THE LOST HOURS
Susan Lewis

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Copyright © Susan Lewis 2021

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover photograph © Natasza Fiedotjew (dandelion), Shutterstock.com (clock face)

Susan Lewis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008286934

Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008286958

Version: 2021-02-12

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

6th September 1999

Chapter One: December 2019

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve: 31st July 1999

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen: August 7th 1999

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Acknowledgements

Read on for a sneak peek at Susan’s next book

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About the Author

Also by Susan Lewis

About the Publisher

6th September 1999

‘They’ve found her, sir.’

DCI Underwood’s heavy grey eyes rose from the file on his desk to the young DC at his door.

‘A call’s just come in,’ the DC explained, ‘from a builder. They’ve started clearing the land over at Embury Vale for the new estate. One of the workmen’s found a body, in a derelict railway hut. All indications are that it’s our girl.’

Underwood reached for his Nokia and got to his feet. ‘You can drive,’ he told the DC and started out of the room, wanting to lose no time, in spite of it apparently already being too late.

Karen Lomax, a seventeen-year-old local lass, had vanished from her home a month ago and all leads so far had been up the garden path at best, still open-ended at worst. No one seemed to know what had happened to her, where she’d gone or who could have taken her, although the smart money was on Timbo Jaks, the lowlife she’d been seen with a few times while the fair was on the common. None of her friends had said the relationship was serious, but Underwood would have been failing in his duty if he hadn’t tracked the Travellers down to find out if she’d gone with them. There’d been no sign of her, Jaks had sworn he’d never laid a finger on her, she wasn’t his type, but he would say that, wouldn’t he? They’d turned the camp upside down, had even hauled Jaks and half a dozen others in for questioning, but in the end they’d been forced to let them go.

Now a body had turned up not half a mile from where the fair had sprawled over the terrain in late July, and Underwood had never been one to believe in coincidences, oblique or otherwise. Karen Lomax had disappeared on 7th August, not two weeks after her last known visit to said fair.

‘Someone find out where Timbo Jaks and his lot are now,’ he barked to his team as he swept through CID, ‘and send a car to pick him up.’

Forty minutes later, Underwood and the young DC were standing on a vast patch of wasteland being drizzled on from above as they watched the SOCOs in hoods, masks, boots and gloves going about their work. Now that Underwood had set eyes on the body he was in no doubt it was Karen, partially decomposed though her once pretty young face was; the clothes, the hair, the build, were all a match. Early examination was suggesting a sharp blow to the back of the head was probably what killed her, but there was still a way to go. Any amount of other injuries, not immediately visible, might be revealed. Later, once the pathologist and forensics had done their jobs, they might know if she’d been beaten, tied up, tortured, starved; possibly if sexual relations had taken place prior to – or even after – her death. There were some sick bastards out there. What would be of more interest to the investigators was whether any identifying fibres, prints, hairs or fluids had been left behind.

Underwood’s next stop today was going to be the most difficult of all, breaking the news to the parents, Jess and Eddie Lomax. They owned a wine bar in the old town and lived above it. A nice couple, always friendly, knowledgeable about vintages, generous with the tastings. Honest, law-abiding types, who had closed the bar since the disappearance of their only child. Necessity demanded they were questioned, extensively, but no one had seriously suspected them. Their devastation would have been all but impossible to fake. It had been hard to handle, even for a seasoned detective like him.

Everyone who went into the bar knew their daughter, pretty, flighty, well-developed in all the right places, a proper handful if the truth be told, especially where the opposite sex was concerned. Like plenty of girls her age she was blossoming, growing up too fast, considered herself worldly, all powerful. She’d even batted her saucy eyes at him once or twice and he had a good ten years on her father.

‘I always said she’d come to a bad end,’ one of the neighbours had claimed. ‘That’s the trouble with girls these days, they don’t even dress decent so who can blame the poor boys for thinking something’s on offer when it isn’t?’

Though Underwood didn’t much appreciate that way of thinking, he had to admit it was an issue that kept coming up, and even he had been known to misunderstand a certain type of flirtation. Not that he’d taken advantage of it, but he couldn’t help wishing teenage girls were more aware of the dangers they were putting themselves in with their short skirts, transparent tops and binge-drinking.

‘Slappers, the lot of them,’ another neighbour had grunted. ‘And that Karen … The things I’ve heard about her.’

The gossip had been rife and cruel, but others had spoken about her fondly and loyally, especially her friends. She’d always been generous and caring, they’d said, a shoulder to cry on when things went wrong. She was a good laugh, up for anything, and yes, she liked boys, but who didn’t? It was normal, wasn’t it, at their age? And she was seventeen, so it wasn’t illegal or anything, so why shouldn’t she go with whoever she wanted? Yes, she liked them a bit older sometimes, in their twenties or thirties even, but she never went with married men, or not knowingly, anyway.

