‘Well, just looking at these ashes won’t tell you anything,’ said Thea, who was half-regretting her revelation. A nice afternoon walk would have suited her perfectly.

‘It might. Don’t you know who owns this barn we’re going to?’

‘I have no idea. It looks completely abandoned. We 294had to push through a whole lot of nettles and brambles to get into it. Here, Clovis – this is it, on the right.’ They were entering Barnsley from the west, and had just passed the big hotel and spa that was the village’s chief claim to fame. Clovis pulled off the road and they all got out.

‘Romantic,’ murmured Clovis, gazing at the ivy-covered building.

‘How do we get in?’ asked Ben.

‘With difficulty,’ Thea repeated. ‘And we’d be trespassing, I suppose.’ She looked all round. There wasn’t a soul in sight. ‘But nobody seems to be watching.’

‘Can’t see any cameras, either,’ Clovis reported.

‘Let’s get on with it, then.’ Ben walked up the short lane to the barn. Thea followed him, impressed all over again by the fairy-tale quality of the place. The growth of creeper all over the facing wall was rampant, suggesting years of neglect. Its presence in a tidy little Cotswold settlement made it all the more remarkable.

‘Round here,’ she said. ‘There’s a farmyard on the other side, which might have people.’

‘Is it a working farm, then?’

‘I don’t know. The house seems to be uninhabited.’ It was obviously becoming something of a theme, she realised.

‘There’ll be somebody managing the land,’ said Clovis confidently. ‘The buildings might be scheduled for some sort of conversion. All sorts of stuff is probably going on behind the scenes. It doesn’t have to mean it’s been abandoned. But I don’t think we’re being watched, 295so this is as good a moment as any to have a look.’

Thea regarded at him wonderingly. A grown man, more or less respectable, showing no hesitation in taking part in a madcap adventure involving nettles and spiders and unambiguous trespass. Perhaps he was much less respectable than he liked to appear. She remembered again his unconventional mother.

Ben was charging ahead, examining the same barely passable way in that Thea and Jocelyn had found two days ago.

Two minutes later they were all standing inside the barn, getting used to the gloom, peering into the shadows. ‘It was just here,’ said Thea, staring at the homemade shrine, which was now devoid of any adornment. ‘And it’s gone,’ she announced.

It was five minutes or more before the others believed her. They walked the whole length of all four walls, peering into shadowy corners, before admitting that she must be right. Apart from the locked trunk at the back, there was nothing else inside the building. There was no upper storey, no musty hay bales providing opportunities for hiding anything. ‘It’s gone,’ Thea repeated, three times. ‘Somebody’s taken it.’

They gave up then and pushed through the prickles back to the car. ‘It must be that Williams man,’ Thea decided. ‘He was here when Joss and I emerged from the barn. I didn’t think he’d seen us, but he must’ve done.’