Laurence had been gone for two whole hours, and there had not even been a telephone call. This afternoon she had been helping with the preparations for the harvest supper which was due to begin in thirty minutes, and she had come home to hear the news about Phoebe. ‘Why didn’t your father come to find me?’ Elizabeth had moaned. ‘Because he knew you were busy,’ Isabel soothed. ‘He expected to be back before you came home.’ ‘Then why isn’t he? He has to bless the harvest in an hour’s time. I shall have to ask Charles Pickering to do it. Shall I telephone him? Or should I walk round to see him?’ Elizabeth’s eye fell on a new cause for concern: the corn crown and regalia for her role as Harvest Queen. She made up her mind. ‘I shall telephone PC Ifield. Then Charles.’ Isabel too was anxious. She had never been as close to Phoebe as Caroline but, now that her sister was missing, she felt panic-stricken. Had she been attacked while bicycling home?
