The National Park ranger, Graham Thorpe, organised a Butterfly Safari, and despite plenty of interest Sally Fletcher was the only one to attend. He muttered something about her probably having something better to do with her Sunday, but she told him she was keen. They walked along the river and through the quarries and up the hill behind Reservoir no. 8, and he showed her where to look for skippers, various fritillaries, coppers, tortoiseshells, and blues. They found half a dozen species but he seemed to be talking about two dozen more, describing their lifecycles, migrations, feeding habits, mating styles. He’d become very talkative, and Sally was enthralled. She’d had no idea there was so much to it. The two hours were over far too soon, and when she had dinner with Brian that evening she realised she didn’t want to tell him anything about it. This would just be her thing now. At the edge of the beech wood and in the walls along the road the foxgloves were tall, and the bees crept in and out of the bright thimbled flowers. On a fence-post by the road a buzzard waited. The cricket team went over to Cardwell and although rain took out most of the day there were enough overs left for Cardwell to win. The bilberries came out on the heath beyond the Stone Sisters, and on the second Sunday in August a group went up from the village to pick them. The fruits grew sparsely and there was a need to keep moving and stooping across the ground. It felt less like a harvest than a search. The grouse shooting started. In the pens at the edge of the Culshaw Estate the pheasants could be seen ducking and scattering at the slightest noise. The days were long and still. There was a guilt in just walking the hills with the sun blazing down and some people worked harder than others to not let that guilt keep them away. It helped to avoid the path past the Hunter place, was a feeling. The girl’s mother was still there. She was rarely seen but her presence was felt. The path climbing up round the back of the barn conversions had thickened with grasses, with so few feet trampling it down. The occasional photographer still crept up there in the early dew but they were soon spotted and brought down, their trousers wet with seed-heads and burrs. Always men, these ones. Nothing to arrest them for. It was usually Stuart Hunter who found them. He wasn’t a man for confrontation but on this he would give no ground. They were never told twice. Jess Hunter wondered where he found this strength of purpose when it was often otherwise lacking. She wondered if he felt something towards the girl’s mother beyond the responsibilities of a host. It seemed unlikely. He wasn’t a man for something like that. Once he’d sent them away he would come back into the house pacing and breathless, and she sometimes had to hold him to calm him down. It reminded her of the adrenalised state he would get into after rowing events, at university. Sometimes the energy of it would carry them into the bedroom; but more often it would send him charging into his work, hammering through a day of spreadsheets and phone calls and heated conversations with staff. And still beyond the Hunter place there were reminders of the girl’s disappearance all over the hill: the flowers at the visitor centre, the new fencing around the mineshafts, the barking of dogs along the road. Most people stayed away altogether, and took their walking to the reservoirs or the edge of the quarry or further to the deep limestone dales in the south where the butterflies rose like ash on the breeze and the ice-cream vans still appeared.
The summer had been low with cloud but in September the skies cleared and the days were berry-bright and the mud hardened into ridges in the lanes. At the allotments the main crop of potatoes was lifted, the black earth turned over and the fat yellow tubers tumbling into the light. It was Irene’s turn to put together the Harvest Festival display at the church, so she and Winnie spent a week making sheaves of wheat at Irene’s dining-room table. They’d been friends since Irene had first come to the village, but had only really spent time together like this since Ted’s death seven years previously. Winnie still had the better eye for this type of thing. She was a few years older than Irene, was part of it. And she’d grown up here, whereas Irene had always kept a touch of the town about her. There was concentration in Winnie as well, which Irene was still trying to learn. Sometimes when she was with Winnie she felt like she might be talking too much. But there was so often just one more thing to say. When they were done they carried the arrangements down to the church, where they served as centrepieces to draw the eye away from the clutter of tins and packets the schoolchildren brought in, and people said it was one of the finest displays seen in years. The river slipped beneath the packhorse bridge and turned slow eddies along the shore. There were carers coming in to see Jackson once a day, washing and turning him and encouraging him out of bed. He could feed himself now, and his speech was better, but it still took the two of them just to hold him upright while he stood on his pale hairless legs. They were a help while they were there, but the rest of the time it was Maisie who had to fetch and empty his bedpans, and bring his food, and help him change into fresh pyjamas. She’d been told that if his mobility was going to improve it would mostly happen during these first months, and that he needed to be ready for physiotherapy as soon as it became available. Watching the way he worked the bed controls, the motors softly whining as it tilted up and down, she wasn’t convinced he would have the fight. The boys were building a sun room at the back of the house, so that he’d have somewhere comfortable to spend the days and wouldn’t just waste away in bed. It was taking some building. There were teenagers walking through the field behind the house, heading out to the beech wood for drinking no doubt. Will Jackson recognised the voice of the Broad boy, and the stonemason’s son, Liam Hooper. Girls as well. In the beech wood Deepak and the others settled into the den they’d built three years before. His family were moving out the next day. They’d brought blankets and Liam was lighting a fire. The cider was almost gone. The conversation had faltered. Lynsey and Sophie were sitting on a log with a blanket around their shoulders and James could see something in their eyes. They looked as though they had something to say and no intention of saying it out loud. They seemed pleased with themselves, and uncertain. James watched them and they were looking at Deepak. Liam was crouched by the fire, blowing into the kindling. The girls stood up and told Deepak they had a leaving present for him. Deepak looked pleased and confused. What is it? It’s over here, Sophie said. Follow us. They strode away into the trees and Deepak looked back at James, shrugging. Liam sat up from the fire.