'We've still got some people out there, but it begins to look as if we need to extend the area of operation.' The woman looked enquiringly at Merrily.

'This is Merrily Watkins, our Priest-in-Charge,' Terrence said. 'Also the mother of a close friend of Colette's.'

'Ah.' The woman stood up. 'Good morning. I'm Detective Inspector Annie Howe, this is DC Mumford. Take a seat, Ms Watkins.'

DI Howe had a surgical look. Tall. Fine, light hair, thin lips. If she'd worn glasses they would have been rimless, Merrily thought. But she wasn't a surgeon; she had a law degree. It had been in the Hereford Times. Annie Howe was new to the Division, a high-flier, thirty-one years old.

'So your daughter was at the party? And her name would be ...?'

'Jane. She's fifteen.'

DC Mumford wrote it down. He was thickset and older than his boss by a good ten years.

'And although she was a close friend of Colette,' Howe said, 'she clearly didn't spend the whole evening with her.'

'Don't say was like that!' Caroline shrieked.

'I'm very sorry, Mrs Cassidy. Nothing negative was implied. Just that by the end of the evening, they weren't quite so close, as they appear to have gone off in different directions. What time did your daughter get home, Ms Watkins?'

'I don't remember exactly. Perhaps around two ... two-thirty.'

'Were you worried?'

Merrily smiled stiffly. 'You're always a bit worried, aren't you? Even though you know they're not far away.'

'Were you aware of the disturbance on the square?'

'Not really. There are several big trees between the vicarage and the road. Plus, I might have fallen asleep in front of the fire.'

'Well, I'll need to talk to your daughter. Unless Colette turns up soon, of course. Which she probably will' Howe produced a narrow smile, which Caroline Cassidy must have found as comforting as a shot of morphine. 'I don't suppose Jane's up and about yet.'

'I don't suppose she is,' Merrily said.

'Although you are.'

'In my job, you find it hard to sleep after six. Holy Communion and all that.'

DI Howe nodded.

'Ma'am.' A uniformed constable had come in. 'Got a minute?'

Howe and the PC moved over to the door. Merrily couldn't hear what they were saying, but the constable was pointing through the window to where another policeman was waiting, with a radio. Howe was looking interested, raising her eyebrows.

'Oh, my God,' Caroline said. 'Oh ... my ... God.'

28.

Our Kind of Record NOTHING TO WORRY about, DI Annie Howe had said, almost convincingly. And because Caroline Cassidy was clearly petrified by the possibility that the police had found a body, Howe revealed that it was simply a suspected burglary. At an isolated cottage in Blackberry Lane. Probably no connection at all.

To Merrily, this last statement sounded even less convincing.

Howe and Mumford had both left. Out on the square, a car was starting up. They were off to Lol Robinson's cottage.

It had to be. The police would have routinely knocked on the door to ask if anyone had seen or heard anything in the neighbouring orchard last night. They would perhaps have found the place empty, this Windling gone, but obvious signs of a break-in.

She stayed with the Cassidys, and when Caroline got up to fumble at the coffee machine, she said quietly to Terrence, 'If some of those kids were looking for somewhere to get drunk or smoke a little cannabis, and they found an empty house ... you know?'

'Yes.' He looked, for a moment, more hopeful. 'She's easily led, you know, whatever anyone says. Just a child.'

Merrily said nothing. She needed to get back and tell Jane and Lol Robinson what had happened. Sooner or later, he was going to have to explain to the police what this was all about, and she hoped his story would sound more plausible than it had last night.

The phone rang on the wall behind the counter. Caroline stumbled across, snatched it down.

'Colette ...? Oh.' She sagged. 'Hello, Michelle. No ... No, I'm afraid not.'

'Mother of one of Colette's schoolfriends,' Terrence said to Merrily. 'We phoned as many as we could. Even though we'd seen some of them just an hour or two earlier when they came to collect their children.'

Merrily said, 'Did they all go with Colette into the orchard?'

'Some of them were too sensible,' Terrence said bitterly. 'Most of the others seem to have come back fairly quickly. Who wants to tramp around a place like that without torches or anything? Unless, as you say, they were looking for somewhere to experiment with drugs. I suppose you've seen some of that. You were in urban areas, weren't you?'

She nodded but didn't elaborate. The last thing he needed was to hear where some of these chemical experiments led.

Caroline said, 'Yes. All right. Thank you, Michelle.' Hung up the phone. 'She says Cressida thinks we ought to talk to the DJ person, because Colette had gone off with his ghetto-blaster thing.'

'They found it,' Terrence said bleakly. 'The police found it in the orchard, batteries flat.'

Caroline's face crumpled like a wash leather.

'As for the DJ Jeff Mooney he stayed behind just about long enough to present me with his ridiculous bill.'

'Look.' Merrily stood up. 'I really think I ought to go back and talk to Jane. There's always the possibility she knows something that might help. I'd like to give her a thorough grilling before the police get round to it.'

'Would you?' Caroline dabbed at her face with a tissue and went back to the coffee machine. She pulled two cups from a shelf. 'Would you come back and tell us? If there was something. Anything at all?'

'Of course.'

