Had there been any other houses, or roads or signposts?

It had all been trees.

What kind of trees? I asked myself, and a few lines down the transcript the child psychologist also asked, but it was clear by that point Hannah had lost patience with the whole operation and wanted to go out and play with her cousins.

She didn’t ask after Nicole – I wondered if that was significant.

She did remember a sort of road in the forest, it was all overgrown but the lady had made them run across it very quickly. There hadn’t been any signposts or houses, apart from the castle of course.

I found Windrow in his office reading statements and approving actions which, along with going to meetings with other senior officers, is what senior officers spend most of their time doing. Rather them than me.

I asked if there were any word on Nicole but Windrow said no – the inter-agency care team would send word as soon as there was any change.

‘What did you think of the statement?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘Any chance I can talk to her?’

‘Let’s see if she sticks to the same story for the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘Is there any chance it’s true?’

‘It would be nice to have some physical evidence,’ I said. ‘She mentioned a cave – any sign of that?’

‘From the description it sounded like it might be along the river bank at Aymestrey. There are old quarry workings down there – so it’s possible.’

And close to where we found them, I thought, and the scrap of cloth from Nicole’s clothes, too. That every vaguely castle-like structure within thirty kilometres of Rushpool was going to get a thorough going-over went without saying. My guess was that the National Trust was going to be seeing a heavy police presence in the next couple of days.

‘Any trouble with the media?’ asked Windrow.

‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘Is there likely to be?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Windrow. ‘I don’t trust them when they go all quiet.’

I promised to keep my head down, my nose wiped and to wear a clean pair of underpants at all times.

‘What do you plan to do next?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to do what I didn’t do when I got here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to hit the books.’

Thankfully, he didn’t ask me what books. Perhaps he assumed that back at the Folly we had great big tomes full of esoteric lore within which the true history of the world was illuminated. It’s true about the esoteric lore, but the illumination has always been on the scarce side. Fortunately, I knew a bloke with a lot of the books I was looking for. All conveniently located in the same place,

I pulled out my phone, found the number I wanted and pressed call – it rang twice.