Danny was trying to read the map as Evelyn negotiated their way along the twisting and narrow A470 through the mountains of Wales, scattering the other traffic like a fox in a chicken coop.

​

‘There should be a junction coming up where we take the road to Blan, Blee, blay…’

​

‘Oh for pity’s sake Danny. Blaenau Ffestiniog.’

​

‘Yes, that place.’ Danny held onto his seatbelt as Evelyn overtook a motorcyclist who was overtaking a lorry. ‘Then we need the road to Penty, Pen, Penner…’

​

‘Penrhyndeudraeth,’ Evelyn said for him.

​

‘Well, if you didn’t have a crappy sat nav that relies on the world’s cheapest mobile phone network, I wouldn’t have to read all this stuff off a map.’

​

‘How was I supposed to know Wales would be full of mountains?’ Evelyn said defensively.

​

‘What do you mean? You’re always banging on about the ancient landscapes of Wales.’

​

‘I know, but I didn’t expect that ancient landscape to be full of ancient mountains.’

​

‘It could be a high level of EMF that is blocking the phone signal.’ Ciarán piped up from the back seat.

​

‘Yes, Ciarán, it probably is EMF,’ Danny agreed. ‘Evelyn’s Miser Fone.’

​

The journey had gone well all the way from London until Evelyn’s phone had lost contact with the only working transmitter for her cheap phone service in the whole of Wales. They had made good time by scaring the living crap out of every other driver they passed along the way, Evelyn chatting calmly about her theories on the relative violent tendencies of male or female poltergeist entities, while she steered her car around traffic like an arcade game set to maximum skill level.

​

Ciarán had been kept happy by regular stops for fast food, after which they would return to the road and again pass all the drivers they had terrified previously. Lucy sat quietly in the back seat, hugging her furry microphone, with a bright expression in her eyes that suggested she was enjoying the adrenaline-pumped ride.

​

Danny gripped the map as if his life depended on it as Evelyn took the next junction like a Scandinavian rally champion. ‘We should see a sign for Ynys.’ Danny peered up from his map. ‘You see, I can pronounce that one.’

​

‘No, you can’t,’ Evelyn corrected. ‘It’s pronounced Ynys. Rhymes with bun.’

​

‘Oh, yes please,’ Ciarán said from the back seat. ‘I like fruit buns best, but any sort of bun will do.’

​

‘Then we want to follow the road to Cod, Cud…’

​

‘Just give it up as a bad job, Danny,’ Evelyn sighed. ‘Have you never heard any foreign languages?’

​

‘Of course I have. I grew up in Newcastle.’

​

‘Newcastle is not foreign.’

​

‘You obviously haven’t been to the Bigg Market on a Friday night.’

​

Suddenly, the sound of wailing bagpipes burst from the speakers and the sat nav returned to life. Away from the mountains, they could now see the sea, and Evelyn’s phone reconnected with its signal, tuning in to her favourite Radio Scotland.

​

‘There you go,’ Evelyn shouted above the noise. ‘Sat nav says turn off to Llandanwg, then we just have to find the boat.’

​

The bagpipes disappeared when Evelyn’s phone lost signal again. The engine raced as she needlessly accelerated down a side road, and the Irish Sea opened up on their right.

​

‘That must be our island over there,’ Danny said, gazing across the water to a sloping island of dark rock that rose out of the water half a mile from the shore.

​

‘I can’t see a lighthouse,’ Evelyn said.

​

‘Yes, well hopefully that’s because you’ve got your EYES ON THE BLOODY ROAD.’ Danny gripped the sides of his seat and stamped on a brake pedal that didn’t exist as Evelyn sent a shower of gravel and mud across a field, spraying a herd of cows who looked momentarily displeased.

​

‘You’re even worse as a passenger than you are as a driver,’ Evelyn said as she calmly returned all four wheels to the tarmac. They passed over a railway bridge, Evelyn now taking it slowly, looking for the side turn that would take them to the sea where they would find the boat. After passing the last lonely cottage, the road died. She parked the car as instructed, and they got out, faced with a featureless expanse of sand.

​

‘Where the hell are we going to find a boat around here?’ Danny asked as he scanned up and down the sandy beach with no sign of a harbour.

​

‘Maybe over there?’ Ciarán pointed to a wooden rowing boat pulled up onto the sand.

​

‘Is that it?’ Danny asked in disbelief. ‘When they said a boat, I sort of imagined something with an engine, and a crew, perhaps with a bar and a passenger lounge. Not just a boat.’

​

‘Well, it isn’t just a boat.’ Ciarán peered inside. ‘There are some oars too.’

