Free Tyack & Frayne Mysteries 01 - Once Upon A Haunted Moor by Harper Fox Page A

Kemp case, PC Frayne.”
    “I believe so, sir.” The man Gideon had been two days ago would have hesitated, afraid of his own convictions. “And I want to report the clairvoyant Lee Tyack as missing, too. We have to track down Joe Kemp.”

Chapter Ten
     
    At seven o’clock, black night had come down, and Gideon was alone. He stopped by the barbed-wire fence and turned off his torch.
    This was the one night in the year when the village defied its name. Better than Bonfire Night, better even than Christmas, the people of Dark liked their Halloween and pulled out all the stops for it. From high up on the moor, Gideon co uld see that almost every house had its pumpkin lantern. The streets were being threaded by torchlight as parents and older siblings steered toddlers through an orgy of sweeties and annoying their elderly neighbours. In the old manor house, the witches were reclaiming their Samhain night, setting out milk and honey for their ancestral dead, sealing each window with a holy-water star. Seal the gate. We have to seal the gate...
    Gideon shuddered and switched his torch on again. The village was a handful of jewelled fire on an infinite black velvet backcloth. He belonged down there, making sure no tricks got out of hand – simply walking the streets, off duty, out of uniform, a familiar face. Soon he would go.
    The trouble was that Lorna Kemp, although not a cold case yet , was cooling off. The Prowse kid – under who knew what duress from Bill – had refused to tell his story again, and the lab results from the forensics team who’d worked in the house all day would take some time to return. As for Lee Tyack, he was an adult. So his absence only meant that he had hitched a ride and gone off on business of his own. Forty eight hours before a grown man could be listed as missing: no-one knew that better than Gideon.
    Nevertheless DI Kinver had taken Gideon’s fears seriously, brought to bear all his resources of men and tracker dogs in the hunt for Joe. Guided and directed by Gideon, the teams had spent all day following up every sniff and trace of him, while poor Sarah Kemp, finally overcome by this latest development, lay sedated in her bed. But at dusk, Kinver had caught Gideon’s arm. A night search was dangerous and hard to organise, and this wasn’t a good time for it. Halloween could get rowdy in the towns, and his men would be stretched thin. They would resume tomorrow. Gideon should remember, though, that Joe Kemp might have had other reasons for leaving Dark. He had no criminal record. He’d been a good uncle to the child. Gideon had done all he could: he should try and get some rest now.
    And so here Gideon was, just as he had been, as if the last forty eight hours had been swallowed up into the night. A good uncle , Kinver had said, as if that were an end to the matter, an answer in itself. For the most part Gideon was glad he lived in a corner of the world where such labels still had value and weight. A good shepherd , the villagers had called Pastor Frayne, and they’d told Gideon how fortunate he was to be such a man’s son, and he had believed them.
    Joe Kemp had been a good shepherd in the most prosaic sense. He’d come flying down to the village on his quad bike one day, in a panic because one of his best ewes was caught among some rocks up near the Cheesewring crag. Gideon had hopped on the back of the bike – such was the life of a village bobby – and together they’d freed the beast, Joe sweating all the time and telling Gideon to mind where he put his big feet, because...
    Because legend had it there were gaps beneath those rocks. Caverns and tunnels, some of them as deep as the earth.
    Gideon pushed the thought away. He had had a long fortnight of hopes raised and dashed, of following marshlights in his own mind. The ports and airports were on alert for Joe Kemp, who probably had gone to see a girlfriend on the sly in Truro. Alf Kemp was likely sleeping on the beaches in