After trawling country roads for another ten minutes, I slow to an almost stop. I’ve found the entrance to Laurel Wood. I indicate, and take a left turn down a narrow track.

Overhanging trees block the night sky, as I weave my way deeper and deeper. Have I made a terrible mistake? But it’s too late. There’s no way of turning back.

The sound of my tyres breaking twigs and branches as I crawl along is as loud as the pulse in my ears. My eyes flick to my rear-view at the swirling shadows folding around the car. Why didn’t I wait, come tomorrow in the daylight? Why didn’t I contact DI Beynon? A chill prickles my neck, as I imagine someone watching from the dense trees. I was a wreck before this, so I’m pretty sure this will finish me off.

I stop the car, and pick up my phone from the driver’s seat. I’ll call Inspector Beynon now. Tell her where I am.

I get through to DS McKay, and explain in a garbled, panicked fashion where I am and where I’m heading, and he promises to inform DI Beynon immediately. ‘Wait for us,’ he says, before ending the call.

I notice a dim light burning through the trees, and my heart thuds a warning as I take a deep breath and open the car door. I flick on my phone torch and climb out into the hammering rain. With the quietest of footsteps, I move to where the track widens. It’s as I take a bend I see the caravan. Its grubby, hanging baskets by the door hold nothing more than twigs. My torchlight picks out a wet cat climbing up the rusty metal steps. It leaps through a cat flap into the caravan.

Is this really where Rosamund came with Jackson to have sex behind Neil and Mum’s back? But then women found him irresistible. I think back to how Maddie swooned over him when we were at Drummondale House. How Mum fell for him so quickly. How the media painted him as a heart-breaking womaniser.

Mizzling rain stings my cheeks as I move closer. An old Clio Campus is parked up, and another car by the caravan is covered with old blankets. I drag up my hood and make my way over to it, looking about me before lifting the cover and shining the torch on the number plate. It’s Jackson’s car.

I drop the blanket, frozen, unable to move. Fighting back fear, I look about me, spotting a branch, thick and sturdy, on the wet ground. I pick it up and approach the caravan.