‘Healthy body, healthy soul, Mrs Hawthorn,’ replied Harry. ‘Sorry I can’t show you a better pair.’

Harry jogged slowly past the two elderly people. As he left the churchyard, he saw Alice taking Millie to their car. He should really have a word with her. He jogged down the hill a few paces and saw that Alice was now talking to the woman with dyed red hair who’d followed Gillian from church.

‘So beautiful,’ the woman was saying, reaching out to touch Millie’s curls. ‘I had one just like her. Breaks my heart to see her.’

Millie squirmed away from the woman, hiding her face against her mother’s shoulder, just as Alice spotted Harry. He approached slowly, not wanting to interrupt, unsure how welcome he was going to be.

‘They grow up so quickly,’ Alice said.

‘Mine never grew up,’ the woman replied. Unable to reach Millie’s face any more, she patted the child’s shoulder. ‘You take good care of this little one. You never know how precious they are till you’ve lost them.’

Alice gave up the effort to smile. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘Well, there’s the vicar. I must just say hello. It was nice to meet you.’ The woman nodded at Alice and then, with one last stroke of Millie’s head, set off down the hill.

‘Don’t know who that cheery soul was,’ said Alice in a low voice, as Harry approached. He glanced at the woman’s retreating form and shook his head. ‘She was in church just now,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never met her before. Listen, about last night…’

Alice held up her hand. ‘No, I’m sorry. I do understand how difficult it is for you. It’s just…’ She stopped. ‘I can’t help thinking there’s something seriously wrong with Tom.’

She bent into the car and put Millie into her child’s seat before buckling the strap round her daughter. Harry leaned closer to the car in the hope that it might offer some shelter. The perishing wind was getting up his shorts. ‘I really doubt that,’ he said. ‘And getting yourself worked up won’t help him.’

‘That’s exactly what Evi said,’ replied Alice.

Harry couldn’t stop. His legs were starting to shake and he had a pain in his chest, but the minute he stopped running the sweat on his body would start to chill down.

He was two miles above the village. Ten minutes after setting off, he’d found an old bridle path and followed it to the road. He’d gone up, climbing higher and higher, until the wind was almost lifting him off his feet. Now he was heading for home.

The walls and hedges offered some shelter, but when the wind hit him full on he almost felt as if he’d stopped moving. His wristbands were soaked through and the cold air was hurting his lungs. This was insane. Even the view was wasted – his eyes were watering so much he could barely see the ground beneath his feet.

High above the trees to the east soared the massive Morrell Tor, a huge collection of gritstone boulders balanced precariously on top of each other. Formed naturally, but once believed to be man-made, tors were particularly common in the Pennines. Morrell Tor, Harry had learned, was notorious locally. Legend had it that in days gone by, unwanted and illegitimate babies would be tossed from its heights, to shatter on the rocks below and be carried off by wolves and wild dogs. Today, it presented a serious problem for sheep farmers, who went to great lengths to keep their livestock away from it. On nights with strong winds, it was said, a singing among the rocks would lure a dozen or more to their death.

He realized he’d stopped running. And that he was freezing. He had to get home, shower and change, then attend an old folks’ lunch in Goodshaw Bridge. And he had a phone call to make. In another few yards he’d be able to follow a footpath along the edge of a field, to bring him out at the end of Wite Lane.

He squeezed through the gap between two tall boulders and set off again along the field edge, heading downhill, keeping his eyes on the ground. At the corner he climbed the low wall into the stubble field beyond. In less than a minute he was at the lowest end. He jumped over the stile and down into Wite Lane. Almost home.

Huddled in front of the burned-out fireplace of the Royle cottage was the thin, trembling body of a girl. Gillian. Twenty yards away he could hear her crying. Except it wasn’t really crying. Keening. That was the only word for it: a high-pitched, heartbreakingly sad keening. The Irish called it the song for the dead.

‘IT’S OK, IT’S OK.’ HE’D PUSHED OPEN THE GATE, WAS stepping up the overgrown path. ‘Come on, love, let’s get you home.’ He walked through the space where the front door used to be. Gillian didn’t look up. She remained hunched over, clutching something to her chest. He crossed the uneven ground and bent down beside her. She looked up at him then and he fought a temptation to pull back. For a second the look in her eyes had scared him, had made him think that something essential inside her had slipped out the back way.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here. Come on, pet, you’re freezing.’ Gillian was only wearing a thin sweater and her wrist felt colder than stone. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet.

She continued to sob as he guided her out through the gate and half led, half dragged her along Wite Lane. The churchyard and street were deserted and his was the only car in the lane. He steered Gillian across the road and opened the passenger door. He never locked the car in Heptonclough and his keys were still in the vestry, with his clothes. He reached into the car, pulled out his coat and wrapped it round her shoulders.

‘Get in,’ he told her. ‘I need to grab my bag from the vestry, then I’ll drive you home.’

Shivering, he ran up the churchyard path, pulled the key out of his shorts pocket and opened the vestry door. His bag was where he’d left it. Grabbing a sweatshirt, he pulled it over his head. He was about to leave when something made him stop and turn.

Someone had been in here. The door to the nave was open. It hadn’t been when he’d left, he was sure of it. Harry took a step towards it. It would have been one of his churchwardens, Mike or Sinclair. They were the only other people who had keys now. And yet they’d formed a habit, over the last few weeks, of telling him when they were going to be in the building. He’d seen both of them less than an hour ago. Neither had mentioned plans to come back. Still, it could only be…

He stopped in the doorway, knowing that his heart was beating too fast and his breathing was too shallow, and telling himself it was the result of a fast run over hill country. Not his churchwardens then. Neither Mike nor Sinclair would have taken every single hassock from the pews and thrown them around the building. Harry stepped into the chancel. Dozens of cushions: on the carpet, caught between the organ pipes, on the choir stalls, everywhere but where they should be.

Harry walked forward, knowing that this wasn’t just about the hassocks, that there was more for him to find, and that it was only a matter of seconds before he did. He wasn’t breathing too fast any more, he was struggling to breathe at all.

Something was growing, fungus-like, in his throat, pressing against its sides, blocking the airway as he reached the centre of the chancel and turned to look down the aisle. He was ready to be shocked. Just not that shocked. He wasn’t prepared to see a small child, broken in pieces, beneath the gallery.

Millie Fletcher! He’d seen her wearing that sweater.

For a few seconds it was impossible to do anything but stare. No air at all was getting into his body now. His head would start to spin at any moment. He began to walk forward, clutching the ends of pews like a toddler unsure on its legs. As he reached the halfway point, he realized he was trembling in relief, not fear. And he was breathing again. Not Millie, thank God, thank God, it couldn’t be Millie – or any real child, for that matter – because no part of a child’s anatomy was made up of vegetables. Oh, thank God.