The man leaned on the long counter. ‘I came here believing you might help me, and all you’ve done is ask a lot of damn fool questions,’ he said in an aggrieved voice. ‘I’m telling you, someone’s kidnapped two children, and I bloody well know who did it.’

The large police constable behind the counter pulled a form towards him and picked up a pencil. ‘Who?’ he enquired stolidly.

‘Huxtable,’ the man said impatiently, and began to spell it.

‘Address?’

‘Solomon Court, off the Scottie,’ the man said viciously. He snorted and smote the counter with a large fist. ‘What the devil does the address matter? They aren’t there now, because, as I’ve been trying to tell you, they’ve been bloody well kidnapped.’

The police constable leaned back and folded his arms, which seemed to infuriate the man on the other side of the counter still further. But Constable Jones was not the man to frighten easily. ‘Proof?’ he asked, and seeing the man’s eyes flame added stolidly: ‘We’ve only got your word for it, sir. So before we discuss whoever kidnapped these children, if anyone did, I’d like to have a few details . . .’

Across the counter the man’s dark eyes bulged, but then he turned away. ‘Thanks for nothing,’ he said bitterly. ‘I thought I’d get help, but all I’ve had is obstruction, so I’ll continue with my own search. There’s a reward in it for anyone who finds them before I do, but you needn’t bother to apply.’

The constable got ponderously to his feet, but before he could even come out from behind the counter the man was opening the door and letting in the wind and the rain. The constable blinked as the wind picked up the papers lying on the counter and swirled them into the air. ‘Just you come back here, sir . . . I want a word with you,’ he began, even as the door slammed. Hastily he crossed the room and opened the door, peering out, but the man had disappeared.

Chapter 8

IT HAD STOPPED snowing. Ever since Glenys had taken on the job of supply teacher it had snowed on and off, but Mrs Hughes’s rules, it seemed, were indifferent to the weather. Once the clock in the kitchen over the mantel announced that it was nine o’clock a grim-faced Mrs Hughes ejected Jimmy without so much as glancing at feathery flakes that might be falling from a dark grey sky. After the first day Miss Trent had insisted upon making him a packed lunch from bread, cheese and apples bought in the small town, and with this he had to be content. Jimmy could tell from the hard look in their landlady’s eyes that guests were not welcome to make packed lunches, but when she had grumbled that she did not want people working in her kitchen when she was preparing breakfast, Glenys just shot her a glance in which amusement and displeasure were nicely mingled. ‘Rules is rules, Mrs Hughes,’ Glenys had said, imitating their landlady’s tone. ‘Young Jimmy here leaves the house when we do and comes back when we do as well. I must remind you that, had your rules been less inflexible, we would have paid for evening meals here. However, since school finishes at three thirty and we are not welcome in your house until after six o’clock, we have had no alternative but to eat in Cath Jones’s kitchen.’