They did not actually witness the murder of Mary Bailey. They were in the wrong place at the time it was committed. Nor did Alex or Vanessa recognise the man they saw. He wore dark jeans, a check work shirt and white sneakers. From where they stood, some fifty feet away, they could see that he had his back to them, but that his hair was also dark, probably brown, cut short, and he appeared to be searching for something in the bramble. Alex wondered if they should offer to help him look for whatever he had lost, and suggested it, but Vanessa thought this was not such a good idea. As they debated whether or not to help him, he turned and saw them, and scowled. That sealed it for Alex. They ran.

They skirted around the top of the quarry, keeping the man always on their left, until they came to a footpath, overgrown and hardly used. This, Alex told them, led to the railway line that had run from Dereham to the town until its closure in the 1950s. Following the footpath they arrived at the line almost a half hour later, via the bridge which ran over the river. They stood on the bridge gazing along the strangely silent cutting. Away to the east they could see the church and the infants' school. The line had run parallel to the Norwich Road, along the back of where the school now stood. In the fields at the back of the school they could see sheep. To the west there was just a vast expanse of rolling green fields, their crops well on the way to maturity. It had been a wet spring, giving way to a scorching summer. Alex did not want it ever to end. He also wished that Kim was not there, even though she hardly intruded on their conversations, which centred mainly on the total disappearance of the line and the wish that it could somehow be resurrected.

At a little after four they trooped back along the line towards the footpath, and it was as they were getting near to the quarry that they saw the same man running towards them as fast as he could. As he came near to them he slowed to a fast walk. It was too late for them to dodge out of sight, he had seen them.

'You!' he yelled. 'What are you doing round here?'

'Just walking,' Alex said, pushing forward, volunteering himself as their spokesman. It seemed the right and proper thing to do.

'If you tell anyone you saw me here, I'll kill you!' the man muttered. 'I'll kill all of you!'

Kim began to cry and Vanessa put her arm round the younger girl's shoulder as the man brushed past them, almost knocking both girls over, and disappeared into the undergrowth.

They carried on to the quarry, all of them shaken by this encounter and it was evident that here something was very wrong. The body of Alison Bailey lay face down, her head almost buried in the bramble.

'Look!' Alex cried, and started to scramble down the rock face, unmindful of the fact that he was ruining his best jeans, the ones he had chosen to impress Vanessa. She started off after him, warning Kim to remain where she was, and as she came near to the bottom she stumbled on a pebble and found herself flying through the air to land in Alex's arms. She was surprised to find that he was really quite strong. He had seemed thin and wiry, but beneath the shirt his muscles were strong and substantial, and as she disengaged herself from him she held onto his arms for a moment longer than was necessary, a fact that did not go unnoticed by him. For a brief moment they stood gazing at each other. In other circumstances they would have kissed, he was sure, wanting it to happen more than anything. But there was Alison Bailey's body to consider, and he dropped to his knees to examine her. As he straightened up she could see that all the blood had drained from his face.

'Alex, what is it?' she demanded.

'I think she's dead!' he whispered.

'How do you know?'

'She isn't moving. There's no pulse in her neck.'

'Don't move her! You're not supposed to move her!'

He shook his head.

'We must get an ambulance!'

Vanessa called to Kim.

'Run home, Kim, get someone to call an ambulance!'

'No, Kim, wait!' Alex called. 'My house is just over there. Can you use the phone?'

'I think so!' Kim cried.

'Go in the back door. It's over there, towards the river. Think you can find it?'

Kim nodded and started to move, but stopped dead in her tracks as a man barred her way. It was her father, Charles Catchpole.

'Kim! What are you doing here?' he demanded. He peered past her, down into the quarry and saw the others. 'What's happened?'

'There's been an accident!' she said, breathlessly. Alex saw him push her out of the way as he scrambled down the almost vertical path. A few moments later he was standing over the body of Alison Bailey, shaking his head.

'Is she dead?' Alex asked.

'Mr Catchpole?' Vanessa said. Catchpole seemed to be undecided as to what to do for the best. At last he came to his senses and knelt by the body, feeling for a pulse as Alex had done.

'I believe she's dead. Is there a house anywhere we could phone from?'

'My house. It's just over there, by the dump,' Alex said.

'Off you go, then, quick as you can.' Alex raced to the side of the quarry and started to haul himself up, hand over hand, as quickly as he could, mindless of the brambles and the nettles, until he stood by Kim. Her face was white as a sheet, and he thought she was crying. But there was no time to stop and comfort her now. He ran to his house, his lungs bursting, and threw open the back door, his fingers closing on the telephone almost before he had got his breath back.

