James nodded. ‘Well think about it. Just over two decades ago the couple who ran it were found dead in the cellar and their three-week-old baby went missing. Then Mary Bateman started telling people it was haunted and they covered the cellar door with a wall to stop spirits from coming up into the house. Later someone inserted a peephole in that same wall to spy on the family. Then came the killings on Christmas Eve, again in mysterious circumstances. And as if all that wasn’t enough to chill the blood, we’ve now discovered the skeletal remains of the missing baby in the cellar.’

‘When you lump it all together like that, I don’t feel I’m far wrong in believing that the place is cursed,’ Abbott said.

James raised a faint smile. ‘I’ve always scoffed at such beliefs. But now I see how they can take hold when a single property is the location for so many appalling events that can’t be fully explained.’

Dark clouds were gathering on the edges of the grey sky as they approached Oaktree Farm.

James hadn’t been back since his initial visit but SOCOs had continued to beaver away, carrying out forensic sweeps of the house, the barn, the outbuildings and, of course, the cellar.

The moment the farm came into view those ghastly images from the crime scene pushed their way into his mind once again, causing a knot to tighten in his throat.

It was among the worst he had attended in all of his years on the force. An entire family slaughtered. So much blood and gore. A true Christmas nightmare.

As they drew up in front of the farmhouse, a cold, crawling sensation ran down his spine, and as James climbed out of the car the bitter air shuddered in his throat when he took a breath.

The pair headed straight for the entrance to the cellar where a constable in a high-viz jacket was standing guard.

‘The chief forensic officer is waiting in there for you, sir,’ he said to James.

They both walked down the short flight of steps to the open door of the cellar and James felt a creeping dread as they stepped inside.

He noticed immediately that it was much less cluttered than it had been when he was last here. The storage boxes and bags of rotting vegetables had been removed from the metal shelving units along with the stuff that had been piled up on the workbench.

Tony Coppell was deep in discussion with one of his team when he saw James and Abbott.

‘It’s over here,’ he said, pointing at the floor. ‘We found it by chance when we moved the display unit. The boards beneath it had been cut at some point in time and slipped back into place without being screwed down. I assumed something could be hidden down there and I was right.’