‘It’s cursed, that place,’ Fears went on, ignoring him. ‘They shouldn’t have called it Cold Hill Park, they should name it Death Park. Cos that’s what happens to everyone who goes there, they die.’ He leered again, showing his nasty, stained, predator teeth.

‘You saw it?’ the landlord asked.

‘Yes, I was just looking out of the window.’

‘So, tell me what happened; there’s all kinds of rumours flying around the village. What did you actually see?’ Beeson asked.

Jason told him all the details he could remember, while the old farmer listened, too. When he had finished, Fears said, ‘See, I told you, that place is cursed. Death Park, that’s the right name for it.’

‘Why do you say it’s cursed?’ Jason asked him.

Fears looked at his face for some moments, as if reading something that was written on it. ‘You’d have to be stupid not to realize. Everyone dies there. Like I told you, everyone who moves in is dead by forty. So are people who work there. Cursed, I’m telling you. All the couples, in my time, who bought the big house all died, and all before they were forty.’

‘How?’ Jason asked.

The old man smiled as if he was enjoying himself, enjoying having his moment in the sun. ‘There was the O’Hares, back in around 1983 I think it was. They weren’t even the first deaths I remember, though.’

‘Who owned it before them?’

‘That would be Lord and Lady Rothberg. Both bed-ridden by accidents long before they died. They’d had the place since the end of the war. It were taken over in the war by the Defence folk for accommodation for Canadian soldiers and aircrew. A couple of pilots was killed when an upstairs floor collapsed, so my grandad told me. Dry rot – the place was riddled with it. They moved all the Canadians out and boarded the place up as unsafe till the Rothbergs fixed it up. It sat derelict for years after the O’Hares. There were arguments about tearing it down, but it was a listed building – so the arguments went on for ages. They tried to get English Heritage, or the National Trust, one of them to take it over, but they weren’t interested.’ Fears drained his tankard.

‘Can I buy you another?’ Jason asked, keen to keep him talking now he had started. But the old farmer gave him a venomous smile. ‘Take a drink off you? That’d be like supping with the Devil.’ He turned to Beeson. ‘Eh, wouldn’t it?’

‘Another pint, Albert?’

Fears shook his head. ‘Got me tractor to drive.’ Then he turned back to Jason. ‘I don’t want no drink bought by you. See, I’m not telling you this stuff because I like you – I don’t like you and I never will. I’m telling you because you asked and I’m a polite man. We’re all polite folk around here – unlike the riff-raff in your horrible new estate. But we’re not worried about you lot, too much. You’ll all be dead soon, just like them Molloys, and the Harcourts and the O’Hares before them. The O’Hares all crushed to death in that big fancy Cadillac of theirs.’