After no more than five miles on the A48 at the end of the M4, Holder’s satnav took him and Dawes away from major roads, north and then east into the West Wales countryside, through a landscape of rolling hills and planted pine forest dotted with small farms and villages either huddled in the gullies or perched on the sloping hillsides.

‘Just as well we have a nice lady to tell us where to turn,’ Dawes said, pointing to a sign that read Abergorlech. ‘I mean, how do you even start to say that? Might as well just clear your throat and spit.’

Holder threw him a look.

‘What?’ Dawes said.

‘I wouldn’t say that in from of Inspector Gwynne. You now she’s a native.’

Dawes tutted. ‘You millennials. So touchy. Besides, my grandmother was Welsh I’ll have you know.’

They’d been in the car for two hours and Dawes’ unending supply of stories and jokes had kept Holder entertained, apart from a half-hour gap when the sergeant did an impression of a nodding dog as he slumbered in the passenger seat.

Now, with just a mile or so to go to Norcott’s mother’s smallholding, Dawes was very much awake, taking in the scenery as Holder negotiated the narrow lanes with their denuded winter hedgerows on either side. The roads were damp and dotted with puddles from overnight rain, which, judging from the lowering skies, looked likely to return at any moment. They drove past fields, some empty and overgrown with rushes and grass, others containing forlorn-looking sheep. They passed a turning marked by a large milk churn on a raised stone table and the words ‘Nant Isaf’ painted in white upon the pewter grey metal.

‘No idea what it means,’ Dawes said, ‘but if I remember rightly, that’s the Morgan farm.’

‘The one where Norcott killed the father and daughter?’

‘The very same. The boss told me what it meant but I’m buggered if I can remember.’

‘Something to do with a stream or river,’ Holder said, remembering DI Gwynne’s words.

‘Show-off. Right, come on, let’s get this over with.’

There was no gate guarding the entrance to Honeygrove Farm, just a handwritten curlicue sign stuck on a broken gate. Holder wondered how enamoured the locals had been by the Norcotts changing the name of the property from the original Welsh to something as kitsch as this. Holder swung the car in and they bounced sixty yards along the rutted track to a stoned yard and a low cottage. The walls and roof looked badly in need of maintenance. A blue Range Rover stood parked to the side. Out of it stepped a portly man in a corduroy jacket and plaid tie above some raspberry trousers. What little hair was left on his head was far too long and combed over in a poor attempt at shielding the shiny pate beneath. He stood expectantly with a business-like toothless grin.

Dawes was first out of the car, and the balding man approached him with hand outstretched. ‘Huw Selby of Selby and Richardson.’

Dawes shook with his right hand. He already had his warrant card open in the other. Selby peered at it and grinned. ‘You found the place, then?’

‘We did.’

‘Good, good. I’ve opened the front and back doors.’ He jangled some keys. ‘The outbuildings have no locks. If you could pull the doors closed after you leave, I’ll be along later to lock up properly when you’ve finished. Probably about four, before it gets dark.’

Holder exited the car and stretched skywards to ease out the kinks.

‘So, you’ve had no interested buyers?’ Dawes said to Selby.

‘Place has been empty for two years. We’ve received no instruction to sell. Property like this needs a bit of work and imagination.’

‘Colin Norcott’s the owner?’

‘He is. Mrs Norcott died intestate. He is next of kin. I can put you in touch with his solicitor if you want.’

‘And he has never been to visit?’

‘Colin Norcott has never contacted us for keys.’ He handed over a card. ‘I’ll be on my mobile if you need me. We have an auction at two. If you’ll excuse me.’

Dawes nodded. Selby climbed into his car and drove off, leaving the two policemen staring at the ramshackle buildings where Norcott grew up. The weather had not improved on their journey west and the low cloud and damp air lent a deep chill to the surroundings.

‘Get the torch from the boot, Justin. I doubt there’ll be electricity here.’

Holder rejoined Dawes at the front door. ‘This is where, in the films, the senior of two policemen about to enter the old abandoned house searching for signs of a known murderer turns to his junior colleague and says, “You take the outbuildings and I’ll do the inside.”’

‘OK,’ said Holder a little too quickly.

‘Those are films, Justin. I am not going anywhere alone. We stick together on this one, like chewing gum on a shoe.’

‘What am I, Sarge, the chewing gum or the shoe?’

‘Juicy fruit or spearmint, take your pick.’

Dawes stepped towards the front door, knocked and called out, ‘Colin, it’s the police. We need a quick word. It’s just the two of us come all the way from Bristol, OK?’

No answer. Dawes swung the door open and the damp mustiness of abandonment hit them both immediately. For some reason, it seemed colder inside the building than it was outside. Dried leaves littered the hallway, brought in or blown in during one of Selby’s visits, no doubt. Off the hall stood a step and two doors before the corridor ended in a better-lit space, which Holder assumed was the kitchen.