Timbo Jaks? Yeah, he was cool, and she did hang out with him for a while, but she hadn’t come over as upset when the fair shipped out. No one seemed sure if she’d met someone else by then, there were probably a couple she fancied, blokes who came into the bar, or who they met at cafés and nightclubs in town. It was summer, so lots of tourists around and they were all up for holiday romances, no strings, or maybe some if they wanted it. Her friends had never seemed convinced she’d run off with Jaks. ‘She wouldn’t, not without telling me,’ her best mate Lucy had insisted. ‘We didn’t have any secrets. No reason to. So no, I don’t reckon she went off with Timbo. For one thing, she wouldn’t do that to her parents, just up and go without even leaving a note, but that’s not to say he didn’t abduct her and make her go with him. I reckon it’s the kind of thing he’d do.’

The thrill of the horror made the girls unreliable witnesses. Their imaginations were so lurid and fertile that even Underwood had felt shocked by some of their suggestions, but he’d never got the impression they were lying about not knowing where she was. They seemed genuinely baffled and even afraid, as if whatever had happened to Karen might be coming for them.

So whether Jaks had or hadn’t abducted Karen was a question still to be answered, but Underwood had a very strong feeling that when the forensics came back everything was going to point to that little toerag. And when it did, no one was going to be happier than this detective, because an unsolved killing was not something he wanted hanging over him during his retirement years – any more than the parents needed the torment of not knowing what had happened to their precious girl to drag on any longer than it already had.

CHAPTER ONE

December 2019

Here she was driving across the moor she knew so well, a little too fast as usual, and loving every minute of it. What’s not to love about sunshine lighting up the world so gloriously in the middle of December? she might answer, if asked why she was smiling. It was so warm that she’d lowered the convertible’s roof and hadn’t even bothered to pull on the crazy reindeer hat she usually took with her at this time of year. It was quite possibly the most unstylish item of clothing she possessed and she loved it almost as much as the man who’d given it to her – the man who’d given a shout of laughter when he’d unwrapped his own gift that very same Christmas to discover she’d bought him the same hat. The children, quite predictably, had groaned, rolled eyes and laughed when their parents had put them on and started taking selfies. She wondered what they were going to do this year when they discovered that they too had reindeer hats and were expected to post shots on Instagram and wear them when they went out as a family?

Annabelle grinned to picture what the five of them would look like, some cheesy Christmas card or dorky family trying to get a few laughs. The children would find it funny in spite of themselves, and might even, because they were Crayces, go along with the craziness of it.

‘I don’t know another family like yours,’ her sister-in-law, Julia, would occasionally comment with an affectionate sigh. ‘Every one of you unspeakably beautiful, and quite possibly certifiably mad.’

Not mad, just joyful and thankful to be as blessed as they were in so many ways, not least of all in having each other and the incredible life they were able to live all the way up here on this wonderful moor. Sometimes she felt that the billowing, tumbling and soaring mass of it had a life force all of its own, a soul that breathed quietly and steadily beneath the wind-worn landscape, and was nourished by all that came to it.

She wound on through the high hedges, passing the occasional vista of sprawling uplands with her jaunty scarf and pale golden hair streaming out behind her, until she reached the Drang, local-speak for the meeting of roads and pathways. Here she turned into the welcoming, shade-speckled trail that roamed for a quarter of a mile to the wide-open gates of Hanley Combe Estate, aka home. As she swept through and past the quaint stone cottage just inside, she gave a toot of the horn to let her father-in-law know she was back. Although she doubted he was in there. Most likely he was over at the house with his very lively eight-year-old grandson, Quin.

On reaching the divide in the drive where an arc off to the left led to the main residence that she and David had constructed almost twenty years ago in a style that had confounded local planners at the time, she continued to the right and pulled up in the gravelled courtyard of the Byre. This transformed old barn, with its magnificent grey stone walls, black slate roof and grand oak doors, was home to the beating heart of their business. In more recent times it had acquired a glass-fronted wing on one side to house a shop and secure store, and a grand rotunda on the other with a conical roof and floor-to-ceiling windows. This last was used for parties, conferences and anything else it might be found suitable for, such as the upcoming festive Flurry.

As she got out of the car the crack of a gunshot rang through the skies, puncturing nature’s benign tranquillity like a wayward thunderbolt and echoing on for a moment or two into silence. No birds stirred, nothing moved at all. Two more explosions boomed into the stillness followed by two more, and yet more.

