‘But he was dead,’ Meredith said with bewilderment, clutching the door frame to hold herself up. ‘No question.’

‘He can’t have been. This isn’t the frigging Resurrection! Ring him,’ he insisted.

She took her mobile out of her pocket and scrolled to his name. ‘I’m phoning a dead man,’ she muttered. ‘This is insane.’

‘And lo! The stone was rolled away,’ Pete added, without a smile.

They both held their breath as the phone rang once, twice, three times … then the voicemail kicked in. The sound of Ralph’s cheerful, booming voice instructing her to leave a message nearly broke Meredith. She killed the call and dropped to her hands and knees to pick up all the buttons scattered on the damp floor.

‘Someone’s moved his body.’ She stared up over her shoulder at Pete, who was leaning against the doorjamb, scratching his stubble, his forehead furrowed.

‘You think I’m losing my marbles, or having a breakdown or something,’ she said. ‘I can see it in your eyes. But I haven’t made it up. What do you think these are doing here, then?’

She held out her hand to show him the four buttons she’d collected, stuck to her palm by the cold sweat she had burst out in. She peeled them off and put them in her skirt pocket. She was pretty sure there hadn’t been more than four, although she kept scanning the floor in case.

‘I don’t, Mez, honestly. Obviously something happened, Ralph passed out, but—’

‘Pete! How many times do I have to say it? He hadn’t passed out; he had no pulse. HE WASN’T BREATHING AT ALL. I’d know. I’ve done a first-aid course once a year for the last decade … Can we get out of here? And – look at that.’

There were marks on the earth floor leading out of the door, like something heavy had been dragged through it.

Pete shook his head. ‘This is mental. Let’s go back to your place and have a drink.’

They left the ice house in silence and started to cross the lawn again. Meredith concentrated on taking deep breaths and focussing on the roses as they walked through the walled garden and then the vegetable patches, trying to find equilibrium in the deep-green leaves of kale and the frilly-edged cabbages.

She had always said she would never want to live anywhere else, but now she wasn’t sure if she would ever feel the same, not after this. If something really had happened to Ralph, everything would be different from then on. Until now, Meredith had always felt safer here than in a town, because nobody apart from Pete knew who she really was. Nobody had ever recognised her, not once in the many years she’d been working at Minstead.