​

‘This cannot be it,’ Evelyn declared, casting an unexpert eye over the weathered timbers.

​

‘I think it can.’ Ciarán picked up an envelope with Danny Rubbings written in thick marker pen. He handed it to Danny. ‘Yours, I believe.’

​

Danny ripped it open. ‘BBC Outside Broadcast Logistics (Maritime) Division (Wales), Human Resources Department, Health and Safety Risk Assessment Unit,’ he read aloud. ‘Dear Danny and team. If sea is rough, wait for better weather.’

​

‘Is that it?’ Evelyn asked with a tone that suggested more than mild disappointment.

​

‘Yup.’ Danny put the letter back in its envelope and folded it into his pocket. He eyed the expanse of water between the beach and the island, and it looked calm enough. ‘Right, well I suppose we should get going.’

​

‘Back to the car you mean?’ Evelyn eyed the boat suspiciously, as if it were already sinking, even before leaving the beach.

​

Danny gave the side a kick to reassure himself that the timbers were solid, but merely gave himself a sore foot. ‘Given the choice between returning to the world’s scariest racetrack, or braving the open sea in an oversized strawberry punnet, I say we should go that way.’ He pointed towards the distant lump of rock that rose out of the sea. ‘What about you, Ciarán?’

​

As usual, the academic parapsychologist was lost in a world of his own thoughts. ‘Oh, yes. Fine by me. If we go back, I have a stack of ethics approval committee feedback survey forms to deal with, so drowning at sea would actually be a blessed relief.’

​

What about you, Evelyn?’ Danny asked. ‘Are you up for an adventure on the high seas?’

​

‘The sea actually has a long association with mythical entities,’ she said, for no logical reason whatsoever. ‘As far back as Ancient Greece they had folklore of sea sirens, and the Celts have a similar belief in kelpies.’

​

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Danny said before she could carry on. ‘What about you, Lucy? We’re all democratic here, even if you are already outvoted, so your opinion is worthless.’

​

‘Well, I’m not sure really.’

​

‘Great, that’s unanimous then,’ Danny announced.

​

Five minutes later they were aboard their ocean-going vessel, which no longer looked quite as capable of going across oceans with four people and their luggage filling it. They had tried to get in without getting their feet wet, with the front end bobbing up and down on the water and the back end still on the sand. A passing group of tourists stopped to take photographs of four people in a boat that was clearly going nowhere anytime soon.

​

The booming sound of Birmingham came loudly to them across the sands. ‘Eeee. It’s ‘im. ‘im, off the telly.’

​

Danny looked round, never tiring of the thrill of being recognised in public, but they were pointing at Ciarán.

​

‘Wossun he on Corrie or summat?’

​

‘Nah, you’re thinking of that ugly twat off Strictly. He was shit anyway.’

​

With that, they lost interest and carried on down the beach. Danny ordered his crew out of the boat and they pushed it further out into the water. They climbed aboard again, now with soaked shoes, and with a shove from one of the oars they were afloat.

​

The next wave planted them back on the beach.

​

It took a further ten minutes and the use of much choice language before a wave carried them away from the beach, by which time a small crowd had gathered, filming the fiasco on their phones.

​

‘Right, let’s get going,’ Danny said, rocking the boat precariously as he wobbled his way to the thwart (that is the central crosspiece that acts as a seat for the rowers. Don’t say I don’t learn you stuff). He sat next to Ciarán, and with an oar each, they went around in circles. Danny pulled hard and sent a veritable wall of water to land upon the spectators on the beach, while Ciarán got his oar stuck firmly into submerged seaweed.

​

‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ Evelyn sighed. ‘Have you never rowed a boat before?’

​

‘Well, no, actually.’ Danny admitted. ‘There isn’t much call for it in London traffic.’

​

‘I went on a pedalo once,’ Ciarán said.

​

‘I’ll do it,’ Lucy said, standing up.

​

Ciaran and Danny looked at her, both thinking she couldn’t weigh more than a sack of potatoes even with her wet feet, and her arms would barely reach both oars.

​

‘It’s alright. We’ll get the hang of it.’ Danny reassured her. ‘It takes quite a lot of strength, and you need good arms.’

​

‘I – can – do - it,’ she said slowly through clenched teeth, standing confidently in the rocking boat.

​

That was when the first sandball struck.

​

The crowd on the beach, now dripping wet because of Danny’s lack of rowing skills, had become hostile and were packing wet sand into clumps and launching them at the boat. The biggest, looking like he pumped iron in the gym from dawn till dusk, had decided he couldn’t get any wetter and was wading in after them.

