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We did not look back until we had reached the cover of the first trees. We had to follow the path, but whichever way we went we left a trail of black footprints in the glistening moon-struck snow. They might be less obvious in the shade of the trees, but never difficult to follow. The Doctor reached the trees before I did and turned to pull me quickly after him. He stopped, arm outstretched towards me, his sparkling eyes resting well beyond me. I turned too, and in the moment before the Doctor dragged me forward again, my leg all but collapsing beneath me, I saw Harries’s corpse silhouetted against the snow, lit from the Manor’s open door, stalking inexorably after us across the lawn.

He was not moving as quickly as we were, but both of us knew that we would have to rest, would stagger and fall. Harries would not. We could hear the rasping as his lungs inhaled and expelled the cold air – out of habit rather than necessity, for the dead never tire – and we knew that he would catch us. He walked with his hands outstretched. He too knew what the outcome must be, and already his hands were hungry for our necks; already he reached out for us; already we were dead, like chickens that continue their panicked run as a reflex despite the loss of their heads. The Doctor gripped my shoulder, a gesture of reassurance and friendship. Then we staggered on, Harries’s rough breathing drowned by our own desperate clawing for air – air that burned our throats, it was so cold and so thin.

* * *

THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (21)

Rats filled my dreams. Plump and scuttling, eager of eye and sharp of tooth, they hunted me through the corridors of my mind. And caught me. And ate me. But the pain of them biting into my unprotected skin was the pain of the pins and needles from lying in one position for too long. I stretched catlike on the couch to unknot my muscles, careful not to move my bandaged arm too far lest I turn the dull ache into the raging torrent of pain that I suspected was dammed up in the wound. Baker turned from his position near the window as he heard me.

‘How do you feel, sir?’ he asked gently.

‘Absolutely terrible,’ I replied, but the words came out wrong: muffled and unintelligible. My mouth was dry and musty, as if rats had nested there. Baker bent down and placed a surprisingly gentle hand on my forehead. It was dry and cold against my skin.

‘You’re running a bit of a temperature, sir. Ought to put a poultice on the wound, just to draw the fever out.’

‘Old wives’ tales, Sergeant?’ I muttered.

‘Oh no, sir. My aunt swears by poultices. She’ll slap one on at the slightest opportunity.’

‘Pity she’s not here now, isn’t it?’

‘Oh I don’t know, sir. We don’t get on particularly well. How would you feel if your aunt was here?’

‘I’m surprised she isn’t already. She usually has an infallible nose for gossip and scandal –’ I paused, my clouded mind finally unravelling what Baker had said. ‘How did you know that my aunt and I don’t get on?’

‘Guesswork mostly, sir.’ He smiled. ‘And deductive training, of course. You haven’t contacted your aunt since you’ve been here. Hardly the action of a concerned nephew, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.’

I sighed. ‘No, I don’t mind at all, Baker.’ How to explain it to him: the family ties that bound my aunt and me together and the events that still stood between us? I felt I had to justify myself to Baker. He was crouched by my side, waiting for me to say something. Maybe it was my close brush with death, maybe something else entirely, but I felt as if I needed to tell Baker the truth. Too often in my time I had hidden behind my rank and what people expected of it. I wanted someone to know something about me before… well, in case anything happened. As well it might.

‘She’s the only family I have left,’ I said finally. ‘My parents died some time ago – my mother of pneumonia, my father soon afterwards of drink. The only person left in my family apart from me was my aunt.’ I hesitated,