The investigation continued. By the end of March the weather had warmed and the parents were still at the Hunter place. There was no news. Jane Hughes went up to see them again one morning, and on her way past the Jackson place she saw Jackson and the boys out front of the lambing shed. They wore the looks of men whove been working hard but see no need to admit it. They had mugs of tea and cigarettes. The smell of breakfast being cooked came from inside the house. It was only when they saw the first children on their way to school that Will Jackson remembered he was due at his sons mothers house, to fetch the boy for school. The van wouldnt start so he took the quad bike, and he knew before he got there that the boys mother wouldnt be happy about this; that it would be one more thing for her to hold against him. When they got back to the school the gates were locked and Will had to call Jones out of the boilerhouse to let them in. He took the boy down to his class. Miss Carter accepted his apologies, and settled the boy down, and asked Will if he might think about the class coming to visit at lambing time. He told her theyd started lambing already and she looked surprised. She asked if there werent more to come and he said if she wanted to arrange a school trip shed have to put something to his father in writing. It was the most shed heard him say in weeks. When he got back to the yard his brothers were all inside the shed. Theyd lost a ewe while hed been gone. There was a meeting of the parish council. Brian Fletcher had trouble keeping people to the agenda, and eventually had to concede that it was difficult to pay mind to parking issues at a time like this. The meeting was adjourned. The police held a press conference in the function room at the Gladstone, and announced that they wanted to trace the driver of a red LDV Pilot van. The journalists asked if the driver was considered a suspect, and the detective in charge said they were keeping an open mind. The girls parents sat beside the detective and said nothing. In the afternoon the wind was high and the clouds blew quickly east. A blackbird dipped across Mr Wilsons garden with a beakful of dead grass for a nest. There were springtails under the beech trees behind the Close, feeding on fragments of fallen leaves. At night from the hill the lights could be seen along the motorway, the red and the white flowing past one another and the clouds blowing through overhead. The missing girl had been looked for. She had been looked for all over. She had been looked for in the nettles growing up around the dead oak tree in Thompsons yard. Paving slabs and sheets of ply had been lifted before people moved away through the gates. She had been looked for at the Hunter place, around the back of the barn conversions and in the carports and woodsheds and workshops, in the woodland and in the greenhouses and the walled gardens. She had been looked for at the cement works, the huge buildings moved through with unease, people nosing vaguely behind pallets and forklifts and through the staffroom and canteen, their hands and faces slick with white dust when they ghosted on down the road. At night there were dreams about where she might have gone. Dreams about her walking down from the moor, her clothes soaked and her skin almost blue. Dreams about being the first to reach her with a blanket and bring her safely home.
By April when the first swallows were seen the walkers were back on the hills. At the car park as they hoisted their packs they could be heard speculating about the girl. Which way she might have headed, how far she might have gone. North and shed have been over the motorway by nightfall. East and the reservoirs would have been in her way. West and shed have come to the edges, where the heather and soil frayed out into air and the gritstone rolled away from the hill. The weather shed have been walking through. And in those shoes. There were so many places to fall. How was it she hadnt been found, still, as the days got longer and the sun cut further into the valley and under the ash trees the first new ferns unfurled from the cold black soil. In the evenings the same pictures were shown on the news: an aerial shot of the search party strung across the moor; the divers moving through the water; the girls parents being driven away; the photograph of the girl. In the photograph she matched the description of what shed been wearing and her face was half-turned away. It made it look as though she wanted to be somewhere else, people said. The girls mother was again visited by detectives. Sometimes there were new questions. At the school before the children arrived Miss Carter filled aluminium jugs from the dinner hall with water and arranged in them cut branches of willow tight with buds. On the allotments the purple broccoli was sprouting, the heads snapping off cleanly and too sweet on the tongue to get a decent harvest home. Surveyors were seen up on the land around the Stone Sisters. There were rumours they worked for a quarrying firm. The annual Spring Dance was almost cancelled, but when Irene suggested holding it in aid of a missing-childrens charity it became difficult for anyone to object. Sally Fletcher offered to help organise it, once Irene had looked pointedly at her for long enough. The divers roped up again, slipping into the reservoir while the herons sloped away overhead. The trees came back into leaf. A soft rain blew in smoky clouds across the fields.
