But he need not have worried himself with thinking up excuses because no one stirred and he made it through the back door and out into the garden without raising the alarm.

Napoleon, curled up in the kitchen, rolled on to his back and watched him go outside, then trotted after, nuzzling at his hand. Patrick thought about shooing him back, but the presence of the black dog was comforting. He lay his hand on the dog’s flat, silky head, stroking his ears.

He should have brought his torch. He had forgotten just how dark it was here, no streetlights, no borrowed illumination from nearby houses.

Patrick stood and waited for his eyes to adjust, pleasantly surprised at the way the world slowly came into grey-blue focus and just how much light there really was from a half fat moon and a scattering of stars. He made his way across the garden, feeling the damp grass soaking through his shoes and wishing he’d worn his boots. There was still some heat in the night air and the scent of jasmine that wafted across the lawn from the terrace wall was almost too intense.

Patrick flinched as the gate creaked open. He cracked it just wide enough to slip through, Napoleon in tow. He had told the boy to meet him in the meadow, checking he knew where Patrick meant. It seemed like a logical place, the boy could get across the field behind his house and was less likely to be seen that way than if he had to come out of the drive and on to the road.

It occurred to Patrick, as he stepped out from the garden and into Rupert’s overgrown meadow, that he did not even know the name of this boy he had come here to meet or how long he would have to wait before he managed to get there.

Patrick made his way over to the fence and stared across into the field. The moon cast deep shadows, concealing the bullocks and the nettles and the long grass at the margins. Patrick stared hard and after a moment or two could just make out a figure making its way through the shadow and heading towards him.

‘Hi,’ Patrick said as he drew near.

The boy glanced back over his shoulder and then cast a searching look past Patrick and into the meadow.

‘It’s OK. I’m on my own.’

He nodded and then climbed up to perch on his side of the fence. Patrick, taking his lead, wedged himself on the other side with his back against one of the tall ash trees that formed part of the boundary to Rupert’s land.

‘Didn’t know if you’d come,’ the boy mumbled.

‘Said I would, didn’t I?’ Patrick told him. ‘Who are you anyway?’

His name was Danny Fielding and he was not quite sixteen. He lived with his father, as Patrick had gathered, at what he called White Farm.

Remembering their visit that afternoon Patrick considered that it should have been Off-White Farm or even Grey and Unwashed Farm, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

‘Your mum not live there?’ Patrick asked. ‘Mine lives in Florida. She and Dad got divorced.’

Danny shook his head. ‘Me mam’s gone,’ he said. ‘She had a row with me dad and he reckons she left.’

‘When did she go?’

‘About three week ago. Just before he died. The man what lived here.’

‘Was it your mam Rupert came to see?’

‘Rupert?’

‘Rupert Friedman. The man who lived here.’

Danny nodded. ‘Mam grew up round here, she knew all sorts of stories like me granddad used to tell. Dad reckoned they were rubbish but mam liked to talk about them and Mr Friedman was writing a book. He had these meetings at the library, asked anyone what’d got stories to come along and tell them and me mam went. Came back full of it, how he was going to write this book and me mam’s stories were going to be in it.’

‘Did your dad not like that?’

‘Dad don’t like anything except stuff to do with the farm. He’s been making no money and it’s getting to him. Wurriting, me mam says. She wanted him to sell up and move to Epworth, get a job like she did, but he won’t have it. Mr Friedman came to our house. He sat there one afternoon talking to me mam when me dad came home and he wasn’t best pleased. Thought it were all a big waste of time and said so. She told him he were a big waste of time and they got into a big fight like they always do. Mr Friedman left and after he’d gone the fight got worse.’

‘Did you go to the shop to try and talk to him?’

Danny nodded. ‘I went to tell him not to come here again. It’d just make it all worse for everyone.’

Patrick nodded his understanding. ‘Marcus, the man at the shop, he said you looked scared.’

Danny shrugged. ‘I’d rode me bike in, but me dad, he comes into Epworth on market days. I was scared he’d see me. He wouldn’t have understood. He’d have thought I was against him too and I’m not. Not agin either of them. I just want them to stop rowing.’

‘Why did you go to the shop?’ Patrick asked. ‘Why not just come here?’

‘I did,’ Danny told him. ‘I did that first thing, but there was no one here and I looked in the garage through the gap between the doors and the car wasn’t there. I thought he’d have gone to the shop but the other bloke said not.’

He broke off, cast a resentful look back towards the farm. ‘When I got back home she’d gone. Dad said she’d waited till he’d gone out then packed her bags and cleared off. She never left a note or nothing.’

Patrick gnawed on his lower lip not knowing what to say. Danny was so obviously hurting. His dad would never just have gone off like that, Patrick thought, nor, for that matter, would his mum or even his stepdad. He was lucky, he reflected, and not for the first time. His mum and dad had managed an amicable divorce and he got along fine with his stepdad and his stepbrothers. His parents were on good terms too and Harry and his stepdad were perfectly friendly. In fact, the only problem Patrick had with any of it was in being unable to solve the mystery of how his parents had met and married in the first place. Talk about an attraction of opposites.

‘Do you know where she went to?’ he asked.

Danny shook his head. ‘She’s not called and I’ve phoned my auntie and my cousins and they don’t know where she is either.’

‘What about a friend?’

Danny laughed harshly. ‘Me dad made sure she didn’t keep no friends,’ he said. ‘Reckoned they were a waste of time too.’

It sounded as though Danny’s dad was the waste of time, Patrick thought, but he bit back the words. He wondered why Danny was telling him all this but he didn’t feel able to ask that either. It would sound as if he didn’t care and Patrick did care. His heart went out to him.

‘Can I do anything?’ he asked finally.

Danny shrugged. ‘I went to the police station and told them about my mum. They said she was an adult and could do what she liked and if my dad didn’t report her missing there was nothing I could do. I’m not old enough to count,’ he added bitterly. ‘So I don’t know what I can do.’

‘What’s your mum’s name?’

‘Sharon Fielding. I don’t know what else to do. My dad won’t talk about her, he just says she’s gone and don’t care about us so I’d best forget about her.’

Patrick fumbled in his head for something useful to say. ‘Look,’ he managed finally, ‘the man who owns Fallowfields now, Alec, he’s a policeman. I might be able to get him to … well, to tell you what you could do.’

Danny turned his gaze upon Patrick and held it there for so long it began to burn. Then he looked away and shrugged. ‘Ask him then,’ he said. ‘But I keep thinking … keep thinking how she might be dead.’

It was almost four by the time Patrick got back to his bed and when he did, sleep just would not come. He could understand why Danny felt the way he did. To have a parent suddenly cut off contact like that, with no warning and seemingly no reason, was hard to understand. Danny understood that his mother had been unhappy. He’d understood that it was likely his parents would split up sooner or later. He’d just expected to have a bit more warning and a little less drama, after all, they’d muddled along unhappily for years up until now.