Pontifex would refuse to sell. Not that that would have made any difference except to drag things out a little longer. But the vote was to accept the concert, specially when Mr. Wulfstan said he'd like the school choir to do a turn too.

So the previous year we'd had our first concert. The main singer were from Norway, though he spoke such good English, you'd not have known it till you heard his name, which were Arne Krog. He was a friend of Mr. Wulfstan's and he stayed at Heck along with the lady who played the piano for him. Inger Sandel she was called. Arne (everyone called him Arne) was really popular, especially with the girls, being so tall and fair and good looking. Stuff he sang were mainly foreign, which didn't please everyone. He'd come back again this year and he were right disappointed when it looked like there wouldn't be a concert. I was too. I were in the school choir and this year I'd been going to sing a solo.

And most folk in the dale were disappointed as well. The concert were due to take place not long before the big move, and next year there'd be no hall, and no dale, to stage it in.

Then we heard that Mr. Wulfstan had persuaded Reverend Disjohn to let us use St. Luke's instead, and you'd have thought we'd won a battle.

But none of this took our minds off Madge's vanishing. Every time you saw police, and we saw them every day, it all came back. All the kids who knew Madge got asked questions by this lady policeman, and me most of all, 'cos we were best friends. She were very nice and I didn't mind talking to her. It were a lot better than answering questions Mr. Telford kept on asking. I liked Mrs. Telford a lot, and Madge's uncle George, her dad's brother who worked at the joinery with him, he were all right too.