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Patrick said under his breath and carried on walking.
    In the moonlight the mire looked unworldly, the vivid green of the mosses defying the etiolating effect of the moonlight, appearing a sickly yellow. ‘Islands’ with stunted trees growing on them that I had not noticed before stuck up like the petrified remains of giants that had been trapped in the bog.
    We slithered down the steep section, far muddier than on the day of my visit as there had been more heavy rain, and set off on the final straight stretch. We were much closer to the mire now and there was the unmistakable sound of frogs croaking. Then, somewhere around to the right, a light flashed.
    Again, Patrick stopped.
    â€˜A military exercise on the firing ranges?’ I breathed in his ear.
    He shook his head and turned to whisper, ‘I reckon it was small and close by rather than large and far away. But we mustn’t overplay this – there could well be someone living in the house, which might not have any electricity.’
    We went on and reached the bend just before the bottom of the final slope. Patrick motioned to me to stay where I was and disappeared into the heavy shadow in the lee of a small rocky hillock that stood alone, almost a miniature tor on the right of the track. He seemed to be gone for rather a long time and then I heard a slight noise and he reappeared from the other side of it, beckoning to me.
    We went the way he had returned, following a rough path and then left it to climb a higher grassy knoll, crawling the last part until we lay on our stomachs on the top. Below us and quite close by were the farm buildings. Moonlight only illuminated the byres on the right-hand side of the central yard; the rest was in virtual darkness and no details were visible. There were no lights at the front of the house. Patrick nudged me and we slid backwards and descended again, but in a different place, crossing the track, carrying on in the same direction and then finding ourselves on the banks of a ditch behind one of the outer walls of the barn on the opposite side of the yard. There was a lot of water in the ditch and it smelled terrible, almost certainly raw sewage.
    Following the ditch, but in the opposite direction to the main entrance to the yard, we went slowly towards the rear of the house. Leaving the buildings behind us we deliberately stayed behind the cover of the wall of the little paddock and eventually arrived at a gateway. I peeped around a granite gatepost but could see no lights within the house from here either. Patrick signalled to me to stay put again and, cautiously, bending low and not moving in a direct line, he went forward, through a gap in the wall and towards the back door, finally going from my sight into shadow.
    Ears tuned to the slightest suspicious sound – this place really gave me the shivers – I waited where I was. After a couple of minutes I saw a light inside the house, a flash as of a torch beam and realized that Patrick was inside. I went across to the open back door.
    â€˜The place has been turned over,’ Patrick reported, hearing my approach and coming to the doorway. ‘Not all that long ago either. Someone was living here all right, and quite comfortably too, despite using oil lamps and candles.’
    â€˜We didn’t hear or meet any other vehicles,’ I said.
    â€˜I would guess that whoever it was left at about the time we reached the village. There’s a still warm cup of tea on the kitchen table.’
    â€˜Were they taken away? Or did they manage to escape? Should we search in case someone’s been attacked and hurt somewhere?’
    I did not expect Patrick to be able to answer any of these questions and he made no attempt to. We put on crime-scene protective gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints or traces of our DNA and walked through the house towards the front door where Patrick called up the stairs. Silence. He went up them but, oddly, there was a