Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers

He’d thought of a thousand words to be carved on her stone, but in his shattered state the poetic always ran away from him and into maudlin doggerel, and so finally he’d kept it simple:

The undertaker had provided an ugly stainless-steel jar with holes in the lid for flowers, which Jones never used and generally hid behind the headstone. Instead he’d installed two bird feeders – one filled with nyjer seeds and the other with peanuts – which attracted the blue tits and goldfinches to Lucy’s grave for most of the year. In the winter he’d hung a coconut shell filled with fat, and had often seen a robin there too.

From Lucy’s grave, it was fewer than twenty paces to the church door where they’d stood for their wedding photos.

Till death do us part .

Today Jonas had brought new peanuts.

But as soon as he got to the wooden gate of the churchyard, he saw there was someone already at Lucy’s grave.

Jonas immediately took his hand off the heavy iron handle and stayed within the shadow of the stone-built arbour.

People did leave flowers on her grave. Not often, but often enough to show that she’d made an impression on the village in the few short years she’d lived here with him. Probably once a month he’d come here to find the ugly jar gainfully employed by wilting poppies or a spray of heather and cow parsley. He knew that Mrs Paddon from next door left daffodils in spring and roses in the autumn, and he was pretty sure Alan Marsh sometimes left flowers on Lucy’s grave, because they were the same as the ones he left on the nearby graves of his wife and son.

From his slightly obscured viewpoint, it was only when the figure stood up that Jonas recognized Steven Lamb.

The paperboy picked his school bag out of the summer daisies, slung it over his shoulder and walked towards the gate.

Jonas slid quietly behind one side of the arbour and listened to Steven lift the heavy iron latch, then drop it behind him with a little squeak and a clunk. He passed within three feet of Jonas and never knew he was there.

Jonas went over to Lucy’s grave. The nasty jar was back in its place, but there were no new flowers. Strange. Jonas replenished the nut feeder, then moved the jar to behind the headstone once more.

As he did, something shifted within it with a dull metallic sound.

Imagining a stone, Jonas unscrewed the lid.

Inside was £62.30 in three twenties and change.

The parents formed a support group. Find Exmoor’s Children, they called themselves – although the papers quickly dubbed them the Piper Parents, which stuck, of course. Even Marcie Meyrick had had to come into line on that one.

John Took was the spokesman, naturally, and they met once a week in each other’s homes to have a good cry.

At least, that’s how Rice saw it.

DC Paul Berry was the family liaison officer. Rice had been one herself in a previous incarnation, and could see he was hopelessly overwhelmed. As a beneficiary of the relaxation of force height restrictions, the over-keen, rosy-cheeked Berry looked like a child who’d found a police uniform in a dressing-up box, and John Took could look straight over his head, which made it even easier to ignore him. Sometimes the families told him when they were meeting and sometimes they didn’t. When they did, they expected him to make the tea.

Reynolds had gone to the first meeting at John Took’s, hoping that having all the parents in the same place at the same time might throw up the kind of case-busting coincidence so routinely seen in television cop shows. A common handyman; a sudden recognition of old college mates; a memory of all having been witness to a pivotal moment at a local hog-roast.

But nothing.

Once they had all spent an uncomfortable half-hour sipping tea while John Took and David Peach tried to establish a Skype connection to Jeff and Denise Knox in Swindon, the only consensus seemed to be that the broadband on Exmoor was an embarrassment.

Nobody had had anything useful to offer the investigation, and Reynolds had sat and tried not to look at his watch until nine o’clock, when they’d all got up. The men had shaken hands purposefully while the women exchanged stilted hugs and nose-bumping air-kisses, like old foes on a red carpet.

After that, Reynolds didn’t go again.

This Friday they were in Withypool in Maisie Cook’s home.

Maisie Cook’s parents had expressed their grief by not tidying up, even for guests, and Rice had to move an armful of newspapers and dirty washing before she could sit down.

John Took had brought his laptop and opened it to welcome the Knoxes, but the Cooks had just looked blank when he asked about broadband, so he hadn’t bothered trying to connect. The laptop sat there throughout with revolving screensavers showing Took with various women, horses and dogs, instead of the Knoxes. Rice imagined Jeff and Denise, shoulder to shoulder in Swindon, staring at their PC and wondering when they’d be included; finally trailing miserably to bed when it became apparent that they’d lost their son, and any meaningful support from the only people who really understood what they were going through.

Over the next two hours, Rice assessed the parents. John Took was loudest, David Peach most reasonable, Kylie’s mother Jenny the quickest to tears. Took’s ex, Barbara, was the most efficient – making the tea when it was plain Mrs Cook wasn’t about to – and Took’s girlfriend, Rachel, the most cloying.

None of them looked like the kind of people who would abuse their children, but she knew that that was no guarantee. Child abuse was the most egalitarian of crimes. Her discreet inquiries with Social Services had yielded nothing, and with nothing else to go on, Rice mentally sorted the Piper Parents into order for future interview, based on nothing more than gut feeling.

John Took was top of the list, just because she didn’t like him, but Jeff Knox was second, even though she did. The way his wife had turned on him in the car park at Tarr Steps was either very unfair or rooted in some history. History of what , she had no idea. After that came Mr Cook, because there were several Steven Seagal DVDs on his shelf, which Rice considered tantamount to calling your dog Rambo on the psycho scale.

She readily admitted to herself that her methods were neither scientific, nor likely to yield fruit. But she’d been asked to dig, and dig she would. It didn’t really matter where she started – what counted was what she might find.

Staying on topic was tough for the Piper Parents when they’d run out of helpful things to say in the first ten minutes of the very first FEC meeting. As usual, it degenerated into a maudlin memorial of the missing children, crossed with a non-debate about bringing back hanging. Her list completed, Rice raised her head now and then to say something temperate or technical, but she had nothing new to tell them. That she was allowed to tell, that is. For the moment, the secrecy over the green fibres and the white plastic tape outweighed even the parents’ need to know.

Rice let out a sigh of relief when it was all over. She was usually pretty lax about what she considered overtime, but she always made a meticulous note of the FEC meetings, during which she could feel her life draining away like sand in an hourglass.

Way to spend a Friday night, Lizzie , she thought to herself as she swung the Peugeot around in a neat loop at the end of the road and headed back towards Shipcott.

She thought she might have a drink in the bar before going upstairs in the Red Lion, then quickly discounted the idea. Reynolds would be sure to come and join her and want to talk shop. And she’d long since lost faith in finding anyone else to chat to who wanted to talk about anything but cricket, the price of milk, or the upcoming North Devon Show.