Authors: Reginald Hill
They asked us later what time Jenny left, but kids playing on a summer's day take no heed of time. And they asked if we'd seen anyone around, watching us or owt like that. No one had. I'd seen Benny Lightfoot up the fell a way, but I didn't mention him any more than I'd have mentioned a sheep. Benny were like a sheep, he belonged on the fell, and if you went near him he'd likely run off. So I didn't mention him, not till later, when they asked about him particular.
My friend Madge Telford said that Jenny had told her she was fed up of splashing around in the water all day like a lot of babbies and she were going to Wintle Wood to pick some flowers for her mam. But Madge thought she were really in a huff because she liked to be center of attention, and when Mary Wulfstan turned up we all made a fuss of her.
You couldn't help but like Mary. It weren't just that she were pretty, which she was, with her long blond hair and lovely smile. But she were no prettier than Jenny, or even Madge, whose hair was the fairest of them all, like the water in the mere when the sun's flat on it. But Mary were just so nice, you couldn't help liking her, even though we only saw her in the holidays and at weekends sometimes.
She were my cousin, sort of, and that helped, her mam belonging to the dale and not an off-comer, though they did only use Heck as a holiday house now. Mary's granddad had been my granddad's cousin, Arthur Allgood, who farmed Heck Farm, which stood, the house I mean, right at mere's edge just out of bottom end of the village. Mary's mam was Arthur's only child and I daresay were reckoned "only a girl" like me. But at least she could make herself useful to the farm by getting wed. Next best thing after a farmer son is a farmer son-in-law, if you own the farm, that is. Arthur Allgood owned Heck, but our side of the family were just tenants at Low Beulah, and while a son could inherit a tenancy, a daughter's got no rights.
Not that Mary's mam, Aunt Chloe (she weren't really my aunt, but that's what I called her), married a farmer. She married Mr. Wulfstan, who's got his own business, and they sold off most of the Heck land and buildings to Mr. Pontifex, but they kept the house for holidays.
Mr. Wulfstan were looked up to rather than liked in the dale. He weren't standoffish, my mam said, just hard to get to know. But when he had Heck done up to make it more comfortable, and got the cellar properly damp-proofed and had racks set up there to keep his fine wines, he gave as much work locally as he could, and people like Madge's dad, who ran the dale joinery business at Stang with his brother, said he were grand chap.
But I'm forgetting Jenny. Maybe she did go off in a huff because of Mary or maybe that was just Madge making it up, and she really did go off to pick some flowers for her mam. That's where they found the only trace of her, in Wintle Wood. Her blue sun top. She could have been carrying it and just dropped it. We took everything but our pants off when we played in the water in them hot days, and we were in no hurry to get dressed again till we got scolded. We ran around the village like little pagans, my mam said.
But that all stopped once police were called in. It was questions, questions, then and we all got frightened and excited, but mebbe more excited to start with. When sun's shining and everything looks the same as it always did, it's hard for kids to stay frightened for long. Also, Jenny were known for a headstrong girl and she'd run off before to her gran's at Danby after falling out with her mam. So mebbe it would turn out she'd run off again. And even when days passed and there were no word of her, most folk thought she could have gone up the Neb and fallen down one of the holes or something. The police had dogs out, sniffing at the sun top, but they never found a trail that led anywhere. That didn't stop Mr. Hardcastle going out every day with his collies, yelling and calling. They had two other kids, Jed and June, both older, but the way he went on, you'd have thought he'd lost everything in the world. My dad said he never were much of a farmer, but now he just didn't bother with Hobholme-that's their farm, but as he were one of Mr. Pontifex's tenants, like Dad, and the place would soon be drowned, I don't suppose it mattered.
As for Mrs. Hardcastle, you'd meet her wandering around Wintle Wood, picking great armfuls of flopdocken, which was said to be a good plant for bringing lost children back. She had them all over Hobholme and when it were her turn to take care of flowers in the church, she filled that with flopdocken, too, which didn't please the vicar, who said it was pagan, but he left them there till it were someone else's turn the following week.
