‘I’m looking to see whether high-tension electrical cables really disrupt microprocessors,’ I said. ‘What did you use for the casing?’

The man was a bit taller than me, with an elegantly clipped black beard that was at odds with his polyester-mix beige T-shirt that had the shop’s logo on the front.

‘Plastic cricket bats,’ he said. ‘Kid’s size.’

I tested each one carefully and then paid for them.

‘You’re really out looking for UFOs, aren’t you?’ said the man.

‘You got me,’ I said.

‘Those kids,’ said the man. ‘You don’t think they were abducted, do you? By aliens?’

‘God, I hope not,’ I said. ‘My life’s complicated enough already.’

I handed him handwritten specifications and waited while he read them so that I could clarify a few points and help with the niceties of cursive script.

‘Is this supposed to be a detection grid?’ he asked.

I told him it was, and he asked me what I was hoping to detect.

‘Things that aren’t normally there,’ I said, and he nodded as if this made sense.

‘I’ll have to go to Birmingham to get the gear,’ he said. ‘I can have them ready in two days.’

I paid the guy, packed my stuff, and drove on to the nick to inform Dominic of his role in the festivities.

Strangely, he was less than enthusiastic about me involving his boyfriend.

‘We need his Nissan to get us up the rough bits on Bircher Common,’ I said. ‘And we need someone to drive it.’

‘And that’s not me, because . . .’

‘Because you and me are going to be proceeding down the Mortimer Trail and seeing if we can’t attract something supernatural,’ I said.

‘Have you cleared this with the bosses?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Submitted an operational plan, objectives analysis, risk assessment. The whole thing.’

‘And what did they say?’ asked Dominic.

‘They wanted me to take someone from the MIU to keep an eye on things.’

‘And that would be me?’

‘Yep.’

‘We’re going to be walking through the woods at night?’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘It’s just I’m not that fond of the great outdoors,’ said Dominic.

‘But I thought you were a country boy,’ I said. ‘You grew up in a small village.’

‘Yeah, and as soon as I was old enough I moved to the city.’

‘You moved to Hereford,’ I said. ‘That’s not quite the same thing.’

‘Yes it is. We’ve got a cathedral and an Anne Summers,’ said Dominic. ‘That makes us a city.’

‘Anne Summers?’

‘It’s right on the square and everything,’ said Dominic.

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t your boyfriend have a farm to live on?’

‘Sore point,’ said Dominic. ‘And, anyway, what makes you think we’ll attract anything supernatural?’

‘For one thing, tonight it’s going to be a full moon,’ I said. ‘Also because I will be doing magical things.’