These were working notebooks full of abbreviations and words that I don’t think meant what I thought they did. I was particularly suspicious of the number of women Barnaby had a ‘brush’ with during the course of his activities. Most of his cases were referred to him by the Chief Constable of the Herefordshire Constabulary, local magistrates or, and this surprised me, the Bishop of Hereford. It all seemed very informal, relaxed and entirely lacking in concern for the rights of anyone on less than £160 a year. I knew there was a section of the mundane library at the Folly which consisted of loose pages bound into ledgers – each one had been embossed with the name of a county. That must be where Barnaby Atkins Esquire’s formal reports had gone – Nightingale would have to have a look for me – but I suspected a great deal was fixed on the down low and never got reported. Especially things like, Wednesday Morning a happy bit with Mary who is maid to Mrs Packnar – most satisfactory.

Barnaby’s sexual exploitation aside, it took a while to skim through the material. I started in 1912 and worked backwards to see what activity BA had no explanation for, and which stopped in 1911. TH complains that there have been no more visitations of the ghostly horses to Croft Ambrey and that he is £5 out of pocket through loss of custom. He claims that the visitations were common enough in the summer months but that he has seen nothing of them since the year before last. I told him that it was in the nature of spirits to be mercurial and that such matters were only my concern when they caused a breach of the peace. TH remonstrated that a loss of £5 was very much a breach of the peace but I repeated that I could not assist him and bade him farewell.

Ghost horses, Croft Ambrey, the summer months – any of this ringing a bell?

Barnaby, to give him his due, did investigate further and found that a number of other magical phenomena at Aymestrey, Mortimer’s Cross and Yatton – two ghosts and, ironically, an unearthly ringing bell – had also ceased.

I was wondering why Barnaby hadn’t asked any of the local rivers if they knew anything, when I found this in IB05 – Came upon one of the river nymphs in a pool by the bridge at Little Hereford today and overcome by her beauty foolishly sought to grapple with her. At which point she landed me such a blow upon the side of the head that I had to take myself straightway to a Doctor and thereafter to my bed for a fortnight.

I took a photo of that to show Beverley later.

1911, I thought, what happened in 1911?

More to the point, did it have anything to do with my case? The ghost horses said yes, but back in those days horses were as common as people so . . . coincidence?