Free False Tongues by Kate Charles

and twisted it. ‘They don’t design these things to be opened up,’ he said. ‘But where there’s a will—’ The phone came apart, revealing a mysterious interior stuffed with tiny black squares and silvery bits, none of which Neville could begin to put a name or function to. Danny grinned. ‘We’ll see what we can do with this.’
    Neville asked the big question. ‘How long?’
    â€˜Oh, give me a day. Or two. It might take up to a week, depending.’
    Trying to hide his disappointment, Neville turned away from the table, just as his phone rang.
    Sid, the caller ID told him. ‘Yes?’ he rasped into the phone.
    â€˜I was too late,’ Cowley said. ‘There’s been a missing person report this morning. A fifteen-year-old boy. They’ve sent Dewi Jones.’
    Neville’s expletive caused Danny Duffy to drop his blade on the table with a clatter.
    â€˜Steady on,’ said Danny, looking shocked.
    ***
    Pregnant?
    Jane managed to get through breakfast, maintaining an outward semblance of normality for Brian’s benefit.
    â€˜No one at Morning Prayer,’ he said conversationally as Jane poured his tea. ‘Not a soul. Just me and God.’
    She bit back a tart comment on the fact that everyone else—everyone with sense—was away. As they could have been. Should have been.
    None of that mattered if she was pregnant. Nothing else mattered.
    It was all she’d wanted and longed for, tried so hard to achieve.
    More than eighteen years since the twins were born. Eighteen years since she’d held a tiny, warm, fragrant new life in her arms. Through all those years she’d longed for a daughter—a little girl she could dress in frilly clothes, with whom she could join in dolls’ tea parties and share delicious girly secrets.
    And for eighteen years it had been utterly out of the question. On a vicar’s stipend, bringing up the twins had been a constant struggle. Jane hadn’t worked outside of the home—she strongly believed that the role of a vicar’s wife was a calling in itself, and it was part of her job to make sure that the meagre resources stretched as far as she could make them stretch. Bills, school uniforms, the untold costs associated with growing boys: most of the time just feeding the four of them was a major financial achievement.
    But then—miracle of miracles—a bequest had come out of the blue, an inheritance from an uncle. Not enough money to allow Brian to give up his job and live in the lap of luxury; enough, though, to make a difference to their lives.
    And what could make more of a difference than to fulfil the dream of making their family complete, with a new baby?
    Brian had been sceptical at first, even incredulous: they were both over forty, after all. Eventually he’d been won over by his wife’s passionate arguments, and in spite of their GP’s discouraging advice, they’d embarked on a regimen in which their love life was regulated by the calendar and Jane’s obsessive temperature-taking.
    The irony was, of course, that over Easter she hadn’t had the time to worry about it. And now…
    â€˜I was thinking,’ Brian said, buttering his toast, ‘that since things are quiet this week, maybe we could go out for lunch today? Just the two of us?’
    Jane stared at him. Obviously he was feeling guilty, and this was his way of being conciliatory, trying to make it up to her for not taking a week of holiday. But this was a first. He’d never, as long as they’d been married, suggested going out for lunch.
    She wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. Not yet, anyway. ‘I’ll see,’ she said. ‘I have an errand to run this morning.’
    Brian gave her a puzzled frown. ‘What sort of errand?’
    â€˜To the shops,’ she said vaguely.
    â€˜Are the shops even open? On the Bank Holiday?’
    â€˜Yes,