In the school house, on the road between Back Rigg and the Cadver, the lights were on too, and were reflected on the lake. The school had been built on high ground and was saved when the valley was flooded, but with the destruction of the village there were no children to use it, and it was closed and sold. The class rooms had been turned into a pottery and showrooms and the owners lived in the adjoining house where the old school master had stayed.

Bloody Grenvilles, Ursula thought again. The valley’s full of them.

She began to walk along the wall, shining her torch along the base of it, because by now it was too dark to see anything but the shape of the hills and the dull gleam of Crow Water. She was not sure, even, what she was looking for. From the direction of Appleworth she saw a vehicle’s headlights, reflected first in the lake then turning towards her where the road crossed the dam. She had a brief glimpse of the towers at each end of the dam, then everything went dark again as the vehicle stopped by Keeper’s Cottage on the edge of the Cadver Estate.

That would be the ambulance, she thought, bringing young Cassie Liddle from the special school in Appleworth where she stopped during the week to spend the weekend with her parents. It was late today. Marie would be waiting. From here on the hill she could see everything going on in the valley. She thought she knew them all, was aware of all their secrets.

She decided to give the search five more minutes then return to the house. Her feet and her hands were freezing. She was too old for this sort of nonsense. She should have checked all the farm buildings before coming out on to the hill. Belle and Lottie were probably back in the kitchen, waiting for her. She walked on, shining the torch ahead of her, and came to one of Vic Liddle’s gibbets. The sight shocked her and she stood for a moment, holding on to the wall, trying to recover her composure. She had never seen one on the hill before; usually Liddle strung up the birds and animals he killed on a wire near the wood where they reared the pheasants. She muttered to herself disapprovingly. Why did gamekeepers have to make such a show of the vermin they destroyed, stringing the crows and jays and stoats on to a gibbet until they rotted?