CHAPTER ONE THE YOUNG curate shivered in the cold and felt uneasy. Something was wrong but it was difficult to work out exactly what. The atmosphere for a start; when he had set out on the quarter-mile walk from his home to the church, a warm spring breeze had fanned his cherubic features and the setting sun had almost blinded him. Now, and it could not be more than twenty minutes later, it was almost dark and very cold. Getting colder by the second. The Reverend Philip Owen felt slightly dizzy as he stood by the lychgate and tried to recollect his senses. The last twenty minutes seemed to have slipped away without
