‘The Consuls concluded suicide, and that Ichabod might have had an “inexplicable desire to cement Wintervolk legend”. But Porter Lloyd had more than doubts. When searching for Ichabod he noted that the house was tidy, the washing done, the beds made up, South Pacific playing on the gramophone. There was even a Lancashire hotpot on the stove, a note on the lid in a small, spidery hand.’

‘What did it say?’ asked one of the other passengers.

‘It said: “Not enough oregano”.’

‘He could have folded the clothes and cleaned and cooked himself,’ said another passenger, peering around the seat back, ‘and put on the record. Like the Consuls said, to perpetuate the legend.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Moody, ‘but Ichabod wasn’t a tidy man – and more a Rice/Lloyd Webber sort of person.’

I had only a single question.

‘Was Ichabod unworthy?’

Moody looked at all of us in turn.

‘He wasn’t the only one they found in the water tank. There were the bones of his wife and ten-year-old daughter who he’d previously maintained had walked out on him eight years before.’

Moody concluded his story, his small audience murmured appreciatively, and as tradition dictates, gave him food as a tip. Within a minute he had half a Mars Bar, eight wine gums, a small bar of nougat and a Murray Mint.

‘We’ll meet later in the Wincarnis,’ he said, leaning back to have a nap, ‘and I’ll tell you all about the blue Buick – and HiberTech.’

I returned to my seat, where Mrs Tiffen was still safely in Torpor. We stopped briefly at Talybont to drop off a power worker, and whilst at the halt the RailTecs reset the brakes and pretty soon we were off again, but now more easily, the line clear, and with good speed.

We crossed a river cocooned in ice and snow, then passed through an abandoned junction, the platforms and station buildings covered in snow and ice. The train travelled on for another half-hour until with a gentle hiss and a muted squeal of the brakes we drew to a halt.

My outward journey was over.

Talgarth and HiberTech

‘ . . . The HiberTech facility’s location in Mid-Wales proved fortuitous once the production of Morphenox required increased security. With the Snowdonian ice sheet beginning only thirty miles away in the north, and a population of Villains in the area to put off travellers, security was never usually a problem  . . . ’

– HiberTech: A Short History, by Ronald Fudge