There was another pause and then the rhythmic thump as stairs were descended at speed. The door was pulled open, revealing a sullen girl in a sparkly T-shirt and jeans.
"It's Shelley, isn't it?" said Greg, giving no hint that we'd heard the yelling.
"S'right."
"Would like a word with your mother, please, Shelley? If she has a moment?"
She grimaced, but turned and shouted down the passage towards a back room. "Mam! It's the vicar. He wants a word."
The sound of a baby crying erupted from the kitchen.
"Isn't it a school day, Shelley?" Greg enquired.
The girl lifted her chin. "I'm poorly, aren't I?" Her expression dared him to contradict the obvious lie.
A middle-aged woman emerged from the kitchen wiping down the front of her top with a tea towel. "Well, don't just stand there like a ninny. Invite him in."
Shelley opened the door a little more, revealing me.
"He's got someone with 'im, hasn't he?"
Shelley retreated into the hall, allowing us into the house.
"You bringin' round the bailiff now, vicar?" the woman asked.
"Like a quiet word, please, Mrs Hopkins. About Karen."
"Nothin' left to say, is there?" she said.
"Neal here's a journalist. Wants to try and find the girls."
"Does he now?" She paused, looking me straight up and down, not disguising that her frank assessment left me wanting.
"A quiet word? Five minutes?"
A wail started up from the kitchen behind her.
"Shelley. See to the tiddler, will ya? I need to talk to the vicar."
"Oh, mum!"
"Now! Or you can put your uniform on and go to school. One or t'other."
She sighed, shrugged and pushed past her mother to the back of the house. Mrs Hopkins opened a side door and ushered us into a sitting room. It was tight with furniture, dominated by a big-screen TV over the fireplace where a mirror or a picture would once have been. The screen was off and reflected the room darkly.
"I'd offer you tea, but we're off out as soon as tiddler's fed." The lie was obvious to me and must have been to Greg.
"Don't want to put you to any trouble, Mrs Hopkins. Neal here just wanted to ask a few questions about Karen."
"Nothing to say. She's gone." She shrugged but glanced towards the fireplace. There was a family photo crammed in among the ornaments. Karen was smiling out of it, tucked under her mother's arm. Her father held a baby, and Shelley and a younger boy sat in front. I wondered if it was significant that Mrs Hopkins had placed herself between her daughter and her husband.
I cleared my throat. "Was there any indication that she was going to leave, before she disappeared?"
"The police asked all this. We've been over it a hundred times."
"It'll help me form a picture of her. I might be able to find her."
"She's gone and there's no bringing her back. It doesn't help to keep going over it, you know."
"So you've given up hope?" I asked.
She sighed and looked at her hands. " No. I still hope she'll come home. I don't think she will, but I hope."
"I'd like to try and help you, Mrs Hopkins."
"That's kind, Mr… Neal, is it?"
"Neal Dawson," I said.
"But I think everything that could be done has been done. If she wanted to come back to us by now, she would have done."
"What if she can't? She may not have any money. She may be lost, or alone."
"I think if she meant to come back, she'd find a way, don't you? All she'd have to do is pick up the phone. She could even reverse the charges."
She stood and went to the door and opened it. "I think we'll have to go out shortly, if you don't mind. Thanks for calling round, vicar."
Greg and I stood and eased our way out of the cramped sitting room and into the hallway. We said goodbye at the door.
"Thanks for seeing us, Mrs Hopkins," said Greg.
"You were very good to us when Karen disappeared, vicar. We've not forgotten that."
"Least I could do."
"Come any time. You're always welcome."
"God bless."
"You too." She closed the door quietly.
Greg paused for a second before the blank doorway and then turned and strode away, his long stride making it hard to keep up. He didn't speak and I mulled over what we'd heard before I started asking questions.
We retraced our steps and came to the road leading down to the hillside church. He paused before the busy traffic, waiting for a lull between cars.
"What is she not saying?" I asked him.
"What makes you think there's something she's not saying?"
"I offer to help find her missing daughter and she turns me down. She says everything's been done. I tell her that her daughter may need help and she dismisses it. All she has to do is pick up the phone? What happened to leaving no stone unturned? If it were my daughter…"
"Not though, is it? It's not your daughter. It's hers."
He strode out into the traffic, the cars braking to let him through. No one beeped at him or shouted. Maybe they were used to this tall dark man walking straight into the road, his eyes ahead, heedless of the danger.
I had to wait for a gap in the cars to follow. He was unlocking the church doors when I caught up.
"Like you, in my profession there's a feel for when people aren't telling you the whole story." I carefully didn't mention what that profession was. "Call it a hunch."
"As you say, a hunch." He walked over to the pinboard and unpinned a picture. He took a parish news-sheet, ripped the back page from the staples and wrote out a name and two addresses, one a college, one a cafe. He gave them to me.
"What's this?"
"Want to find the lost girls? This is what they call a clue – better than a hunch. Be outside here -" he pointed to the address "- it's part of Hull College. Be there at four o'clock this afternoon. Ask for Zaina. Find Zaina, you'll find Karen. If she's not there, go to the cafe. The address is there underneath."
"You know where she is?"
"I know where she'll be."
"Why didn't you tell her mother?"
"Before you help people, Neal, you have to find out what they need. Otherwise you end up making things worse."
"You could at least ease her mind; tell her that she's OK."
"Go and find Karen, Neal. Then come back and tell me what I should do." He found my holdall in the corner easily, regardless of the warding I had placed upon it, and pushed it into my arms
"Tomorrow," he said, "when you've had time to sleep on it."
He patted my shoulder and then walked slowly up the central aisle of the church, halted before the altar and slowly knelt. I left him to his prayers.
Hull was a good few miles away. If I was to be there by four, I would need to use the Ways. Before that I needed somewhere to stay. I walked back down the hill to the harbour and then along to Dorvey Street. The Dolphin Guest House was the third in a terraced row. It looked clean and cared for, but the sign said 'No Vacancy'. I almost turned away, but then remembered that Geraldine at the cafe had said that Martha would 'sort me out'. Maybe she had somewhere else I could stay. I rapped with the polished door knocker and waited until the door was opened, revealing a small woman wearing a plum satin blouse with huge flowers on it.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"Hi. I'm Neal Dawson. Geraldine at the Harbour Cafe said you might be able to recommend somewhere to stay for a few days, just while I'm in town."
"Selling something?"
"No, I just wanted to ask about rooms. Geraldine at the cafe said…"
"I meant, are you a travelling salesman?"
"No, a journalist."
"What kind of journalism? None of that smutty stuff, celebrity muckraking and sensationalist claptrap?"
"It's mostly human interest stories. I've had my name in some of the quality papers."
She looked me over. "Better come in then." She stepped back and opened the door wide so that I could bring the bag inside.