The four men (and a dog) were walking back to the village after a Christmas drink in the Holly Tree Inn when the Thwaites’ car pulled up beside them. One of the men — Davey Price — was the Thwaites’ next-door neighbor, and the other three were all from the village too, so they knew Joe and Olive fairly well. The men were about halfway between the pub and the village when the car stopped, and because there were no streetlights here, and no sidewalks either, they were all carrying flashlights.

Olive quickly told them about the strange boy from the big house who’d run off into the field, and when she’d finished telling them what had happened, she asked them if they wouldn’t mind keeping an eye out for him.

“I went to the house,” she explained, “but there was no one there, and we’ve been trying to call the police but neither of us can get a signal.”

“Do you think he’s in some kind of trouble?” Davey Price asked, leaning down to the open window.

Olive could smell the alcohol on his breath, but although it was quite strong — and she guessed they’d all had quite a few drinks — she could tell that Davey wasn’t drunk. A bit tipsy maybe, but not drunk.

“I’m just worried about him being out on his own in this weather,” Olive told Davey. “I don’t think he’s used to being out of his house at all, let alone in a blizzard, and if he’s still out there somewhere, wandering around on his own in the darkness . . .” She shook her head. “I would have gone after him myself, but with my hip the way it is . . .”

“Did the woman with the dogs go after him?” Davey asked.

“She was going to . . . I think she felt really bad about her dog scaring him so much. But then I pointed out that if she went after him with her dogs, it’d just scare him even more.”

“So what did she do?”

“She said she was going to take her dogs home and then come back out again and look for him on her own.”

“Do you know her?”

“I’ve seen her around. She lives in one of the new houses at the top of the village. But I don’t know her name.”

“What about the boy? Do you know his name?”

Olive shook her head.

“I think it’s Elton,” the man standing beside Davey said.

Davey turned to him. “What?”

“The kid’s name . . . I think it’s Elton. Or Ellis. Something like that anyway. Maybe Elmer.”

“Elmer?”

The man shrugged.

Davey frowned at him, then turned back to the car. He lowered his head and looked over at Joe in the driver’s seat, who so far hadn’t said a word.

“What do you think, Joe?” Davey asked him.

“I think if we don’t get going right now,” Joe said grumpily, “we’re not going to get to the station in time to meet our daughter and granddaughter off the train.” He looked at Olive. “That’s what I think.”

Davey smiled. Same old Joe, he thought, as cheerful as ever.

He turned back to Olive. “We’ll find the boy, don’t worry. You go and get your daughter.”