They swept the downstairs first, wearing latex gloves and covers for their feet. Mrs Norcott had been a hoarder. The nearest door off the hallway led to a poky little room piled with stacks of magazines and boxes. In the corner, three large bin bags full of empty bottles clinked when Holder kicked one gently with his foot. The label on the bottle of the topmost read ‘Value Blend’ with a yellow £1.50 price label stuck on it. Holder picked up a copy of Take a Break from 2009. Colin’s mother liked to imagine hobnobbing with the stars as she sipped on her cheap red of an evening, obviously. On the wall, in the top corner, a large, dark and ugly stain was spreading over the wallpaper. Some sort of back mould, creeping in to stake a claim over the unwanted building. Holder found himself wondering if whoever did buy it, assuming Colin Norcott ever sold, would bulldoze the place and start again. That’s what he would do, he decided.

The middle room had an ancient TV, an electric fire and a reasonably clear table. Mrs Norcott’s shape was imprinted in the seat and back of an old armchair with flowery covers mottled with stains. Best not to know or ask what the stains were, Holder concluded. Dawes left him to it and went into the kitchen. Holder didn’t stay in the middle room alone. There was something about the place, something unpleasant that had nothing to do with the lingering smell of decrepitude. Water was still running through the kitchen taps when Holder tried them. Piles of unopened correspondence lay on the small table. Through the grimy windows, an unkempt backyard showed three low sheds.

‘Come on, let’s do upstairs,’ Dawes ordered.

Mrs Norcott had been found when someone noticed she’d not been to collect her Take a Break from the community shop for a week. A neighbour called, saw the flies coating the inside of the bedroom window and called the police. They took Mrs Norcott’s decaying body away, but Holder knew, from his time in uniform, the smell took a lot longer to go. There was nothing left of it now, but Holder still thought he could catch a whiff of a sickly sweetness as he mounted the stairs. As if some of Mrs Norcott’s decay had seeped into the very walls.

The first floor was as deserted as the ground floor had been.

They came back downstairs to the back door which, swollen from rain, scraped on the stone floor when Dawes tried to open it. The noise spooked a couple of crows in a nearby tree and they took flight in raucous protest.

A concrete path led through the overgrown garden to the outbuildings beyond. The two on the left were low wooden huts with sloping roofs and a facing wall of chicken wire. Inside one was a smaller building, the coop itself where the chickens nested. Holder pulled on the door to the first and it came off at the hinges. The inner space was empty, the wooden shelves which had once provided support for chickens now broken and sagging. The second building had suffered the same fate from the same incessant weather. That left only the bigger, more substantial barn with half-timbered stone walls.

Dawes stood for a moment, his hand on the bar holding the hinged doors closed and called out again. ‘Colin. It’s the police.’

Only the drip of water from the eaves answered Dawes’ question.

He lifted up the bar and pulled the door open. It swung with surprising ease, making Holder wonder if the hinges had been oiled in the recent past. Inside was gloomy, with only one window high up. As their eyes adjusted to the poor light, helped by Dawes opening the second of the big doors, Holder saw that whatever animals had once occupied this space had long gone to make room for just the one animal. An obviously human one. One side of the room had once been stalls or byres and these showed clear evidence of occupation. In one was a Primus stove with stacked tins of food; in another a camp bed, torches and an oil lamp. Holder saw a newspaper half hidden under the camp bed. He stooped and slid it out.

‘Sarge,’ Holder said. ‘Look at this?’

Dawes leaned over and read the date. ‘Tenth of October 2017. The bugger’s been living here, obviously.’

‘Well, he was four months ago anyway.’

On the little table next to the bed lay a stack of unopened cardboard packets. Holder read the labels and waved them at Dawes. He read out, ‘Paroxetine and fluoxetine.’

‘Looks like he’s stopped taking his tablets and flown the coop,’ muttered Dawes as he started picking up the books to look at their titles. Holder moved on to the next stall. It was the DC’s sudden cessation of movement that drew Dawes’ attention. He spun and saw Holder standing and staring.

‘Justin?’ Dawes said.

‘You’d better come and look at this, Sarge.’

Dawes joined Holder. The adjacent stall was not empty but what it contained was too difficult to comprehend for a moment and both men could only stare. Someone had whitewashed the far wall to make a canvas and used it to paint a crude image. Three black figures with no faces stood against a cross-hatch of black lines. Either side of them was greenery. The only other colour in the image was a red smudge on a double black line between two of the figures. But it wasn’t only the image that kept Holder staring. Beneath the sketch, hundreds if not thousands of bits of paper had been stacked, one on top of the other, to form an untidy, leaning pile, wider at the bottom, tapering off as it rose towards the sketch.

‘What the bloody hell is this, Justin?’ Dawes asked. ‘Art class? And what are all these scrunched-up bits of paper?’

‘They aren’t scrunched up,’ Holder said. He picked one off the pile and held it up for Dawes to see the shape. It was intricate and carefully constructed, with pointed limbs and a flattened face. ‘They’re golems,’ Holder said.

Dawes stared at him, but Holder hadn’t finished. ‘And I know what that is, too.’ He nodded towards the sketch. ‘It’s the fence at Ryegrove.’

‘Right,’ said Dawes, ‘take some snaps and then get on the phone, Justin. I know someone who’ll want to see this.’