I climbed over a stile. The moorland on the other side was boggy, the grass saturated from the storm the day before, but two worn trails were immediately visible, marked out by years of passing hikers: one headed east to west, the other directly north from the village. I followed the northern path out from the wall, across land belonging to the Gibbses and then beyond the boundaries of what was theirs, into the dip of the valley. Occasionally, I would stop and take a picture in an effort to document the area – so that I could remind myself later on of the surroundings and the route that Patrick may have taken if he’d pursued this exact trail every time he came out here – but mostly I just walked. As the valley dropped, more trees started to emerge, gathering in the folds of the hills, and after a while, when I stopped and looked back, I realized the moors had sloped so dramatically that I was actually below the level of the village now; all I could see of it was a chimney stack on the side of the farmhouse, rising above the spine of the hill.

I checked the time, saw that I’d only been going for about fifteen minutes and decided to carry on for a while, switching my thoughts back to Patrick and his trips out here at sunrise and sunset in the weeks and months before he, and the others, had vanished. A clump of trees was up ahead, their branches dense and tangled, the leaves yet to form. As I got closer, I could see glimpses of exposed roots, with muddy pockets of water between the trunks.

I stood for a moment, looking around, trying to see if I recognized this part of the moors from Patrick’s photographs, but it didn’t seem familiar. It was cooler here, though, the sound more muted, the light greyer because the sun had slipped behind the eastern flank of the valley. In among the trees there was a narrow sliver of a trail, snaking between the knotty roots. I decided to follow it in, curious about where it ended up, and as I did, what light there was fell through the canopy and created patterns on the ground. The effect was mildly discomfiting: everything seemed to be moving, dancing, but if you were looking for a place to lie low, to not be seen – and somewhere only a twenty-minute walk away from Black Gale – this was perfect.

I headed back up the slope, the way I’d come in.