I could just hear the sound of a TV coming from a house up the road and a low rumble of voices that was probably the crowd outside the Swan in the Rushes. Far away a car with a diesel engine was labouring up a steep slope.

Dominic used his Airwave to call the spotters we’d stationed in the field to the west of the village, sitting in a Toyota that had a good view of the off-road approaches to both the Old Rectory and the Marstowes’ house. They were under instructions to report any movement, strange lights and/or other general weirdness, and to not get out of the Toyota unless told to. So far they hadn’t seen anything. Dominic advised them to stay sharp.

‘You don’t actually have to do this with me,’ I said, as I tested the grip on Hugh Oswald’s staff and hefted it about a bit.

Dominic laughed.

‘My patch, my village,’ he said. ‘Probably my folklore. So, yeah – actually I think I do.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘If something weird gets behind me, watch my back and smack anything that’s not a small child. As hard as you can – you want to put them down as fast as possible.’

‘Put what down?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘So, to summarise,’ said Dominic, ‘we guard the Laceys, prevent anything supernatural happening, follow any . . . thing back to where it came from.’

‘Which will probably be Pokehouse Wood.’

‘And rescue any missing children we might find lying around. Is that about it?’

‘That’s the plan,’ I said.

Which, right that moment, fell completely apart.

My tablet played the red alert sound from Star Trek, which indicated that one of the detectors in the village had dropped offline. I turned, naturally, to look at the Old Rectory – walking to the side a bit to see if I could get a look around the back – but there was nothing. Same deal from our spotters in the Toyota – nothing.

I checked the tablet and saw that the other village detector had dropped off – the one at the Marstowe house.

It was at least four hundred metres from the Old Rectory to the cul-de-sac and me and Dominic did it in less than a minute and a half, which is pretty impressive considering all the kit we were carrying and the fact that it was fricking uphill.

There were crashing sounds from inside the house and high-pitched screams, which meant we may even have picked up the pace before a flash lit up the ground floor windows. Followed by the distinctive boom of a shotgun, which caused us to clatter to a halt at the front door.

We stood clear either side of the doorway and I nudged the door open with my foot. It was unlocked and swung inwards.

These country people, I thought, don’t half neglect the basics of home security.

We heard Andy cursing, saw another flash and heard another boom.