Matt thought he was right about the flatness and the paths, but not about the hard bit. Matt thought the hard bit was still to come.

Now, as Matt walked along a narrow footpath through an endless field of heather, watching Tramper shuffle along in front of him (he had Mr Stevens’ walking pole to support his weight), he thought about Tom and Gary.

Gary, who’d been missing for almost a whole day now, and Tom, who’d gone off to get some water and seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. They weren’t playing a joke, and surely – at least in Tom’s case – they hadn’t just wandered off. So where were they? The whole thing felt wrong. One person getting lost on the moor wasn’t impossible – Matt knew it had happened before, probably on a number of occasions – but two in the space of half a day? It didn’t make sense.

His eyes drifted up from the back of Tramper’s sweat- and drizzle-soaked head to the cloudy sky above them. The day had started off okay, but big white clouds had filled the sky in the early afternoon, and now those clouds were stone grey in colour. And on the horizon, above the line of tors in the distance, were the storm clouds.

They were large and black, and the sky below them was smeared down to the earth in wet streaks of rain. Real rain, not like the drizzle that had been falling for the last few hours.

Matt glanced over his shoulder and saw Mr Stevens walking with his son. Tim’s face was blank as he listened to his dad, who was stooping down to talk to him in a low whisper.

Mr Stevens suddenly glanced up and saw Matt looking at them. He raised his hand at Matt through the drizzle, and Matt turned away again.

He looked at his watch and saw that it was 19:30. That meant there were only two hours of light left in the day.

2

They were still three miles from Creek Lane when Mr Stevens finally admitted defeat.

They’d taken shelter beneath a large copse of trees just off from the footpath they’d been following, and by that point James was no longer making any effort to hide his tears. Matt had to practically carry him from the footpath to the trees, dragging him over the heather through the pouring rain as he sobbed and gripped Matt tightly around the shoulders.

When they reached shelter he’d tottered over to a large oak and crumpled to the floor, resting his back against the trunk with his head in his hands. Matt looked at his friend’s shaking body and gritted his teeth.

When Mr Stevens and Tim joined them a few moments later, Matt marched over to them and pulled out his map.