The rest of the afternoon was lost in a haze of questions. An army of police descended on the quarry in white vans and cars, and the children were hustled away from the scene of the crime to wait in Alex's house while the body was examined and taken away. A "POLICE" tape was erected around the edge of the quarry and officers began the task of searching the area for anything that might have a bearing on the case. From the upstairs window the three children observed the proceedings with awe and excitement. Alex found books and puzzles to keep Kim occupied, for of the three of them, she was the least interested and soon drifted off, away from the window.

Returning to where Vanessa stood, Alex found his mind wandering from the discovery of the body in the quarry to the discovery of another - hers. Stealing long sideways glances at her profile, he observed that she had a bosom. It was a word he had read several times and it struck him as a silly word, clumsy and old-fashioned, but for the life of him he could not think of another word to describe what he saw that Vanessa had. It was a chest, he supposed, but then he had a chest, and he was a boy. It was a pair of boobs, but that, too, sounded silly, and "tits" was just too demeaning for words. There were other words, he well knew, but none of them were suitable. She had a bosom. Small, but firm, he decided, but then, after all, she was just thirteen. They would get bigger, and firmer, or maybe they would get bigger and droopy, but for now, they were just perfect.

He loved the profile of her face, the fullness of her lips pressed against the pane of his window, the small snub nose and large semi-circular wedge of her eye, with its long lashes. Now he saw that she had green eyes. The cascade of golden hair about her face, descending well past her shoulder was just longing to be touched. He wanted to plunge his hand into it, pull her round to face him, to kiss those full lips. He felt himself go hard inside his jeans and swallowed, embarrassed, turning away to adjust himself before she noticed what he was doing. She turned at that moment, and smiled at him, and he simply melted away, almost swooned with the heady odour of her sweet smell pervading his senses.

Then, unbelievably, she reached for his hand, took it in hers, and squeezed it. Alex could hardly breathe. He left his hand in hers, and together, like lovers of old, of long-standing, they turned back to the window to see what the police were doing now.

'Can I tell you something?' she asked.

'Of course.'

'My family is rather poor. We didn't always used to be poor. My father is a baronet, like a duke or something, only not quite so important. He lost a great deal of money. I think it was in insurance or something, I don't really know. We had to sell our home.....we had to move here to get away from all the people we used to know who didn't care about us once we had no money. My father works in the post office.....'

'Why are you telling me all this?'

'When you first saw me this morning, I was wearing my school uniform because it was all there was to wear. I don't have many clothes. One day I will be rich again, and have lots of clothes and smart friends and so on.....'

'Vanessa.....'

'No, let me finish. I wanted to thank you for not asking questions. I wanted to thank you for being my friend without caring about my background. People, especially kids, can be pretty nasty.'

'You're much nicer than any of the other girls,' he said impulsively.

'Why do you say that?'

'You just are. You've got class. Breeding, I suppose.'

Vanessa blushed again. It was getting to be quite a habit.

'I'm nothing special.....'

'I think you are. You're much more sensible and intelligent than the others.....' He remembered another day, then, when he had played soccer for the school team, and they had travelled to play against Gresham's one Sunday morning. The pupils at Gresham's had laid on a fabulous spread for them, sandwiches, squash, cakes and biscuits, and some of the girls had been there, in the marquee to serve the boys who had played. They had struck him as being vastly different from any of the girls in his year, in the school, even, and he had spent the remainder of that day and the rest of the following week fantasising about being wealthy enough to attend a private school - why do they call them public schools when they are actually really quite private? - and dreaming about the girls who had brought plates of sandwiches and cakes to tempt him. Vanessa was far more beautiful than any of those girls, far more classy, more - well, more everything.

At last she withdrew her hand, but he took it again and this time held it tighter. Behind them, on the bedroom floor, Kim was coming to the end of her third book. They knew intuitively that she would want to be entertained soon.

'We should go home soon, anyway,' Vanessa said.

'It's nearly five o'clock. My parents won't be home for ages. Couldn't we take Kim home then come back here?'

'I'm not sure. They may not let us go home yet, anyway.'

'Why do you think Mr Catchpole was at the quarry?'

'He was looking for Kim, I expect.'

'Would he have known where to look? Did you tell anyone where you were going?'

