‘There’s no denying you keep yourself fit,’ Hannah said, and then wished she hadn’t, because it conjured up images of him in the swimming pool.

‘I like being healthy,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got one body, and I choose to look after it. You swim a lot; you make sure that, despite your food obsession, you stay in shape. Is your favourite colour gold because of your hair?’

‘My hair’s blonde not gold,’ she countered. ‘Nobody has golden hair except in romance novels and fairytales. And my favourite colour’s orange.’

Noah laughed again. ‘All right then, Goldilocks.’

‘Shush, we’re supposed to be concentrating.’

‘Is this bench too big for you, or too small, or is it just right?’

‘Shut up, Noah,’ she said, grinning.

‘How do you like your porridge?’

Laughter bubbled out before she could stop it. ‘You’re being entirely inappropriate. This is a very serious, very important ghost hunt, and we’re filling the recording up with—’

‘What would your ideal bed look like?’

‘It would have you in it and a big mound of—’

A loud crash shattered the quiet and both of them jumped, Hannah letting out a pathetic squeak.

‘Holy shit,’ Noah whispered. ‘What the fuck was that?’

‘Hello?’ Hannah said, her voice trembling. ‘Is anybody there?’ She felt cold again, but that might have been fear. She tried to sense if anything else felt different, but her heart was pounding and she couldn’t focus.

‘What’s on the other side of the wall?’ Noah asked. ‘It’s a treatment room, isn’t it?’

Hannah nodded. ‘We should go and check it out. There’s probably an obvious explanation.’

‘Probably.’

Hannah stood and, with her eyes as adjusted to the gloom as they were going to get, made her way slowly round the desk, past the cabinet on the wall, and through a door at the back of the room. It opened onto a small, square hallway, and Hannah could just make out three other doors leading off it. The one to her left must lead into the room next door, where the bang had come from.

Hannah tried the handle. It pushed down easily and she felt the door swing away from her, her heart in her mouth as the dark space revealed itself inch by inch. The treatment bed was a hulking shape in the middle, the far wall covered by an elaborate cabinet, the ghostly shapes of various lotions and jars laid out on the shelves, waiting their turn. It smelt heavenly; of vanilla and lavender and something rich and deep like cocoa.

‘It doesn’t look as if anything’s fallen,’ she whispered, taking two tentative steps inside, Noah’s warmth behind her. She turned and leaned against the high bed. ‘There’s nothing against this wall,’ she continued, ‘and I can’t see anything on the floor, although I suppose something could have fallen off the shelf and rolled under the bed.’

‘The cabinet in reception actually rattled,’ Noah murmured. ‘I don’t think something falling off a shelf in here would have done that.’