They were all great fun, but if there was one particular favourite of mine, it was the Gronk. Feeding off the shame of the unworthy while folding linen and humming Rodgers and Hammerstein hits had a certain inspiring randomness about it.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ve heard of the Wintervolk.’

He leaned forward, touched me on the knee and lowered his voice to a whisper.

‘They come true in the Twelve. They’re here, they’re real. Mid-Wales is the cradle of fable – forged in the dreaming minds of the sleepers.’

‘O-kay,’ I said. His narcosis was clearly well beyond just blue Buicks, severed hands and being buried alive.

‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Porter Lloyd at the Siddons Dormitorium. Heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘He’s met the Gronk. Or at least, came close enough to touch.’

‘Go on.’

Moody cleared his throat.

‘There once was a Winterstockman named Ichabod Block who managed a farm outside Rhayder, near to where the ice-sheet turns from ice to meltwater, and there’s no habitation for miles around. It was said that Ichabod was a man of simple needs; that he was taciturn, and dissatisfied with his lot; that he had a wife named Maria and a daughter named Gretl. But they departed one afternoon to no one knows where a couple of years before and this made him moody, and introspective, and few would want to speak with him, or bear him in company.’

‘We had someone like that at the Pool,’ I said, thinking of Sister Contractia.

‘One Winter,’ continued Moody, ‘Ichabod contacted an acquaintance of his named Lloyd to whom he was owed a life-debt of several years’ standing, and told him that he was being “vexed most troublesome” by Wintervolk. Lloyd had been a porter for a decade, so of the Winter’s horrors, there was little to frighten him. He considered Wintervolk simply old washermen’s tales, the unchallenged pub-chat of the hard-of-thinking.

‘“How do you know it’s Wintervolk?” asked Lloyd when they met.

‘“Last week the hiburnal elks had their antlers trimmed and six of the eighty-nine cow-mammoths had their coats brushed. And inside the house,” continued Ichabod, “the raisins were all picked out of the muesli, Gretl’s The King and I album was stolen and I found all the books on my shelves reordered.”

‘“Alphabetically?” asked Lloyd.

‘“No – by merit.”

‘“Ah”.’

None but the Wintervolk would be so eccentrically daring.

The plan was simple: Porter Lloyd was to stand guard outside Ichabod’s barn from sunset to sunrise, seated upon a leather armchair.

‘Ichabod wanted to use him as Volkbait?’ I asked.

‘He did that,’ replied Moody, ‘for porters are by long tradition eunuchs, and the Wintervolk are known to favour those who are physically lesser. Ichabod, however, was hiding ten yards away and upwind, behind several bales of hay, Thumper at the ready, eager to despatch whatever made an appearance. Porter Lloyd was to stay awake, ready to raise the alarm.’