Reaching into the car’s back seat Annie began hauling out the shopping she’d picked up in town, more Christmas decorations, Secret Santa gifts and regular supplies for the Byre’s well-equipped kitchen.

‘There you are,’ a voice called out from the double front doors he was coming through. ‘Let me give you a hand with that.’

Happily passing the load to her brother-in-law, Henry, a slightly shorter and darker-haired version of his older brother, a director of the business as well as a landowner in his own right, she said, ‘David’s still out on the stands?’

‘They’ve just moved down to the tower,’ Henry replied, referring to Hanley Combe’s new accessory that soared forty metres out of the nearby woods for experienced guns to warm up before high pheasant-shooting days out on the moor. David, being the shooting school’s owner and senior coach, usually took these sessions himself, although Henry was perfectly qualified to do so, as were a handful of freelancers they called on at peak times.

‘The phone’s been ringing non-stop,’ Henry told her, leading the way inside. She couldn’t help noticing that his uneven gait seemed slightly more awkward today. That happened at times, usually when he was tired, or the weather was damp; he’d often joshed that having one leg longer than the other made it so much easier for him to get around the steeply rugged terrain of sporting estates, but the car accident that had caused it was very far from being a joke. For almost a fortnight after it had happened they’d lived in daily terror of losing him. David had never left his side, while all the time bracing himself to break the worst of all news to him that his wife, Laura, and four-year-old son, Ryan, hadn’t survived the crash.

Although it had happened almost twelve years ago, no one ever made the mistake of thinking Henry was completely over it, not even his second wife, Julia, who’d grown up with the Crayce brothers right here on the moor. Annie was fairly certain Henry had been Julia’s first love, but there again it could have been David, given how close they all were; in truth even Julia didn’t seem to know for certain. It was well known, however, that Julia had been David and Henry’s first love. Although that could also be said for Chrissie, or Sukey, or Rosa, or any one of the gang – aka the Moor-auders – they’d known for most of their lives. All anyone could agree on was that they’d been a pretty wild bunch back in their teens, away at boarding schools during the week, back on the moor for the weekends, until eventually they’d gone their separate ways to uni. It was there that Henry had met Laura, and after that he hadn’t often returned to his roots, until the tragedy had forced it. His parents and David and Annie had been there for him throughout his recovery, as had the rest of their friends, many of whom, like David and Annie, had by now made their own way back to Exmoor with various partners and offspring. However, it was Julia, with her easy-going nature and endearing eccentricities, whom Henry had really come to lean on during that time, for her own difficult marriage had been over by then, leaving her much freer than the others to commit to his recovery. And so, it had been a surprise to no one and a joy to all when, four years after the accident, she and Henry had announced they were getting married.

‘… so the Americans from Oklahoma want to book again for next year,’ Henry was telling Annie as he limped across the smart, cavernous barn with its high-beamed ceilings and rug-covered flagstone floor. The uneven, whitewashed walls were covered in antlers – most collected from around the moor, although some had been gifted by Gloucestershire’s Badminton Estate following a cull. At one end of the room was a vast Inglenook fireplace surrounded by leather sofas and strategically placed drinks tables, and at the opposite end, which they were heading for now, was Annie’s welcome desk, large enough to seat four with their laptops and other paraphernalia spread out around them, which it frequently did.

‘I’ve dealt with everything I could,’ Henry continued as he turned into the rotunda to drop off his cargo, ‘and I’ve made notes so you can see what’s what. Oh, the delivery of Hull cartridges arrived, already in the storeroom, and the new clay trap should be here tomorrow.’

‘Great,’ she replied, knowing David would be pleased to hear about the trap and stepping over a pile of boxes to get through to the kitchen she dumped the groceries on top of the fridge and flexed her hands. ‘Is Julia still with the reporter from The Field?’ she called out.

‘As far as I know,’ came the reply.

Pleased to be receiving the coverage, since the last time Hanley Court had featured in the magazine, nine years ago, it had virtually doubled their business, Annie pictured her sprightly sister-in-law chattering away eagerly as she toured the reporter around the best parts of the hundred-acre estate. Only clays were shot here at the school, either for recreation, or to practise for game shoots that were hosted by David and Henry in local as well other highly regarded sporting estates around the country.

‘How much longer is David going to be, any idea?’ she asked, coming back into the main hall. ‘Who’s he with again?’

‘A bunch of merchant bankers from London,’ Henry reminded her, ‘and no, that’s not rhyming slang. They all seem quite experienced, so it should be a good shoot tomorrow. A couple have their own loaders driving down tonight, so that won’t please the local lads too much, but we’ll still need half a dozen, plus the regular beaters and picker-uppers.’ It was common practice for locals to support the shoots by loading guns, beating the woods and covers to flush out the pheasants and working their dogs to fetch the shot game.

