‘Crusade?’ I’m momentarily lost, but then he closes the engine cover and nods up at the windscreen. Beth already occupies one of the two rear seats. She’s busy on her phone but she gives me a little wave.

‘She was insistent on sitting up front.’ Nathan laughs. ‘I had to defend Mitch’s turf.’

Beth, it turns out, has caught wind of our outing from Bill, and invited herself along. We take off shortly afterwards, bumping over the frost-hardened turf and then lifting over the onrushing line of trees as Nathan eases the control yoke back. The weather, after yesterday’s rain, is near-perfect: the bluest of skies with just a scribble or two of cloud, plus a chilly wind from the north-west. The visibility, in Beth’s phrase, is awesome. Nathan announces that we’re levelling off at six thousand feet, and from here we can see the rich green spread of the whole of East Devon.

We head due south, the sunshine already splintered on the enfolding embrace of Lyme Bay. To the right I can see the coast stretching away towards a distant headland while beyond the Exe Valley – according to Nathan – are the smudgy brown shoulders of Dartmoor. Beth, too, has brought a camera, and as we begin to lose height, I recognize the shape of Budleigh filling the windscreen. She takes shot after shot, shifting her weight in the cramped space, a gesture of excitement and – dare I say it – ownership. Nathan has given each of us a pair of headphones so we can talk above the steady cackle of the engine, and now he dips a wing to bring us in from the landward side of the golf course.

Mitch is gazing down. He’s yet to raise his camera and he seems intent on grasping the geography of the course. To me, it looks like a moving version of the image I’ve seen on Google Earth, but Mitch asks for another circuit, a bit wider this time.

‘You want more of the golf course?’ Nathan checks.

‘Yeah. Bit off to the left.’

By now we’ve cleared the jigsaw of fairways and greens, and for the first time I realize just how close the course is to the clifftop. We’re much lower now, and as we race over the coastal path I briefly spot the tangle of undergrowth and bushes that surround the patch of flattened earth where Christianne must have been buried.

‘Bloody hell,’ Nathan says. ‘There’s been another land slip, maybe last night. See that?’

I follow his pointing finger as he drops a wing again for a closer look. Nathan is right. There’s a fresh spill of debris on the beach at the foot of the cliff, and the dark reds of the Devon sandstone have turned the lapping waves a frothy pink.

‘England bleeds.’ Beth is taking more shots. ‘This is fantastic, Nathan. Can you go any lower?’