At the butchers for May Day weekend there was a queue but nothing like there once would have been. Nothing like the queue Martin and Ruth needed to keep the shop going. Martin had been keeping this to himself, although it was becoming obvious and nobody asked. Irene was at the front of the queue telling everyone what she knew about the situation at the Hunters. She did the cleaning there, and knew a thing or two. You can imagine what its like for the girls parents, she said. Having to watch us all down here just getting on with things. Ruth saying but surely the village couldnt be expected to put life on hold. Austin Cooper came in with copies of the Valley Echo newsletter and laid them on the counter. Ruth wished him congratulations, and he looked confused for a moment before smiling and backing away towards the door. Irene watched him go, and asked if Su Cooper was expecting. Ruth said yes, at last, and from the back of the queue Gordon Jackson asked would there be any chance of getting served before the baby was born. A breakdown truck came slowly down the narrow street, with a red LDV Pilot van hoisted on the back and a police car following. The van was wrapped in clear plastic. Martin wiped his hands on his apron and stepped outside to watch it pass. Gordon came out with him and lit a cigarette. Martin nodded. That changes things, he said. Fucking breakthrough is that, Gordon said. The swallows returned in number, and could be seen flying in and out through the open doors of the lambing shed at the Jacksons and the cowsheds over at Thompsons, and the outbuildings up on the Hunters land. The well-dressing committee had a difference of opinion about whether to dress the boards at all this year. Under the circumstances. Thered never been a year without a well dressing that anyone could remember. But thered never been a year like this. In the end it was agreed to make the dressing but to keep the event low-key. There were sightings of the girl. She was seen by Irene, first, on the footbridge by the tea rooms, walking across to the other side. Quite alone she was, Irene said. Her young face turned half away and she wouldnt look me in the eye. Gone before I got to her and I couldnt see which way she went. I knew it was her. The police were told, and they went searching but they found nothing. There were lots of young families in the area that day, a police spokesperson said. But I know it was her, Irene said again. There was rain and the river was high and the hawthorn by the lower meadows came out foaming white. The cow parsley was thick along the footpaths and the shade deepened under the trees. Stock was moved higher up the hills and the tea rooms by the millpond opened for the year. In the shed Thompsons men were working on the baler, making sure theyd be ready when the time came for the cut. The grass was high but the weather had been low for days. The rain on the roof was loud and steady. The reservoirs filled.
The van had been found behind storage buildings at Reservoir no. 7. The area had been searched in the days after the girl went missing, which meant the van had likely been placed there at a later date. Somebody may have seen that van being moved. Somebody may remember who was driving that van. Police were appealing for any witnesses to come forward, and were trying to trace the owner. The number-plates were false and the chassis number had been filed. The van had been removed from the scene and was subject to a thorough forensic examination. A creeping normality had begun to settle over these press conferences. The chairs were put out, the cameras set up in the usual place. There was a weariness to the proceedings. There was a volume to what was not being said. The room emptied and the chairs were stacked away. The floor was swept and the lights turned off and Tony went back to the bar. The wild fennel came up ferny bright in the shelter of the old quarry, and when Winnie went to pick some she found knotted condoms lying around yet again. It was the knotting that surprised her. A man in a charcoal-grey anorak with the hood up over his head was seen standing on the far side of Reservoir no. 8 for a long time, before turning and walking up into the trees. Martin Fowler went to the incident unit in the square, and told them what he knew about the driver of the red van. This was after a conversation with Tony. Martin had mentioned knowing the mans name was Woods, and Tony asked why he hadnt told the police already. Martin said this wasnt the type of bloke you wanted to be talking to the police about. Tony was persuasive. There were gaps in the story Martin told the police about Woods. The gaps were to do with scrap metal, poaching, and red diesel. Woods was known to be involved in these enterprises, and Martin had been drawn in on occasion. The police didnt want to know. They wanted to know where Woods was, and why the van had been hidden, and why the van had been seen at the time of the girls disappearance. Martin was reluctant but the information was obtained. Later in the pub he spoke tensely to Tony about repercussions. Woods is one of those as values discretion, he said. Mans connected. Just so you know what youve got me into here. Martin, come on now. She were thirteen. Think on. You dont know Woods though, Martin said. But if I did Id have gone to the police quicker than you did, Tony told him. They watched each other while Martin drained his glass and walked out. By the evening there was a photo-fit on the news. The police said they were keen to eliminate the man from their enquiries. At the cricket pavilion the teenagers gathered to drink. Sophie Hunter had a bottle of wine shed sneaked from her parents cellar that she said would be years before it was missed. They were a long time trying to open it, and in the end Liam used a screwdriver to force the cork down inside the bottle. They were talking about the girl again. James Broad said he wondered if they should say something after all. The others told him there was no point. Theyd discussed it before. It wouldnt make any difference, Lynsey said. Shes gone. It would only get the rest of us into all sorts of shit. You werent the one who was there, James said. It was just a mix-up, Deepak told him. You didnt do anything wrong. They sat on the pavilion steps and drank the wine, and they asked each other if it was working yet. None of them quite knew how they were supposed to feel. When the wine was finished theyd long stopped talking. Sophie hid the bottle underneath the pavilion steps and they all went home. There was an unexpected warmth in the air and they stumbled against each other more than once. Their voices were louder than they realised.
