He opened the door to the bar and ducked at the sudden movement ahead of him. He wheeled away, raising his arms up to protect his face – the door slammed shut in front of him, the noise ricocheting around the building. He recovered – it had only been a pigeon. The stupid bird had charged through the door the second it was opened and out into the foyer where it disappeared into a hole in the roof.

I’m getting too old for this.

Priest tried the door again and ventured into the bar area. The chandelier overhead was on, albeit only half of the bulbs were working and several of those were flickering uncertainly and giving the room a gloomy, ghost-like atmosphere. The bar had been raided; just a few dust-covered bottles of wine sat on a shelf, a few with drops of liquid still in them. There were tools in the corner, and a ladder covered in sheets. It looked like somebody had had the idea of trying to repair the building at one point but had abandoned it, possibly realising what a mammoth task it was.

He looked around: no signs of life and he was dead on the meeting time. He clicked his tongue and thought about the state of his spare bedroom after Elinor had torn it apart in a rage. He wished he could make up his mind about her, but the messages were too confusing. Was Georgie right? Was she the girl of Devil’s Point? Did that make her the killer? If so, why?

The door to the stalls wouldn’t budge at first until he put his shoulder against it. With a horrible screech, the door gave way and he stumbled in to the main theatre. It was even more dimly lit than the bar, just a few dozen fake candle lights glowing orange around the walls casting weak light around the edges and making the centre of the stalls look like a gaping black hole. The curtain was down and he got a sense of just how small the theatre was: a few hundred seats at most, and the circle above them had less.

Priest walked down the aisle, every step sunk a little into the loose floorboards, which creaked under his tread. A stale smell hung in the air – the smell of must and rot. When he reached row H, he looked along to where a figure sat perfectly still, dead centre, looking straight ahead, hands on lap and shoulders square. It was too dark to see who it was, but it was immediately obvious that the shape was too large to be Elinor Fox.

He checked around him but, other than the figure on the seat, which could easily have been nothing more than another mannequin in this light, he was the only occupant of the theatre.

Enter stage right . . .