The inside of my room, a.k.a. the cowshed, was boiling, so once we’d dumped the trunks we retreated back outside with a jug of homemade lemonade provided by Dominic’s mum. When the air had a chance to cool inside, me and Dominic had a rummage in the first of the trunks. The top layer, thank god, consisted of about half the contents of my wardrobe, freshly laundered and the creases ironed to a knife edge – which just looks weird on a sweatshirt. The trunk was equipped with a number of convenient drawers and compartments which yielded a miniature brass camp stove with matching pot and kettle and a leather case which contained a cut-throat razor, a shaving brush and a stick of dehydrated soap that smelt of almonds and rum. I wondered if this was all Nightingale’s stuff or whether Molly scavenged it from elsewhere in the Folly. A lot of men must have left their belongings behind in 1944 believing that they were coming back.

I put the shaving kit back where I’d found it.

The second trunk contained a tweed shooting jacket, matching yellow waistcoat, a vintage Burberry trench coat, riding boots, a green canvas camp stool and a shooting stick. It was therefore less of a surprise when at the bottom, disassembled in their own oak and leather case, I found a pair of two-inch self-opening shotguns. Judging from the chasing on the mechanism they were Nightingale’s two Purdey guns that he kept in a locked case in the billiard room.

I looked at Dominic, whose eyes were bugging out.

‘You didn’t see that, okay?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

‘Right.’

‘The Glorious Twelfth was Monday,’ he said. ‘So grouse is in season.’

I suddenly wondered if Nightingale’s contemporaries had bothered with shotguns, or whether they’d trooped out to the countryside and banged away with fireballs. I say, good shot there, Thomas! Winged the blighter, by god. It occurred to me that I was currently less than a half hour’s drive from a man who might be able to tell me – if the bees didn’t sting me to death on the doorstep.

‘What the fuck?’ said Dominic and, straightening up, looked back towards the front of the bungalow. I joined him just in time to see a column of vehicles roar past the front drive – I recognised a blue Peugeot from the public car park at Leominster nick, likewise a battered green hatchback. A pair of motorbikes with photographers riding pillion raced past, followed by more cars and a satellite van. It was the pack in motion and it was actually quite impressive – like a posh version of Mad Max.

‘Shit,’ said Dominic. ‘They must have got wind of something.’