Jane realised it was likely empty coffins had also been stored in the cellar. She felt a cold shiver run through her body as she wondered if this could be the very place the nun had been murdered. She suddenly felt something touching her backside and let out a yelp. She saw Nick smile and was about to give him a mouthful when she saw the dog.

‘Naughty girl, Bella. You mustn’t jump on Jane like that,’ Nick said as he bent down and stroked the dog.

‘Everything all right down there?’ a voice shouted from the stairwell.

‘Yeah. It’s just me, Dad.’

‘You had me worried there, son . . . anyone’d think you’d just seen a bloody ghost,’ Thomas Durham said, descending the stairs.

Nick winced as he looked at Jane and whispered, ‘Sorry, sometimes he doesn’t think before he speaks.’

Jane’s heart was still racing, but she could see the funny side. ‘That really scared the crap out of me,’ she whispered back as she saw Thomas approach.

‘I believe you two have already met,’ Nick said.

Thomas nodded. ‘Detective Sergeant Tennison, as I recall.’

‘Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you . . . again.’ Jane smiled and they shook hands.

‘So, what brings you to my house?’ he asked.

‘She’s not here in a formal capacity, Dad. We went for dinner last night and I offered to show Jane around the chapel.’

‘It’s beautiful house, Mr Durham,’ Jane said.

‘Please call me Thomas or Tom. Yes, it’s my own bit of heaven . . . thanks to Nick’s interior design talents. It was a bit drab before he got to work on it.’

Nick told his father about the 1851 plans of the convent and the markings of what he thought might be a tunnel from the cellar to the outbuildings.

Thomas looked thoughtful. ‘Although we refer to it as a cellar now, most of what you see down here was in fact a crypt.’ He walked towards the wine storage area. ‘This end of the tunnel was already blocked off when I bought the convent.’ He turned on a light switch.

Jane could see the red brick wall at the end of the six-foot-long wine cellar.

‘This area was already a wine cellar,’ Thomas continued. ‘The racks are the original ones, and the bottles at the far end were already down here. Whether they were used for communion or the nuns’ personal consumption, I don’t know. I did try one once, but it tasted like vinegar. I’ve kept them as a reminder of the past.’