‘How long has Violet been working here?’ I asked.

‘About a month. I can’t—’ Anna swung her gaze around the room as if Violet might be hiding in a corner. ‘Let me ring Esther again. Violet’s probably home by now.’

‘Okay, you do that,’ I said.

Anna fished out her mobile and dialled. The phone must have been picked straight up at the other end. ‘Is she back?’ Anna’s voice was loud and sharp.

I couldn’t hear the answer but Anna’s face dropped. She spoke into the phone. ‘No, nothing.’ There was a muffled reply, the words audible though my brain could make no sense of them, and then Anna said, ‘Oh, come on, Esther, you don’t believe that rubbish—’

Anna frowned at the woman’s response and ended the call with a brisk, ‘Okay, bye.’

‘No sign of her?’ I asked.

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Okay. And what rubbish does Esther not believe?’

Anna shook her head. ‘It’s nothing. What else do you need to know?’

My brain got there in the end with the words I’d heard. ‘Did she say something about a pale child?’

Anna shifted papers around her desk before looking up and staring straight at me. ‘Not to cast aspersions on the people in this village, but they don’t get out enough. The Pale Child thing is all nonsense.’

‘Who is this Pale Child?’ I asked.

Anna gave me a strange look. Like somebody remembering a scene from their distant childhood. When she spoke, her voice was cracked, like sun-scorched earth. ‘As I said, it’s not real. Are we done here? Because I have things I need to be getting on with. It’s bad enough you people saying I can’t kill animals today, but if I don’t make a few phone calls soon, it’ll be too late to cancel, and they’ll be turning up here. I suspect you don’t need a bunch of condemned pigs marauding around the place.’ She wasn’t in Lassie-dog mode any more.

‘You make your phone calls,’ I said. ‘We’ll need to take a formal statement from you later. But first, could you tell me who else could have got into the abattoir last night.’

‘My brother, Gary, who you just met, has keys. He’s outside looking for Violet. And Daniel Twigg – the one who over-fed the pigs earlier.’

‘You said he was unwell, didn’t you? What’s the matter with him?’

‘Said he felt sick.’

‘Okay, we’ll talk to him. And before we go, even if it is nonsense, what’s the story about this Pale Child?’

Anna sighed. ‘It’s nothing. Just idiot-talk from the people in the village. It’s not relevant.’

‘Fine. Tell me anyway.’