8
Slim ate lunch beside a stile overlooking the distant green baize of Bodmin Moor. Footprints in the soft mud at the field’s corner told him the route was a popular one, but he’d seen no other walkers yet.
He felt a little uncomfortable knocking on the door of Worth Farm, but the footpath down into the valley angled around the back of the farmyard before cutting across a stream and heading onto the moor, so Slim could look through the hedgerow as he passed.
A farmhouse fronted a concrete yard encircled by outbuildings: two large barns for animals, one for machinery, and a couple of others whose uses Slim could only guess at; grain silos or a dairy, perhaps. At the back of the main courtyard, a gravel path led down to a cluster of smaller outhouses that had the feel of personal use abou
