Well, he’d talk it over with the Mrs, whenever this was over with. For now, though, he was still a copper. Maybe not much of one – oh, he knew what Ellie thought of him, what everyone did, that he was just a time-server, not sticking his neck out any further than he could help – and they might be right, but this was still his job and he wasn’t a shirker. He’d been out on the moors enough times, hadn’t he, hunting lost hikers in weather like this? Helping bring them safely home, or retrieving their frozen corpses. And how many times had he done that last one? Every bloody winter, some poor sod ended up like that. Not even hikers all the time: even locals could come a cropper, like Tony Harper. After a while it got to you, all the death. Ate into you. Even so he wasn’t a shirker, or a coward. He’d taken the Queen’s shilling, signed on the dotted line. A contract. A bargain. An oath. Call it what you like.

So he’d do his part. Keep on a little longer, then head back into Barsall. See how Ellie wanted to play it then.

And back her up. He’d have to. She’d given him a way out and he’d taken it, but it’d been the coward’s way out and he knew it. He’d go back and help however he could and if there was flak afterwards over Barrowman Farm, he’d take it, because that was his job. He’d take the lumps, and Ellie could have any gongs or praise that were going. She’d earned them.

Another five minutes, then he’d make his way back. He’d been out here long enough without even a whisper in reply. Call out a couple more times, then knock it on the head.

“Matlock from Sierra Four Five, urgent call, over. Matlock from Sierra Four Five, urgent call, over.”

Nothing. Only the mush of static, as blurred and formless as the snow and the dark.

Sod the five minutes; he’d head back now. He turned the key in the ignition and the headlights flared on.

Something moved up ahead.

He didn’t get a good look; it recoiled from the light, back into the darkness, but he got an impression of thinness and long, long limbs. Like a huge bloody spider.

Snow blurred and flurried through the headlights.

No. He’d seen nothing: shadows and snow, caught in the light. That was all. He was seeing patterns where there were none. Like Ellie. Too much imagination. That was a laugh. He could hear Thelma snorting at that: When was that ever your problem, Tom Graham? He could make out a silhouette in the snow, just at the edge of the light.