Free On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill

winter's day.
    "Yes, fine. Sorry. It's just being here at the school, the incident room ... suddenly it's really happening. I think up till now I've been trying to pretend it were different from last time, over in Dendale, I mean. Not that it wasn't the same then to start with, telling ourselves that at worst there'd been an accident and little Jenny Hardcastle 'ud be found or manage to get back herself--"
    "Then you'll know how these things work," said Pascoe harshly. "One thing we'll need to get sorted quickly is this Benny business. Someone's responsible for these graffiti. We need to find out who, then we can start asking why. Any ideas?"
    "I'm working on it," said Clark. "Has to be a stupid joke and a lousy coincidence, hasn't it, sir? I mean, it were done last night and Lorraine didn't vanish till this morning. And the perp wouldn't do it in advance, would he?"
    "Less chance of being caught," said Pascoe.
    "But that 'ud mean the whole thing were planned!"
    "And that's worse than impulse? Well, you're right. Worse for us, I mean. Impulse leaves traces, plans cover them up. Either way, we need the spray artist."
    "Yes, sir," said Clark. "Sir ..."
    "Yes?" prompted Pascoe.
    "Benny. Benny Lightfoot. Anything you know that I don't? I mean, there could be information that reached HQ but you felt best not to pass on down here, for fear of opening old wounds. ..."
    "You mean, could Benny really be back?" said Pascoe grimly. "From what I've heard, I doubt it. But the very fact that you can ask shows how important it is to finger this joker's collar. Get to it."
    He walked across the playground to the school. He could see the figure of the head teacher at the window of a classroom he guessed would be Lorraine's. She'd been standing at the main entrance when they arrived but after a brief exchange, he'd cut the conversation short and headed into the hall.
    Now he joined her in the classroom and said, "Sorry about that, Mrs. Shimmings, but I had to get things rolling."
    "That's okay," she said. "I know how these things work."
    He recalled that like Clark, she, too, had been here before. Looking at her closely he detected the same symptoms of reentry to a nightmare she thought she'd left behind.
    She was a slimly built woman with graying chestnut hair and candid brown eyes. Late forties. Thirty plus when Dendale died.
    She said, "So you think the worst?"
    "We prepare for the worst," said Pascoe gently. "Tell me about Lorraine."
    "She was ... is a bright intelligent child, a little what they used to call old fashioned in some ways. It doesn't surprise me to hear that she got up early and decided to take her dog for a walk all by herself. It's not that she's a solitary child. On the contrary, she's extremely sociable and has many friends. But she never has any difficulty performing tasks by herself and on occasion, if given a choice, she will opt for the solitary rather than the communal activity."
    After the initial slip, she had kept determinedly, almost pedantically, to the present tense. As she talked, Pascoe let his gaze wander round the classroom. Bringing up Rosie had honed his professional eye to the school environment. Now he found himself assessing the quality of wall displays, the evidence of thought and order, the use of material that was stimulating aesthetically, intellectually, mathematically. In this classroom everything looked good. This teacher hadn't shot away on Friday afternoon but had stayed behind after the children had gone, to refine their efforts at tidying up and make sure the room was perfectly prepared for Monday morning. This teacher, he guessed, was going to be devastated when she discovered what had happened to one of her pupils.
    He said, "Would she go off with a stranger?"
    "Someone offering her sweets in the street, asking her to get into a car, no way," said Mrs. Shimmings. "But you say she'd gone up the dale for a walk? Things are different up there, Mr. Pascoe. Do you do any walking yourself?"
    "A