She eases herself into bed and desperately needs to lose herself in sleep, but her head is resistant. Jamie Blackwell lingers like a spectre and he isn’t alone, for it seems that today’s encounter has resurrected another ghost. One she long ago learned to keep at bay, or at least thought she had.

Time and experience have taught her a few tricks for getting through the night. She declutters her mind, breathes slowly, deeply and imagines herself lying on a bed of soft green grass, surrounded by wildflowers on a warm spring day, with one hand trailing in the clear waters of a trickling stream. The fantasy relaxes her as the drugs do their work and before long she succumbs, despite knowing that whatever is waiting for her might not involve a day of blissful isolation in the countryside.

In her dream, Grace is huddling with little Danny Jobson on the damp bug- and worm-infested soil of the shallow pit they shared at the rear of Bernard Morrice’s cottage. Torrential rain thunders on the locked wooden trapdoor above their heads. Danny’s breathing is laboured, his lungs wheeze like old bagpipes. His inhaler has been empty for almost a week and she is worried about him. She begins to hammer on the trapdoor with her fist, calling for Morrice to help him, but he doesn’t respond, or even acknowledge her pleas.

‘Cold,’ whispers Danny.

Grace sits beside him and wraps her arms around the shivering boy. Like Danny, she is spent, and despite the conditions falls into a deep sleep. She hears a shuffling noise and looks up to see the trapdoor closing shut and locking.

‘Danny?’

Her stomach twists and she reaches across, her hand searches for his body, but he isn’t there. She springs forward on all fours groping for him, but she is alone. Her heart sinks.

‘Nooo!’ she calls and tries to push open the trapdoor. Through the narrow crack Grace sees a sharp sickle moon hanging over the cottage and the silhouette of Morrice trudging through the rain, carrying a limp Danny indoors, to the same place he has carried the children from the other pits.

‘Daaaannnnny!’ she calls, but he doesn’t respond.