‘I really have to go,’ said Harry. ‘I’m meeting someone at the vicarage in fifteen minutes. It was good to meet you all.’

Alice smiled. ‘You too, Harry. We’ll see you next Thursday.’

7

11 September

EVI WINCED.SOMEONE HAD BORROWED HER CHAIR AND altered the height. It forced her to lean forward across her desk at an odd angle and put extra pressure on her damaged nerve. She looked at her watch. She had to be in court in thirty minutes. She’d fix the chair when she was next in.

She opened up the story she’d saved the previous week from the Telegraph’s website, wondering if there was something she’d missed. Gillian Royle had just left, following her second session. On the surface, progress seemed to have been made. Gillian was taking her medication, had noticed a difference already in her ability to sleep, and had arranged her first AA meeting. She even claimed to be trying to eat. Plenty of boxes to tick. Something, though, didn’t feel quite right.

Since qualifying as a psychiatrist, Evi had worked with many patients who had been struggling to come to terms with loss. She’d treated several parents who had lost children. Gillian Royle, though, was something new. There was more going on in Gillian’s head than grief for her daughter. After two sessions Evi was sure of it. Her pain was too fresh, too intense, like a fire that was being continually stoked. A horrible image in the circumstances; still, something was getting in the way of Gillian’s recovery, preventing her from moving on.

Evi had been lied to many times; she knew when a patient wasn’t telling her the truth; she also knew when someone wasn’t telling her everything.

She re-read the newspaper story. The town of Heptonclough is in shock… She’d read that bit several times, nothing new there… blaze could have been caused by a gas ring left burning… if Gillian had left the cooker switched on, the fire would, technically, be her fault. Was she torturing herself with guilt?

During the previous hour with Gillian, following normal procedures, Evi had steered the girl towards talking about her early years. It hadn’t gone well. She’d sensed tension in Gillian’s relationship with her mother and wondered if a lack of parental support had contributed to Gillian’s breakdown following Hayley’s death. Gillian had talked briefly about a dead father whom she could barely remember, and had gone on to mention a stepfather arriving on the scene several years later. Evi was still scanning the story on her screen. This latest tragedy comes barely three years after the loss of Heptonclough child Megan… The story moved on to a different incident and Evi closed the page down.

The more she’d probed Gillian about her childhood, the more agitated the girl had become, until she’d flatly refused to talk about it any more. Which was interesting in itself. Conditions as acute as Gillian’s rarely had a single cause, in Evi’s view. What was often seen as the primary cause – in this case the loss of a child – was all too often just the trigger; the final straw in a chain of events and circumstances. There was a lot more about Gillian to learn.

8

‘JOE!’

It was Friday afternoon and the boys hadn’t long been home from school. All things considered, it hadn’t been too bad a week. Thanks to Harry, the new vicar, Jake Knowles had had a serious telling-off about the church window and, for the time being at least, he was leaving Tom alone.

Tom was wandering around the downstairs rooms, wondering where Joe was and whether he could persuade him to go in goal while he practised striking. Hearing voices through the open back door, Tom pushed himself up on to the worktop and saw his brother sitting on the wall that ran between their garden and the churchyard. He seemed to be chatting to someone on the other side. Tom picked up the ball and went out.

‘Heads up, Joe!’ he called from the doorway and drop-kicked the ball towards him. Joe looked up, startled, as the ball sailed over his head, disappearing into the churchyard beyond.

Tom ran at the wall and sprang up. Although the wall was high, it was old and the earth behind it made the lower part bulge out into the Fletchers’ garden. Some of the stones were missing, offering plenty of hand- and footholds. All the same, Tom had never seen Joe climb it by himself before.

When he made the top, he realized he and his brother were directly above Lucy Pickup’s grave, the one that had interested Joe so much last week.

‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked.

Joe opened his eyes wide and looked down into the churchyard. He looked left, he looked right, and then back at Tom again. ‘No one there,’ he said, giving his shoulders a little shrug.

‘I heard you,’ Tom insisted. He pointed to the kitchen window. ‘I saw you from in there. You looked like you were talking to someone.’

Joe turned to the churchyard once again. ‘Can’t see anyone,’ he said.

Tom gave up. If his brother wanted an imaginary friend, who was he to worry. ‘Want to play goalies and strikers?’ he asked.

Joe nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. Then his lips curled in a sly little smile. ‘Where’s the ball?’ he asked.

It was a good question. The ball had disappeared.

‘Crap,’ muttered Tom, partly because he knew they didn’t have another one, and partly because he realized this would be the first time they’d gone into the graveyard since they’d been menaced by Jake Knowles and his gang. ‘Come on,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We’ll have to go and look.’

Tom jumped down. The ball couldn’t have gone far.

Well, clearly he didn’t know his own kicking power because the ball was nowhere to be seen. Tom led the way and Joe followed behind, singing quietly to himself.

‘Tom, Joe! Teatime!’

‘Crap,’ said Tom again, picking up his pace. They had less than five minutes now before their mother got steamed. ‘Didn’t you see where it went?’ he asked Joe.

‘Tom, Joe!’

Tom stopped walking. He turned to look back at the wall they’d just climbed over. It was twenty yards away. Their mother would be at the back door. So why was her voice coming from a small thicket of laurel bushes in the opposite direction?

Tom stared at the bushes. They didn’t seem to be moving.

‘Tom! Where are you?’

That was definitely Mum, her voice coming from the right direction, sounding 100 per cent normal and getting quite mad now.

‘Tom.’ A softer voice, lower in pitch, still sounding an awful lot like his mum though.

‘Did you hear that?’ Tom turned to his brother. Joe was watching the laurel bushes. ‘Joe, is someone in those bushes? Someone pretending to be Mum?’

‘Tom, Joe, get back here!’

‘We’re coming,’ yelled Tom. Without stopping to think, he grabbed Joe’s hand and half dragged him back to the wall. He leaped up and twisted round, ready to cry out, because he just knew something horrible had followed them, was ready to spring.

The graveyard was empty. Without looking down, Tom held his hand out to Joe and pulled him up.

‘Oh, good of you to show up. Now come and wash your hands.’

Tom risked a quick glance in the direction of the house. Yep, that was Mum, Millie clinging to her knees. She shook her head at them in exasperation and turned back into the house. Tom realized his breathing was slowing down. It had been echoes, that was all. The old headstones had a way of making echoes sound odd.

As Tom helped Joe to the ground on the garden side, he saw his brother smiling again. Tom turned. There was the ball. Right in the middle of the garden.

‘How?’

Joe wasn’t looking at him but directly at the kitchen window. Tom looked too, expecting to see Millie waving from the counter.

Jesus, that wasn’t Millie’s face. Who the hell was in the kitchen? It looked a bit like a child with long hair, except there was something very wrong with that face. Then Tom realized he was looking at a reflection, that the child – the girl – he could see was right behind them, peering at him and Joe over the wall. He spun round. Nothing there. Back again to the kitchen window. The reflection was gone.