He’d ambled up the private path, unsure of what to expect. There were no cars in the driveway of the pretty cottage deep in the forest. He cast his eyes over the stonework and the roses creeping up either side of the door. The garden was well tended and cared for, a stack of logs outside the door. The air was alive with birdsong, a shaft of sunlight making the cottage look like something out of a Disney movie. But the shutters were pulled tight, the door firmly closed. He checked his watch: two thirty in the afternoon. Maybe nobody was home. But a steady stream of smoke blossomed from the chimney stack.

He swaggered to the door in his usual confident manner. Being in the police, it was all about the image you projected of yourself. He had been in more innocuous buildings than this and found horrors lurking within.

Lifting the door knocker, he alerted the occupants to his presence as he hammered three times. He listened for signs of life, straightening as a voice rang out from inside.

‘Stay in your room,’ a woman’s voice commanded as she approached the door.

Lloyd’s brows knitted. Had she been talking to the little girl? There was no evidence of children at play in the yard. Usually, there would be a tyre tied to a branch or a makeshift treehouse. Laughter ringing out on such a crisp clear day. But no such sounds could be heard.

‘Who is it?’ The same woman’s voice called from inside. There was a prickle of recognition as an Irish accent filtered through the thick wooden door.

‘It’s Sergeant Lloyd Thomas,’ he said. ‘From the village. Just checking in with you.’

‘Lloyd? Lloyd Thomas, you say?’ The words were followed by several bolts being hurriedly shoved across.

‘The one and only,’ he said, smiling. It wasn’t as if Lloyd was a common name around these parts.

‘Come in, come in!’ A slim hand reached through a narrow crack in the door and pulled him inside.

As he stumbled into the dim hall, Lloyd was completely taken off guard. He had been to homes where people spoke behind doors before. But he had never been yanked inside one. The smell of bleach assaulted his nostrils. He blinked as he grew accustomed to the dim room, matching the face to the voice.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘Susan Doyle . . . Do you live here now?’

He stared at his old schoolfriend as she bolted the doors behind them. She was tall and chalk-pale, her black wavy hair pinned in a loose bun. Her dress was loose on her frame, her slippers sliding against the wooden floor.

‘Sorry,’ she said, finally turning to face him after securing the front door. ‘But I have to keep my daughter safe.’