The door to the big stone room was open; she heard muted discussion from inside, a shrill, affected laugh. Charlie Headland was wedged against the jamb, crunching crisps. He shook the packet at Merrily.

‘Prawn mayonnaise flavour.’

Merrily helped herself to a crisp. Charlie looked down at her with affection.

‘You’ve got a lot of bottle, Mrs Watkins.’

‘What? Just for going for a wee in a haunted loo?’

Charlie chuckled. On occasion, he would fling an arm around Merrily and squeeze her. Twice he’d patted her bottom.

‘You wouldn’t be laughing,’ Merrily said, ‘if that thing was in the Gents’ instead.’

Charlie grimaced and nodded, munched meditatively for a while, then patted her arm lightly. ‘Got a little girl, I hear.’

‘Not any more. A woman, she tells me. She’s sixteen – just.’

‘Oh, blimey. Where’d you leave her? Suitably caged, one hopes.’

‘She’s staying with friends in the village. Not this village – back home.’

Charlie balled his crisp packet, tossed it in the air and caught it. ‘I reckon he made that up, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Huw. That story about the hellfire preacher-man who died in the ladies’ bogs. It’s too pat.’

Merrily pulled the door to, cutting off the voices from the stone room. ‘Why would he do that?’

‘Giving us all little tests, isn’t he? You particularly. You’re the only woman amongst us, so there’s one place you need to visit alone. If you’d suddenly started crossing your legs and holding it till you got back to the hotel, he’d know you were a little timid. Or if you came back rubbing your hands and saying you’d detected a cold patch, you’d be revealing how impressionable you were.’

‘Be difficult to spot a cold patch in this place.’