Blood Harvest

by S J Bolton

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Evi, nodding her head. ‘That’s what’s puzzling me. Newborn babies are routinely screened these days. If they’re found to be deficient in thyroxin, it can be administered artificially. They have to take it all their lives, but their development will be normal.’

  Harry switched the kettle on and found clean mugs.

  ‘The only explanation I can think of is that she was born to relatively uneducated parents who haven’t maintained her treatment,’ continued Evi. ‘Maybe they suffer from it themselves. I spoke to DCI Rushton this morning, suggested he start looking at outlying farms and farm-workers’ cottages. Whoever this family are, I’m guessing they don’t come into town too often.’

  ‘OK, big question now,’ said Harry, spooning instant coffee into the mugs. ‘Could this girl – woman, whoever – be responsible for the deaths of Lucy, Megan and Hayley? For the threat to Millie?’

  Evi flicked the screen back again. ‘I’ve spent most of today finding out everything I can about the condition,’ she said. ‘There’s no evidence I can see of these people behaving in violent or aggressive ways. Even Tom doesn’t think it was she who tried to abduct Millie now. He claims it was a much bigger person.’

  ‘It was dark, he was scared,’ said Harry. ‘He could have got confused.’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t feel right somehow. These people are known for their gentleness, their harmlessness. Even their name suggests that. The word "cretin" is believed to come from the Anglo-French word “Chrétien”.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ asked Harry, as the kettle came to the boil and switched itself off.

  ‘Christian,’ said Evi. ‘Cretin means Christian. It’s supposed to indicate the sufferers’ Christ-like inability to commit sin.’

  He really couldn’t concentrate this morning. ‘How so?’ he asked.

  ‘They don’t have the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong, so nothing they do can be considered sinful in the true sense of the word. They remain innocent.’

  Harry almost shook his head and stopped himself just in time. He was never drinking again. ‘That doesn’t mean they can’t do anything wrong, just that they don’t know they’re doing wrong,’ he said. ‘What if this Ebba person likes the look of little blonde girls, sees them as some sort of plaything, and it all… oh, hang on a minute, this is ringing bells.’

  ‘I’d say the last thing you need right now is bells ringing in your head.’ She was laughing at him.

  ‘What I need right now can’t be discussed in a house of God,’ he replied. She was right though, he could really do without a hangover today. ‘Innocent Christians,’ he said, as though trying out how the words sounded in his mouth. Then he had it. ‘Innocent Christian souls,’ he said. ‘We need the burial register.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Harry was already reaching into the cupboard where the register was kept.

  ‘Look,’ he said, when he’d found the right page. ‘Sophie Renshaw, died in 1908, aged eighteen, described as An Innocent Christian soul.’

  ‘There’s another one,’ said Evi. ‘Charles Perkins, died in 1932, aged fifteen. How many are there?’

  He counted quickly. ‘Eight,’ he said. ‘Six girls, two boys, all under twenty-five at the time of death.’

  ‘The condition’s more common in females,’ said Evi. ‘You think all these people could have been like Ebba?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised. I even remember that old bugger boasting about it. “Ninety-five per cent of the food I’ve eaten my whole life comes from this moor,” that’s what he said to me. I’ll bet the soil up here’s – what did you call it?’

  ‘Iodine deficient. We really need to find her, Harry.’

  65

  THE COACH STOPPED AND FIFTY EXCITED CHILDREN LEAPED to their feet. Through the steamed-up windows Tom could see the huge banner and posters outside King George’s Hall and the massive lights of Blackburn’s Christmas decorations. The Snow Queen, bit of a girly pantomime but who cared? It was an afternoon off school, and then tomorrow – the Christmas holidays.

  Tom felt himself being pushed towards the front. ‘Climb down carefully,’ Mr Deacon, the headmaster, was saying. ‘I do not want to spend my afternoon in Accident and Emergency.’

