As I switched on my penlight, shadows shifted, forming in the corners of the room and around a doorway to the right of the reception desk. It was pulled most of the way shut. On the walls were photographs of a man who I assumed was Jacob Pierce. He was different from how I’d imagined: in his late sixties; a full, thick head of grey hair swept back from his forehead; bright blue eyes, smooth skin, clean-shaven. I’d expected him to look older, maybe less polished, as if his desire not to publicize himself on the company website, or anywhere else, was down to something physical – his age, or an impairment, or some odd tic. But he had none of those things. In most of the pictures he was at social events, the names of charities on banners, Pierce shaking hands with people and presenting them with oversized cheques. In one, he was standing next to Kate Middleton.

I made a beeline for the corridor leading off the reception area and, as I crossed the room, noticed for the first time how low the ceilings were, how the lines of the interior were all slightly off, and how there were three further doors.

The first was on my left and led to a small room with two desks facing each other and a wall stacked entirely with ring binders. I moved inside, sweeping the light across the shelves. The ring binders were arranged alphabetically, the surname of the client on the spine. I searched for Perry, Davey, Gibbs, Solomon or Wilson, but none of the nine villagers were up on the shelves.

The desks each had a PC on them, three-tiered in-trays and a desk diary. There were four photos on one of them, the same woman in all the shots, with the same kids; and on the other desk was a small cactus, with Post-its stuck to the monitor, reminders scrawled all over them. I booted up both computers, taking a closer look at the photographs of the woman: she was in her forties, with two daughters about fourteen and twelve. The other desk belonged to a man: in the top drawer, I found some hair gel as well as a can of Lynx. I couldn’t completely dismiss either person as irrelevant, but somehow I doubted they were a part of whatever might be going on here, and I became more convinced as I started going through their PCs. Neither was password-protected, the inboxes were full of bland work emails, and there was nothing in either Internet history that was even vaguely connected to Black Gale.

I returned to the corridor.

Through the second door, opposite the office I’d just been into, was a small, closet-style toilet. In front of me, at the far end of the corridor, I could see a solid, bricked wall. Between that and where I stood was the third door I’d spotted earlier. It had a nameplate on it.