‘Yes, we’re almost there,’ Sister Cassie confirmed. ‘That’s where visitors to the care home used to get off.’

‘So … the next turn?’ Lucy ventured.

‘It should be.’

When the next turn came along, it was on the right and it looked promising. Overgrown trees hemmed it in, while two tall brick gateposts stood one to either side of it, though there was no gate suspended between them. Lucy pulled in and stopped. A sign stood on the left, half hidden by leafage, and faded and flaked to illegibility. The surface of the driveway dwindling away into the darkness ahead of them was broken and weedy.

‘Doesn’t look like many people come here,’ she said.

‘Why would they?’

‘Why indeed?’

Lucy eased her foot down, and they accelerated forward, following a winding route, no more than a single vehicle wide. Deep undergrowth, still lush and tangled from the summer, grew close on either verge, creating a claustrophobic, tunnel-like atmosphere, which seemed to run on and on.

‘Talk about cut off from the world,’ Lucy said. ‘Why did this place close, anyway?’ She glanced sidelong. ‘Your lot getting up to no good again?’

‘Not this time,’ Sister Cassie replied. ‘It’s just that foster care and adoption are the preference now. And recent rationalisation of Church expenditure means there are fewer homes of this sort anyway. Of course, there are still legions of unwanted children, many of whom are actually in the care of your lot – the state. Where they’ve always been safe and sound, haven’t they!’

Lucy didn’t respond, because they rounded a bend, and suddenly a gate was barring their path. Two gates, to be precise, ten feet tall at least, vertically barred, though on closer inspection it looked as if they were standing ajar by a few inches. More interesting than this, there was a car parked to the left-hand side of them.

Lucy braked, guiding her own vehicle to a halt.

‘I thought you said this place wasn’t used any more?’ she said.

‘I didn’t think it was.’

‘Stay in the car.’ Lucy switched the engine off, released her belt and climbed out.

Outside, the night was astoundingly quiet. There was no hum of distant traffic, no mutter of breeze amid the unseen woodlands to her left and right. She walked forward feeling worse than vulnerable, feeling as if she was being watched – she hated that term, but it was always so appropriate – until she reached the parked car, at which point she stopped in her tracks.

Because suddenly she recognised it.

It was a tan Vauxhall Corsa; two or three years old, carrying several dents and minor rust patches. Lucy was certain that it was one of the pool cars from Crowley CID. If so, it was a kind of relief. She wouldn’t be here alone, plus someone else had come to the same conclusion she had, which was a sort of vindication.