‘Oh, nobody lives here.’ She realized now that he was English. He stepped further into the room and she backed away from him. ‘Who are you?’ he said. It was hard to tell whether he was angry or amused. The voice was flat.

‘My name’s Polly Gilmour. I’m staying at Sletts. My partner will be looking for me, if I don’t go back soon.’ She hoped that was true, but remembered Marcus as she’d last seen him, determined to be normal, to communicate with the outside world, and she wasn’t sure if he would be bothered to come after her. She found that she was shaking.

‘So you’re one of Eleanor Longstaff’s friends?’

‘Yes.’

He looked her up and down as if she were a sort of biological specimen, then gave a sly smile. ‘I think I’ve seen you around.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Charles Hillier. I run Springfield House. The detectives are staying there.’ He seemed about to say more, but suddenly headlights lit up the room.

‘That’ll be Ian,’ she said. ‘Eleanor’s husband. I should go. It’s my turn to make supper.’ The inanity struck her as crazy. She’d imagined seeing a ghost in this house and now some strange man had her penned inside it and she was talking about cooking a meal. She judged the distance between them and darted past him into the scullery. But he shut the front door with his foot and stood with his back to it, blocking her way again. She was trembling and found it impossible to think clearly at all. It felt like the worst sort of nightmare. With the front door shut, the small room was almost dark.

Suddenly someone was banging on the living-room window with the flat of his hand. ‘Polly, is that you?’ It was Ian. He must have caught sight of her in his headlights and stopped his car.

‘Yes, I’m here.’ She was surprised at how strongly the words came out: now she sounded defiant rather than scared. Hillier moved away from the door as Ian Longstaff came in. The three of them stood very close together in the tiny room. There was the smell of damp, but something else. Alcohol. Polly thought Ian must have taken off to a bar somewhere and had been sitting nursing pints and brooding. She wondered if Lowrie had been with him and, if so, how the man could have been so stupid as to let him drive back.

‘Who are you?’ Ian glared at the older man. Polly thought he looked like a gorilla picking a fight with another male for supremacy of the troop. Eleanor had always called him, with amused affection, her alpha male.

Hillier barked back his name. ‘I own Springfield House hotel. Your friend here was trespassing.’