Stan Rail gives me a daunting stare. Even without a hard hat, he’s a man to be reckoned with; helmeted, he’s a centurion. “Nobody said anything about rescuing tiles to me. Site clearance is what it says on the docket. So site clearance it is.”

“We’ll do it, then. My son and I. Please could you lend us some tools? We’ll only need an hour or so.”

“I’m paying four men today, Mr. Acton. They can’t stop while you scurry here and there, chipping out bits and pieces of—”

“I’ll give you five pounds.”

Stan fingers his chin. “Ten,” he declares.

“Mr. Rail, I can’t remember the last time I had ten pounds on me. You’ll have to wait until I can get to the bank. But I promise I’ll pay you.”

Stan takes a moment to think it through. “I’ll take the lads to Elston’s,” he says with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

Elston’s is a mobile café by the main road, and Elston himself makes the best sausage sandwiches in the county. Stan rustles up a couple of small chisels and hammers before loading the men into his minivan. “One hour,” he says as he gets behind the wheel, and I hand him thirty pence for a sandwich for Tom.

“With or without ketchup,” he asks with a face of stone.

“With, please,” says Tom meekly.

The van departs and I return to the precious floor. The range’s rectangular footprint gives me my bearings and I pace out the distance to the ancient tiles. The hounds are there, pale ghosts in the daylight through a blizzard of dirt. All the others are hidden. Tom sloshes a bucket of rainwater over the floor, which contributes greatly to the overall filth without uncovering any more patterns, as I point out to him with a degree of acerbity.

“Well, sorr-ee.”

“I did mop the floor when I lived here, you know. If they were that easy to find, I’d have—”

“Okay, okay.”

“See if you can’t extricate some of these hounds. Chip along the grouting, look.”

“How old are they?” he asks, grunting as he wields a hammer and chisel.

“About seven hundred years.”

The grouting, it transpires, is harder than granite. After twenty minutes Tom and I have extracted two tiles. Just when I’m sitting back on my heels, nearly defeated, a heavy engine growls in the lane. I look up to see a Land Rover pulling into the driveway. I scramble to my feet, my heart in my mouth.

The Land Rover comes to a halt. The driver’s door opens. Out gets William Kennet, and he’s alone.