Free The Lost Child by Ann Troup Page A

dust that still clung to its interior. An evening breeze picked up the specks and sent them whirling and reeling across the gardens and in through the open window of Miriam’s cottage. Alex had been laughing but was interrupted by an unanticipated sneeze, caused unbeknownst to him, by his sudden introduction to Jean.

Chapter Five
    Brodie stood in the entrance to the ruined chapel. It looked baleful and forbidding in the low afternoon sun, which cast creeping shadows within its crumbling walls. Inside it was dank and silent, the smell of sweating, musty stone assaulted her senses and she struggled to see clearly into the gloom. She had brought a torch, which she checked for the second time, making sure that the batteries were functioning. Then she checked her pocket for the spares, her hand closing over them in quiet relief. Steeling herself, she made to venture further but was startled by a voice behind her.
    ‘Hard to believe that this hasn’t been like this for hundreds of years, isn’t it?’
    Reeling round, torch gripped in her hand like a baton she came face to face with a plump, ruddy-faced man dressed in black. Unlike her he was wearing a dog collar. ‘Oh, did I startle you? I’m sorry,’ he said.
    ‘S’all right’ Brodie relaxed her grip on the torch and wondered what the protocol was for talking to vicars.
    He placed his hands behind his back and looked up, squinting at the remains of the squat tower. ‘Yes, a hundred years ago this was still a functioning church, maintained by the Gardiner-Hallows. Mostly for family use I should imagine. But neglect takes its toll and now we’re left with just this ruin. Did you know that the land was given to the family by William the Conqueror and that they have owned it ever since? The current house doesn’t date back that far, most of it is Georgian, but the chapel has to be hundreds of years old. Fascinating isn’t it?’ he mused.
    Brodie climbed down from the fallen lintel she had been standing on and stood beside him, following his gaze, ‘Why do you think they let it fall down?’
    ‘Oh, lack of interest and lack of money I should think. These places aren’t cheap to look after. I should know, I’ve been fighting the locals for years to raise money for a new roof on the village church,’ he said, laughing. ‘Besides I don’t think the current incumbents are a terribly faithful lot,’ he added with a conspiratorial wink. ‘Anyway, nice to have met you – do be careful if you’re going to explore won’t you?’ he nodded at the torch.
    Brodie watched him wander off, hands still behind his back. Her prior experience of men of the cloth had been the occasional tussle with the hospital chaplain who frequently made it his business to advise her mother of the error of her ways. Shirley had constant battles with God, railing against him for her misfortunes one day and seeking his forgiveness the next. It hadn’t exactly given Brodie an enthusiasm for faith, or those who brokered it. Yet she had felt quite comfortable with this brief meeting, the vicar’s appearance having served to buoy her up for the task ahead. Taking her torch she re-entered the chapel and made her way to what she assumed had once been the front of the church. She was pretty sure it was called the chancel, and the side bits that formed the cross were the transepts. The part where people sat was the nave. Two minutes on Google and she was an expert in ecclesiastical architecture, or enough of one to work out what she was looking for anyway. She had spotted it the day before and had intended to explore it then, if she hadn’t had to deal with Elaine freaking out over a dumb bird.
    Picking her way over the rubble she went back to where she had spied an opening the day before. It was overgrown and half hidden, but it was there nonetheless. A rotting, woodlouse-ridden trapdoor lay over it, slimy with lichen. She managed to find a stick and used it to lever up the cover, revealing in its