What could you expect from a celebration based on fear? This was the time of year when graves opened and the spirits of the dead returned to the world. In traditional belief, these few hours of darkness saw the doors between life and death standing ajar.

But just these few hours. For some of his ancestors, the concept of the dead returning had been too much to bear. For them, Halloween was a time to shut themselves inside their homes and protect their families with prayers and charms.

For others, though, the time was all too short. There were so few hours until daylight came. Halloween just didn’t last long enough. If it came to the crunch, Cooper knew he’d be counted among their number himself. It was the reality that he couldn’t escape, the one fact that never left his mind all night. The dead never really got a chance to return to the world.

‘No, never. Never.’

Cooper threw a tired glance round the familiar walls of his flat. The dead who would never return – they were here, too. Their photographs were lurking in the darkness. His father, Sergeant Joe Cooper, killed in the execution of his duty. His mother, Isabel Cooper, dead of natural causes. And civilian scenes of crime officer Elizabeth Petty, who died…

Well, she’d died anyway. And that was an end to it.

Just outside, in Welbeck Street, he heard banging and laughter, followed by the shriek of a car alarm.

‘For heaven’s sake, go away,’ he said, more loudly.

Behind him, the cat made a small questioning noise. Cooper turned.

‘Not you, obviously. I was talking to … well, who was I talking to?’

The cat gave him a despairing look and went back to sleep.

‘No, I don’t know either,’ said Cooper.

He thought of putting the lights on, but there didn’t seem much point. At this time of the morning artificial light only made the flat look ghastly and unreal. He felt like a character in a film, hiding away in precarious isolation, fighting desperately for survival while the world outside disintegrated into chaos, as the dead walked and cities burned.

With a vague sense of surprise, Cooper looked down at the mug clutched in his hand. He’d forgotten that he’d been making himself a drink. Camomile tea, by the smell of it. His sister Claire had insisted he tried it to help him sleep. But it had gone almost cold in his hand as he stood here near the window, listening to the sounds of the night.

Life shouldn’t feel so cold and wasted. Not at his age. He was only in his thirties, after all. It was too young for everyone he cared about most to be dead and in the ground. He shouldn’t have to spend half his life visiting graveyards.

Cooper shuddered as a cold certainty ran through his limbs. There would be people out tonight who gravitated to cemeteries and graveyards. Halloween was their night. And cemeteries were their playground.

He sighed again. All Hallows’ Eve. That was where it all started. It was supposed to be dedicated to remembering dead saints and the faithful departed. Souls wandered the earth, looking for one last chance to gain vengeance on the living. People would wear masks or costumes to disguise their identities and avoid being recognised by vengeful souls.

People often complained that Halloween was an imported American tradition. But surely it was only because Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night had poached some of the customs of Halloween. For centuries English people had preferred burning effigies of Catholics, rather than remembering dead saints. Halloween had become a focus of superstitions about witches and ghosts.

Just last week the Eden Valley Times had published a letter written by a local vicar complaining that the newspaper was encouraging Satanism and witchcraft by reporting Halloween events and publishing pictures of children dressed as ghosts and vampires. He’d done it every year, for as long as Cooper could remember. Like everyone else, the clergyman had probably forgotten the origins of the festivities.

‘Not that anybody really believes in anything any more.’

He realised that he was mumbling a bit now. He wasn’t even sure what words were coming out of his mouth. The last sentence had sounded like a meaningless jumble, even to his own ears.

With a weary stretch of his limbs, Cooper went to lie back down on his bed, though he knew he wouldn’t sleep.

There must be so many people who’d lost loved ones during the past twelve months. Some of them must have been wishing that the dead really could return. How did they react to ghosts and corpses banging on their door all evening? What were you supposed to do, except offer a treat from a tub of miniature chocolate bars? A modern ritual to keep the spirits away.

But if he slept tonight at all, Cooper knew the dead would walk in his dreams.

Fifteen miles from Edendale, Rob Beresford cursed to himself in the darkness. It wouldn’t happen tonight. Something had gone wrong.

He pulled out his phone, tried to dial the number again, but could get no signal. Down here by the river, with dense trees around him and hills rising on either side, he was bound to be in a dead spot.

But they’d known this was likely to happen and they’d planned for it. That was why the timing had been so carefully worked out. So what had gone wrong? Why was he on his own out here?

Rob waited. He didn’t have much patience, but what else could he do? Turn round and go home? He didn’t want to be the one who did that. At least, when tomorrow came, he’d be able to blame the others for wrecking the plan. He wondered who had actually got cold feet. It could be any of them, of course. They were a bunch of wimps, mostly. And worse – they’d left him out here on his own, in the dark, with no idea what was going on.

He was beginning to get angry. Rob paced up and down, swinging his torch along the track, its bright LED beam flicking from stone wall to hanging branch, from a splash of water stirring a muddy pool to the flutter of a dead leaf in the breeze. He was oblivious now to their agreement not to make too much noise or show any more light than was necessary. It was obvious he was on his own. Abandoned, and made to look an idiot. And what a place to be in at this time of night. It was lucky he wasn’t a nervous bloke or he could start imagining things.

But where was he exactly? There had been no map. He only followed the directions he’d been given. Nowhere looked the same in the dark anyway. People who lived in towns didn’t realise how black it was out in the proper country at night. They never saw total darkness like this. So a map would have been useless.

A noise made Rob whirl round suddenly. It sounded like a voice – a garbled word spoken from the darkness, a liquid gabbling from a throat that surely wasn’t human. But then the noise came again and he saw the river. He could see the surges of water bubbling over the rocks, sucking and gurgling through gaps and crevices in the riverbed. He saw the muddy bank and the skeletal outline of a stunted tree growing on the water’s edge.

And something else.

Rob realised with a shock that he could see a pale face caught in the light. It was the mask of a ghoul, white and ghostly, with the unnatural gleam of cheap plastic. He had a glimpse of a profile pulled into a grotesque shape – a gaping mouth, a blank eye, a trickle of blood. It was surely a Halloween joke to scare the children. Just some bad taste prank.

The hairs on the back of Rob’s neck stirred, and he swung his torch wildly across the trees until its beam lit the glittering water rushing between the banks and highlighted the arch of the bridge. His trembling hand swept the light backwards and forwards along the parapet looming above him and probed into the gap between the stones to pick out the ancient trackway. It was half in shadow and half illuminated by his wavering torchlight. It looked like an empty stage, garishly lit, awaiting the next scene of a drama.