  Grinning to himself, Tom stepped down to the pavement. A second coach had pulled up on Blakeymoor Street and the Key Stage One children were climbing down. Most of them had never been on a school trip before and they gazed around, mesmerized by the Christmas lights. As Tom watched, Joe jumped out, making light work of a step that was half the size he was. He caught Tom’s eye and waved.

  Following the line, unable to keep from jumping up and down as he went, Tom made his way into King George’s Hall.

  66

  ‘DO YOU THINK WHERE IT HAPPENS IS IMPORTANT?’ ASKED Evi, as Harry walked her back through the church. ‘That of all the high places in the world small children can be thrown off, it has to be this one?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ he replied. ‘This is the killing ground.’

  Evi allowed her eyes to travel upwards, to the gallery that was almost directly above them. ‘That’s revolting,’ she said.

  Harry looked up too. ‘There’s something wrong in this church, Evi. I think I knew the first time I set foot in it.’

  He felt her fingers brushing softly against his hand.

  ‘Buildings absorb something of what goes on in them,’ he continued. ‘I wouldn’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I’m sure of it. Normally, churches feel like peaceful, safe places because they’ve taken on decades, sometimes centuries of hope, prayer, goodwill.’

  ‘Not this one?’ Her fingers were closing around his hand.

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘This one just feels like pain.’

  For a second they didn’t move. Then, just as he knew she was going to, Evi turned and reached up to him. It was just a hug, he knew that, a moment of comfort, but it was impossible to be this close to her and not bend his head down to the skin at the side of her neck, to find that freckle, to press his face against her hair and breathe in deeply. Then she moved in his arms, pulled back her head, and it was completely out of the question that he not kiss her.

  Moments passed and the only thing he could think of was that the world couldn’t be too bad after all because Evi was in it; and would he be damned for all eternity if he picked her up, laid her gently down on the pew beside them and made love to her for the rest of the afternoon?

  Then Evi made a gasping sound that had nothing to do with passion. She’d stiffened in his arms, had pulled away from him, was staring over his left shoulder. Cold air on the back of his neck told him the front door of the church was open. He stepped back and turned.

  Gillian stood in the open doorway. For a second Harry thought she was going to faint. Then it looked as though she might hurl herself at them in rage. She did neither. She simply turned and ran.

  67

  M ILLIE WAS IN THE DOORWAY, WATCHING SOME CHICKENS strut up and down in the lane. Across the drive, her mother was unloading shopping from the car. She straightened up and headed for the door.

  ‘Will you go back inside?’ she said to the toddler, bending down towards her. ‘It’s freezing.’ She squeezed past the child and disappeared. A moment later her hands caught hold of Millie round the waist. ‘I mean it,’ she said, as she lifted her daughter up and took her out of sight. ‘You’ll fall down those steps.’

  For a moment the doorway was empty and then the mother appeared again. She crossed quickly to her car and found the last of the bags. As she straightened up and pressed the button on the thing in her hand that would lock the car, the child appeared in the doorway again. She stole a brief, sly look at her mother before turning to the chickens that had wandered into their garden. Then she climbed down the steps to the drive.

  The car hadn’t locked itself. The mother pressed the button twice, three times and then gave up, using the key to lock the car instead, just as Millie s
et off across the lawn. The mother crossed the drive and went inside. The front door closed. Silence.

  Nothing to see, nothing to hear for a minute, maybe two. Then the front door was pulled open and the woman, her face white and her hands clutching her upper arms, appeared in the doorway. ‘Millie!’ she called, as though afraid to shout too loudly. ‘Millie!’ she called again, a bit louder this time. ‘Millie!’

  68

  ‘WHERE DID YOU FIND THESE?’ ASKED HARRY.

  ‘Environment Agency archives,’ said Gareth Fletcher. ‘Watch those crisps, I’ll get throttled if I get grease on them.’

  Harry put his crisp packet down and leaned over the maps. ‘Catchment maps,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of them.’

