Page 11 of A Very Happy Halloween

Sunday when I glanced up to check Alfie wasn’t digging in Chip’s lawn with his yogurt spoon again and found him missing.

“Alfie,” I called, but there was no answer, and I cursed under my breath as I stepped out of the porch to look for him. “Alfie, you need to stay in sight.”

There was no sign of him. I squinted down the old cobbled driveway, but the only movement was a crow pecking at the neatly mown grass alongside.

“I bet he went to the loo,” Harry said. “He drank nearly a whole carton of OJ this morning, remember?”

A sore point for Harry because he’d also wanted orange juice, and there was none left.

“I’m going to check around the back. Don’t leave the porch, okay? And call me if Alfie comes back.”

“Whatever.”

But Alfie wasn’t in the toilet. He wasn’t in the stable yard, period. The old loose boxes were bolted shut from the outside, and when I checked the smaller doors that looked as if they led to storage rooms, every single one was padlocked shut.

“Alfie!”

Silence.

That all-too-familiar sense of panic welled up inside me. I’d felt it seven months ago when I realised what that condom wrapper in Steven’s pocket meant, and again soon after we moved into Marigold Lodge when I first saw water torrenting through the roof. But this was worse.

This was my son.

He couldn’t have gone far; logic told me that.

But then I glanced towards the house and saw the side door open.

Shit.

If there was one place a curious seven-year-old like Alfie would go, it was where he wasn’t supposed to.

Should I sneak in after him? Or call Chip the possible pervert? Neither option appealed, but leaving Alfie alone to wreak havoc wasn’t an option.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialled.

“Everything okay?” Chip asked. “Did you run out of paint?”

“I can’t find Alfie. He was right by the porch, and then… I don’t know. But I saw your side door is open, and?—”

“I’ll take a look. Primrose probably opened it.”

“Who’s Primrose?”

A wife? A girlfriend? A housekeeper? Could she help with the search? Whichever, I felt better knowing there was a woman in the house.

“My dog.”

Oh.

“You named your dog Primrose?”

I knew I shouldn’t judge, but he sounded like the type of man whose pet would be called Butch or Rambo or Fang. Primrose?

“My grandma picked the name. Don’t worry if you see her around—she’s friendly.”

“Your grandma?”

“No, the dog. My grandma’s dead.”

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