‘It was all me. My wife hasn’t seen anything. But I told her that I had and she believed every word. Her family is like that. There were a few nights that I crept out and howled my head off, just so she could hear. The young ones were staying over and now they think it’s all real.’ His whole body jittered with excitement. ‘I even left an old comb out on the road for them to find. And sure they brought it into my wife and she almost had a conniption.’

‘Why would you do that?’ Ben asked him.

‘It’s only a bit of fun,’ Mickeen replied, sniggering to himself. ‘There’s no harm in it.’

No harm? Because of this eejit’s antics, his grandchildren were going to grow up terrified. No wonder these traditions had lasted so long. The world was full of pranksters of Mickeen’s ilk. There will always be those out there who just want to fuck with people.

*

‘What about your side of things?’ Ben asked Chloe. ‘If Sparling’s right, you’re the first archaeologist to ever set foot in this place?’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ she replied. ‘I’m more than happy to take our dear doctor’s money, but we’re not going to find anything out of the ordinary. Trust me, I’ve had my arse in the air, digging around in the dirt for a few years now. There are no more mysteries on this island. And there’s no chance that we’re the first ones to ever come this way.’

Sparling’s projection had presented Ben with a map scanned in at a slightly crooked angle. His closeted OCD screamed internally. The font betrayed its antiquity but it wasn’t dated. Though probably white once upon a time, the paper had yellowed, especially in its centre. Ben examined it with his head atilt, feigning some appreciation. He hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to be looking at.

It was a rural section with few dwellings. None of them looked any larger than a garden shed. The land was divvied out by mismatched boundaries. Big fields, small fields. Who cares? Ben perceived the symbols for a cemetery and a church, or possibly some other ecclesiastical building. Even a child could identify them. Other than that, it could have been an aerial view of anywhere in the country. Cartography was an archaeologist’s tool. Ben didn’t care for ruins and relics. The height of a hill and the length of a lake were somebody else’s business.

‘Am I in the right place?’ a voice asked from the back of the room.