​

‘MOVE,’ Lucy ordered in a tone reminiscent of smoking behind the bike sheds at St Trinian’s.

​

Danny and Ciarán abandoned the oars and crept as far to the front of the boat as they could.

​

As the irate man of muscle neared the boat, Evelyn casually turned and gave him the side eye.

​

‘You can come closer if you like, pal, but in Edinburgh, we batter glakeys like you just for the fun of it.’

​

The accent and the ice-cool delivery stopped the man in his soggy tracks. With a grunt like Martina Navratilova serving an ace at Wimbledon, Lucy pulled on the oars and the boat surged forward. Her face scowled like an angry kitten as she bit the oars into the water again and the boat was clear into open water.

​

Now safely out of range of the sandball throwers, Evelyn judged this to be a good time to give them the man the finger, before turning around to see where they were going.

​

‘Wow, Luce. You’ve done this before,’ she said as she saw how quickly they were closing the distance to the island, the rowing boat now throwing up a bow wave like a cruiser.

​

‘I use the rowing machine,’ she hissed between clenched teeth as she pulled on the oars again, ‘for my judo training.’

​

Evelyn tried to picture the diminutive audio technician taking on anybody over the age of seven at judo, but it was too bizarre an idea to imagine.

​

‘You want to go left a bit,’ Evelyn said, impressed with the way they were cutting across the water.

​

‘In a boat it’s called port,’ Danny said from up front. ‘That way you don’t get confused about your left or Lucy’s left.’

​

‘Ooh, I do like a nice glass of port,’ Ciarán said, licking his lips.

​

In remarkably little time, they reached the beach at the low end of the island, Evelyn giving directions and encouragement like a cox at the annual boat race.

​

‘Get ready for the big finale, Luce,’ Evelyn cheered. ‘Shore coming up, so one last big heave.’

​

With a noise like a screaming squirrel, Lucy dug the oars in, and the boat rocketed up the beach like a torpedo.

​

‘Fantastic job, Luce,’ Evelyn said admiringly. ‘Give yourself a breather because we might be making the return trip pretty shortly.’

​

‘Why’s that?’ Danny asked, gathering his bag and squelching onto dry land with wet feet.

​

‘Because this might not actually be the right place,’ Evelyn explained. ‘There is something I am not seeing. Specifically, any sort of illuminated monument, vis-à-vis, a lighthouse.’

​

Danny fished the instructions out of his pocket. ‘Upon reaching the island, walk to the top of the slope, and you will see the path to the lighthouse.’

​

‘The top!’ Evelyn looked at Danny as if he had grown an extra head. ‘You mean all the way up there?’

​

They all looked up the steep grassy slope that ascended towards the clouds.

​

‘It doesn’t look too far,’ Danny lied.

​

‘It isn’t the far that bothers me.’ Evelyn shielded her eyes to stare towards their intended destination, as if gazing across the vast expanse of the Serengeti. ‘It’s the high I’m not exactly in raptures about. I can do far, but you know I am no good with heights, and nobody told me to train for the north face of the Eiger.’

​

‘It’s just a small hill,’ Danny promised her. ‘It just looks worse because of the sheer drop on either side straight into the ocean.’

​

‘Technically, it’s a sea,’ Ciarán corrected.

​

‘Does it matter?’ Evelyn asked.

​

‘Well, perhaps not in terms of the effect it will have if you do plummet into it from a great height, but the term ocean is used to denote a much larger expanse of water, and this is bounded by the landmass of Ireland just over thirty miles to the west.’

​

The others looked at Ciarán, wondering if he had finished. He had the expression of an unusually contented sheep, which suggested he had no more to say.

​

‘Right, well, we may as well get started,’ Danny said with much more enthusiasm than the situation warranted.

​

‘Could they no have stretched the budget to a wee cable car or something?’ Evelyn grumbled as they set off up the slope. ‘They have them in the Alps.’

​

‘It won’t take long,’ Danny said. ‘The exercise and the fresh air will do us good after being stuck in the car all morning.’

​

‘That’s easy for somebody to say when they’ve been mainlining coffee since first light, but some of us, or more specifically, one of us, has been driving, and drinking and driving is frowned upon, I may remind you.’

​

‘All the more reason to get there and put the kettle on,’ Danny said as he powered up the slope.

​

One minute later he was gasping for air, hands on knees, bent almost double as he stopped to catch his breath.

​

‘What was that you said about fresh air and exercise?’ Evelyn asked as she casually sauntered past.

​

‘The combination of increased altitude and a sudden burst of exercise has been shown to cause a hallucinatory state,’ Ciarán added as he made his gentle way up the hill.

