As if to add insult to injury, the mill was tall enough to create a wind tunnel, funnelling gusts that tore at her uniform and hair and hurled rain against her.

“Fucking hell,” she spat, but the wind whipped the curse away as well, following it with a prolonged barrage that rattled loose panels of fencing and sent howls echoing off the brickwork. Her access route took her across a minefield of wooden planks, shattered bricks, and litter of every imaginable kind. The locals had turned the perimeter into a makeshift tip, dragging out their unwanted sofas and white goods to dump them amongst the nettles and brambles. The last time the river had burst its banks, it swept most of the crap away, but people had wasted no time refilling the gaps.

Rosie took her time navigating the obstacle course, wary of falling and ending up with her hands full of glass or contaminated sharps. The building cast a long shadow, exacerbating the weather’s overbearing gloom, and she switched on her torch as she approached a pile of wooden crates stacked to boost trespassers through an empty window. The crates rocked beneath her weight, and she scrambled through quickly before she tempted fate, grateful to land on a solid concrete floor that was covered in charred remnants and rat droppings but not liable to collapse without warning.

A slow pan of her torch revealed hefty floor-to-ceiling pillars and a series of low brick walls that had formed partitions back when the mill was operational. Any remaining machinery had been removed by the owners or looted for scrap metal, and the expansive space was now strewn with cider bottles and beer cans, junk food wrappers, and the odd condom. The closest corner, where two of the windows still had glass, showed signs of more prolonged inhabitation: a circle of ash from a small fire, tattered blankets, and a pair of soiled trousers, but no one seemed to have been there recently and the clothing wasn’t that of a teenage girl.