‘Is that arranged?’ Annie asked.

With a grin he said, ‘Are you seriously doubting me?’

‘Never,’ she laughed. ‘And I know their accommodation is sorted, because I booked it myself.’

‘OK, so I’m off to relieve himself,’ Henry declared, referring to his brother, and looping a set of ear-defenders around his neck. He picked up the unloaded Miroku shotgun he’d left broken on the centre table, grabbed a bag of cartridges and headed out the back door. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, glancing back, ‘Jules just texted to say the reporter’s about to leave.’

Annie unravelled her scarf and dug around for her mobile phone as it rang.

‘Hey Mum.’

‘Hey Max,’ she responded, adopting the same chirpy tone as her fourteen-year-old son who was growing so fast he’d soon be as tall as his father, and, according to him, twice as handsome. ‘Where are you?’

‘Same question to you. I’ve been trying to get hold of someone. Dad’s not answering. I guess he’s out on a shoot?’

‘No, he’s here, but he’s on the stands with clients at the moment. Anything I can do?’

‘Sure, I just wanted to ask if it’s OK to come home tomorrow instead of today? Perry Green’s invited me and a couple of others to stay over at his place tonight. A kind of pre-Christmas thing.’

‘I’m wounded,’ she declared, biting into an apple and opening up her emails. ‘I thought you couldn’t wait to see us.’

‘I can’t, but you know what they say about anticipation. Sometimes it’s the best part.’

That boy was getting too cute for his own good. ‘OK, just make sure you have everything before you leave school. We don’t want to be driving back there over Christmas to pick up all the presents you have for us.’

‘Not going to happen, because I haven’t bought any yet. Grandma’s promised to take me shopping next week. I’ll get the train, OK? You won’t have to worry about coming to get me then. Well, you’ll have to come into town, obvs, but it’s not as far as here. Is Sienna back yet?’

‘She got the train too. I met her about an hour ago, but all I’ve brought home is her luggage. She stayed in town with her friends, so I guess someone will have to go and pick her up later.’

‘Cool. I’ll give her a call. See you, love you.’

‘See you, love you.’

Though mildly disappointed that the two of them were not coming straight home from their boarding schools today, she could live with it since they were around most weekends and more often than not a bunch of teenagers came with them. Sienna, the sixteen-year-old, had plenty of friends, although she was all blissed out at the moment by Grant Peterson who’d apparently invited her to join him and his family in the Caribbean for Christmas and New Year. Annie was sure Sienna had felt tempted, but so far it seemed that even the irresistible Robert Pattinson look-alike hadn’t been able to tempt her away from Hanley Combe for the festivities. That was good – Annie really wasn’t looking forward to the time when they wouldn’t all be together for Christmas, although she was realistic enough to know it would happen one day.

As she sat down at her desk the doors to the woods and shooting areas opened and in wandered her sister-in-law, looking, as she often did in her jodhpurs, long boots and hacking jacket, as if she’d just dismounted from one of her beloved steeds. In fact, she often had, for her and Henry’s home – the original Crayce family farm that was now a popular livery stables and refuge for ageing donkeys – was less than three miles away across open moor. It was a journey Julia often made on horseback, although today she’d presumably come by car, as there had been so sign of a trusty mount outside when Annie had pulled up.

‘Annie, thank God you’re here,’ Julia declared, her sweetly plummy voice doing as much as her rosy cheeks, cashmere sweaters and heirloom pearls to make her as gorgeously posh as she was unaffected and girlish. ‘Cocktail me up, darling, will you? I’m in sore need.’

Since this was a favourite greeting of Julia’s (and generally meant wine) Annie didn’t take her seriously, not at this hour anyway. ‘Was he that bad?’ she grimaced, going to pour two coffees from the machine behind her.

After a moment’s confusion Julia caught up and waved a dismissive hand, ‘Oh, the reporter. No, he was fine. I’m worrying about Moondance. Would you believe he lost a shoe while we were out this morning and the blasted farrier has just called to say he can’t come until tomorrow? Some people just don’t understand the meaning of emergency, do they?’ Her eyes twinkled self-mockingly. ‘Anyway, I guess it’s time for me to start my shift in the shop, and I’ll take a look at the website while I’m at it. It didn’t seem to be downloading properly when I had a go earlier.’ Amongst Julia’s many and often surprising talents was a gift for understanding technology in a way that eluded the rest of them. So, as well as helping to manage the school, run her stables and refuge, and pander to her mother’s beck and call, she also oversaw the smooth running of Hanley Combe’s – and her own – website.

