Free The Black Country by Alex Grecian

all.”
    “Rose thinks he knows what happened to that family, doesn’t he?”
    “Not just him. Lot of the folks here do.”
    “That’s why you sent for us?”
    “I had to. I couldn’t find that family myself. And nobody else wants to help.”
    “So where does Rose think they are?”
    “Down below.”
    “In the mines?”
    “Yes.”
    “What makes him think that?” Day said.
    Grimes said nothing.
    “Should we be down in the tunnels,” Day said, “rather than out here in the woods?”
    Grimes shrugged. “I didn’t say I thought they were in the tunnels.”
    There was another long silence. The two of them walked on. They drew up alongside Hammersmith and Campbell, who had stopped at the tree line where the snow abruptly ended.
    “Let’s get in there,” Campbell said.
    Day nodded, and Hammersmith produced a box of matches. He withdrew a long wooden match and lit each of the men’s lanterns. Day looked around at the faces of the three other men. Hammersmith wore his customary expression of determination. Campbell’s face was partially hidden in shadow, and the light from his lantern cast yellow highlights under his cheekbones that made him seem cadaverous and deadly. Day looked at Grimes. The constable’s eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. He had the appearance of a high-strung horse ready to bolt.
    Hammersmith plunged into the forest, his lantern held high ahead of him. Campbell followed close behind. Day grabbed Grimes’s elbow and held him back.
    “What is it?” he said. “What’s got you so frightened? What’s got the innkeeper poisoning the police? There’s something you’re all tiptoeing around out here.”
    “It’s nothing,” Grimes said. “Let’s go.”
    “Tell me what Rose has told you.”
    “Let go of me!” Grimes pulled away, and his lantern swung in a wide arc. Day staggered, but caught his balance. The constable shook his head and stared down at the footprints they had made in the snow. “I apologize,” he said. “Disrespectful of me.”
    “Tell me,” Day said.
    “Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” Grimes said.
    “Rawhead and . . . What does that mean?”
    “Rawhead and Bloody Bones. He what waits in the mines and takes people. That’s who has the boy and his parents. What Rose and the others think, anyway.”
    “Who is Rawhead?”
    “It’s a children’s rhyme. A monster. Nonsense, really.”
    “But Rose, the other villagers here, they think the monster’s real?”
    Grimes nodded his head and said nothing. Day opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could speak, Grimes hurried past him and disappeared into the dark forest.
    “Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” Day said. He sighed and thrust his lantern into the shadows, and allowed himself to be swallowed by the trees.

12

    C laire Day had thought ahead and packed a pair of sturdy boots for her husband, along with a short-brimmed hat and a quilted vest. Wearing them now, Walter Day looked out ahead at the dark tangle of low briars and the patches of snow and ice that had gathered despite the canopy of branches above and he counted himself lucky.
    As he did every day.
    He allowed Constable Grimes to lead the way into the dark, wild country. He followed Grimes closely, but kept careful track of Sergeant Hammersmith and Calvin Campbell, who were spread out ahead of him. There was always the possibility that the villagers might lead Day and Hammersmith into the woods and lose them or, worse, do them harm. Of course Grimes had sent for Scotland Yard in the first place. It was a good indication that he wanted to find the missing family. But there was something about Campbell that Day didn’t trust. He was the only stranger in the village, and yet he seemed more concerned than almost anyone else about the Prices. And, most especially, about finding little Oliver Price. Day felt certain the birder knew something that he wasn’t sharing.
    Grimes crunched his way through brambles and around trees, and Day kept