Ellie was briefly tempted to drive back to Barsall and leave the death knock for tomorrow. But that wasn’t fair: the Harpers had the right to be told; if they had any idea what Tony had fallen foul of Ellie wanted to know; and there was no telling if the roads would be passable by tomorrow. So instead she took a dirt track that led off the hill road onto Thursdale, opened the gate with its crudely lettered signs (PRIVATE PROPERTY and PISS OFF – THIS MEANS YOU) and shut it behind her having coaxed the Land Rover through.

The track was rocky and potholed and she was glad of the Land Rover’s suspension as it bounced and rocked along. She turned the headlights on, full beam, as she pushed on through the gloom and whirling snow. She should turn back now: by the time she was done here, driving back to Barsall would be near-suicidal.

“Fuck it,” she muttered.

Finally she was level with another gate. Ellie pulled back the bolt and dragged it open, against the weight of the half-breezeblock chained to it to keep it shut.

She drove past tangles of mud and weeds that might have been intended as kitchen-gardens, heaps of rusting machinery the Harpers couldn’t be arsed disposing of, old leaking sacks of cement and a teetering shell of a barn, then finally into the potholed asphalt yard in front of the brick and stone huddle of Barrowman Farm.

They’d given the house a coat of white plaster over a decade ago; large chunks of it had flaked off, while the rest was discoloured with dirt or mould. The roof was missing a quarter of its slates and bowed in the middle, and two windows had plastic sheeting taped over holes in them. The whole thing was dirtylooking, sagging and somehow menacing, like a huge grey toad waiting with cold, patient greed for its prey.

Christ, she had been working too hard. Ellie should be back home with her feet up, sipping a mug of black coffee with rum. Or whisky. Still had a few inches of Lagavulin left in the bottle Milly and Noel got her for her birthday. Normally she’d have said Irishing her coffee with that was a terrible waste of good single malt, but just now it sounded exactly the kind of decadent treat she should be enjoying by her fireside with her doors locked tight.

Well, you’re here now.

She could still turn around and go.

But then a curtain twitched. They’d seen her.

Even if you did leg it now, you’d still have to come back sooner or later. Someone’s got to tell ’em.