The dictaphone in question was brought to me after being found on the coastal path, wrapped inside an old waterproof coat. Inside the coat were a few gardening tools and a pair of boots marked with dried mud and salt. The microcassette inside the recorder is labelled in a shaky hand: "Carter - Allotment Notes" and will become case #0003.

Only later did I trace the recording back to the eastern allotments, where one shed stood open and unattended. The conditions matched the tape’s contents, but there was no sign of Carter himself.

The entries on the tape suggest several mornings of routine gardening carried out in dense sea fog, gradually giving way to something more unsettling moving through the allotment rows.