‘He never told me, and Pierce doesn’t know, but I know where she’s buried. He drove her into the Chiltern Hills …’ The timbre of his voice was low and robotic now: he was hurting, but he was trying to remember, trying to get it all out, perhaps atone in some way. ‘It’s an hour out of London, but it’s like a different world. I drove up there once to see if I could find her, but I had no idea where to even start. There were these woods he’d found: the head of a pin compared to this place, but big enough.’ Mills looked down at himself again, his hands, his fingers on the gun, the hard ground beneath his body. ‘He told Pierce he hid her inside the hollow of this old tree – shoved her in there like she was some piece of old junk. She was still dressed. He hadn’t …’ He ground to a halt. ‘She wasn’t naked. He hadn’t done anything like that. But he said she had two bullet wounds in her: one above the knee – that would have been to slow her down when she was running away; and one through the back of the head – that would have been when he’d had enough of her.’

When he’d had enough of her.

We both lingered on the dreadful nature of that statement.

‘Jacob Pierce knows enough,’ Mills said. ‘Make sure that prick burns.’

The wind came again, harder this time, the trees creaking softly, their branches moving like the arms of a conductor. I asked if I could stand: I was cold, in pain, and my hands were freezing. Mills watched me for a moment, eyes narrowing, as if this were a trick I was trying to play on him. But then he nodded, and I hauled myself up, and so did he. It was slow and painful for him, but he kept the gun on me.

‘Why are you making me write this, Isaac?’

‘You’ll see,’ he said.

His response sent a prickle of fear along my spine.

‘You know how Vale found out what Patrick and Freda were doing, right?’

I nodded. ‘Patrick called Robert Zaid to ask him about Vale.’

Except Zaid and Vale were the same person.

And that was when everything changed.

It was the catalyst for what happened at Black Gale. It was why the listening devices were installed in the houses. It was why Vale started watching Patrick and Freda from the shadows – and, on Halloween night, it was why he’d taken them both.

Except he hadn’t just taken those two.

‘Why did you take all nine villagers?’ I asked Mills.

‘Because they all knew.’

‘All knew what?’ I said.

‘They all knew about Beatrix Steards.’

I frowned. ‘Patrick and Freda told them?’