Eyes open properly now, I spotted an old-fashioned clock radio that I hadn’t noticed the night before and I turned it on, managing to catch the tail end of the news and weather. Amazingly, there was no more rain forecast for a few days. Did this mean that the worst was over?

I hauled myself out of bed and to a hot shower. When I came back into the bedroom, I didn’t feel like putting on the same clothes I’d worn the night before, so I found a pair of boxers of Molloy’s and another clean T-shirt and I put them both on. I heard the front door slam, then Molloy’s footsteps on the stairs. He came into the room just as I was doing up my jeans. I looked up and he smiled wearily.

“What?” he said.

“What do you mean, what?” I asked.

“You look guilty.”

“Well, you look wrecked,” I retorted.

His eyes closed, and he sank down onto the bed. “I am wrecked. But it looks as if we’re on the home straight. As far as the weather is concerned anyway.”

“So I hear. The forecast after the news was good. And I see it isn’t raining.”

“Nope – it hasn’t for about six hours and the floods are already starting to abate, thank the Lord. The bridges are still down, of course, so the town is still cut off but at least the repair crews can finally get to us. And the pathologist is coming in by helicopter this morning, so we should have a post-mortem on Jameson later today. Finally.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “Do you fancy some breakfast? I have rolls. They mightn’t be too fresh, but we can stick them in the oven. And there’s coffee.”

“Great.”

“Follow me down when you’re ready.” He left the room.

I finished dressing and grabbed the Post-it pad and my phone and charger and put them in my bag, before I went downstairs.

There was a smell in the kitchen like fresh baking and Molloy had made a pot of coffee, which meant the room had taken on a completely different feel to the night before. There was even some weak sunlight streaming in the window, casting a line across the table.

While we got the food ready, I told Molloy what I’d found online the night before and about the comments, in particular, posted by the anonymous snake troll.

His eyes narrowed. “Once you lift up the rock, there seems to have been a queue of people wishing Bob Jameson ill.”