Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers

It was as if he’d only just arrived. Didn’t know the ropes.

‘Hey,’ Steven said. ‘How long have we been here?’

Jonas opened his mouth to answer, but then frowned.

‘Five six nine eleventy years!’ said Charlie behind him.

‘Ten days,’ said Steven, and Jonas Holly stared at him in blank confusion.

FOR A WEEK, no child was taken. Then a week and a day. A week and two days.

A week and a half.

Exmoor held its breath.

Even the flash bulbs seemed more subdued, and the reporters more inclined to drift away from their vigils outside the homes of the Piper Parents to revisit the scenes of the abductions, to survey the local pubs, or to vox-pop market-day farmers about the curse of Exmoor. Several were even recalled and reassigned to stories that had a more tangible conclusion.

It was dull stuff. No new abductions meant no new news.

Marcie Meyrick took a view and stayed put, along with four die-hard freelance photographers who had stationed themselves outside the school in Shipcott which hosted children from several villages around. She was her own boss and had a feeling in her water that the Pied Piper story may yet pay for her to have that cruise to the fjords that she’d dreamed of for years.

So every morning she parked her only indulgence – a four-year-old Subaru Impreza – close to the school, and kept true to her vigil.

Three times a day she popped quickly into the Spar shop for a Cornish pasty or a bottle of water, or a pee. She’d flattered and cajoled Mr Jacoby into letting her use his toilet, and made sure he always saw her put a pound in the Guide Dogs box by way of thanks. So far she was right up there at the head of the hack pack with her single exclusive. She wasn’t about to languish over lunch in the Red Lion and let some pampered expense-accounted bimbo catch up while she was gone. It could happen in an instant and suddenly she’d have to start all over again. It had happened before and she’d started all over before. Not once but many times; and each time it got harder.

For the first time in her life, Marcie Meyrick wondered when it was going to end. Not the story, the job . There was always another tragedy, another paedophile, another house fire, another pit bull, another car crash. And she was always clawing and fighting to be first in line. Just once, just once , thought Marcie, it would be so good to be ahead of the game. To know exactly how things were going to go, and to be confident of being there when they went.

Suddenly, while watching children spill out of the school gates, Marcie Meyrick had a brainwave. She told the photographers her plan.

‘If we get pics of every single kid now , then when one of them’s snatched we’ve got a head start! Got their pic, their name, age, address – everything! Screw running round kissing the cops’ arses just to squeeze a bit of info out of them and a crappy old snap from the kid’s third birthday party!’

The men looked at each other – interested but nervous.

‘Is that legal?’ said one.

‘As long as we don’t approach them on school property, where’s the harm?’ Marcie said. ‘They have the right to say no.’

‘What’s the catch?’ asked Rob Clarke for all of them.

‘No catch,’ shrugged Marcie. ‘You’re all freelance. The more kids you get, the better chance you have of hitting the jackpot. You just gotta promise to use my words, that’s all. It’s a package deal.’

Within minutes they were all approaching children, taking their pictures, and logging their names, ages and addresses. Most children were excited about having their picture in the paper, and those who declined were generally girls who declared their hair looked a mess and to ask again tomorrow.

Marcie and Rob jogged after two boys who were already heading up the street.

When they turned around, Marcie realized one of them was Davey Lamb.

Shane smiled for a photo and gave his name to Rob, but Davey was more wary.

‘Who are you ?’ he asked.

‘My name’s Marcie. You’re Davey Lamb, right?’

He said nothing.

‘How’s your mum doing, Davey?’

The boy looked up the street towards home and kept his mouth shut.

‘I really am praying for Steven to come home. We all are. You know that, right?’

He fixed her with a steady gaze that would have wilted anyone less Australian.

‘Can we take your photo quickly, Davey?’ She smiled. ‘Maybe one of you and Shane together?’

‘You already have my photo,’ he said, and walked away.

Reynolds let the water pummel his head into submission.

He should have been happy, but he wasn’t. Nobody else had been kidnapped. It should have been a cause for relief, if not celebration, but all Reynolds could think was: Why has he stopped?

He always did his best worrying in the shower – even one as small as this. The worry used to be inextricably linked with watching his hair swirl down the drain between his feet, and had become a Pavlovian response, even though his hair was now silkily anchored. The second the water burst from the shower-head, Reynolds started to doubt himself and those around him; began to wonder why he’d become a police officer in the first place, to debate whether he should call his mother more, and to question what the future could possibly hold for him if he were unable to solve the case/get a girlfriend/finish that day’s Times crossword.

Like a metaphysical plumber, no job was too small for Reynolds to worry about once he’d stepped under the flow.

He had called Kate Gulliver and they’d had an interesting chat, but even she’d had no answers for him for this one – at least none he hadn’t already postulated in his own mind with an increasing sense of helplessness.

The Pied Piper (God, even he was calling him that now!) must have stopped for a reason. He might be dead. The children might be dead. He might have moved house along with his adoring wife and tow-headed babies. He might simply have run out of storage or his car could have broken down; or perhaps he’d become a born-again Christian and was even now preparing to release his captives, citing divine intervention. The possibilities were endless.

All Reynolds knew was that something had changed.

Not knowing what was just another bitter pill to swallow. Something in DI Reynolds almost hoped for another abduction – anything that might add to his pool of knowledge and give them a fighting chance of catching the culprit.

Because if the Piper had stopped for good, they’d never catch him.

HUNGER WAS A funny thing. Sometimes it hurt like a blade in Jonas’s gut – and he should know. Other times it was almost wonderful.

When it hurt, the pain came in long spasms that rippled up his body like a tsunami, tearing and squeezing the beaches of his organs and leaving him breathless and flattened. When it was wonderful, it freed him from the confines of his wire-mesh prison and speeded up the tortuous process that turned each day into the next.

His mouth was dry or drooling by turn, his thoughts either repulsed by the idea of sustenance or filled with fruit and potatoes and – bizarrely – cupcakes. Cupcakes he’d seen on TV, with thick, soft, fairytale icing, sprinkled with chocolate and little silver balls.

Instead of sweet cakes, he was served stinking slabs of dead flesh. He told the huntsman every day that he couldn’t eat meat, and every day he was ignored, so the children had taken it upon themselves to keep him alive. Maisie and Kylie had started it and the others had quickly joined in. They returned from the meadow twice a day with handfuls of grass, dandelions and clover. They carefully pushed the increasingly mushy handfuls through the fences down the line to Steven, who dropped them into Jonas’s kennel.