Terrence suddenly moaned. 'The festival! I'd forgotten. We've got the ceremony this afternoon. To launch the festival. Crowds of people. We might even have the Press here.'

Oh yes, Merrily thought, you can certainly count on having the Press here this time.

'Fuck the festival!' Caroline slammed down both cups. 'How can you even think of that at a time like this?'

'I'm sorry.' Terrence's shoulders shook. His unshaven cheeks were wet.

At the entrance to the mews, Merrily almost bumped into a woman distractedly coming down from the market place.

'Oh.' Alison Kinnersley stepped impatiently to one side. She wore a genuine Barbour, one of the very long, expensive ones, like a highwayman's coat. 'Vicar. I'm so sorry. Excuse me.'

She hurried past Merrily into Church Street then stopped, called back.

'Lucy Devenish the cottage with the red door?'

'I think so.' It was not yet seven-thirty, early for a social call. 'Brass knocker in the shape of an elf or something.'

'Thank you,' Alison said. It had begun to rain. It was clear she was in no mood for a conversation. She didn't seem to have heard about Colette's disappearance or noticed any police activity.

Alison strode off down the street in her highwayman's coat, and didn't look back. Merrily tried to imagine what she could want with Lucy Devenish. Tried to imagine her with the less-than-flamboyant Lol Robinson living with him, chatting with him over breakfast, sleeping with him. And couldn't.

She turned back towards the vicarage, almost running, because her legs felt too short and everything in her life seemed to be moving too fast for her and it was raining harder.

Jane had the door open before she could even get out her key. The kid's hair was uncombed, her eyes swollen. She looked very young and forlorn, like a battered child.

'Mum?'

'Could you make some tea, flower?' Merrily stepped inside, unzipped her coat. 'The sanctuary man still here?'

'You haven't had anything to eat again, have you?'

'What's eating? Remind me. Can you make some halfway-edible toast?'

She tossed her coat on to the hall table and went through to the kitchen.

'Mrs Watkins ...' Lol Robinson was on his feet. 'It's OK, I'm going. I just wanted to say thanks for what you did.'

'Sit down, Lol,' Merrily said. 'You too, Jane.'

'I'm making the toast.' Jane walked across the stone flags, gathering up a half-wrapped loaf. She tossed three slices of bread into the toaster, plucked a butter knife from the drainer.

'Listen. Colette Cassidy didn't come home last night. The village is full of police.'

Jane dropped the butter knife.

'They've searched the village and the orchard. They're now starting to question her friends.'

Jane had gone pale.

'Which includes you, flower.'

'The stupid ...' Jane picked up the knife and dug it into a slab of hard, cold butter.

'So if you know anything,' Merrily said, 'maybe you should tell me first.'

Lol said, 'This isn't any of my business. I should go.'

'You really don't have to go,' Merrily said. 'But you should know the police are at your house. They found it had been broken into. In the course of their inquiries.'

Lol didn't get up.

'They probably think it was a bunch of stoned tearaways,' she said, 'from the party. So perhaps you need to tell them about your unpleasant musician friend.'

But she found herself wondering if this guy really existed. And what else she didn't know about Lol Robinson, friend of Jane.

Lol was slowly interlacing his fingers. Jane pulled out the knife with a slab of yellow butter on the end, and looked at it. 'What do they think happened to her?'

'They don't know, flower. Do they? What do you think happened to her?'

The kid pulled a smoking slice from the toaster, oblivious to the heat, laid it carefully on a Willow-pattern plate and began buttering it.

Lol Robinson turned his head towards her. Merrily turned her back on the Aga but hung on to its rail.

The knife was scraping backwards and forwards across the same crisp slice. Scritch, scratch, over and over.

'Do they think she's dead?'

'Why do you say that?' Merrily's voice rose, like the voice of the single tone-deaf parishioner you regularly heard at the end of a hymn.

'Somebody will be.' Jane stopped buttering, picked up the plate and carried it across to her mother. Her hands shook.

'You're not making sense, Jane.'

'I thought it might be you. Came in last night and I ... prayed for ... for a long time. I was going to go to the church this morning, do it properly, but then I thought you'd be there, so it ...'

'Prayed? You?'

'Only that you wouldn't die,' Jane said miserably. 'I always have. I've never prayed for anything else in my whole life except that you wouldn't bloody die on me.'

'Flower,' Merrily said gently, 'why did you think I was going to die?'

'When you see fruit and blossom on an apple tree at the same time, it means someone close to you-'

'We haven't got an apple tree.'

'It was in the orchard! That used to be the church's. The apple dropped off and rolled at my feet. My feet. Couldn't have been more obvious if it was that big finger in the sky from the national lottery.'

'That bloody Lucy Devenish!'

'No! You bloody Christians!' Jane said wildly. 'You'll believe any old shit if it's in the Bible. Anything else-' She sat down opposite Lol. T don't know. I don't know if she's dead or not. But somebody must be. These things don't just happen.'

Lol said, 'What happened with Colette?'

Merrily took a seat. All three of them around the table, like some screwed-up, dysfunctional family in a suitably dim and draughty kitchen. She told them everything that had happened this morning. Except for seeing Alison. And except for the poster about Merrily Watkins's black mass.