Ben panicked. Shutting himself in the vestry, his first thought was to find somewhere to hide. But there was nowhere in the narrow chamber where he wouldn’t be spotted within seconds. What he needed was a weapon. Something to swing, or hurl, or stab with. He began to search – quietly at first, but with increasing desperation. It sounded like a single set of footsteps, meaning either Lance and Melissa had split up, or Callum had guessed where Ben might be. Maybe he’d been following Ben the entire way, biding his time until Ben was cornered …

There was a sideboard behind him, but the first drawer he opened contained nothing but candles. Another was stuffed with notebooks and sheets of paper, the next with linen for the altar. Ben began to pull it all out on to the floor, frantically searching for something, anything, that might help him. But there was nothing, just useless bits of old …

A stack of papers had spilled from one of the drawers, and when Ben happened to look down, his entire body seized up in horror.

The photographs. The pictures of him. Somehow they were scattered around his feet. But that was impossible! Callum had given them back to him. Ben could feel them in his pocket. Meaning … meaning …

Meaning they’d made copies. Ben almost groaned at his own stupidity. Of course they would have made copies. And after Ben had failed to hide the first set in Father Steiner’s room, one of the others had put another set in the next best place. Probably at the same time as they’d taken one of Father Steiner’s stoles.

Ben let his hands drop to his sides, and slowly he backed away from the sideboard. He had nothing to fight with, nowhere to hide. Callum had thought of everything.

Unless …

The footsteps had stopped.

The door into the vestry was swinging open.

Ben was trapped, precisely as Callum wanted him to be – but there was one other place he could go.

Without stopping to think, he charged shoulder first at the door. He clattered into it with all his might, and heard Callum cry out as the door impacted against him. Ben didn’t pause to check how badly he was hurt. He just hurdled Callum’s legs where he had fallen, sprinting back towards the door that would take him outside and to the graveyard.

He should have gone there from the off. He’d wanted a hiding place, and he had one. Once he was down in the crypt, he would be safe. Nobody would ever find him there!