Some ten minutes later he heard footsteps moving towards the door. He listened to the bolt being drawn back. His wife came out. She stared down at him, frowning. ‘You look pretty silly sitting there, Will. Let’s go and have some tea, shall we?’

She began to walk away from him. ‘And there will be no talk of getting rid of the shelter. It stays. Understand? Now, tea or coffee?’

* * *

The shelter stayed.

Will looked down from the bedroom window, where he was busy fitting a sash cord. He couldn’t forget those glassy, unblinking eyes and the expression on his wife’s face when she had said, ‘Understand?’ He shuddered whenever it came back to him.

Now, the shelter was covered with fresh soil, which Kate had planted with a carpet of late summer flowers.

‘Just as it was. That’s how it should be.’ She had spent a morning clearing it out. She’d brushed dirt from the floor, rust from the metalwork, rubbed down the old woodwork and oiled the creaking hinges. She had refused his help on the grounds that if he were prepared to destroy it in the first place, he had no reason to assist her in its restoration.

He had been in touch with Matt and Liz during the days since the discovery of the shelter. He sensed that they knew something was terribly wrong, but he hadn’t had the heart to talk to them. On one occasion they had called in to tell him that he had been right about Gerald Grove, and Kate had made a brief appearance. They had barely been able to disguise their shock.

Yesterday he had gone to their new GP on the pretext of needing stronger painkillers. He had gone fully intending to ask the doctor for help with his troubled wife, but once he was seated in the slightly shabby surgery, he had found himself incapable of discussing her. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t betray her.

He tightened the sash cord and tested it.

They had come through it before and would do so again. Their love for each other would sustain them. He had recently discovered that the nicer he was to the house, the more he did, even the smallest of chores, the better Kate’s mood became. Thus, he continued to busy himself with useful jobs.

Two things did disturb him, however, and one of these was the doll.