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Steven squinted through the wall again. The cow’s carcass was being winched through a dark doorway within the big shed now, giant, pink and stripped of skin. The hide lay in a black-and-white pile along with the feet and the tail and the head, with eyes gone milky and its rude blue tongue lapping at a little ooze of blood on the floor.

Soon the air would stink of hair and horn. Something in the incinerator always popped loudly; Steven didn’t know what it was, but imagined the eyes, and was relieved every time it was over.

‘What do you think he wants?’ he said.

Jess shrugged. ‘Money, I suppose.’

‘My mum doesn’t have any money,’ said Steven.

‘Nor does my dad,’ said Jess. ‘The horses take it all.’

39

DAVEY SAW THE story in the paper on the rack outside Mr Jacoby’s shop as he walked to Shane’s house.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Davey stopped dead. He almost didn’t recognize the blurred photo of his own mother, one hand over her mouth, the other clutching the end of his hospital bed. There he was, propped against pillows and looking disappointingly eleven, and there was DI Reynolds, leaning back in his chair and frowning.

Davey picked up the Sunday Mirror. The story was labelled ‘Exclusive’ and had been written by someone called Marcie Meyrick. As he read it, Davey felt his whole body go hot and cold and squirmy.

The mother of kidnapped brothers weeps as her younger son reveals the gruelling details of their ordeal at the hands of the infamous Pied Piper.

Speaking from his hospital bed, little Davey Lamb—

‘Little Davey Lamb’? Davey’s heart plummeted. Shit, they were going to have him for breakfast at school.

… little Davey Lamb told police he and Steven had managed a daring escape from the serial kidnapper.

But, in a cruel twist of fate, Steven then got lost in the woods where they were both taken more than a week ago, and is presumed to have been recaptured.

‘We ran away together,’ a sobbing Davey told his distraught mum, Lettie Lamb, 39, of Shipcott.

Sobbing?! He hadn’t sobbed! Shit! Davey wanted to punch someone. Who the hell was Marcie Meyrick? What a fucking liar! He read on:

But the last little Davey heard of his big brother was Steven shouting at him to run home to his mother – and then they lost touch in the deep Landacre Woods in the middle of the moor.

The child snatcher has terrorized Exmoor for weeks, stealing children from parked cars, and cunningly eluding police.

Detectives leading the manhunt now presume that Steven Lamb is being held with six other captives – five children and police constable Jonas Holly, who was apparently abducted while trying to rescue young Davey.

The kidnaps are only the latest in a horrific series of crimes visited on the moor over the past thirty years.

Between 1980 and 1983, serial killer Arnold Avery buried six young victims on Exmoor, and two years ago another murderous spree left eight people dead in the small town of Shipcott. The killer has never been caught.

‘Exmoor is cursed,’ said one elderly resident who didn’t want to be named …

Davey threw the paper down furiously.

‘Steady now,’ said Mr Jacoby, who’d appeared in the doorway.

‘They’re writing lies!’ shouted Davey.

‘That’s what newspapers do.’

‘It shouldn’t be allowed!’

‘It’s not,’ said Mr Jacoby. ‘If they’ve lied and you can prove it, you can sue them.’

‘I’m going to! It said I cried and I didn’t cry! Shit!’

‘How’s your mum doing, Davey?’ asked Mr Jacoby soothingly.

Davey looked confused, then shrugged. ‘Fine.’