Jake indicated to turn off at the next site. A small silver van drove past them. The driver didn’t even give them the time of day. Annie assumed it must be the camp maintenance guy; Jake didn’t look because the road was so narrow it was a work of art getting the car around it without scraping one side. They drove down to the site office. After getting out of the car they took the clipboard and knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

As they walked in the face behind the desk dropped, the smile gone in an instant.

‘Now then, Michael, how are things?’

Annie bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. Michael Houseman didn’t like the police, especially not Jake, who had arrested him three weeks ago for being drunk and wanting to fight everyone in the chip shop one Sunday night.

‘What do you want?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Is that a nice way to greet an old friend?’

Annie stepped forward, passing pictures of Megan and Henry to him.

‘We need to trace these two as soon as possible. Do you know if they are stopping here?’

He gave them a cursory glance then threw them on the desk. ‘Nope, never seen them before in my life.’

‘Are you sure? The man’s very distinctive. He has burns all down one side of his face.’

‘Definitely not. Now do me a favour and piss off out of my office.’

Jake stepped closer, pushing the pictures back towards him. ‘If you see either of these two it’s really important you let us know.’

Annie turned to leave and Jake followed her, slamming the door behind him.

‘Bollocks. He wouldn’t tell us even if they owed him three months’ rent.’

Jake nodded. ‘I think you’re right, my friend. We’ll have to check this one out ourselves. Get some plain-clothes officers to do a search.’

Annie wrote it down on her list. They got back in the car and he began reversing. Annie spotted the roof of Beckett House over the hedge.

‘Can we nip next door and see how Miss Beckett is? She was really upset the other day about that guy who was last seen at her house. I just want to check she’s okay.’

‘Fine by me.’

He drove back along the winding road to get out of the exit then took a sharp left into her drive. He parked in front of the house. Annie got out. ‘I’ll only be five minutes. Are you coming in?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’ll wait here. I want to phone Alex.’

She ran to the front door and rang the bell. The woman came to the door. Opening it wide, she smiled at Annie.

‘Hello, dear, have you come to tell me some good news about my missing man?’

‘I’m afraid not. I just wanted to see if you were okay.’

‘Oh that’s a shame, but it’s very kind of you. Do you want to come in? There’s something I would like to talk to you about.’

Annie turned and waved to Jake, mouthing the word ‘sorry’ to him. He gave her the thumbs up and she followed Martha into the house, where less than thirty minutes ago Henry Smith had been. Annie followed her down to the kitchen, shivering as she passed the cellar door. Martha, who was as bright as a button, watched her reaction. As they went into the kitchen she shut the door.

‘That cellar scares you as much as it scares me.’

‘You saw that?’

‘I did. What am I going to do, officer? I’m getting older. I can’t be the gatekeeper for ever. If I die and a young couple with children were to buy the house, what would happen then? I can’t sleep at night worrying about whatever it is that lurks down there, stealing children and grown men who are then never seen again. Whoever said that monsters aren’t real didn’t know about this house.’

‘Have you ever seen it? Do you know what it looks like?’ Annie was thinking about the scary face she had seen in the mirror last time she was here.

‘No, I haven’t, but I remember Davey our gardener was terrified of the drainage hole in the cellar. He saw something the night he went looking for Joe. I overheard him telling Mary, our cook, that it was like a man, but it wasn’t, and it had a grey face, with the reddest of eyes and huge sharp claws. I ran from the kitchen and up to my bedroom, terrified of this monster man that lived in our house and ate children.

‘I never left my bedroom for a whole month and my parents were so grief-stricken at not being able to find Joe they didn’t even notice. For a whole month they were out searching the grounds and the lake. So many people – almost everyone who lived locally and owned a boat – joined in the search for Joe. My father was positive he had to carry on searching but my mother knew; she knew all along that Joe had been taken. She had gone down into the cellar that night on her own because she thought she heard him calling to her, and she saw it. She said she had never seen anything so frightful, and she had to run for her life up the stairs and slam the door shut.’

‘How did you find this out?’

‘She told me before she died. When she knew I was going to be left alone in this house she made me sit with her one afternoon while she talked me through everything that happened back then. Of course I knew most of it, but I never knew that she had seen it with her own eyes. After that my father made the cellar as secure as he could.

‘I’ve spent numerous years researching it. I would go to the libraries in the cities and I’ve read just about every book on folklore that has ever been published, but I’ve never come across a story like this one. A part of me wonders whether it’s time to stop hiding the truth and ask a team of investigators to come in and look for it, but I’m scared to involve anyone else. I can’t sleep as it is most nights, wondering about Joe and now this man Seamus. Tell me, did he have a wife, a family?’

Annie couldn’t lie to her and nodded. ‘Miss Beckett, I think if I were you I would want to get someone in to look for it and make my cellar safe. I can’t imagine how scared you must be living here on your own with that thing in your cellar. But where does it go? You said yourself the cellars have been searched many times over the years. It has to have a home somewhere.’

‘I don’t know. If I knew, that I would go there and kill it myself. My mother believed that it lived in the sewers. We sent poor Davey down there unarmed and then the next day the farmer who used to live across the road came with his guns and the police. He said he wasn’t afraid of any monster, no matter how big it was, and he went in that tunnel watched by my father, the police and Davey. The only thing he came across was a horrific stench, which the police assured my father wasn’t my brother because he hadn’t been missing long enough to smell that bad. My mother made my father promise to seal off the cellar and that no one should be allowed down there. He died four years later and to this day I’m convinced he never got over losing Joe. I think if it had been my mother who had passed first my father would have dug the entire house up looking for whatever it was, but he couldn’t because of us.’

Jake walked through the kitchen door and they both screamed, which made him jump.

‘Bloody hell! Sorry, but what are you talking about to scare yourselves that much? My heart almost stopped. You scared me.’

Martha laughed. ‘Sorry, that’s my fault. I was telling spooky tales.’

Annie laughed too. ‘Jake, you could have coughed or something.’

‘Did you know the front door wasn’t locked, Miss Beckett? You need to be really careful. There are so many thieves and con men around this time of year. They could sneak in and out before you even knew it, this house is so big.’

‘I’m sorry. I was distracted. I do normally keep it locked at all times.’

Annie stood up. ‘I’ll have a think and come back and see you. There must be something we can do, especially with all the technology there is now. We could send in some cameras or something. Leave it with me.’

Martha stood up and nodded her head. ‘Thank you, that would be a relief. Please call in any time you’re passing. The kettle is always on and I’m tired of being on my own so much.’