As she wandered off to relieve Hans the shop’s manager, Annie began reading through Henry’s notes and raised her eyebrows to see so many new enquiries. Business really was booming, and everyone was going to be happy for that. Next she checked the free-standing blackboard where details of the Festive Flurry had been artfully chalked up by her father’s talented hand, and was about to go and find out what all the jollity was about in the gun shop when the door opened and David came in, as always closely shadowed by his beloved black Lab, Cassie.

It was funny, she thought, as she watched him remove his tweed cap and ear-defenders before running fingers through his mane of thick fair hair, how even after all these years sometimes simply looking at him could do things to her that she’d never want any other man to do. He was handsome, no one could ever say otherwise, and extremely physical, but it wasn’t only that which drew people to him, it was the way he could make someone feel the very centre of his attention simply by looking at them as he listened to what they were saying. Knowing him so well, Annie was aware that his thoughts could be miles away, but nothing in his expression showed it; he even managed to respond appropriately when she was sure he’d barely heard what had been said. It was something she often teased him about, only for him to hotly protest his innocence before giving in with a laugh and a promise to get her back one of these days.

Their marriage was strong, full of love and laughter, and very different to how she’d once feared it might be. Thankfully there was never any reason to think back to those dark and distant times now, no need to recall how difficult their first years together had been, when she’d threatened to leave him and had even believed she might. He’d pulled himself together so long ago that even the memories of what he’d put them both through had fallen away, turned to dust, had no more substance than the passing of time. Now, what she probably loved most about him was how central he was to their family, how safe and secure he made them feel, as if nothing could ever matter more than them, and she was sure that nothing did.

She could tell from the way his indigo eyes narrowed as they came to hers that he was feeling the same intimate draw to her right now as she was to him – and this kind of connection was only going to end one way.

Were they not so busy they might have taken themselves over to the house for a while, but as it was they made do with a kiss full of promise made perversely more erotic by the Perazzi shotgun resting against his left shoulder. It wouldn’t be loaded, she knew that, but it was a rule around here that all weapons when out of their slips or cases must be broken if not in use, and his was not. However, she wasn’t as much interested in that right now as she was in the way their bodies fitted so perfectly together, her slender five-foot nine inches melding into the encompassing embrace of his six-foot three muscular physique, making them seem so right and complete.

‘You know what I was thinking about on my way in?’ he murmured, gazing into her deep, brown eyes.

‘Tell me,’ she said huskily.

‘This,’ he replied, and she had to laugh.

Hearing voices approaching from the far end of the Byre, they broke apart and gave their attention to their various duties.

By the time an hour had passed Annie had made a dozen or more phone calls, responded to twice as many emails and dealt with plenty of enquiries about the Festive Flurry.

‘It’s a hundred and thirty quid per person,’ she’d tell the caller, knowing the details by heart, ‘to include four one-hundred-bird flushes, all clays and cartridges, and a midday roast. No alcohol for those on the afternoon session, but there will be drinks at the end of the day.’

While this was happening, Julia signalled that she’d shut up shop and was going over to the main house to find out what scandals were breaking there, while Henry returned from the stands with the eight-gun team he and David were taking over to Combe Sydenham sporting estate in the morning. After serving the clients drinks in front of the fire, Henry and David piled them into the Hanley Combe Range Rovers to drive them to the luxurious accommodation Annie had arranged for while they were on Exmoor. Since they’d arrived by helicopter last night and would return the same way when the shoot was over, they had no transport of their own, so were entirely dependent on the shooting school while they were here. It often happened this way, and Annie knew David would already have liaised with the estate’s gamekeeper to make sure everything was in order, from birds, to dogs, to loaders and beaters, to all catering needs for the time they were out. This was his side of the business; hers was behind the scenes. Although she was able to shoot, she just preferred her quarry to be of the clay variety, for she had no great love of blood sports. Strange really that she’d allowed herself to get drawn into setting up this enterprise all those years ago, but since it had been a way of capitalizing on David’s expertise while putting to good use the hundred acres of neglected farmland adjacent to his father’s, it had seemed to make sense at the time.

And neither of them had ever regretted it.

By the time David and Henry returned to the Byre at six it had long been dark outside, and a misty rain had begun to drift and thicken through the surrounding trees, working itself up into a fog. Annie had received a text a few minutes ago from Quin urging her to come and find him – a game of hide and seek was often his way of ‘tricking’ one of his parents into coming home. So she left the men to lock up (always a major operation considering the very expensive firearms on the premises), and let herself out into the dreary night.

