‘Well, up until the early seventies, it wasn’t there. It was a valley with a few villages and hamlets in it. Then the water company came along and said they wanted to dam it and fill it up to create a new reservoir. There was a massive hoo-hah at the time, but it all went ahead. A lot of people lost their homes. To this day there are still two villages under Rutland Water. The Hambletons.’

‘Isn’t that on the peninsula?’

‘Upper Hambleton is. Most people just call it Hambleton now because it’s the only one left. Nether Hambleton and most of Middle Hambleton are under the water.’

‘And what’s that got to do with Normanton Church?’

‘Ah, see that was meant to go as well. They cleared the valley for the reservoir, and the church was on the list. It was deconsecrated and marked for demolition, but there was a public outcry and they managed to save it. Only problem was, when the water was at its highest, it’d be halfway up the church walls and it’d be pretty much constantly flooded, so the rock barrier was built around it to keep the water away. They even filled the lower half of the church with concrete and made a new, higher floor. If you go in there now, it’s weird. The windows are all really low and the ceiling’s nowhere near the height of a normal church. From the outside it looks like it’s sunk or is floating on the water, and when you’re inside it’s like being in Lilliput.’

‘Blimey, Dex. Didn’t realise you had such a literary bent. Wouldn’t have had you down as a Dickens man.’

‘Jonathan Swift, boss.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Gulliver’s Travels. It was Jonathan Swift.’

Caroline shook her head and smiled. ‘Well, well. Aren’t you a box of surprises?’

‘When you grow up in a house with three sisters hogging the bathroom and playing loud music, escaping into books seems pretty appealing. Especially when your dad’s an English Literature professor.’

‘Seriously? You kept that quiet,’ Caroline said, internally admonishing herself for assuming a black kid from an estate in Leicester wouldn’t be a reader of classics.

‘Yeah, seriously. Only at De Montfort, mind, but still.’

Caroline laughed. She wasn’t one for having work colleagues become friends, but even she had to admit she was becoming rather fond of Dexter Antoine.

Before Caroline left work later that day, Dexter pointed out that a few of them were going to the pub after work and asked her if she’d like to join them.

‘It’s only at the Wheatsheaf,’ he said. ‘Not really got to go far.’

It took Caroline a moment to place the pub — it seemed that every other pub in Rutland was called the Wheatsheaf — but all she wanted was to go home and curl up in bed.