‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Could I take a look at the Sussex Express files?’

‘Can I help you with anything specific that you’re looking for?’ she asked.

He hesitated. ‘Well, we’ve just moved into a village near here, Cold Hill. I’m interested in anything I can find about its recent history.’

She looked pensive. ‘OK, I’ll see if I can find anything while you’re looking through the archives.’

Five minutes later, set up at a microfilm reader, Jason began scrolling through the 2015 issues, until he reached September. Then he slowed.

Finally, he reached his goal: 28 September 2015. The report on the deaths of the Harcourt family.

DOUBLE TRAGEDY STRIKES COLD HILL FAMILY

Brighton solicitor, Caroline Harcourt, who was involved in many Sussex charities, was killed alongside her daughter, Jade, a pupil at St Paul’s College, Burgess Hill, in a road traffic accident on the B2112 Haywards Heath to Ardingly road last week. In a bizarre twist, an hour later her husband, Oliver Harcourt, was found dead at their family home, Cold Hill House. Inspector Chris Smith from Sussex Police Roads Policing Unit said that despite the extraordinary circumstances, there appeared to be no link between the two, and the events were just a very sad coincidence. This was later confirmed in a statement released by Detective Inspector Sarah Reeves of Sussex Police, who said the post-mortem on Mr Harcourt revealed he had died from a heart attack.

He looked again on his phone at the photograph of their headstone in the graveyard. Then he searched for the family online and clicked on ‘images’.

A very posed-looking family photograph, clearly taken by a professional, appeared. He barely glanced at the laid-back looking man in his late thirties, or the rather stroppy girl of about twelve who clearly wanted to be anywhere but in the saccharine, happy families snapshot.

It was the woman who had his complete focus.

The attractive, slightly hard-looking woman in her mid-thirties, with short, dark hair, immaculately dressed. She was staring at the camera, or at whoever was behind the lens, with the same don’t-give-me-any-nonsense-and-I-won’t-give-you-any-back expression that he recognized. Exactly the way she had looked at him.

It was her, without any shadow of doubt. The woman he had seen in the house. The woman he had sketched, the photograph of whom he’d shown to Lester Beeson and Albert Fears yesterday.

Caroline Patricia Harcourt.

He’d been to her grave and seen her name and dates on the headstone, just as he had seen the vicar’s.

17 April 1979–21 September 2015.

And she was just as dead as the vicar.

He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands, thinking, trying to make sense of any of this.

Emily had seen the woman, too. Seen a ghost.

But not the vicar?

He was feeling scared, really scared. Who could he talk to about this? The logical person would be the rector, Reverend Whitely, the gardener in the graveyard had told him about. But from the gardener’s description of him as a useless bugger, like a blooming skeleton with rattling teeth, he didn’t sound much cop.