Instead of running the couple of hundred yards over to the house she drove, making a mental note to thank whoever had thought to put the roof up before the damp night air had set in. It had to have been David or Henry, or Hans, but her best guess would be Henry. He was thoughtful that way, always noticing what needed to be done and acting without fuss or expectation of appreciation.

Following the unlit drive around the enormous weeping willow, whose dense and delicate foliage had finally fallen from the elegant branches these past few days, she came to a stop outside the rambling old New England-style villa that she and David had spent over a year constructing to an original plan that had finally been approved by the National Parks Authority. With its pale limestone walls, black tiled roof, tall casement windows and white wood wraparound porch, currently decorated with bright Christmas lights and fresh pine garlands, it seemed so proud of itself in its hilltop setting that they could never doubt its character.

Tugging on her reindeer hat to keep off the rain she eschewed the usual back door entrance – Quin would expect her to come in that way – and ran round to the front, up the wide wooden steps with their fairy-lit banisters and pots of creamy hellebores, and on to the veranda where she paused a moment to admire the luxuriant wreath that had appeared on the front door – no doubt put there by her mother.

‘Coming ready or not?’ she shouted into the brightly lit double-storey entry hall as she went inside and kicked off her boots. She glanced up the staircase with its black filigree railings that hugged two walls in its rise to the first-floor landing. There was no sign of life, although Quin and his grandpa would hardly try to hide in plain sight. Thinking it more likely that they were somewhere on this level – sitting room, snug, dining hall, probably not the kitchen, but maybe downstairs in the games room – she set off on her search. She just hoped it wasn’t going to take long because she was more than ready for someone to cocktail her up.

After making a quick scour of the lamplit sitting room with its ash-filled fireplace, many sofas, cosy chairs and colourfully lit Christmas tree, she checked the snug to find no one behind its sofas, desk or giant TV, then headed into the kitchen where her mother, Harriet, and Julia were already partway through a bottle of wine as they prepared something delicious-smelling for dinner.

‘Hi darling,’ her mother said, glancing up from the Aga that dominated a black tiled recess on the far side of the central island. Her willowy height, pale golden hair and fine-boned features, as well as her manner, were so like her daughter’s that Annie didn’t need to wonder what she was going to look like in her late sixties – she saw it most days. ‘I’ve no idea what’s happened to Quin and Grandpa. We can’t find them anywhere.’

Guessing from this that they must be in earshot, Annie groaned, ‘They always beat me. I don’t know where to look next.’

‘Maybe you should try upstairs,’ Julia suggested, shaking her head to advise against it.

‘What a good idea,’ Annie replied, and started to tiptoe around the island towards the pantry door, taking guidance from Julia’s laughing grey eyes.

Annie paused, but was directed on to the next door that led to the back stairs, cloakroom and wine cellar. Receiving a nod, she started to turn the handle, preparing to whip it open and make her son jump, but it suddenly sprang from her grasp and she screamed as Quin yelled, ‘Found you!’

Laughing at the game’s typically bizarre reversal, Annie hugged her son hard, savouring the pleasure of his gangly young limbs in her arms before he wrenched himself free and ran into the kitchen.

‘Are you in there?’ Annie called out to her father-in-law.

Appearing from the darkness with a dusty bottle in one hand while smoothing the label with the other, he didn’t take his eyes from it as he said, ‘That son of mine is holding out on me. He’s got a 1959 Mission Haut …’

Annie quickly grabbed it. ‘It’s your Christmas present,’ she muttered. ‘You need to pretend you never saw it.’

Dickie’s still handsome, but weathered old face lit up, even as he whispered, ‘Never saw it. Putting it back right now.’

Handing it to him, she turned around to find Quin dipping a peeled quail’s egg into a saucer of celery salt before stuffing it into his mouth. ‘Is Dad coming back for supper?’ he asked through a spray of dry yolk.

Cupping her hands around the top of his head and chin, Annie said, ‘He’ll be here any minute. Who else is staying to eat?’

‘Just me and Dickie,’ her mother replied. ‘Dad’s got one of his round-table meetings in town tonight so he’s going to get something there.’

‘Henry and I are off to see Mommie Dearest and the Delightful Other,’ Julia sighed, helping herself to more wine. Though she often looked and sounded pained when talking about her mother and aunt, whose riding stables (the mother’s) and boarding kennels (the aunt’s) were close to Exford, she was extremely close to them. As was Dickie, whose friendship with Bob Tulley, Julia’s father, went back decades, and would probably still have been a mainstay in Dickie’s life had it not been brought to a painfully abrupt end when Bob had walked out on his responsibilities as a father and husband to go and live with another woman. The only good thing about that time, more than twenty years ago now, was the fact that Bob hadn’t tried to take Blackfare Farm away from Celine, nor should he have when it had come to them through Celine’s father. The betrayal and abandonment had, over time, brought the two families even closer together, as if Dickie and his wife, Geraldine, had felt the need to protect Celine and Julia, Ruth too when she’d set up her kennels at Blackfare. And no one knew how they’d have managed during Geraldine’s final days without Celine’s careful nursing and pragmatic ways.