​

Lucy, meanwhile, had run all the way to the top. ‘Wooohooo,’ she shouted. ‘Wait till you see this. It’s amazing.’

​

Several minutes later, the rest of the team caught up.

​

‘Oh, wow!’ Danny said. ‘That’s, erm.’ He struggled to find the right word. ‘Spectacular.’

​

Ciarán was next to arrive. ‘Oh yes. This environment could create many types of sensory misperception, leading to loss of perspective and…’

​

‘NO BLOODY WAY!’

​

Evelyn had reached the top.

​

She backed away from the precipice and fell onto all fours.

​

‘There’s a perfectly safe path,’ Danny pointed out, indicating steps hacked into the side of a cliff that looked like a vertical drop to the earth’s core. On the other side of this, a hundred feet below, was a narrow strip of flat ground sandwiched between two sheer cliffs.

This perilous sliver of rock led to another grassy slope, a smaller version of the one they had just climbed. It was almost a separate island, and looked like it would soon become one when the delicate slice of rock that connected it to the main island collapsed into the sea.

 

On the other side of this rock formation, standing at the top of high cliffs, was the lighthouse.

​

‘I vote we go back,’ Evelyn said, hugging the ground and trying her best to bond with Mother Earth.

​

‘That might not be a good idea,’ Danny said.

​

‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’ Evelyn now had her hands dug into the thin covering of soil. ‘How can it possibly be a bad idea?’

​

‘May I remind you,’ Danny said, ‘that you recently gave the finger to a man who did not look the type to forgive and forget.’

​

‘Well fine,’ Evelyn said. ‘You all go ahead, and I’ll just die here quietly, but not by plummeting down a cliff into the sea.’

​

It took fifteen minutes for Evelyn to agree to be led down the path blindfolded, with Danny leading the way, and Ciarán following to offer moral support, and to stop her escaping if she decided to make a run for it.

​

Eventually the path levelled out. Danny looked straight ahead, trying to ignore the vertical drop just feet away on either side. By now, Ciarán also had his eyes closed as he trailed behind Evelyn, all three of them holding hands.

​

Lucy had found a jagged point of rock that jutted out, overhanging the crashing waves below. ‘This is amazing,’ she said as she leaned forward, arms behind her in a parody of the famous (and quite frankly ridiculous and highly unlikely) scene from the film Titanic.

​

(For our American readers, a film is the jolly good British term for what you call a movie).

​

Danny tried not to look, but as he was the only one of their chain of three making this traverse across the path of Death who could see where he was going, it would probably have been inadvisable for him to close his eyes too.

​

With a not inconsiderable amount of relief, they gained the other side where a proper path and steps made from good solid concrete led to a front door of a block of a building to the side of the lighthouse. It was reassuringly robust and looked like it was designed to withstand a direct hit from something that could wipe out an entire city.

​

‘You can open your eyes now, Ciarán,’ Danny said.

​

Evelyn took off her blindfold, somewhat disgusted to find it was made from one of Danny’s socks, even more disgusted to see him take off one of his boots and put the sock back on his bare foot. She foolishly looked back at the way they had come. ‘Oh, you have to be bloody kidding me. If you want to get me off this island, you’re going to need a helicopter, otherwise I’m staying.’

​

‘You’ll be fine,’ Danny assured her. ‘Come on, let's go and find some coffee, I mean, let’s go and meet this Rudi chap and see what he has to say?’

​

He twitched slightly as he said the c word.

​

With that said, he was off like a bloodhound after a scent to the solid door, once painted blue, now faded and streaked with rust. He rang the bell, which was literally a tarnished and blackened brass bell bolted to the wall next to the door, with a sorry-looking remnant of what might once have been rope hanging from the clapper.

​

The door was opened by a tall and weatherbeaten man with the shifty eyes of the possessed. ‘Huh, yuh messby thuh goys frum Unkenny.’

​

Danny smiled in the way people do when they haven’t understood a bloody word of what has just been said.

​

‘Just introduce us,’ Evelyn said quietly.

​

‘Oh, yes. Well, I’m Danny Robins from the BBC, this is Evelyn Hollow, writer and parapsychologist, this is Dr Ciarán O’Keeffe, parapsychologist, and…’

​

He looked around and saw Lucy peering over the cliff edge next to the lighthouse. ‘And that is Lucy, our sound recordist and Olympic rower. You must be Rudi.’

​

‘Thut’s me.’

​

‘Wow. Well, fancy meeting a South African in a place like this.’

​

‘Ahm nut Suth Efrican.’ Their host’s expression turned to something between anger and disappointment. ‘Ahm Wilsh.’