  Gareth lifted his pint and drank. A week before Christmas, the White Lion in the middle of Heptonclough was busy and even at nearly five o’clock in the afternoon the two men had been lucky to get a table. Harry almost wished they hadn’t, that he and Gareth Fletcher had been forced to reschedule the chat they’d had planned for days. He’d wanted to help Evi find and talk to Gillian. That was not something she should have to face on her own.

  ‘No reason why you would,’ said Gareth. ‘The water authorities produce them. They show the countryside from the point of view of the water resources.’

  ‘And that means what, exactly?’ asked Harry. Across the room, a party of office workers were in high spirits. Several wore paper hats. When they stood up, most seemed unsteady on their feet.

  Evi had refused to let him go with her. Gillian was her patient, she’d said, her responsibility.

  ‘Most maps are about roads, towns and cities, right?’ said Gareth.

  ‘Right,’ agreed Harry.

  ‘This one is about rivers. See, this is the river Rindle. Starts as a spring way up in the hills and gradually makes its way down to where it joins the Tane. All these other streams and rivers are its tributaries.’ Gareth leaned across the map, pointing out faint, wiggling lines with his finger. ‘They all feed into it and it gradually gets bigger and bigger. The area they all cover is called the catchment.’

  ‘OK, got that,’ said Harry, who’d been watching a dark-haired girl with a purple paper hat who reminded him of… how soon could he phone her? Was she with Gillian right now? ‘And the water authorities need these because…’ he prompted, forcing himself to concentrate.

  ‘If a stream dries up, if it gets polluted, if there’s a fish kill, or a flood threatening, the authorities need to know where it is and what other water-courses it’s going to impact upon.’

  ‘OK.’ I could be struck off for this, Harry, she’d said to him, as they’d argued at the church gate. You have no idea how serious it is.

  ‘The modern maps are easier to read, all the different catchments are coloured differently,’ Gareth was saying. ‘This one must be eighty years old. It does, though, have something the more modern ones don’t. This one shows the underground streams. Even some of the deeper aquifers. It dates back to the days when people dug their own wells and needed to know where they might strike lucky.’

  ‘Still following,’ said Harry. She trusted me, and I’ve let her down in the worst possible way.

  ‘Now, you can see how a fairly sizeable subterranean stream starts right up here, just below Morrell Tor, and winds its way down through the village, feeding quite a few wells as it goes, probably all abandoned and covered over by now, and eventually goes under the church.’

  ‘We saw it that day we went exploring. The monks had turned it into a sort of drinking fountain.’

  ‘Exactly. Now, as we know, it disappears into a grate, running under the cellar, and – this is the important bit, are you concentrating?’

  ‘Oh, I’m riveted.’ If anything happens to her it’ll be my fault.

  ‘Just after it leaves the church foundations, it forks in two. The main stream continues down, through the graveyard, under the Renshaws’ garden and then on down the moor. The other part heads west and follows the line of the church wall.’

  ‘Seriously weakening it?’

  ‘In my view, yes. If you ask me, there’s not a lot of point rebuilding that wall until you can divert that offshoot of the stream.’

  ‘If we block it off, will the water continue down the hill with the rest?’

  ‘Probably, although I’d need to check it out with my friends in water resources. Do you want me to do that before you speak to God about releasing the funds?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. What’s this?’ In an attempt to take his mind off what might be happening with Gillian and Evi, Harry had been trying to spot places he knew around the town on the map. He’d found Wite Lane, had followed the track he sometimes ran along up the hill. He was pointing at a double circle within a rectangle.

  ‘Looks like a bore hole, an old drinking well,’ said Gareth. ‘Although why there’d be one way up there I have no idea.’

  ‘It’s just below the Tor, isn’t it? Wasn’t there an old mill up there?’

  ‘That’s right. I’ll bet this is inside that hut. The one the kids call Red Riding Hood’s cottage.’

  Harry nodded. He knew the one. ‘Belongs to the Renshaws,’ he said. ‘DCS Rushton was telling me how they searched it when they were looking for Megan Connor. I don’t think he mentioned a bore hole.’

