‘You should get Jim home, I’ll be all right to go and fetch Gwen,’ Ted tells him.

‘No. You’re here now and I’m nearly at the Hall. Go in and get some sleep.’

The passenger door opens. Ted hesitates.

‘I would have seen him right. She could have trusted me.’

The door slams before Jack has a chance to respond. Ted’s hunched figure is bathed in gold as he plunges through the car’s twin beams, but he has been swallowed by darkness long before he reaches the house. On the back seat, Jim lets rip a loud snore. Jack puts the car in gear and pulls away.

It is a miracle he finds Netley Hall. He would have been hard-pressed to find it in daylight – he has only passed its pillared entrance a couple of times at best. He misses it initially and slams on the brakes with such force that Jim is almost projected into the footwells. The farmer stirs enough to right himself, mumbling incomprehensibly, before drifting back to sleep. Jack stretches his arm around the back of the passenger seat and reverses up the road. He peers up at the imposing wrought-iron gates, changes gear, and directs the car up the drive.

The house extends before him, lit up like a Christmas tree. It seems at first that every window is an open gleaming eye, but as he draws nearer he sees that some are indeed shuttered to the world. The vast gravelled forecourt is crammed with parked cars and he advances slowly until he finds a space, poking Jim’s modest Morris Eight between two stately Rolls-Royces.

Turning off the engine, he sits in the darkness looking up through the small windscreen at the impressive mansion.

‘Don’t worry, Jim, you stay here. I’ll find her,’ he mutters. The sleeping farmer merely snores in response.

It is surprisingly cold and he fights the urge to flick up his collar and huddle into his cheap jacket as he might have done walking the terraced streets at home. Instead, he pushes back his shoulders and braces himself against the discomfort of the cutting chill, buttoning up his jacket so it looks of a better cut than it is. Walking with more confidence than he feels, he approaches the imposing black doors at the centre of the house.

He is embarrassed that his heart is pounding as he reaches for the brass knocker, which he brings down to echo with light apology against the glossed wood. He shifts uneasily on the limestone step, turning to look out over the expansive park, its great oaks silhouetted against a navy sky whose ghostly clouds drift lazily over the moon in a half-hearted game of hide and seek. Jack knocks again.