She turned out the little lamp by her bed, lay down and shut her eyes. Sleep came fast. She was lying still, breathing deeply, when all of a sudden she opened her eyes. The room was still dark. What had woken her? It was a pity she had not slept through till the morning.

Then she heard something, a rustle, and looked towards the noise. There was a figure standing at the end of the bed, just like in her nightmare. The sleeping draught obviously did not agree with her, she was having bad dreams again. She shut her eyes and turned onto her side. Then she half-opened one eye and looked towards the door. Once more it was ajar, she saw the gleam of the handle in the dark. She sat up, felt for the lamp, struck a match and lit it. She turned towards the end of the bed and gasped. Standing there, in a dark coat and with a top hat by his side, was Robert.

CHAPTER 40

Chapter 40

2015

‘So you last saw him under the lamppost, then you three went up the slope towards home and presumed he was following?’

The boys nodded in unison.

‘And there’s no way he’d have gone down to the funfair on Riverside Drive by himself?’

‘Mum and you both told us a million times we weren’t allowed. He wouldn’t have,’ Jack said.

The three boys, Fiona and Chris strode down the sloping grass towards the lamppost, their torches flashing. When they got there they stopped and looked around. It was deserted, as if the wind had blown everyone away.

‘Why on earth did you come here?’ asked Fiona.

‘None of the other lampposts are working so it was the only place we could see properly. We emptied our swag bags out onto the grass to divide up the money and we were eating those funny chews that lady at number ten gave us and no one could speak, remember?’ said Tom, the tall cousin.

‘Yeah, then we went back up the slope. We thought he was behind us but he must’ve been picking up the sweeties and putting them back in the bag.’ Andrew, the shorter cousin, looked at the other boys. ‘Remember we ran up the slope, to see who could get to the top first, thought he was with us.’

‘But obviously he wasn’t.’ Fiona spoke through clenched teeth. She sighed and looked south towards the river and the bright lights of the funfair.

‘Jack, did you and Jamie talk about going to the funfair at all?’

Jack shook his head and screwed up his eyes.

Fiona knelt down so she was face to face with him. ‘Are you sure? Listen, we’re not going to be angry with anyone, are we, Chris?’ She glanced up at Jack’s dad. ‘But we just need to find him.’

Jack shook his head and she could see tears in his eyes. ‘No, we didn’t.’