The girls parents were seen near the visitor centre, walking up the hill with a pair of detectives. From a distance their movements looked stiff and slow. They took a wide detour around the area where shed last been seen. The flags had been taken down and there was nothing to mark the spot. No one would know it, unless they knew. They followed the old bridleway which led past Black Bull Rocks towards the reservoirs. They were gone for most of the afternoon, and by the time they came back there were photographers waiting in the car park. It had been more than six months and still there was nothing. No footprints, no clothing, no persons of interest, no sightings on any CCTV. It was as though the ground had just opened up and swallowed her whole. Journalists used this phrase by way of metaphor or hyperbole; people in the village knew it as a thing that could happen. Questions were asked about how much longer the parents would stay. The Hunters had cancelled all the bookings in the barn conversions, but it wasnt known how long that could go on. Little was seen of them, and if the Hunters knew anything they werent passing it on. It was known that Reverend Hughes was visiting. More flowers and candles were left at the visitor centre, and the question of what to do with them was broached. It was understood that the girls father had been seen out, walking. It wasnt known what he was trying to achieve. Irene said he was taking it badly, and was asked what the hell other way shed imagined him taking it. Woods was found working security on a building site in Manchester. He was arrested and questioned at length. There was nothing to link him to the missing girl, and he had an alibi for the night in question. It hadnt been his van that was seen, as it turned out. He was released, and immediately rearrested on a number of other charges relating to theft and handling. In the hay meadow south of the church there were groups of wild pheasants moving through the grass, the mothers steering their young with nips and cries, whole groups scattering at the slightest noise. Cathy Harris walked around the edge of the meadow and crossed the river with Mr Wilsons dog. As she entered the woods she let the dog off the lead and squeezed between the gapstone stile. People wanted the girl to come back, so she could tell them where shed been. There were too many ways she could have disappeared, and they were thought about, often. She could have run down from the hill and a man could have stopped to offer her a lift, and taken her away, and buried her body in a dense thicket of trees beside a motorway junction a hundred miles to the north where she would still be lying now in the cold wet ground. There were dreams about her walking home. Walking beside the motorway, walking across the moor, walking up out of one of the reservoirs, rising from the dark grey water with her hair streaming and her clothes draped with long green weeds.
The last days of August were heavy with heat and anything that had to move moved slow. At the allotments the beds were bursting with beans and courgettes, the plants sprawling over the pathways. The bees stumbled fatly between the flowers and the slugs gorged. The first lambs were ready to sell and Jacksons boys were busy making selections and loading them into the trailer. At the cricket ground the annual game against Cardwell was lost. The girls mother came to the church from time to time. She arrived just before the service began, escorted by the vicar to a seat in the side aisle which was kept free for her, and left during the closing hymn. There was an arrangement. Jess Hunter sometimes waited for her in the car outside. People understood they were to leave her be. When it came to sharing the peace she shook hands briefly, with a smile that some said seemed defensive and others took as grateful. Late in the summer the teenagers held their own search party. It was Jamess idea. They could walk up over the moors, go as far as Reservoir no. 13, check all the places they knew about that the police wouldnt have thought of. If they found anything theyd be on the news. Liam said they could take some cans, make it a party. A search party. Lynsey said it was messed up making a joke about it. They headed out early, Liam and James and Deepak, Sophie and Lynsey, each telling their parents something different, meeting at the car park by the allotments and cutting up through the beech wood while the morning air was still cool. They had ideas about what had happened to Becky, based on what they knew about her, and what they thought themselves capable of in the same situation, and on what they knew of the landscape. Theyd seen her the previous summer, when the family had stayed at the Hunter place for a fortnight, and theyd spent more time with her than people seemed to know. It made them feel involved. By midday their pace had faltered in the heat and they stopped at a fork in the tracks. At the bottom of the hill there was a ruined barn where Jackson stored feed and equipment. They were thirsty and they shared the only two cans of lager theyd managed to get hold of. There were crickets in the heather and a beetle moving on Lynseys hand. The sheep pushed in and out of the barn, looking for shade. Did they search that place? Deepak asked. Obviously, Liam said. I searched it myself. I borrowed one of those thermal-imaging cameras; nothing. Deepak gave him the standard slap for bullshitting. They searched everywhere, said James; so what are we doing? No one answered. Lynsey and Sophie had their eyes closed already, and in the midday sun Sophies skin was starting to burn. There were butterflies feeding on the heather. An aeroplane went overhead. What time is it? asked Liam. About twelve, James said, his eyes closed, guessing. The heather sprang firmly beneath him. They were all lying closer to each other than they were used to. Someones stomach gurgled and no one acknowledged. There was a distant sound of traffic, and farm machinery. They slept. At some point James saw a man walking up the path towards them, poking at the heather with a stick, and as he came past he didnt seem to see the five of them lying there. He was wearing a charcoal-grey anorak. James stood up and the two of them nodded, and James meant to say he was sorry about the mans daughter but all that came out was sorry. The man nodded again and kept walking. Later James wondered if this had happened at all. It would have been too hot to wear an anorak. In the afternoon the five of them made it to the top of the hill overlooking Reservoir no. 8, and it turned out that Liam had brought vodka. They found a mine entrance they hadnt seen before and went in with torches, scratching a line in the mud behind them and putting the wind up each other. When she was very scared Lynsey grabbed on to Deepaks arm. By the time they came out again it was dark, and in their confusion they went down the wrong side of the hill. When they finally got home they were in more trouble than they thought possible. Their parents were furious and held them close, and there were police officers waiting to have words.