It stopped. The trail completely stopped, went cold. With one final outburst of blood, a bigger splat than the rest, it was gone. Like someone had noticed the trail and stopped it.

Robin kicked the fridge in anger.

What if Sally needed him? What if she was really hurt? And he was standing here, not knowing what the hell to do.

Calm down, Sam said, in his head, soothingly. Keep your head now. You’re going to need it.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m not some kind of action hero. I’m not some kind of detective.”

Suck it up, pardner. Doubt isn’t sexy. Self-doubt even less so.

Robin nodded. He knew he had to. No one else was going to do it for him. “Where are you, Sally?” he said to Sam, to Sally, but mostly to himself. “Where are you? Just tell me where you are.” He turned round and round in the room, until his eyes fell beside the eponymous red door.

There was something there. Something etched there. In red.

Well, would you look at that? Sam said. Looks like you have somewhere to be.

Robin stepped toward the door, got out his phone and shone a light on the marking there. Sally was sending him a message.

A long vertical line in blood. And at the top, a crude M.

In the same style as the map.

Sally was being taken to the Marsden side of Standedge.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Robin got to Standedge just as the sun disappeared. He crossed the bridge so he was on the opposite side to the Visitor Centre and, without thinking, hopped the fence into the field that ran parallel. He turned his flashlight on and looked around, making his way across the field.

Sally and whoever had Sally were in the disused railway tunnel. And the only way to get inside would be the hole. He had a long walk ahead of him. There was a baa behind him, and he turned to see that inexplicably the sheep had followed him.

“Shoo,” he said.

They looked at each other and took more steps toward him.

He cursed at them and then turned his back on them, walking across the field and cresting another waist-high fence emerging from the trees that lined the field.

His feet crunched on gravel and he looked up to see that he was standing next to the Marsden entrance of the disused railway tunnel. It looked almost identical to the Diggle end, with the entire thing fenced off, a camera looking down at him and a concrete floor running along the fence.

He pointed his torch through to the tunnel but saw nothing in the immediate vicinity. He walked across the tunnel and started to crunch through the undergrowth that ran alongside it.

Another baa came out.