She looked at the horrible, crimsoned walls, seeing places where the blood hadn’t just spattered. She took one photo before she had to get out into the air: a few smears and lines, really. Nobody would have thought anything of them, save that there was purpose there. Something had made those streaks, way past the high-water mark of the killing. And they’d see marks like that again.

Lee’s theory was right then: some sadistic bastard really was gaslighting poor Roberts. Someone had come in and cut up his sheep and put fake footprints about, or maybe it was the man himself, after the insurance.

At that point something bolted from the barn. It shot past them at such speed that it was almost gone around the building’s edge by the time they spun round to watch. Lee was left with an impression of it, a sense of something grey and ragged with a long tail. But of course that was what the video had primed her to see, and the next moment she didn’t know whether it had been real or just in her head.

Mal looked horribly pale, but also determined. She wanted to find something more, now. Lee was right with her, her brain belatedly stepping in to hand her a note about what they hadn’t seen yet.

“Range Rover isn’t here.” Roberts must be doing farm things, and there was a set of tyre tracks heading away from the house, over the rugged moors. They exchanged looks, wide-eyed. They knew they were crossing a line, but that was what the cryptid-hunting game was about, after all. Being on that brink, feeling the chasm of the unknown yawn at their very toes—before taking that prudent step back.

With daylight left, they went to find Roberts, armed with nothing but a hiker’s guide and a personal alarm that, out on the moors, nobody could possibly hear.

After an hour of walking they saw Roberts’ big grey-blue car, muddy and battered and in the middle of a field. No sign of the man himself, nor any potential Birdmen. However, they had also apparently stumbled upon a Site of Special Historic Interest. Three standing stones stood in what Mal’s guidebook charitably called a circle, yet was only ever going to be a triangle.

“The Six Brothers,” Mal read out, looking at the trio of monoliths. “That’s what the locals call ’em. Hello? Mr. Roberts?” Her call fell away weirdly into the air, seemingly swallowed up before the sound could travel. She turned to Lee. “Is it colder?”