I didn’t look back even once I was locked in my car. As I swung it around, crushing weeds beneath the wheels, I wasn’t sure whether I saw two outsize raindrops swell bigger still on a patch of moss on the concrete while a thick-ridged slit parted in the vegetation. I drove out of the car park almost faster than I dared, and barely managed to take all the bends of Old Station Road without straying off the greasy rain-washed tarmac into a ditch. I felt close to hysteria, both at having escaped and about the grotesque experience I’d had. If I started laughing it wouldn’t denote mirth, and I suspected I would find it hard to stop. Besides, there was nothing comical in the possibility that my son and his girlfriend might have a similar experience. I ought to prevent it, and I pulled over at once.

As I found my phone it spoke. “Messages,” it seemed to say, and “Tell all them.” Perhaps the mumble sounded so unlike its usual voice because it was still in my pocket, and I might have concluded that I’d inadvertently activated it to pronounce random words on the screen. Just the same, its behaviour revived a chill that made me shake, and I couldn’t help feeling I hadn’t left Halfway Halt far enough behind. I let go of the phone and didn’t stop the car again until I reached Northerly Lane, where I parked on the verge of a straight stretch. The phone kept its peace while I fumbled it out of my pocket, and Roy spoke almost as soon as his phone began to ring. “Dad, we’re a bit busy right now.”

“I won’t keep you. I just wanted to tell you not to bother with Halfway Halt, if you meant to.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how you’d get there, but it isn’t worth the effort.”

“We already have.”

This made me uneasier than ever. “What did you find?”

“I think Bell’s getting more out of all this than me. If she does that’s what matters.”

“Where are you now?” I had to ask.

“Just walking.”

“Yes, but where?”

As though he shouldn’t have withheld the information Bella said “Darkmarsh.”

“And what are you expecting to turn up there?”

I meant this for Roy, but Bella answered. “We’ll know it when we meet it, Patrick.”

“Talk more soon, dad, okay? It’s getting a bit cold just standing round.”