Tom nodded and turned towards the copse to lead the way. He glanced back at his own tent and then over at Mr Stevens’ tent as they left the campsite, but there was no sign of any life from either of them. Just a quick look, thought Tom. I’ll just have a quick look around nearby, make sure he’s not hiding or pissing around, then if we still can’t find him we’ll wake Tim’s dad up straight away. The tops of the pine trees were swaying gently in the distance, and Tom set his sights on them.

He marched across the grass, taking long strides, and he was almost annoyed when Matt shouted ‘Hey!’ before they’d even gone 20 paces.

Tom turned, ready to say something, but stopped when he saw Matt’s expression. His friend was standing a few paces behind him with both feet rooted to the ground. His mouth was open slightly, and his gaze was fixed on something just beyond Tom.

‘What’s that?’ he muttered.

Tom turned around and followed Matt’s line of sight to a patch of grass ahead of him and just over to his left. He swallowed. Matt was looking at an area about six feet long that had been partially flattened. Tom thought it looked like those patches of grass you got in cow fields, after the cows had lain down and squashed the turf flat beneath their bodies. Sort of like that, only the wrong shape; this shape was about the same length but narrower, as if—

Tom’s thoughts broke off as he noticed something darker in the grass. He took a few steps closer and saw that there was more than one of these dark shapes, and that what he was actually looking at were patches of grass that had been stained a different colour. They were darker, like rust.

He heard breathing and felt Matt beside him.

‘Is that blood?’ Matt’s voice sounded high and weak, the voice of a small child. Tom got down on his knees by the patch of flattened grass without saying anything. He bent low towards one of the marked patches and plucked a stem of the rust-coloured grass out of the earth. He stood up and held it out to Matt.

Matt took it and squinted down at it, frowning. His face was still pale, but now two tiny round patches of red had sprung up on his cheeks.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said, offering the grass back to Tom. ‘I don’t know what else it could be, but it doesn’t really look like blood, does it?’

Tom shrugged and tossed the stem away. He turned his attention back to the patch of flattened grass, looking to see if there was anything else that they’d missed.

‘Something lay here at some point recently,’ he muttered. ‘It could have been a person, but I don’t know.’