The church was dark above, a sprawling patch of nothing in the star-freighted sky. The snow was still swirling between them, not yet falling heavily, but threatening more to come.
'We need to get back,' she said. 'Before it really comes down.'
'I know. I'll be all right in a moment.' He was leaning across the snow-topped stone wall, his eyes fixed on the regiments of gravestones.
'You can tell me,' she said. 'If you want to.'
He said nothing more for a moment. 'Yes. I think I do want to.' He pushed open the iron gates of the churchyard, and took a step along the path. 'You were right.'
'Right?' Mary looked anxiously over her shoulder. It was not far back to her mother's house. They should still be all right if the snow were to come down more heavily.
'I did have a reputation as a womaniser. A deserved reputation probably. I had a few… relationships. Probably didn't behave well.' He paused, then laughed slightly. 'I had a relationship with the chief constable's daughter.'
She had moved closer behind him. 'It sounds like the first line of a song. It also doesn't sound very wise. Your wife?'
'Yes, my wife. She… we–' He stopped. 'We discovered she was expecting. It was a shock. We thought we'd been careful.'
'Not careful enough.'
'No, well – we didn't have a lot of choice after that. We announced we were getting married. Kept it quiet, though I don't imagine we fooled anyone. Not anyone capable of using a calendar anyway. I'd been the chief's blue-eyed boy – his high-flyer. He never said anything, but he didn't need to.'
'When was this?'
''Thirty-nine. Start of the war. I'd been wondering what to do. Felt I was too young to hide in a reserved occupation.' He paused, thinking about what he'd said. 'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. My husband felt the same. He'd already resigned from the force so he could join up.'
'I didn't,' Winterman said. 'They didn't allow it, not officially. And I thought I should stay with Gwyneth. Though even then we both knew it wasn't ideal. If it hadn't been for Sam, we wouldn't have married.'
'Your son?'
'He was a lovely baby.' Winterman's voice was steady. 'A lovely little boy. We both loved him. Even if we didn't love each other.'
'You're not the first,' she said. 'It's not a unique story.'
'Oh, I know. But that doesn't make it any easier. And I had another problem.'
'What problem?'
'Gwyneth's father. The chief. I'd been pursuing a case. A big deal, by local standards. Trafficking in stolen goods – flooding the black market. We knew who they all were, but hadn't been able to get near them. Then I got a lucky lead. I was nearly there, and I was told to back off.'
'By the chief constable?' There was a note of disbelief in her voice.
'One of the senior officers. There were good reasons. One of the people I'd been looking at was an informer. They wanted him protected. Another was being watched as part of a bigger case so we shouldn't tread on their toes. Usual story. Don't step out of line, son, or you'll make it difficult for all of us.'
'Perhaps they were right.'
'I'd already heard things. They were being bought off. A long way up. Maybe all the way to the top.'
'You can't know that,' Mary protested.
'I knew it. I even made a half-hearted attempt to do something about it. I don't think I expected to succeed. I just wanted to bring things to a head.' He laughed, humourlessly. 'I did that, all right.'
'I heard–'
'You heard I had a breakdown? I suppose I did, in a way. I certainly didn't handle things very cleverly. It suited the chief perfectly. He wanted me out of the picture. I was an embarrassment to him, personally and professionally. He pulled a few strings. There I was with a smart university degree, so I got called up for some confidential work in London.'
'Intelligence work?'
'I'm not at liberty to divulge the nature or content of my activities,' he intoned, in what was presumably a parody of some official pronouncement. 'But you can imagine.'
'And your wife went with you?'
'Not at first. We thought it would be too dangerous to take Sam to London once the bombing started.'
Mary took another look at the sky. 'We really ought to get back.'
He made no response. 'But she wanted to give it another go. Things were getting desperate for her. She was lonely. She wanted to try.'
'We need to get back,' she repeated. The snow was swirling more thickly around them.
'So she came. It was that weekend. That weekend it happened.'
'Ivan,' Mary said. 'We need to move.'
He was staring into the darkness, his eyes fixed on one of the rows of gravestones.
'What is it?'
'There,' he said. 'Can you see it?'
She peered towards where his finger was pointing. 'I can't see anything.'
'I thought I saw something move, but that's not possible. But there's definitely something there.'
'There's more than enough snow. I know that much. We really need to get home.'
'Wait. There is something.' He switched on the torch and aimed the beam out across the churchyard. The light was dazzling for a moment, catching the endlessly turning snow.
Mary's eyes followed the cone of light. The trunk of a twisted elm. The angular blocks of worn gravestones, diagonal shadows across the white-coated earth. A shape.
'What is it?'
Winterman glanced at her, unsure whether to ask to stay where she was or to accompany him further into the churchyard. 'Come on.' He walked forward, his gloved hand still clutched in hers. The torchlight glanced across the blank snow-coated stones, emphasising the thick shadows behind.
Winterman shone the beam high in the air. Twenty feet away, there was a small clearing among the clustered graves. Beyond that was a larger raised grave – a rectangular stone box, the last resting place of some local notable. Something was resting on the tomb. Something out of place. Something black and formless.
'It's another body.' Mary's voice was barely audible in the night. 'Another child.' Winterman felt her hand close more tightly around his.
He took one more step forward, the torch-beam unwavering. Then, suddenly, he lowered the light, as if he had seen enough. 'Stay there. Don't move.' He raised the torchlight again and shone it across the blank surface of the tomb.
It was a child's body, sure enough. A pale shrivelled scrap of a thing, not yet bone but scarcely flesh, clothed in a few shreds of disintegrating cloth. Not fit clothing for a night like this. He moved the torch-beam over the body, the light glittering once, shockingly, on a pair of sightless eyes. The body was on its back, its leathery face twisted towards him, limbs spread like a sacrificial offering. He flashed the light briefly around the tomb, but in the dim light the snow looked untouched.
'What do we do?' Mary spoke from just behind him, her voice breaking unexpectedly into his thoughts. Her face in the torchlight was calm – the look of a mourner who has grown all too accustomed to death.
The snow was still coming down heavily, the rising wind blowing it into a toiling blizzard. It was already thick on their hats and shoulders. For the first time, Winterman was conscious of how cold he felt.
'You were right. We have to get back.' He glanced at the body. 'We can't do anything now. I can't even move the poor thing without risking disturbing the scene. We'll have to leave it till the morning. Nobody else is likely to come here before morning.'
She looked past him towards where the body lay. 'Somebody's been here tonight.'
She was right. The snow lay only thinly across the child's corpse. It could not have been long since it was left here.
Involuntarily he shivered, his eyes moving to the impenetrable darkness around them. Someone could still be out there. Someone could be watching them.
He slipped his arm through hers again, unsure of his motives. 'Come on. Let's get you home.'