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.

I climbed up and over the crumbling wall, slipping over the top, and down into long weeds, fighting the urge to laugh, as I so often had during my childhood games with Peter, in the face of all the terrors—vampire bats, marsh monsters, enemy agents—we had conjured. Of course, this was real, but then my games with Peter had always felt real. The laughter was a fountain, coming from somewhere deep, and for a moment I gave into it, with my back against a crooked headstone, one hand over my mouth. Through my clothes, I felt the scratch of lichen, the chisel cuts upon the stone. Everything would be absurd to those safe within the ground. Then the laughing fit abated, like a bell that had ceased to chime, and I crept forward, over the dead, avoiding the path, until I reached the darker shadows of the yew trees on the east side of the church.

Not a soul about! When I was sure, I checked my phone, hiding the screen under my jumper and peering down the neck hole to obscure the light. It was time. The vestry door was unlocked and I pushed it open a crack and made my way in. To the left were the choir stalls and the altar, to the right the aisle and pews, leading to the font. At the pulpit I waited, inhaling the familiar smells, enveloped by a hush accumulated over a thousand years. A pew creaked.

“That you, Peter?” I tiptoed forward, ready to flee if I was wrong.

“Here.” He spoke barely above a whisper. I moved closer, but it was so dark I couldn’t make him out, could only shuffle forward with my arms outstretched, until a hand caught my wrist. Peter drew me down until I was sitting beside him on the hard pew, knees pressed against the tapestry cushion hanging from the back of the row in front. I put out my hand and found Peter’s cheek, giddy with relief, with victory.