I hear the sound of the chicks that inhabit the roof of the petrol station. Their faces pointing skyward accepting gratefully the food their mother brings, dropping it from her mouth to theirs. I cannot see them of course as they are behind me. I hear them but I cannot be certain of their composition. They are hidden from view. I have never seen them. I remember seeing chicks in Cnwch Coch three days earlier, their tiny beaks pointing skyward patiently awaiting the return of their mother. I see them in my mind and then there, behind me in the roof of the abandoned petrol station. They are there and not there. My mind sets the memory free in order to make sense of a sound for which I have no visual explanation. I stand still.

The sun passes across my face and the shadow of a cloud turns the floor a darker grey. It is only that colour for a moment and then never again. Never again will the light fall in that way upon that piece of ground. A video camera sits ten feet in front of me. Squat down on the floor, peering up at me, trying to make sense of what it sees. It snatches fragments of me motionless and strings them together in time lapse, one frame per second. I cannot see what it sees. It cannot see what I see. My body is static but alert, pensive and ready.

Before me I see a row of abandoned chalets, half obscured by trees and shrouded in a cloud of dust seeds seeking out fertile ground in which to take root. It is the Bates Motel, it is Butlins, it is a row of beach huts on the sea front in Gorleston-on-sea. Its front is ripped out and exposed, shattered green toilets lie broken in the outlines of bathrooms that are now visible from its exterior. Glass smashed and wood splintered. It is the German village that I saw from the road half an hour before. It is the scene in a film, it is someone’s holiday, it is the 1990’s, it is the abandoned holiday village on the outskirts of Hopton-on-Sea. It is the dread I felt then at the age of thirteen when I heard the voice and felt the fear. I cannot move and I cannot get away. I stand, I wait, I listen, I watch, I think, I feel …