Ben left the lantern behind and scrambled up the step irons. Pushing his head and shoulders out through the open manhole he looked around him to get his bearings. Wherever he was now, it was some considerable distance from the castle. He couldn’t see it at all, because during his time underground the snow had started again and was now blowing up into a blizzard.

Ben clambered out of the hole and scooped up handfuls of powdery snow to wipe the filth from his clothes and hands. The strong wind tore at him and snowflakes whipped into his eyes and nose. He began to shiver violently and knew he had to find shelter and warmth before he froze to death out here. The afternoon was already fading fast into twilight and the temperature would soon start to drop like a stone.

He staggered through the snow, sinking in up to his knees in drifts that piled up on the uneven ground. The whirling blizzard seemed to be gathering strength with every passing moment, becoming a near-total whiteout. Visibility was no more than a few metres ahead and his sense of direction was almost non-existent. But then, half-blinded by the force of the driving snowflakes filling his eyes, he saw the dark shape of a long, low building ahead and began to make his way towards it.

At first he thought the building was a stable block or an animal shelter, but as he stumbled closer to it he realised it was some kind of groundskeeper’s hut or storage shed. The wind was drifting the snow high against its slatted wooden sides. He reached an end wall and worked along its length until he came to a flimsy wooden door, warped and weathered. He pushed through the doorway.

It was semi-dark inside the hut, with only two small windows, both rimed with snow. The ambient temperature was noticeably higher than outside. There was a smell in the air as though someone had been using a propane stove or heater in here not too long ago.

In the murky half-light Ben could make out piles of agricultural equipment, building materials and tall shelving units covered with paint cans, tools and assorted boxes. A large object stood draped with a tarpaulin in the middle of the hut. He tugged at the tarp and saw that underneath was a rugged Polaris all-terrain, two-seater utility vehicle. A cross between a golf cart and a military assault buggy, the kind of thing that estate keepers would use to patrol the grounds and lug trailers of logs and fertiliser around.