The rest of the dale folk soon settled back to where they were before. Not that folk didn't care, but for us kids with the weather so fine, it were hard for grief to stretch beyond a few days, and the grown-ups were all much busier than we ever knew with making arrangements for the big move out.
It were only a matter of weeks away, but that seemed a lifetime to me. I'd picked things up, more than I realized, and a lot more than I really understood. And the older girls like Elsie Coe were always happy to show off how much they knew. She it was who told me that there were big arguments going on about compensation, but it didn't affect me 'cos my dad were only a tenant, and Mr. Pontifex had sold Low Beulah and Hobholme along with all the rest of his land in Dendale and up on High Cross Moor long since. Some of the others who owned their own places were fighting hard against the Water Board. Bloody fools, my dad called them. He said once Mr. Pontifex sold, there were no hope for the rest and they might as well go along with the miserable old sod. Mam told him not to talk like that about Mr. Pontifex, especially as he'd been promised the first vacant farm on the Danby side of the Pontifex estate, and she'd heard that Stirps End were likely to be available soon. And Dad said he'd believe it when it happened, the old bugger had sold us out once, what was to stop him doing it again?
He talked really wild sometimes, my dad, especially when he'd been down at the Holly Bush. And Mam would either cry or go really quiet, I mean quiet so you could have burst a balloon against her ear and she'd not have heard. But at least when she were like this I could run around all day in my pants or in nothing at all and she'd not have bothered. Or Dad either.
Then Madge, my best friend, got taken. And suddenly things looked very different.
I'd gone round to play with her. Mam took me. She were having one of her good days and even though most folk reckoned that Jenny had just fallen into one of the holes in the Neb, our mams were still a bit careful about letting us wander too far on our own.
The Stang, where Mr. Telford had his joiner's shop, were right at the edge of the village. Even though it were a red-hot day, smoke was pouring from the workshop chimney as usual, though I didn't see anyone in there working. We went up the house and Mrs. Telford said to my mam, "You'll come in and have a cup of tea, Lizzie? Betsy, Madge is down the garden, looking for strawberries, but I reckon the slugs have finished them off."
I went out through the dairy into the long, narrow garden running up to the fellside. I thought I saw someone up there but only for a moment, and it probably weren't anyone but Benny Lightfoot. I couldn't see Madge in the garden but there were some big currant bushes halfway down, and I reckoned she must be behind them. I called her name, then walked down past the bushes.
She wasn't there. On the grass by the beds was one strawberry with a bite out of it. Nothing else.
I felt to blame somehow, as if she would have been there if I hadn't gone out to look for her. I didn't go straight back in and tell Mam and Mrs. Telford. I sat down on the grass and pretended I was waiting for her coming back, even though I knew she never was. I don't know how I knew it, but I did. And she didn't.
Mebbe if I'd run straight back in, they'd have rushed out and caught up with him. Probably not, and no use crying. There was a him now, no one had any doubt of that.
Now there were policemen everywhere and all the time. We had our own bobby living in the village. His name was Clark and everyone called him Nobby the Bobby. He was a big, fierce-looking man and we all thought he was really important till we saw the way the new lot tret him, specially this great glorrfat one who were in charge of them without uniforms.
They set up shop in the village hall. Mr. Wulfstan made a right fuss when he found out. Some folk said he had the wrong of it, seeing what had happened; others said he were quite right, we all wanted this lunatic caught, but that didn't mean letting the police walk all over us.
The reason Mr. Wulfstan made a fuss was because of the concert. His firm sponsored the Mid-Yorkshire Dales Summer Music Festival, and he were head of the committee. The festival's centered on Danby. I think that's how he met Aunt Chloe. She liked that sort of music and used to go over to Danby a lot. After they got wed and she inherited Heck, he got this idea of holding one of the concerts in Dendale. They held them all over, but there'd never been one here because there were so few people living in the dale and the road in and out wasn't all that good. The Parish Council had held a public meeting to discuss it the previous year. Some folk, like my dad, said they cared nowt for this sort of music and what were the point of attracting people up the valley when in a year or so there'd be nowt for them to see but a lot of water? This made a lot of folk angry (so I were told), 'cos things hadn't been finally settled and they were still hopeful Mr. Pontifex would refuse to sell. Not that that would have made any difference except to drag things out a little longer. But the vote was to accept the concert, specially when Mr. Wulfstan said he'd like the school choir to do a turn too.