  ‘If it’s been covered over and forgotten about, he might not have known it was there,’ said Gareth, finishing his pint. ‘There are wells and bore holes all over the place that nobody knows about. Another one?’

  ‘I think I’m still drunk from last night,’ said Harry. ‘One more won’t make much difference.’

  Gareth grinned. As he stood up both men heard the tinny notes of the Bob the Builder tune. ‘Mine,’ said Gareth, pulling his mobile from his pocket.

  Gareth continued walking as he held the phone to his ear. He made it as far as the bar then turned on the spot, shot a quick look at Harry and left the pub, pushing aside two boys who looked barely old enough to drink.

  For a second Harry didn’t move. Then he got to his feet. It would be a problem at Gareth’s work, he told himself, nothing important. The noise in the pub seemed to have increased. Over at the office-party table girls were squealing, and blowing on the paper trumpets that came out of crackers.

  He took a step towards the door.

  Millie would be fine. She’d been shopping with her mother that morning, the last big shop before Christmas, nothing could happen at the supermarket. A waitress was walking from one diner to the next. ‘Sherry trifle?’ she was saying. ‘Who ordered the sherry trifle?’ Even the till at the bar seemed unnaturally shrill.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Vicar,’ people called after him as he made his way through the crowd. He ignored them. Millie would be fine. She was never allowed out of her mother’s sight these days. Someone dropped a glass just behind him, he might even have knocked it over himself. It shattered on the tiled floor.

  He pushed at the door; the cold evening air hit him and so did the silence. He took a deep breath and looked around. It was completely dark. Gareth was fifteen yards further up the hill, about to get into his truck, and for a moment Harry just wanted to let him go. He didn’t want him to turn round; he didn’t want to see that look on anyone’s face again as long as he lived.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted, because for the life of him he’d forgotten what the other man was called.

  Gareth turned back. There it was again, that look: sheer terror. He opened his mouth and Harry could just about make out what Gareth was croaking at him. Not Millie then, Millie was OK after all.

  Joe was the one who’d gone missing.

  69

  ‘OK, THEN, THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW.’ DETECTIVE CHIEF Superintendent Rushton stopped and cleared his throat. He had to look at the top of Alice’s head, her eyes were staring down at a stray cornflake on the kitchen table.

  ‘Joe was definitely still in King George’s at the interval,’ continued Rushton, ‘which took place from three fifteen to thre
e forty-five. The front-of-house manager was quite definite about timings. Joe was bought an ice cream and more than one little lad remembers seeing him in the toilet queue. What we can’t be certain of is whether he was still in the theatre for the second half.’

  ‘Who the hell was sitting next to him?’ said Gareth. He hadn’t stopped moving since he and Harry had walked through the door. He paced the floor, he rocked back and forth on his heels, he wandered from room to room, shouting his thoughts out to whoever might be listening. Alice, in sharp contrast, had barely moved in three hours. Her face seemed to be getting paler and smaller by the minute.

  Harry looked at his watch – almost eight o’clock. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen. No messages.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ said DI Neasden. ‘The kids didn’t have allocated seats, they all swapped round at the interval. One or two of the little ones got scared of the baddie up on stage and went to sit next to the teachers. The theatre wasn’t completely full, so there were empty seats. No one we’ve spoken to can definitely remember seeing Joe during the second half. We’ve checked with the event stewards; there were three of them on duty and none of them remember seeing a young lad wandering round by himself.’

  ‘The school didn’t know for certain he was missing until they got all the kids back on the coaches and did a head count,’ said Rushton. ‘This was at ten to five. The staff went back into the theatre to search, and gave up after another thirty minutes. We were notified at twenty-five past five.’

  ‘He could have been gone two hours by then,’ said Gareth, pushing his way past DI Neasden to get to the sink. He ran himself a glass of water, raised it to his lips and put it down again. He turned as the kitchen door opened and Tom came in. The boy stood in the doorway, looking from one adult to the next. No one seemed to know what to say to him. Then Jenny Pickup appeared behind him, paler and more dishevelled than usual, with Millie in her arms.