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village?’
    Lily nodded and began to cry. The woman led her inside and made her sit down. Lily looked up at her with horror in her eyes.
    ‘They’ve got my boy. They’ve got my Michael. I don’t know what to do!’

Chapter 6

    PC Edgar Pring, the villagepoliceman, had just cycled over from Threshfield where he’d been investigating a barn fire. His police-issue bicycle weighed a ton and he wasn’t as fit as he might have been. His exertions didn’t put him in a good mood.
    ‘Right, Maureen. What’s all this about a missing lad? I’ve had ter break off an important investigation ter trail across here.’
    He sat down in a chair opposite Lily, breathing heavily, still with his cycle clips on his trousers and sweat running down his heavy jowls. He removed his helmet and wiped his face with a large, grimy handkerchief.
    ‘Any beer in t’ pantry, Maureen? I could murder a light ale.’
    ‘There’s a couple o’ bottles, but yer’ll have to make it up to Vernon in t’ Bell tonight – will yer be going in?’
    ‘Can a duck swim, Maureen? I need to be there to keep law and order.’
    ‘Edgar, the only time law and order needs keeping in that place is when you’ve had a few.’
    Lily listened to this meaningless banter with tears in her eyes. It was as if her problem didn’t exist. She felt like screaming at them to shut up and find out where her Michael was.
    ‘My four-year-old son’s missing,in case anyone’s interested. He’s been taken by some people called Oldroyd who were living at number seventy-four not four weeks ago. I know this because we stayed with them overnight. We came on a coach trip and we met them in a tea shop in Grassington. They seemed very nice people. I just don’t understand what’s happened.’ The words tumbled out, closely followed by tears.
    PC Pring wasn’t best pleased at having his conversation interrupted. ‘Who’s we?’ he asked, gruffly.
    ‘Me and my son, Michael,’ sobbed Lily. She lifted her tearful eyes and looked directly at him. ‘My husband was killed in France two weeks ago and now these people have taken my boy. Could you find him for me, please?’
    ‘I’ll make us all a cup of tea,’ decided Maureen, going into the kitchen. Another dimension had been added to this poor woman’s troubles and it seemed to her that beer was an unsuitable drink for such an occasion. The policeman took a notebook from his breast pocket and a pencil from behind his ear.
    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’d best take some details.’
    Lily’s waters broke before Maureen came back with the tea. The policeman heaved out a great sigh, which might have been exasperation or relief. He went off to the phone box to ring for an ambulance with barely a page of notes in his book. Six hours later Lily gave birth to another boy, by which time PC Pring was drinking his second pint in the Bell. His notebook, with its incomplete statement, was in his uniform pocket, hanging on a hook behind his kitchen door.
    Monday 30th April
    Baby Robinson, who was born inthe early hours, was being kept in a side ward, with him being jaundiced and slightly underweight at five pounds three ounces. Lily had been assured that this was a perfectly normal procedure and whenever the baby needed feeding he’d be brought to her. In the meantime she needed rest.
    ‘Do you have a name for him yet?’ the matron had asked her. ‘We do like to give them names as soon as possible.
    ‘What? No.’
    Lily’s mind was in a turmoil. The labour of the previous evening had been long and excruciating, leaving her in need of a substantial blood transfusion. The only name running through her mind was that of her lost son, Michael. It had been there throughout all the pain and trauma of the birth. It was the name she constantly screamed as she pushed her baby out into this bloody awful world that took away husbands and children. She hated this world and everything in it. She hated the nurses and doctors and the police who kept