It was midday and she was hungry. The cool box held milk, bread and some sliced ham, so she made coffee and a somewhat dry sandwich. By the evening, she would be ready for a much more substantial meal – provided presumably by the packets and tins she’d stacked on the floor. ‘Think of it as a camping trip,’ she muttered to herself. Beans on toast, cuppa soup, fruit cake, more ham. ‘Oops – no toaster,’ she realised. And no butter or any kind of spread. It was all much more irritating than she had anticipated, with the result that she decided there and then to go and eat at the Village Pub, regardless of the expense. At least it might be a way of meeting some local people. Which was another reason for resisting the idea of ordering a boxful of provisions from a Cirencester supermarket and waiting for a man in a van to bring it to her. She liked strolling around well-stocked aisles, seizing impulsively at random packs of exotic foods she would 26never have thought of while sitting at her laptop. And it would be good to find herself surrounded by people for a little while – if she could find a way to get there.

But before eating anything, she should go outside into the warm August sunshine and get her bearings. The house was at the northern end of the village, close to a junction with a small lane that ran westwards, and shortly before the road veered sharply to the east. Barnsley was on a kink in the Roman road known as Akeman Street (which was a lot more kinky than most Roman roads), presumably created in response to some long-forgotten exigencies arising from village life. A scrutiny of the map showed the little lane linked to another that ran in a nearly straight line from the A417 to the A429, with some zigzagging at its northern end. There was no shortage of minor roads in all directions, and without the dog to worry about, she could amble contentedly up and down them, even stopping to try her hand at a sketch or two if she felt so inclined.

So she set out to walk the bounds of the village, in a square route that added up to barely a mile in total. She went southwards, passing the usual handsome houses, the church and a particularly attractive village hall set back from the road. There were no other people travelling on foot, no dogs and no residents enjoying the sunshine in their front gardens. A small group could be glimpsed outside the church, and a pair of cyclists sailed past, smiling at her as they did so. Gosh, she thought, friendly cyclists. There’s a surprise. On a recent trip to 27the outskirts of Bristol by car, she had three times been treated to rude hand gestures from cyclists.

Turning off the main street, she quickly found herself in a leafy country lane, bordering fields. There were no long views, and only a single farmhouse was visible. Two cars passed her before she turned again, into the lane that led back to the house. The whole walk took barely half an hour, and had taught her very little about the nature of the place. She was back again in the house on the corner – which she realised had no visible name. This omission was concerning – how did the postman find it? And all those delivery vans filling the minor roads across the land, reliant on satnavs and clearly displayed house names: where did they leave their parcels? Gladwin had mentioned that it was known locally simply as the Corner House.