I crouch down, and with the help of the candle, peer under the bed. Nothing. I was wrong. There’s nobody here.

Then I spot it – the scan of Rosamund’s baby – and my mind takes a jump to the past, and suddenly my emotions take control, and a surge of tears fills my eyes.

A sudden noise: tap, tap, tap.

I freeze, trying to work out where it’s coming from, dashing the tears away with my sleeve.

I rise, heart thudding, a whir of anxiety in my ears.

Tap, tap, tap.

As my mind adjusts, I realise someone is tapping on the front door. Dad?

I hurry down the stairs, and race across the lounge. ‘Dad?’ I call through the door.

‘Yes, let me in, Amelia, it’s bloody freezing out here.’

I put down the candle, and fling open the door.

‘Jesus,’ he says pushing past me, bringing a gust of wind and snow with him. There isn’t a part of him that isn’t white. ‘The signal is terrible. It must be this awful weather. I finally got a connection up near the gate, and my phone packed up before I could call the cops. Pretty sure the cold has sucked the life out of it.’

I pull my phone from my pocket. There’s no signal, and only forty per cent left on the battery.

Dad crouches down in front of the wood burner, picks up a couple of logs and places them on the glowing embers, before rubbing his hands together in front of it. He looks up at me. ‘No power again, I see,’ he says. There’s a tremble in his voice, as though the cold and fear are strangling his vocal cords. ‘Where are Rosamund and Finn?’

‘Out searching for Elise; Ruth is missing too. Where could they be, Dad? And all the blood … it’s so scary.’ I sound almost childlike, as though I expect him to have the answers like he did when I was young. ‘This is freaking me out,’ I go on. ‘Two people go missing on the anniversary of Lark and Jackson’s disappearance, from the same place. Another blonde, teenage girl vanishes.’

He pulls off his woollen hat and runs his fingers through his hair. ‘We have to find them, but it’s so cold out there. None of us should be roaming around in these conditions, particularly Rosamund.’

I look up towards the landing. ‘I was upstairs when you came to the door. It’s awful up there.’

He buries his head in his hands, as though in denial.

‘We need to know what went on up here, Dad,’ I say, turning on my phone torch and heading up the stairs, leaving him crouched by the fire. This time I reach the top within moments, the thought of Dad in the cottage too calming some of my jangled nerves.