In that case we might as well find our way out, since nothing further came to mind – and then I recalled her saying the woods had a face. I’d never seen or grasped what she meant, but now I felt it could be anywhere around me. A sense that I might glimpse one, shaped by leaves or bark or the contortions of a fallen tree, distracted me from concentrating on the ill-defined path. Not seeing so much as the hint of a face only intensified the feeling that one was about to reveal itself, perhaps the first of many repetitions of a solitary face. Its imminence felt like an unseen shadow, and despite the sunshine that parched the track yellow I had to shrug off a shiver, as though we were walking through a marsh. At least a marker post ahead established that we were following an official path, except that as we came closer I saw it owed much of its greenness to moss. The post wasn’t as regular as it had looked at a distance, and when I tried to strip away the moss, the stump disintegrated. It hadn’t been painted at all. It might almost have been feigning artificiality, a trick played by the woods. “We need to find a path that’s on the map,” I said.

“I can’t remember what that looked like.” Less hopefully than as a challenge Roy said “Can you?”

While I had only a general impression, I thought the green path had circled left, eventually returning to the car park. The problem was that I had no idea how far back we’d strayed away from it or how we could find it again. Beyond the false marker there wasn’t even a path. The nearest to a track that I could see led into the depths of the forest to our left, and I was about to propose heading for it when Roy said “What’s that?”

I was more nervous than I’d realised. “What are you seeing?”

“Nothing.” Before I could react he said “Listen.”

At first I heard a vast protracted breath – a hot breeze passing through the woods. As the leaves very gradually regained stillness, I wondered when I’d last heard birdsong. Silence as oppressive as the unrelieved verdure settled around us, and I was about to ask Roy what he expected me to hear when I caught the sound. It was a voice, so distant that I had no idea of its gender. I thought it was singing a song, though I couldn’t distinguish a word or even a melody. “Let’s find her,” Roy said.

“We don’t know if that’s the right way. It sounds like the folk festival.”

“I think it’s a radio at someone’s house. Anyway, whoever’s there can help us.”