So the previous year we'd had our first concert. The main singer were from Norway, though he spoke such good English, you'd not have known it till you heard his name, which were Arne Krog. He was a friend of Mr. Wulfstan's and he stayed at Heck along with the lady who played the piano for him. Inger Sandel she was called. Arne (everyone called him Arne) was really popular, especially with the girls, being so tall and fair and good looking. Stuff he sang were mainly foreign, which didn't please everyone. He'd come back again this year and he were right disappointed when it looked like there wouldn't be a concert. I was too. I were in the school choir and this year I'd been going to sing a solo.
And most folk in the dale were disappointed as well. The concert were due to take place not long before the big move, and next year there'd be no hall, and no dale, to stage it in.
Then we heard that Mr. Wulfstan had persuaded Reverend Disjohn to let us use St. Luke's instead, and you'd have thought we'd won a battle.
But none of this took our minds off Madge's vanishing. Every time you saw police, and we saw them every day, it all came back. All the kids who knew Madge got asked questions by this lady policeman, and me most of all, 'cos we were best friends. She were very nice and I didn't mind talking to her. It were a lot better than answering questions Mr. Telford kept on asking. I liked Mrs. Telford a lot, and Madge's uncle George, her dad's brother who worked at the joinery with him, he were all right too. But Mr. Telford were a bit frightening, mebbe because it was him made the coffins for the dale and wore a black suit at a burying. Madge were like me, an only daughter, with the difference that as far as my dad were concerned, I might as well not have existed, while Madge were like a goddess or a princess or something to Mr. Telford. Not that he didn't get angry with her, but that was only because he got so worried about her. Like if she came home late, even if it were just ten minutes after school, he'd tell her he was going to lock her up with the coffins till she learnt obedience. I don't think it would have bothered Madge. Sometimes we used to sneak into the old barn where he stored the coffins, and we'd play around them, even climbing inside sometimes. I'm not saying I'd have liked to be in there by myself, but it would have been better than the belt. Any road, he never did it. When he got his rag back, he usually blamed someone else, like me, for keeping her late. Now he were on at me all the time, looking for someone or something to blame, I suppose. But I think mebbe it was himself he blamed most. "It ud be different if only she'd come back," he'd say. "I'd never let her out of my sight."
But I think, like me, he knew she were never coming back.
The lady policeman asked me all sorts of questions, like, had Madge ever said anything about any man bothering her? and how did she get on with her dad and her uncle George? I said no she hadn't, and grand. Then she asked about the afternoon she went missing and had I noticed anyone anywhere near the Telfords' house when I were looking for Madge in the back garden? And I said no. And she said, not even Benny Lightfoot? And I said, oh, aye, I think I saw Benny up the fell a way, but nobody paid any heed to Benny. And that was when she asked me about the time we were playing in the water and Jenny went off, had I seen Benny that day too. And I said, yes, I thought I had. And she asked why I hadn't mentioned it then, and I explained that I didn't think that seeing Benny counted.
Now, no one in the dale believed any harm of Benny Lightfoot, and it were thought a right shame when police car went bumping up the track to Neb Cottage, right up under the Neb, where he lived with his gran. Nobby Clark explained that the glorrfat one without a uniform had kept on bothering him to know if there were anyone a bit odd lived local. "I telt him I didn't know many that wasn't a bit odd," he said. (this were reckoned a good joke and spread round the dale right quick.) But he'd had to tell him about Benny.
Benny were about nineteen, and I'd heard say he had an accident when young and had a bit of metal in his head, and mebbe this helped make him so shy, especially of lasses. You'd see his long, lean figure hanging around village hall when there were a social on, or up by Wintle Wood where the big lads and lasses used to lark around on a fine evening. But once he saw he'd been seen, he'd vanish so quick, you wondered if you'd ever really seen him in the first place. "Never knew a bugger better named," folk used to say, and everyone had a right good laugh when they heard that as the police car pulled up at the front of Neb Cottage, Benny went out of the back and took off up the hillside.