‘I’m going for a long walk,’ she told the builders.

‘What do we tell anybody that comes looking for you?’ asked Dave.

‘You can say I’ve gone for a look at the business park,’ she said, after a brief hesitation. She couldn’t see that it mattered if she told the truth.

‘Private road, that,’ said Sid.

‘Oh well – I don’t suppose they’ll mind. I’m not going to do any damage.’

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, as if to say On your head be it.

So she gathered up her map, purse and phone, shouted a cheerful goodbye to the builders and went out with a sense of high adventure. She went on foot and made for the front entrance of Barnsley Park, where small businesses were conducted in lovely old stone barns and cottages, and nothing was plainly visible. Here, if anywhere, the truth must lie.

She had to walk an inconveniently long way along a crooked road with more traffic than was comfortable. There was no pavement, and a very variable verge. Sometimes it was quite wide and grassy, before narrowing and turning prickly with thistles and other weeds. This, she remembered, was why she’d opted for the footpath previously. But the footpath gave the businesses a wide berth, leaving them on the far side of walls and fences that gave no obvious access to them. This way, she 253would walk boldly into the yard, seeing the big house from the other side, and working out just how many people lived and worked there.

She felt small but conspicuous as she entered the driveway. For a while all she could see was a wall on one side, with big beech trees beyond it, and a fenced field containing sheep on the other. Then she rounded a bend and found herself face-to-face with a stone tower she had not seen previously. She could still not see the mansion, which must lie beyond the woodland. Still there was a long stretch of driveway before reaching any buildings. Keeping well to the left, where she hoped she would be less visible against the backdrop of wall and greenery, she walked on until finally within a few yards of a collection of single-storey stone buildings. Her historian’s eye noted changes and additions to an estate that went back centuries. Originally the curtilage of the manor house, with a big kitchen garden, paddocks for livestock, humble dwellings for the staff, it had mutated effortlessly into a twenty-first-century working collective that looked barely altered at first glance. There were no lurid signs in primary colours, no obtrusive floodlights; just a sense of quiet enterprise taking place behind the tasteful oak doors and stone facades. But a more modern wall of glass revealed recent changes, along with a sign warning that CCTV was operating on the premises.

It was quickly apparent that casual visitors were not encouraged or expected. If you wanted a picture framed or a piece of harness repaired, you came to the appropriate unit and dealt with the person working there. Using her 254habitual imaginative guesswork, she ran through other likely goods and services that might be available. Private detective, goldsmith, poodle parlour, potter, garden designer, genealogist, masseur, manicurist – the list flowed readily through her active mind. All entirely likely in the affluent materialistic Cotswolds. People wanted quality handmade goods, provided by skilled individuals, and services that made them feel special. They were always short of time, too, which meant they couldn’t possibly create their own garden or trim their own poodle. Or trace their own ancestors. Probably, she concluded, the genealogist and private detective would be the same person, perhaps vaguely described as a ‘researcher’ with impressive computer skills.