'Yes, I told her mother we were going to look for the old railway line. She said something about not being sure her husband would approve.'

'What about the other man we saw?'

'What other man?'

'The one who was looking for something. Maybe we should tell the police about him.'

'Why, do you think she was murdered, then?'

'I don't know. They wouldn't say, would they. Just told us to come here and keep out of the way until they could get to question us. They won't let you take Kim home yet, anyway, they haven't questioned us.'

'I'll go and see,' Vanessa said, and started for the bedroom door, but he pulled her back.

'Hang on, they're coming up the path now.' He felt her breasts brush against his shoulder as she returned to the window and peered out. Sure enough, two uniformed police were coming to the door.

'Should we tell them about the man who ran away, do you think?' Alex asked.

'I think we should, yes. We didn't get a good look at him, though, did we?'

'I didn't, no. Kim, did you recognise the man saw earlier?'

'Yes,' Kim replied without looking up.

'Who was he?'

'Mr Clitheroe.'

'You know him?'

'Yes,' she said. 'He lives near us.'

Alex and Vanessa exchanged glances.

At ten minutes past six Vanessa, Alex, Kim and her father arrived at the Catchpole house. All the way home Charles Catchpole had lectured the three children about the dangers of going to remote areas of heathland and the quarry. He was not really angry, Vanessa decided, but he had come looking for his daughter once his wife had told him where they were, and she admired him for that, even though she did not like him all that much, especially after what he had said about her own parents. "How are the mighty fallen," he had said, and you had to be really thick not to know what that meant. They had told the police about the man Kim had said was Mr Clitheroe, and that had more or less clinched the matter for them. He was well-known to them and, it turned out, was suspected of other recent murders of young females. Armed with the children’s statement that they had encountered Clitheroe at the quarry before they found Mary Bailey, the police arrested Clitheroe within the hour.

Vanessa stood on the Catchpole's front doorstep saying goodbye to Alex. He had offered to walk on to her own house with her, but she had politely declined this offer and he respcted her wishes, assuming that she was too embarrassed to parade him in front of her parents at this early stage. In fact that had nothing to do with it. Vanessa wanted to walk home on her own because she did not really want him to know where she lived just yet. She was, in fact, ashamed of the little three-bedroomed semi-detached house which was all they could afford. Perhaps the strongest feeling that emerged was that she did not want Alex to know she was ashamed, and that was why she said goodbye to him at the Catchpoles'.

'Will I see you again?' he muttered.

'We go to the same school, silly!' she said, laughing softly. He reached for her hand.

'I enjoyed this afternoon, Vanessa.'

'You can call me Van, if you like,' she said, lowering her eyes, and for the third time that day he saw her blushing, even though most of her face was hidden by the great sweep of golden blonde hair that fell around it. More than anything, at that moment, he wanted to see her again in her school uniform. Somehow the blue had set her off to perfection. Not that she was not perfect now, of course.

'Perhaps we could go for a walk.....'

'I'd like that. You'd better go now. I have to get home.'

'Of course.' He relinquished her hand with great reluctance, and stood, just staring, simply looking at her, drinking in her great beauty, a beauty he had previously thought possible only in film stars and pop music stars. Eventually he turned to walk away but she called him back, and then, oh, what's happening here, folks, I don't believe it, she is kissing me! On the cheek, on the neck, on the lips, oh, heaven!, Oh, joy! He felt her arms steal around his neck and her lips pressed briefly against his, and then she released him, too soon for her young breasts to squash against his chest, too soon for him to pull her to him, to embrace her, to sink his hands into the luxury of her glorious hair.....

'I have to go.....'

'Alex, do you think they'll charge him?'

'Of course they will.'

Vanessa fell silent. What was it he had said? ‘If you tell anyone you saw me, I’ll kill you!’ But they had had no choice.

They had to tell.

Clitheroe's words ran through her mind like a steam train, and she felt herself go white as she realised what the man had said to them. It was pretty obvious he was the killer, wasn't it? It was pretty obvious that he was the killer because he had been running away from the quarry, where the mutilated and bruised body of Mary Bailey lay.....He had seen them twice. The second time he had threatened them with their lives if they told anybody they had seen him there, but they had had to tell, hadn't they? They had had to tell the police about the man running away from the scene of a murder, hadn't they? And she realised then that in telling the police they had put their own lives in danger.

'If you tell anyone you saw me here, I'll kill you!' the man muttered. 'I'll kill all of you!'