Chances were, Charlotte was a distant fourth in their thoughts, and Ellie hated that. Even now, Dave’s rich dad was getting him special treatment. “We don’t know what’s happened to Joda and Barbara Famuyiwa,” she said, “or Grant and Sally Beck. Charlotte’s probably scared to death and we haven’t even a family to get her back to. And I don’t have to tell you that any girl shut up with Paul Harper’s in big trouble.”

That silenced the murmuring and pulled everyone’s attention away from Ron, no doubt to his relief. Ellie saw a few faces set hard; at least three people there had loved ones who’d suffered at Paul Harper’s hands, including little Tara Caddick’s mother Laura. Ellie had hesitated to include Laura Caddick, but she wasn’t really in a position to pick and choose.

“What is it you need, Ellie?” asked Bert.

“We can’t contact Matlock and the roads are impassable. We don’t know when that’ll change, and I’m not prepared to risk Charlotte or David’s safety by waiting. So we’re looking for volunteers to accompany us to Barrowman Farm to determine whether they’re there and, if so, get the Harpers to release them.”

“Armed,” said Bert. It wasn’t a question.

“Any luck, we won’t need them,” said Ellie. “Liz Harper’s not thick. If we can get her to let them go, and no more said –”

“No more said?” cried Ron Chapple. “They’ve kidnapped my lad!”

“Right now we’re short-handed, Ron,” said Ellie. “Priority’s getting him and Charlotte out of there in one piece.”

“This is how the Harpers get away with everything, every bloody time,” muttered Ernie Stasiolek.

“They won’t get away with this,” vowed Chapple.

“Oh yeah,” said Chris Brailsford, aka Son of Plant-Pot. “Now Money-Bags Chapple’s got the hump, we might finally get shot of them. Us bloody peasants just had to lump it, didn’t we?”

His father, embarrassed, elbowed him in the ribs, but there was a widespread mutter of agreement.

“No-one’s lumping anything,” said Ellie. “As soon as the snow clears I’ll get onto Matlock and call in the heavy mob. They’re all involved, the lot of them, and this is our chance to throw the book at the sods.”

Although she wished she was more confident about that: Liz might let Paul take all the blame, say it’d all been his doing and they’d have called the police themselves if the phones had been working. It was an old Harper tactic – one of the clan took the fall for the rest, leaving them free to intimidate the witnesses and so on. Still, a raid might turn up other incriminating stuff.

Enough.