finger along the back of his hand. ‘Sorry, angel,’ she said. Tom ignored her.
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Gareth, ‘eat some lunch.’
Tom’s chair clattered loudly on the wooden floor as he pushed it back and jumped to his feet. ‘It wasn’t a bad dream!’ he yelled. ‘She’s real and Joe knows who she is. He lets her into the house and when she kills us all it will be his fault and I bloody hate him!’
He’d left the room before either of his parents had time to react. Alice stood quietly and followed him. Gareth drained his glass and poured himself another. Joe was looking at Harry with big blue eyes.
Half an hour later, Harry left the Fletchers’ house. After sending Joe and Millie off to play, Gareth had told him about the previous evening. Neither he nor Alice had ever seen anything of the girl that Tom continually talked about. Alice was taking him to the doctor in the morning.
The sky was threatening rain again as Harry walked down the drive. He stopped as he reached the family car. Someone had washed part of it. The driver’s door and bonnet were dusty and mud-spattered, but the rear window and the panels immediately below it were clean as a whistle. There were even marks in the dust where someone might have run a cloth. There was also, in the top corner of the rear window, a faint mark that might just have been a fingerprint. A red one.
34
16 October
THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR STARTLED HIM, EVEN THOUGH he’d been expecting it. Harry got up and turned down the music. As he stepped into the hallway he could see two tall figures behind the glass of his front door.
Mike Pickup, Jenny’s husband and Sinclair Renshaw’s son-in-law, was dressed in a tweed jacket and cap in muted colours, brown corduroy trousers and a knitted green tie. The man at his side wore a dark-grey pin-stripe suit that looked as though it had been handmade. Neither was smiling.
‘Good evening, Vicar,’ said Mike Pickup. ‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’
The detective gave Harry a brief nod. ‘Brian Rushton,’ he said, ‘Lancashire Constabulary. Pennine Division.’
‘Good to meet you,’ said Harry. ‘Please, come in.’
His visitors followed him into the study. Harry bent to remove the slumbering ball of ginger fur from one of the armchairs and then waited until both his guests had taken seats. The study was the largest room in his house. It was where he worked, received visitors, and sometimes held small prayer meetings. Thanks to the presence of two large Edwardian radiators, it was also the warmest room in the house; and invariably, where he found the cat.
He put the animal on the floor and gave it a shove under the desk. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’ he offered. ‘I have Irish whiskey,’ he went on, indicating the bottle already open on his desk. ‘There’s beer in the fridge. Or I can put the kettle on.’
‘Thank you, no,’ said Pickup, answering for both. ‘But don’t let us stop you. We won’t take up too much of your time.’ He stopped, clearly waiting for Harry to sit down. The detective chief superintendent, who was in his late fifties and whose dominant features were his narrow, slate-coloured eyes and heavy dark eyebrows, was slowly looking around the room.
Harry took the chair nearest the desk. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see the cat reappear and leap on to the arm of the detective’s chair.
He started to get up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’
‘No, you’re fine, lad. I’m used to cats.’ Rushton held up one hand to keep Harry in his seat. ‘Wife has two at home,’ he said, switching his attention to the cat. ‘Siamese. Noisy little buggers.’ He reached up to stroke the cat behind its ears. The responding purr sounded like an engine being fired up.
‘I, on the other hand, am not used to cats,’ said Harry. ‘That one seems to have adopted me.’
Rushton raised his enormous eyebrows. Harry shrugged.
‘Maybe it’s part of the fixtures and fittings of the vicarage,’ he explained. ‘Or just an opportunist stray. Either way, it was waiting for me when I arrived and has been refusing to leave ever since. I haven’t fed it, not once, it just won’t go away.’