‘Something smells good,’ she said.

‘Dig in,’ Thorne said.

Jenks brought some clean plates to the table and Howell reached for a serving spoon. ‘Oh and Sergeant Karim wanted me to tell you that his “stomach thinks his throat’s been cut” and to ask when it’s his turn to “get some effing dinner”.’

Markham sat down, asking where the wine was as she reached for the water. Then, once the room was a little less crowded, Fletcher and Jenks eased Nicklin and Batchelor out of the way towards the living room.

Thorne picked up the two bulky plastic torches that he’d dug out of the cottage’s supply cupboard as soon as they’d arrived. He checked that they were working then waved Holland across. He said, ‘Come on, Dave. You can relieve Sam for an hour and I’ll try and work out where we’re all sleeping.’

As Thorne and Holland walked towards the front door, Thorne heard Nicklin shout, ‘It’s really very nice, but Mr Fletcher thinks it needs meatballs or a leg of chicken, don’t you, Mr Fletcher?’

Thorne didn’t hear Fletcher answer.

FORTY-SIX

Even with torches, the journey of a hundred yards or so to the chapel took Thorne and Holland almost ten minutes to navigate safely. The track was rutted and growing muddier with the rain, the slightly raised grass verge on one side disappeared for long stretches without warning and the edge sloped steeply away towards the fields.

It was more than just the desire to avoid a broken ankle that slowed them down. Despite the drizzle, there was remarkably little cloud and, without saying anything, they stopped several times, switched their torches off and stared skywards.

‘Never seen so many stars,’ Holland said.

‘No light pollution,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s why.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s got dark sky status. That’s why loads of astronomers come.’ He nodded. ‘Well, you can see, can’t you?’

‘How come you know all that?’

‘I know stuff,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t sound so bloody surprised.’

‘Can you name any of them?’ Holland asked.

‘What?’

‘Any of the stars. The constellations.’

Thorne stared for a minute, then pointed. ‘That’s the one that looks like a saucepan.’ He had a memory of his father pointing it out. He had probably been shown more, but that was the only one he could ever remember, or identify. The one he always looked for.

‘The Plough,’ Holland said. ‘Because it looks like an old-fashioned plough, see? It’s also called the Big Dipper.’

‘Looks like a saucepan,’ Thorne said.

‘It’s actually called Ursa Major,’ Holland said. ‘I used to have a poster of all of them on my wall. Weird, the crap you remember.’

‘That means a big bear, right?’

Holland nodded.

‘Looks bugger all like a bear.’

‘I think it’s only a part of the bear.’

‘Only if the bear’s carrying a saucepan,’ Thorne said.

They stared for a little while longer, the beam from the lighthouse playing across them every thirty seconds or so, each of them turning slowly on the spot to try and take it all in.

‘Amazing,’ Holland said.

Thorne could not argue. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Before Karim goes ape-shit. I’ve seen him lose it if the queue’s too long at the kebab house.’

Samir Karim was certainly delighted to see them and was eager to get out of there and on his way to the Chapel House. He could not leave quickly enough, especially once Thorne had told him that spicy chicken stew and mashed potatoes were on the menu; that beer had been opened and that Howell and the rest were already getting well stuck into the little of it they had been left.

Once Karim had gone, Holland said, ‘You’re evil, you know that?’

Thorne looked down at the pair of body bags lying side by side at the base of the altar. The slump in them where there was nothing but air, the light from dozens of candles flickering across the black plastic.

‘It’s all relative,’ he said.

Having left Holland at the chapel, Thorne walked the hundred yards further on up towards the cottage suggested by the warden; the one he had recommended as providing the most suitable accommodation for the six now forced into spending the night on the island.

‘Hendy,’ Burnham had said. ‘The Old House. Oldest on the island. You’ll be fine there, I reckon.’

Now, walking from the track towards the front door, Thorne stopped and turned. Something between a scream and a song was drifting from the direction of the lighthouse. He muttered, ‘Hell was that?’ though there was nobody there to hear him and it took a long few seconds before he realised it was the call of the grey seals. He walked on towards the cottage, playing his torch-beam across the peeling red of the front door, thinking that he could not imagine a sound more designed to terrify someone on a pitch-black night in the middle of nowhere.

The front door was open.

The interior of the cottage was cold, smelled damp, and its layout was predictably archaic: front and rear parlours, a walk-in pantry; a small ‘back’ kitchen off the main one. Thorne explored the ground floor by torchlight, then retraced his steps, stopping every few minutes to light one of the small gas lamps that were dotted around on window-ledges and sideboards. As more of the place was revealed, it became clearer than ever that visitors did not come to the island for its luxurious accommodation. He had no idea when the cottage had been built, but the seventies-style décor and heavy furnishings – most even shabbier than those he had seen back at the Chapel House – did little to increase its appeal.

Thorne stood in the half-light at the bottom of the stairs. He looked back at the doormat with its worn and faded CROESO and reminded himself that none of this was important.

Yes, he could have done without the chill and the shadows, and the sudden scurryings that told him Burnham had been spot on about those sheltering mice, but it was a place to spend the night, no more than that. He and everyone else would have to make the best of it.

He walked upstairs to check out the bedrooms.

Once he had lit a few more lamps and familiarised himself with the layout of the first floor, Thorne was able to hazard a guess as to why Burnham had thought the Old House would be ideal. There were four bedrooms: a double, a single and two with twin single beds. For reasons of safety and security, Thorne had already decided that certain people would be required to share rooms. It was unlikely to be a popular decision, but at least there was the necessary number of bunks.

Make do and mend was one thing, but nobody would have been happy about sharing beds.

Thorne laid a gas lamp down on the chest of drawers in one of the twin bedrooms at the back of the house and walked across to the window. He peered out into the darkness. The sky was only a fraction lighter than the charcoal blanket of fields, the stars scattered across it all the way down to the sea. He wondered if Robert Burnham had sat and drawn up a chart, if he had worked out the permutations of the bedrooms, cottage by cottage, before choosing the most suitable. Thorne made a mental note to thank him, for that and for his help in getting the food out of the Blacks…

Thorne froze at the sight of a torch beam darting below him in the cottage garden.

The enveloping blackness meant there was no way of seeing to whom the torch belonged, to make out so much as a shape. Nonetheless, Thorne watched the milky beam skitter through the grass for a few moments, then along the base of the stone wall before it was turned upwards suddenly towards the building and passed across the window at which Thorne was standing.

Instinctively, Thorne stepped back for a second. Then, for want of anything better to do, he moved back to the window and banged on the glass. The light vanished and it was impossible to say if the person had simply moved out of sight or if the torch had been switched off.