In the Moors Read Online Free PDF Page A

well hidden, he couldn’t find him at all, his family thought it was a kid’s prank. But even with everybody searching, Josh couldn’t be found. By the time police and volunteers did a sweep search of the whole area, hope had already faded. Even the Slamblaster action toy that Josh had been clutching had disappeared.
    There is never a good time to lose a child, but surely Christmas and New Year must be the worst. His parents’ strained faces became increasingly gaunt as they appeared, time and again, on the evening news. The search was spread over a wider and wider area, but the people of Bridgwater—myself included—still felt a long way away from the tragedy. At the start of January, Josh should have celebrated his seventh birthday. The whole country mourned him on that day. It didn’t seem possible that Josh would be seen alive again. A couple of weeks after his birthday, a party of walkers and a dog with a good nose stumbled on his body, left in a shallow grave in a remote part of the Somerset moors. Josh had been found fifty miles away from his home.

    I gave a start. Cliff was standing right beside me. I hadn’t even heard him come across the kitchen, but now he was so close that his breathing had broken into my reverie.
    â€œWhen a child dies, it always feels personal, doesn’t it?” I said. “My nephew is just a bit younger than Josh. Everyone will know a little boy like him. It’s an unspeakably compulsive story.”
    Cliff forced a weak smile. “Thank you for that. I was beginning to think it was just me that was obsessed with the case. I’ve listened to every news story since he was found, bought every newspaper. While I was in the cells, the police searched my flat. They found all the articles I’d cut out in a file.”
    â€œWhy? Why did you do that?”
    â€œI was hoping you’d tell me.”
    â€œHot drink first, I think.” I made a repeat of the earlier Barleycup and coffee (this time milk but no sugar), and we carried them back into the therapy room. I followed behind Cliff’s lumbering gait, which I suppose went with his extra height.
    â€œThey never announced how he died,” he said, without looking round. “I’ve read every newspaper report; they never said.”
    â€œI hadn’t really thought of that before,” I said. “I suppose it is rather odd.”
    â€œNot as odd as where he was found.”
    â€œBecause of those other bodies? The ones they found there ages ago?”
    â€œThat’s right.” Cliff returned to the client’s chair. The chair is a sun lounger, a little tatty around the edges, so I’ve draped it with a Celtic knot throw. I can adjust it from psychoanalytically prone to bolt upright, which was how it was now. Cliff’s trainered feet were solidly on the floor and he leaned towards me, ready to talk. “The papers can’t make up their minds. Sometimes the Wetland Murderer has returned. Sometimes it’s a copycat crime.”
    â€œI don’t remember the Wetland Murders at all,” I said.
    â€œThey were twenty-three years back.”
    â€œAh. I would’ve been five. And I didn’t live around here.”
    â€œI remember,” said Cliff. “I was eleven. All these little kids started disappearing. Their photos were plastered over the papers. Everyone got scared.”
    â€œThe new stories resurrected those old photos, didn’t they?”
    â€œThey’re loving it, the papers. Wallowing. Those killings were … gruesome. Even the children’s bones were broken. They were found with the duct tape still over their mouths.” Cliff broke off to take a swallow of his coffee and place it carefully on the floor by his feet. “Unbelievable.”
    I felt the silence grow in the room. Cliff appeared to be the world expert on both these crimes.
    â€œHow did it all end?”
    â€œI can remember seeing it on