But even if, by chance, a really nice, single man happened to come into the shop and be attracted to her, Molly knew her father would pull out all the stops to ruin it for her. Over the years he’d put off several potential boyfriends by being aggressive towards them. She felt that his reputation was so well known now that no local young man would even attempt to ask her out.
Cassie was the first person she’d ever met who looked beyond the normal and the humdrum. She had told Molly she wasn’t to dream of a man coming to change her life, she was to do it herself. As her sister, Emily, had done. But even if Molly wasn’t yet brave enough to change her life, Cassie had opened it up for her because she knew about so much more than other people. Not just world news, films, books or music, but about customs in other countries, different religions, about science, history and all manner of other subjects. Yet, despite being clever and knowledgeable, she was also great fun, and so interesting. An hour in her company always felt like only a few minutes.
And she also gave good advice. She’d told Molly over and over again that she should leave home. She said if she stayed in Sawbridge she’d either marry the first man who asked her just so she could have a home of her own or end up the noble spinster who looked after her parents and missed out on everything.
Molly had often wondered if Cassie’s understanding of her situation came from similar experiences. Her father had been killed in the war, but she might have had memories of him being a bully, or there could have been a nasty grandfather. It could even have been her mother who hurt her, and perhaps that was why she didn’t want to say anything at all about her past.
Along with offering good advice, Cassie had also pointed out how many talents Molly had, that she was brilliant at window dressing, a good actress with a lovely voice, and that she could run a business single-handed if necessary. ‘You don’t see the big picture because you are far too close,’ she had said on more than one occasion. ‘Your father is grinding you down, making you think you’re worthless. In fact, you’re multi-talented. I believe you could do anything you put your mind to. But if you stay working for that ogre for much longer you’ll become as pathetic as your mum.’
Molly didn’t like Cassie saying her mother was pathetic, but she knew her friend had a point. Yet what could she do about it? What sort of a daughter would walk out and leave her mother alone with Jack?’
She hoped so much that the police had already found Petal, and that the search tomorrow would be unnecessary, but that only solved one problem. Petal would still need to come to terms with the death of her mother and, unless close relatives could be found who were willing to take her in, she’d have to go to a children’s home. She remembered Cassie’s strong views on such places, the way her face would darken and her eyes flash. Molly wished she was in a position to take care of Petal. She couldn’t bear to think of how awful it was going to be for her.
At five thirty the next morning around forty people were gathered outside the police station, ready for the search. It was still raining and quite cold, making everyone all too aware of how important it was to find Petal quickly. Molly was wearing her raincoat, sou’wester and wellington boots; it didn’t bear thinking about how badly the child would be faring if she was out there somewhere dressed only in shorts and a blouse.
Molly knew everyone there. They were mostly men, including three or four who had joined her on the previous evening, but there were around ten women, too. Over half were the same people who always turned out when asked, whether to help at the village fete, tidy up the churchyard or raise funds. The rest were younger, in their late twenties and early thirties, and Molly knew almost all of them had young children themselves. Normally, a band of such volunteers would be laughing and chatting, but not this time. The seriousness of the situation was etched into the faces of each one; they were barely even speaking to one another.
A police officer Molly didn’t know came out of the police station. He was tall and slender with a pock-marked face and a slightly hooked nose.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Girling,’ he said in a loud, clear voice. ‘Thank you all for turning out this morning. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important it is to find this little girl. Half of you will be starting the search from the village, working up towards Stone Cottage. The other half will be driven up there by bus, and you will search the woodland area above and around the cottage.
‘You will not only be looking for Petal,’ he said, looking at each face in the crowd in front of him, ‘but for clothing, shoes, hair ribbons – anything, in fact, that either doesn’t belong in the woods or which looks out of place and suspicious to you. Should you find something, I ask that you don’t touch it but stay at the spot and call out to alert the officers searching with you. Does anybody have any questions?’
The only question was about how long they would be searching, from someone who had to go to work later that morning. There was a hum of conversation at that, some saying they would search until Petal was found, however long that took.
Molly had put some sandwiches, some water and an apple into her small haversack. She noted that most people had something similar. She had barely slept at all for imagining Petal alone and frightened out in the dark, but that image was preferable to the one of finding her dead in some undergrowth.
A green-and-white coach drew up, and Molly was told to get on it, along with about twenty other people and some policemen, all of whom were strangers to her, because they had been drafted in from Bristol. There were dog handlers, too, but they were using their own transport to get themselves and the dogs to the cottage.
The coach dropped them by the track down to Stone Cottage, because after that it was so narrow. It was even harder to walk on than it had been the previous day, because all the vehicles going to and from the cottage had churned up the mud.
Molly was put into a group that was to go directly north, up behind the cottage. In her group was a man who had only moved into the village a couple of months ago. Customers had been talking about him in the shop; it was said he was a writer and a bachelor. His looks alone were enough to make women chatter, because he was tall and very nice-looking, with a mane of curly brown hair and lovely dark-grey eyes. At any other time Molly would have welcomed an opportunity to speak to him, but it seemed all wrong even to smile at him under such sad circumstances.
The dog handler who was leading their group explained that they needed to remain within six feet of the people to the right and left of them as, that way, they could thoroughly search the area.
‘Don’t rush. Scan the ground for anything unusual. Rake through the undergrowth with your sticks,’ he said. ‘Disturbed ground, a shoe, a handkerchief or some other small thing could help us work out what happened here. Yell out if you do find something, but don’t pick it up or touch it.’
Molly had brought a walking stick from home, as had many others. A walker had left it in the shop; it was a slender, lightweight, metal one with a spike on the end to get a grip in muddy conditions.
They set off immediately. The new man was to her right; on her left was Maureen French, a middle-aged, rather horsey woman who sang with Molly in the church choir.
The dog was very busy at first, going here and there, and sniffing wildly. Molly thought this must be because Petal had played close to the cottage and he was getting her scent strongly. But by the time they’d gone about a hundred yards into the woods the dog appeared to lose the scent. This wasn’t surprising, as Cassie had always told Petal not to go out of sight of Stone Cottage and, as the undergrowth was very thick – in places, really hard to get through – Molly couldn’t imagine a little girl with bare legs attempting to force her way in.