One of the twins said indifferently, “Off you both go then, long as you don’t forget the gang promise.”

Some threats don’t need to be spelled out.

But some guilt is stronger than any threat.

Gerry didn’t return to the village school for the following term. It was said his parents had decided he needed to be tutored privately to make sure he was fully prepared for starting at his boarding school in the autumn. I was too naive to suspect then that it had anything to do with what had happened. All I knew was I was left without anyone to talk to. Worse, I was left without having in view someone I could think of as the real culprit, which was a thought I might have been able to shelter behind when I started worrying about hellfire.

As for Pam, someone might have noticed something if she’d been returning to a normal household. But Foulgate had been a house of sickness for some time. And on that dreadful day, from what I’ve been able to piece together, when Pam got back to the farm, she must have made her way straight up to Madge’s bedroom. Perhaps she wanted to tell her what had happened. Who knows? Certainly Madge would have been the only person Pam would have turned to.

It doesn’t matter anyway. All I know is that when someone else went into the room a little time later, they found Pam sitting by the bed, holding a dead woman’s hand.

Children back then were required to be seen and not heard at the best of times. At the worst of times, they were expected to be invisible as well. Pam Galley was always a particularly quiet child. If anyone actually noticed any extra sign of withdrawal or distress, they had more than enough explanation for it in this second grievous loss following on in pretty close proximity to the death of her own parents.

Me, I tried to forget. Things weren’t helped when some time later Sam Flood, our curate, insisted on bringing little Pam out of the Gowder house and settling her in the vicarage until such time as her future could be decided. I can recall overhearing fierce arguments between Sam and my father and Mrs. Thomson, our housekeeper. I would have put money on my father and Mrs. Thomson winning any argument – they both terrified me – but Sam wouldn’t let himself be beaten down, and to my horror I came down one morning to find Pam sitting at the breakfast table.

At school, the Gowders didn’t talk about what had happened either, but they kept me pretty close, and made it clear that resigning from the gang wasn’t an option. To Pam at school they were as pleasant as it lay in their natures to be, but she didn’t even seem aware of their existence. Not that this was noteworthy as she didn’t show much awareness of anyone else’s existence either. The teachers and everyone were really worried about her, and when word got round that one of Mr. Dunstan’s religious charities had found a place for her with a family in Australia, everyone was delighted, saying things like that was what she needed, a complete change of scene and a settled family background, weren’t we lucky that the squire was such a man of influence? Everyone except Sam Flood, that is. He was still asking questions, and raising objections, but finally even he got persuaded, and Pam vanished from Illthwaite.

You’d have thought that Pam’s removal would have made things easier for me but it didn’t work like that. On the contrary, I found things got worse and worse. At least having her around gave me the reassuring visual evidence that she appeared to be just the same as ever. But now she’d moved out of my sight into my imagination.

I would be woken in the night by the sound of that one scream she let out. And then I’d lie there listening to the silence. Her silence. Eventually I started to find that any silence that stretched for more than a couple of minutes became her silence, as if she were close by, withdrawn, suffering, but always present.

If my father had been a different sort of man, I would have spoken to him. But I knew what to expect if I did and that was one fear I had no strength to overcome.

The obvious alternative was Sam Flood.

He was a man from whom loving kindness emanated almost visibly.

His concern in the business of Pam’s future was always to find what was best for the girl, what would give her the best chance of happiness. My father, on the other hand, urged on by Mrs. Thomson, wanted nothing but to get her out of our house and our lives. As for Squire Dunstan, even then I had serious doubts about the purity of his motives. Fair enough, this Australian business might be a genuine opportunity for the girl, but it was also a great chance to move a potential source of embarrassment to his family to the other side of the globe.

Of course I had no idea she was pregnant, and I don’t see how he could have known either.

Sam was caring, involved, fearless, and also my friend. He was the first adult I knew who treated me as an equal.

Even with all this going for him, it took a long time for me to pluck up courage to speak. I could only guess at the consequences, and nothing in my guess was good for me. The anger of my father, the wrath of the Gowder twins, the possible involvement of the police – these were likely to follow and these I would have to bear.

If I could have foreseen the actual outcome, I would probably have held my tongue forever.

I looked for a good moment, kept on finding excuses to decide this time or that wasn’t ripe, and finally on that Sunday, almost without thinking, having seen my father and Mrs. Thomson leave for the church to take Sunday School, I went to Sam’s room and banged at his door.

It was Edie Appledore who opened it. I think if she’d stayed I would probably have lost my nerve and kept quiet. But she just pushed right by me and went straight down the stairs, and I started talking and told Sam everything in one incoherent burst.

At first he just looked at me blankly as if he wasn’t taking it in. But finally what I was saying seemed to register and he sat me down and made me go through it again.

He was very calm on the surface but I could see that, underneath, my story had had a powerful effect on him.

All he said to me, however, was, “Thank you for telling me this, but I wish you’d spoken sooner. Never postpone a good act, Pete.”

I felt hugely rebuked. I suppose I had looked for absolution, even reward for my courage in speaking. Not that I felt brave. The minute I got it off my chest, I started thinking about the Gowders.

Sam told me to go back to my room, he needed to be alone to think.

After maybe fifteen minutes, he tapped at my door and told me he would be canceling the Bible class as he had to go out.

Fearfully I asked him what he intended doing about what I’d told him.

He said there was someone he wanted to talk to first, then he’d decide.

And he left.

About ten minutes later the doorbell rang. I opened the door to discover the Gowders. It was like finding the Furies on your doorstep! I must have gone pale as death, but they greeted me as they usually did and said they’d come for the Bible class but, seeing it was canceled, wondered if I’d like to come out to play.

If I’d had the slightest suspicion they knew I’d been talking to Sam, I would have slammed the door in their faces. But they seemed so normal, and I thought it would just make them suspicious if I said no, and I didn’t want to be around the house when my father returned and started asking questions about Sam’s reasons for canceling the Bible class, so I said yes and went with them.

What a mistake! A moment’s thought would have told me they must have encountered Sam on their way to the vicarage, and that he was unlikely not to have taken the chance to try and double-check my tale.

I found out the truth as soon as we were up on the moor, well out of sight and earshot of the village. One of them seized me from behind, the other put his face close to mine and demanded to know what I’d told the curate.