Too right, I thought.

Darren’s room was large and bright with an en suite. He was sitting in the armchair and as I came in, he looked up.

“Andy,” he said, and my heart flooded to the brim with love.

“Yes, Darren?”

“You figured out that program yet?”

“I did.”

“That’s my girl.”

I picked up the remote control and flipped through the channels. There wasn’t much on but I found some golf in the end, one of the opens. I sat with him and we watched it together for a bit. I could hear the trolley coming down the hall.

There was a notebook on the side. A pen lay next to it. I picked it up and flipped through. Each page was divided into three columns, one for the time and date, the second for the visitor’s name, and the third for a message. It went back over a year. Marcus came Saturday mornings. His messages were to the point. Me and Darren went to the game. Went to mum’s for lunch. There were other visitors too—Marcus’s mother, whose lengthy entries in rounded hand screamed guilt; Brian, one of the site managers; a couple of names I didn’t recognize.

The last entry had today’s date. Mr. & Mrs. Wilde. Took Darren to a historic point of interest. Not a soul about. The time, 12, was underlined.

I knew the handwriting as well as I knew my own. It was a message from Peter.

Mr. & Mrs. Wilde. That was us, of course. And a historic point of interest was Saint Helen’s. That was how the vicar had always described it. At the heart of community, and a historic point of interest …

Twelve. It was past twelve now. But there were two twelve o’clocks in a day, and I thought I knew which one Peter was referring to.

CHAPTER 20

CHURCH

Not a soul about! Not a soul about!

At half past eleven, I crept out of the Castle & Ball and made my way down to the river. On the footbridge I stopped, listening to the Kennet, but heard nothing but the running water, the willows stirring, and distant traffic on the market square. A footpath led through a kissing gate into a field, and from there to a muddy paddock that bordered the far end of the graveyard. I hid for a while in a hedge, trying to keep my feet in and my breathing quiet. In the dark, I could hear horses cropping the grass, but the moon, sidling over three stunted oaks, was the only watcher.