When Nikki had vanished from sight in the car, Heather went and got dressed, and stood for a moment with the Polaroid in her hands. Someone was fucking with her. Someone who had followed her from London, someone who knew more about her mother’s history than she did. Despite everything, she found it hard to believe that the person responsible for the photograph was the new Red Wolf – he had been far too busy dismembering women in Lancashire to be the person leaving notes at her mother’s house in outer London – but she was aware that as rational as this assumption was, it was still a dangerous one. Her most concrete link to this person, whoever they were, was the photo that had been left on her pillow. Time to see what she could find out about it.

It was cold and grey again when she stepped outside, the chill taking her breath away. Nikki having taken the car was annoying, as it meant she was stuck walking everywhere for the day, but once she started across the fields she was almost glad – the cold and the freshness of the air chased away the lingering effects of her sleepless night, and she felt stronger, more focused.

And perhaps it was more than just a feeling. Halfway up the hill that led to the imposing form of Fiddler’s Mill House, she realized that she had seen the odd building in the back of the photograph before, on a coffee table. The old man called Bert had said it was Fiddler’s Folly, a building belonging to the family who had once lived in the old house – and like all follies, it was a place with no obvious use or purpose. That meant that the photo had been taken here, on the coast.

She stopped where she was, ignoring the gusts of freezing wind, and wrestled the map out of her coat pocket. It was clearly produced with tourists in mind, covering the natural nearby attractions and the stretches of wild countryside, but it did just about reach the coast, at the very outer edge of the map. Heather squinted at it, looking for something likely to be the folly, but she couldn’t spot it. Either it had been named something else, or they’d simply left it off. Frowning slightly, she folded the map and continued heading up the hill. She needed a reliable internet connection.

‘Oh. Can I help you?’

The orange woman with yellow hair looked pained at the sight of her. Heather stamped off some of the water onto the slick marble floor of the foyer and summoned her most winning smile.

‘Hi, yeah. I was wondering if I could use your Wi-Fi?’

The woman frowned theatrically and appeared to consult a sheet of paper on her desk.

‘Are you a guest here currently?’