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His glimpse of the gardens was over and he walked on, head down, until he figured he was at a safe enough distance to drop his deck once more and push himself up the hill.

Old Barn Farm was just about a hundred yards past the entrance to Springer Farm – or what was left of it. Steven’s mother had forbidden him and Davey to go there since it burned down. She said walls would fall on them, rafters might plummet at any second, charred floorboards could give way under their feet. Steven had never been to Springer Farm anyway, but suspected that Davey often went to play there, now that his mother had made it seem like such an exciting place to be.

Old Barn Farm had new gates to go with the new residents. Big black iron ones that wouldn’t open when Steven pushed them. He stood for a moment, undecided. The gates were so new that the mortar used in their brick posts was still dusted across nearby brambles. He wondered how far down the driveway the farmhouse was – whether it was going to be worth his while getting this order if he had to mess with the gates and then walk a mile after that every week. Or every day, if he could get them to take the Western Morning News from him.

‘Hello.’

Steven looked around at the voice and noticed a shiny steel intercom built into the gatepost. An intercom! In Shipcott! There was a button marked ‘Talk’, so he pressed it, feeling like 007.

‘Hello. Umm. I want to know … I wanted to know if maybe you want a newspaper delivered.’ He released the button and then fumbled it back down and added ‘please’ – then pressed it again and said ‘thank you’.

Double-O Dickhead.

There was a short silence, and then a spurt of laughter.

‘I’m here, dopey!’

Emily Carver was on the grass verge behind him on a horse.

It took only a split second of mental panic for Steven to realize that nothing he could say right now would save him from looking like a complete idiot, so instead he just waved his arms in a gesture of vague resignation, and hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt.

She wasn’t wearing the green ribbon. Her brown hair was plaited over one shoulder and held in place by a plain black band.

‘I’m in your class,’ said Emily, as her horse – a smallish, golden-coloured animal – put its head down and started to crop the grass of the verge.

‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘Emily.’

‘I don’t like Emily. My friends call me Em.’

‘OK then.’ Steven nodded, but wasn’t sure whether she meant that he should call her Em.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Steven.’

She gave him a sly look. ‘And your friend with the red hair?’

Steven’s face fired up again, just as it had been cooling off. ‘Lewis,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that.’

She gave a pretty little shrug and a wave, which Steven interpreted as his having been absolved of responsibility for his best friend’s manners.

‘Do you want to come in and talk to my dad?’

‘What about?’

‘The newspaper thing?’

Of course. That was why he was here.

‘Oh, OK. Yes. Please.’

Em pointed a small remote control at the gates, which swung open silently, and tugged the horse’s head out of the grass.

They passed through the gateway together and started down the stony driveway to the unseen house in silence. Steven was grateful Em was being so nice to him, but he also couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her that didn’t sound strained and fawning to his inner ear.

I like your horse.

Where did you live before coming here?

Where’s your green ribbon today?

All rubbish. He wondered how anyone ever started a conversation with a girl. Not a girl you had to talk to because she was your home-ec. partner, or a girl who looked at you and giggled and said stuff to her friends that made them giggle too. But a proper girl, and a normal conversation. In that regard, Steven was at a complete loss.

Behind them the gates clicked quietly shut and he glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Why do you have such fancy gates?’

‘Oh,’ said Em dismissively, ‘somebody stole our trailer.’

9

JOS REEVES AT THE lab in Portishead called to confirm that green wool fibres that had been found stuck to the gummed note at the Pete Knox scene nearly matched fibres found clinging to the door handle of John Took’s horsebox.

‘Nearly?’ Reynolds asked. He’d been about to get in the shower – or try to. He was not a stocky man, but he’d examined the cubicle with a mathematical eye and was dubious about every single dimension.

‘Well, the fibre itself is the same,’ said Reeves, ‘but the ones at the second scene have traces of butane on them.’

‘You mean lighter fuel?’

‘That’s the stuff.’