Will frowned. ‘Yeah. It happened long before I went into CID. I was on the beat with a new bloke, a young chap called, er, Tony — that’s it, Tony Skates. I think he was a bit nervous about being out on the streets at night for the first time. We got a call to check out a possible break-in at an old nursing home. It was a weird, rambling sort of place, set back off the road and surrounded by lawns and big old trees. Only part of the building was in use, and that was about to be closed down. We checked with the warden, who had reported someone creeping about in the grounds, and we made off in the general direction the intruder had taken. We searched everywhere but there was nothing. We were just going back to the main house when Tony thought he saw a light coming from the deserted part of the building. There was an old door that wouldn’t budge when we tried it, but we found a broken window and got in that way. We found ourselves in some kind of small chapel — you know, like some big old properties had?’

‘Like a family chapel?’ Matt said.

‘That’s right. The altar and all the carved wooden pews were still there. There were even some moth-eaten tapestries with coats of arms on them and a few dirty old candle holders. It smelt dreadful, really musty. Anyway, there was no one there, and the only door that apparently led into the house itself had been nailed up.’

Will paused, back in that old chapel again. ‘I don’t know whether it was the young lad’s nervousness affecting me as well, but we were just about to climb back out of the window when, well, I had this awful feeling of being watched. I was a hundred per cent sure we were not alone in there, even though we had searched it thoroughly. We both ran out of that place like the clappers. It was weird.’

Sam gave a low chuckle. ‘So, that was the response of a “no nonsense,” hard-nut copper. Now put your Kate into exactly the same situation and try to imagine how she would have felt.’

‘Good Lord. With her vivid imagination, she’d have flipped!’ Will puffed his cheeks out. ‘And this salt marsh has a similar, ancient sort of feel to it. I am sure it’s Whisper Fen that’s influencing her paintings.’

‘Ah, the paintings! Laura’s friend was quite disturbed by Kate’s pictures, and he wholly endorses our findings. I didn’t tell him anything about her history, but he diagnosed the probable root of the problem in minutes. The last picture threw him.’ Sam shifted around uncomfortably. ‘He said they are in no way connected, and were we absolutely sure that it was by the same artist as the other “dark” ones?’