‘BTW,’ Julia went on, ‘the old dears are wondering if they’re invited to stay on after the p.m. Flurry next week? They won’t, of course, they’re always too busy at the Horse and Hounds,’ (Julia’s name for her family home) ‘but they like to be invited.’

Filling a glass of wine for herself, Annie said, ‘Of course they can stay if they’d like to. We hope they do. The more the merrier.’

‘I’ll tell them you said that when I go over later. They’re getting the decorators in after Christmas so they want me to start clearing my old room. What a jolly task that will be.’

‘Are you going to have time to do the tree in the Byre?’ Annie asked. ‘Don’t worry if you can’t …’

‘I’ll have plenty of time,’ Julia confirmed. ‘It’s being delivered tomorrow and Dickie’s going to help decorate it.’

‘Me too,’ Quin piped up.

‘Of course,’ Julia agreed, making him grimace as she planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘We need someone to be in charge.’

Quin laughed, knowing he was being teased but happy to go along with it. ‘I don’t know what any of you would do without me,’ he informed them, and helped himself to another egg as he climbed on to a stool. ‘Mum, where’s Max? I thought he was coming home today.’

‘He’ll be back tomorrow,’ Annie assured him. ‘Did you text Sienna to find out if she’ll be home for dinner?’ she asked her mother.

‘I didn’t realize I had to,’ Harriet replied, and drew her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. ‘Where is she?’

‘In town with friends, which reminds me I need to get her bags out of the boot.’

‘I’ll go,’ Dickie offered.

‘All done,’ David declared, coming in through the door. ‘They’re in the hall. I’ll take them up later. Hey, Harriet, something’s smelling good.’

‘Grandma brought the Christmas puddings over today,’ Quin told him. ‘They smell lush.’

David frowned as he looked down at his younger son. ‘Who’s that in there?’ he asked, parting the curly fringe of thick fair hair, very like his own, and suddenly starting with surprise. ‘Goodness, it’s you,’ he cried.

Laughing, Quin ruffled his own curls as he cried, ‘The girls like it long, so I’m keeping it.’

With raised eyebrows David looked at Annie, who shrugged and drank more wine before taking a beer from the fridge for him.

‘Where’s Henry?’ Julia asked, refilling her glass. ‘I thought he was with you.’

‘He’s in the loo. Dad, can we rope you in for some assistance tomorrow? Bashy just rang to say he can’t make it.’

‘Loading or beating?’ his father asked, clearly up for either.

‘Beating.’

‘Has Bashy’s wife given birth yet?’ Harriet wanted to know.

‘It’s imminent, which is why he feels he shouldn’t come tomorrow.’

‘Good decision,’ Julia approved.

Since most men from the villages around acted as loaders and beaters – when not out shooting, hunting or fishing themselves – there was a pretty good number to draw on, but the Crayce family knew how much it meant to Dickie to feel he was coming to the rescue. He was, in fact, a director of the shooting school and could turn his hand to just about anything, and often did now he was no longer running the farm that had been in his family for three generations. He and Geraldine had handed it over to Henry and Julia six years ago, around the time Geraldine had found out her cancer was back, and had moved into the much more manageable cottage near the gates of Hanley Combe – it was where Geraldine had passed three years ago, ripping the hearts from her family. Dickie had remained there, although as often as not he was at the main house with Quin, or at Blackfare Farm, or elsewhere on the Hanley Combe estate helping out where needed. But for him there was nothing like being part of a shoot to make him feel truly valued, especially when it was being run by his sons.

‘Any news from Sienna yet?’ Annie asked her mother as Harriet checked a text she’d just received.

‘No, it’s from Dad. I’ll give her half an hour and if we haven’t heard then I’ll ring to chivvy her along.’

‘OK, I’m off for a quick shower,’ David informed them. ‘But before I go perhaps someone can enlighten me as to the whereabouts of my elder son?’

‘He’s staying with friends tonight, back tomorrow,’ Annie replied, starting to lay the table.

‘It’ll be a girlfriend,’ Quin stated knowingly.

