Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers

Jonas had had to stop again in the bus shelter and breathe deeply. He watched his hands tremble like a drunk’s, and fought down the panic that had swelled into a great bubble in his chest. He couldn’t do this. He needed to go home.

Bob Coffin passed by in his crumpled green Barbour and gaiters, despite the weather, and touched the front of his flat cap at Jonas.

‘Mr Holly,’ he said, as if they’d just met yesterday.

Jonas nodded shakily at him.

Bob Coffin stopped. He’d been the Blacklands huntsman for nigh on forty years, and his legs were bowed but sturdy from the hard labour of walking hounds. His eyes were deep-set and bright blue, and watched Jonas like those of a small, careful bird. He barely reached Jonas’s chin, and yet when he inclined his head briefly towards the Red Lion and said, ‘Coming?’ Jonas only hesitated for one more second – then followed him like a lamb.

And so he’d got to the car park late, just as Reynolds was about to start speaking, and had been embarrassed that he’d been noticed and that people had turned to him and made a fuss. They were kind. So kind. Shaking his hand and grasping his shoulder and murmuring good wishes. Elizabeth Rice had put an arm around him and surprised him by pulling his cheek down so she could kiss it hello. Nobody had made a joke about it. For Lucy’s sake, he guessed.

He’d been relieved when they’d all turned back to listen to Reynolds and left him alone, and he’d been able to breathe again.

When he had calmed down enough to actually look properly at Reynolds, he noticed he had hair.

All over his head.

Reynolds put up his hand to call for silence so that he could speak, but nobody was looking at him, and before he could clear his throat again there was the metallic sound of hoofs and at least thirty horses clattered up the road and milled at the entrance of the car park, to a spontaneous cheer from the volunteers.

The Midmoor Hunt had turned out in support of John Took, even if he was only joint Master. They were led by the other Master, Charles Stourbridge – the real Master, most agreed – who held up his hand for silence and got it in a heartbeat.

‘Good morning,’ he said in a voice that would have sounded well at the Globe Theatre. ‘I believe we have some children to find.’

Once more the volunteers cheered and clapped and turned to face him, so that Reynolds found himself looking at a hundred shoulders. Even his own officers were showing him their epaulettes.

Proles.

‘We’re just here to help.’ Stourbridge nodded at him modestly, and Reynolds disliked him instantly. Of course they were here to help! What did Stourbridge think they were here to do? Run the show? He was the one with the bloody Google maps!

When the search party finally turned back towards Reynolds, he started. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you all know why you’re here and—’

‘Can’t hear you at the back!’ said a gruff voice. ‘Speak up!’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he started again.

‘Yes, we got that bit!’

Reynolds felt sweat beginning to form at the base of his plugs. Suddenly his speech seemed a bit flowery and superfluous. Wasted on a crowd of earthy farmers like these.

‘I have some maps here!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve split the moor into twelve squares around a five-mile radius of Dunkery Beacon!’

Charles Stourbridge’s horse opened the crowd like the Red Sea as he rode over to the coal bunker and held out his hand for a map with such expectant authority that Reynolds could do nothing other than give him one. He rested it on his horse’s neck and studied it.

‘What I want us to do,’ shouted Reynolds, ‘is to concentrate on outbuildings, barns and copses. Places where the children might be hidden!’

Reynolds hoped they’d all understand the subtext – that right now they still hoped to find Jess and Pete alive.

‘What if they’re dead?’ said the same gruff voice. Reynolds searched for the speaker in annoyance, but couldn’t pick out the culprit. He looked at Jonas Holly – easy to spot because of his height – but the man was looking at him attentively.

The crowd had gone quiet at the question, and there was no need for Reynolds to shout now. ‘There’s no reason to believe that Jess and Pete are dead. This is not a hunt for bodies, ladies and gentlemen, it’s a search for two scared children desperately in need of your help.’

There was a smattering of applause, and Reynolds felt the balance of power swing back towards him.

‘Good,’ said Stourbridge immediately. ‘Then let’s not waste time making speeches. Let’s crack on!’

Another cheer and suddenly the coal bunker was rocked by people clamouring and snatching at maps, even though Reynolds had worked out a careful system of small groups of volunteers, each under the supervision of a police officer. Instead, Stourbridge said, ‘Right. My lot will take squares one, two, three, five and six. Lots of ground to cover and we’ll be faster over it.’ Before Reynolds could disagree, he’d ridden out again through the sea of people, and the hunt was moving off at a rattling canter.

If Reynolds had had a gun, he’d have shot him in the back.

The search took more than a hundred people three solid days. They concentrated on outbuildings and barns, simply because concentrating on open moorland would have taken a thousand people a year and might still not have turned up any trace of Jess Took or Pete Knox.

The weather was spectacular. Too hot, if anything. There was no sign of rain – or even of the chill mists that usually crept off the sea like pirates and smothered the summer moor under little puddles of winter.

The force helicopter criss-crossed the search area using thermal imaging cameras, and its noise – a distant whirr or an overhead cacophony – became the soundtrack to the operation.

Charles Stourbridge controlled the riders and Reynolds settled for controlling those on foot and in cars.

Rice continued discreetly to check the volunteers against the sex offenders register, and on the second morning they quietly removed a man from the team at Landacre Bridge. Thirty-six-year-old Terry Needles had travelled all the way from Bristol with his flask and his sandwiches and his conviction for downloading child pornography. He spent the next twenty-four hours in a police cell at Minehead. Four hours while the police checked out his disappointingly solid alibis, and another tearful twenty just to remind him of how tentative his grip on freedom really was.

Reynolds had divided eighty-five volunteers into groups of twelve plus one of thirteen – each under the command of a local officer. They covered the seven squares Stourbridge had graciously left them. Progress was slow and sweaty but Reynolds couldn’t help but be impressed by the stamina and determination of the searchers, who provided their own lunches and local knowledge.

Jonas found himself not leading a team that started in Wheddon Cross – the highest village on the moor. The officer whom Reynolds had put in charge was a desk sergeant from the neighbouring Devon & Cornwall force.

‘Jim Courier,’ he told his group. ‘Like the tennis player.’

It dated him; Jonas was only vaguely aware that there had ever been a player of that name. Either way, he was uninterested in Courier. He was more concerned that the Reverend Julian Chard was among the searchers. Without once looking directly at the vicar of St Mary’s, he was aware of his every movement. And soon that movement was in his direction. The Reverend Chard grasped his hand and shook it firmly in both of his, looking deeply into Jonas’s face.