Next thing he'd turned round and were running back up the fell almost as fast as he came down, and I doubt if he paused till he were over the ridge and back in his gran's cottage in Dendale.

So like I say, most folk just laughed when they heard this, 'cos they reckoned it was a waste of time, especially as they were certain it weren't anyone local the police should be looking for, it were some off-comer, and most likely one of the contractors working on the dam.

They'd been round a long time. They'd started work soon as Mr. Pontifex had sold them his Dendale estate. They couldn't start on the dam proper until the result of the Inquiry, but this made no difference, I heard my dad say later. Then Water Board knew they were going to get the result that they wanted, and by the time it came through, they'd laid new drains up on Black Moss between Neb and Beulah Height on Highcross Moor, so that what had just been a great bog were now a wide tarn waiting to be spilled down into valley. And at Dale End, they'd cleared the land and put down hard-core tracks for heavy machinery and built cabins for their contractors.

So they'd been around for a long long time by that long hot summer when the dam were getting close to being finished and the dale had got used to them. There were odd bits of trouble, but not much. When some chickens got stolen at Christmas and when someone started nicking undies from washing lines, everyone said it must be the contractors, and Nobby Clark went and had a word, but apart from that they weren't any bother. They'd get in the Holly Bush an odd time, but they had their own bar and canteen and game room down at Dale End and seemed to prefer sticking together. But there was one of them who were different. This was a man called Geordie Turnbull.

Geordie wasn't anyone important, he drove one of the big machines that dug up the earth, but he liked to come into the village, drink in the pub, shop in the post office. Everyone liked him, except mebbe for a few of the men who didn't like the way he got on so well with the women.