Annie and David exchanged glances, aware of how wrong he was about that. His brother’s lack of romantic interest in the opposite sex was the source of some frustration for many females of the area, since his smouldering dark eyes and curly black hair had made him the object of several crushes over his fourteen years. He had told Annie and David last year that he was gay and they couldn’t have loved him more for feeling able to confide so readily in his parents.

An hour later Henry and Julia had left for the Horse and Hounds, the Blums and the Rowbothams (old friends from Simonsbath and Monksilver) had popped in for a rowdy few drinks and left, and now the meal was ready but there was still no word from Sienna.

‘She can be so inconsiderate at times,’ Annie remarked irritably. ‘She’s probably turned her phone off so she doesn’t have to argue about what time to be picked up.’

‘We should go ahead and eat,’ David decided. ‘We can always warm some up for her later.’

‘Grandpa, can we go on manoeuvres after supper?’ Quin wanted to know. ‘It’s really cool going out in the rain with our torches and Dad’s got a shoot early tomorrow so he can’t come.’ It was David who’d started the nighttime expeditions over the moor when Max and Sienna were small, teaching them how to set up camp in all winds and weathers, how to start a fire for food and warmth and most of all how to read and follow a map. David set great store by being able to read a map, not that he needed one on Exmoor for he seemed to know it like the back of his hand. If it was summer they’d often ‘go on manoeuvres’ as a family, for Annie loved the outdoors too, and there was something very romantic about lying under the stars or being huddled in a tent with David, who always seemed to have everything perfectly under control.

‘Can we, Grandpa?’ Quin asked again.

‘It’s too foggy,’ Annie told him. ‘And I thought we were going to write to Santa?’

‘I’ve already done it, and anyway, he’s not real. He’s Dad.’

David looked shocked, and began checking himself out as if he were starting to morph.

‘You’re funny,’ Quin told him without a laugh.

‘So, what are you hoping Santa will bring you?’ Harriet asked, starting to dish up the goulash.

Taking no time to think, Quin said, ‘I want a Sphero Bolt robot that works with an app.’

Harriet’s eyes crossed as David looked at Annie who’d heard this before but still had no idea what it was, so Dickie answered.

‘You can order it online from John Lewis,’ he informed them, as if he knew all about it.

‘You definitely can,’ Quin agreed excitedly. ‘It costs one hundred and fifty pounds and they can send it next day to make sure it’s here in time for Christmas.’

‘That’s good to know,’ David commented, reaching for his mobile as a text arrived. As he frowned, Annie said, ‘Is it her?’

‘No, Henry,’ he replied. ‘He’s advising us to go into town the back way if we haven’t gone for Sienna yet. Apparently there’s been an accident on Westleigh Heights and nothing can get through.’ As his eyes went to Annie’s, she knew they were experiencing the same tangle of apprehension and fear. Was Sienna somehow involved? Grant Peterson had passed his test last month, he might have borrowed his father’s car.

‘Stop,’ her mother chided, as though reading their minds. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions and that won’t get us anywhere. Try calling one of her friends to see if they’re with her.’

Annie did, but half the usual suspects weren’t answering and the other half hadn’t seen her. ‘What’s going on?’ she said to David, as if he ought to know.

‘She’s being a teenager just freed from school for Christmas,’ Dickie decided, tucking into his meal.

‘I’ll see if I can find out more about this accident,’ David said, getting to his feet. ‘If nothing else at least it could rule out her being involved.’

Quin was staring round-eyed at his mother. ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ he asked worriedly.

‘Oh Quin,’ she cried. ‘No, of course not. We just need to find out where she is, that’s all.’

It turned out a camper van had hit a patch of ice and skidded into a ditch, no other vehicles involved, so at least there was some relief there. But by the time another hour had passed and there was still no news, a palpable sense of concern was creeping into the room.

‘This really isn’t like her,’ Harriet commented for the umpteenth time, and Annie wanted to shout at her to shut up and stop being right. It wasn’t helping, it was making things worse because it just wasn’t like Sienna to be out of contact for this long, especially when she knew her parents would be worrying.

It was gone ten o’clock and Dickie had taken Quin up to bed by the time David’s phone rang and they saw Sienna’s name come up.

Annie watched him click on, still not able to relax in case something had happened to her, or someone else was using the phone. David put the call on speaker.

‘Dad?’

‘Are you OK?’ he asked shortly. ‘We’ve been worried.’

‘Sorry, I know, I mean …’

‘Where are you? Why didn’t you call?’

‘They’ve only just given me my phone back.’

‘What? Who’s they?’

‘Is Mum with you? She’s going to go mental so you’ve got to be on my side, Dad, OK?’

His eyes went to Annie as he said, ‘Just tell me what’s happened and we’ll take it from there.’

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