‘I’m seeing Tom later this week,’ she said. ‘He seems to be relaxing more around me now. Maybe he’ll open up a bit. If he’d just admit the existence of-’ Harry had stopped the car outside her building.

‘I wasn’t talking about the Fletchers,’ he said, in a voice that seemed to have dropped an octave.

‘I should go,’ she said, bending down to find her bag. ‘I have an early start in the morning and… it was a good suggestion about tonight. Thank you, I think it will help.’ She turned her back on him and found the door handle, conscious of being watched. She was going to have to do this quickly, she could call goodnight over her shoulder as she walked up the path. It was a short path, hardly two yards to the porch.

The engine fell silent. Behind her, Harry’s door was opening. He was much faster than she was, he would make it round the car before she was even standing up. Yes, there he was, holding out a hand, and was there any point in telling him she could manage? Probably not, and in any event, this was a new Harry, with darker eyes and who seemed to have grown taller; a Harry who didn’t speak, whose arm was around her waist as he hurried her along the path, through the downpour, to the shelter of the porch. Definitely a new Harry, who’d turned her to face him, whose fingers were reaching into her hair and whose head was bending towards her as the world went dark.

Oh, this couldn’t be a kiss – this was a butterfly, bruising its wings against her mouth, settling lightly on the curve of her cheek, the point where the smile begins.

Was this a kiss? This soft stroking of the lips? This crazy feeling that she was being touched everywhere?

And this certainly couldn’t be a kiss, not now that she was spinning away into a place lined with dark velvet. Hands were tangled in her hair – no, one was at the small of her back, pressing her closer. The rain against the porch roof felt like drums in her head. Fingers stroked the side of her face. How could she have forgotten the smell of a man’s skin; or the weight of his body, pushing her against the wall of the porch? If this was a kiss, why were tears burning in the back of her eyes?

‘Do you want to come inside?’

Had she said that out loud? She must have done. Because they weren’t kissing any more, just close enough for it to make no difference and his breath was swirling around her face like warm mist.

‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ he said, in a voice that was nothing like Harry’s.

The keys were in her pocket. No, they were in her hand. Her hand was reaching out for the lock; his was closing around it, slowing her down.

‘But-’ he said.

Why was there always a but?

He’d brought her hand back, was holding it to his lips. ‘We still haven’t done the pizza or the movie,’ he whispered. She could barely hear him above the rain.

And you are a priest, she thought.

‘And I really don’t want to rush this.’ He released her hand and tilted her chin upwards so that she was looking directly at him.

‘That’s rather sweet,’ she said. ‘And more than a little womanly.’

At that, Harry was back, grinning at her, scooping her up and holding her tightly against him. ‘There is nothing remotely womanly about me,’ he hissed into her ear, ‘as I fully intend to prove before too much longer. Now get inside, you baggage, before I change my mind.’

When the phone rang, Harry’s first thought was that he’d only just fallen asleep and that it would be Evi, asking him to come round. He turned over in bed, unable for the moment to remember which side the phone was on. You know what? Sod it. Sod the pizza, sod the movie, sod everything, he was going.

No, that side had the clock. It was 3.01 a.m. He turned over and reached out. He could be dressed in two minutes, at her place in ten. By 3.15 he could be…

‘Hi,’ he said, pressing the phone against his ear.

‘Vicar? Reverend Laycock?’ It was a man’s voice. An elderly man.

‘Yes, speaking,’ he said, his stomach cold with disappointment. He’d be going out after all, but not to a woman’s warm bed.

Someone was dying. Sex or death – the only reasons to call someone in the middle of the night.

‘Renshaw here. Renshaw senior. My son asked me to call.’

Tobias Renshaw, his churchwarden’s father, ringing him in the small hours?

‘My son apologizes for not calling himself, and for waking you, but I’m afraid you’re needed at St Barnabas’s straight away. You’ll see the police vehicles in the lane. When you arrive, you should make yourself known to Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’

3 November

SIMBA, MILLIE’S BLUE TEDDY BEAR, LAY ON HIS BACK AT THE bottom of the stairs. When Tom had seen him last, not five hours ago, he’d been clutched in his little sister’s arms. So either the soft toy had developed a taste for midnight strolls or something was very wrong. Tom ran across the landing to Millie’s room. The cot was empty.

Downstairs, a door slammed shut. Tom glanced towards his parents’ room. No time to do anything but yell as he ran across the landing, down the stairs and through the kitchen. He’d heard the back door. Whoever had Millie had only just left the house.

He felt a rush of cold air as he dodged his way around the kitchen table. The back door had bounced open again and the wooden floorboards of the cloakroom were wet. It was still raining hard outside and, even in the doorway, looking out over the mass of mud that was the back garden, the wind battered against him, sending volleys of ice-cold raindrops to soak his pyjamas.

His eyes weren’t used to the darkness yet. He screwed them up and could just about make out the churchyard wall and the laurel trees behind it. From the direction of the yew tree and Lucy Pickup’s grave, he heard a grunt.

Someone was out there. Someone with Millie.

‘Dad!’ he yelled. No answering shout. No choice really. He had to go out.

The relentless rain over the past few hours, together with all that had fallen over the previous day or two, had turned the garden into a swamp. Thick black mud surged over Tom’s feet as he stepped away from the shelter of the back door. A few more steps and he could see better. A black figure was trying to climb the wall but it was carrying something in one hand, something that looked like a large, black hold-all.

‘Dad!’ he yelled, as loud as he could, trying to send his voice in the direction of the house but not wanting to take his eyes off the figure at the wall. ‘Dad!’

His dad would never make it in time. Tom ran forward, sinking almost to his knees in mud, and was just in time to catch hold of one of the climber’s retreating legs. The girl – because who else could it be? – began kicking at him, but she was losing her grip on the wall. She made a grab upwards and gave one last kick that caught Tom off guard. Her booted foot connected with the side of his face and he let go. She gave a sort of leap and then she was lying spread-eagled over the top of the wall, kicking wildly as she scrabbled to her feet. She was almost away, but the black hold-all she’d been carrying was still at the foot of the wall.

She looked from it to Tom and then, with a sharp movement of her head, down at the wall she was standing on. She staggered, almost fell, and then jumped down on the other side.

The wall was moving. It wasn’t possible, but it was happening. The bulge of stones, which for years had held back tons of earth, seemed to swell. Tom watched first one stone, then another, then several, topple from the top and fall into the garden. Through the gap they left behind, earth began to spill over from the churchyard. One of the gravestones seemed to be sliding closer. Tom wanted more than anything to run but something was rooting him to the spot.

The bulge swelled more, like a pregnant woman about to give birth to something hideous. The black figure on the other side of the wall took a few steps back as more and more of the earth started to slide away.