The Void spat me out into an empty field – recently harvested and covered in the stubby ends of wheat stalks – right behind an overgrown hedgerow; twisted with brambles and bindweed. All I carried with me was a small shoulder bag, Jesse's case-file was tucked inside along with some money to see me through this case. I'd need to set myself up a 'base of operations', as it were, which would mean renting a room or a house somewhere. Though, given what little I'd learned about the village I was headed to, it might not be quite such a simple task. In the cities, vacant flats with a landlord who'll take cash were ten a penny but not so much in these villages where community was everything and newcomers were the topic of great interest, or suspicion.

There was nothing else in my bag, the nifty little enchantment on my wardrobe back in Hell made for extremely light travelling; certainly an advantage when we had no idea how long a job might last for.

The hour was still fairly early. The sun peaked through a thin veil of cloud with the promise of a bright and warm summer's day to come; though the faint, pale light couldn't quite rid the unpleasant chill that I felt in the air. I shivered, stifling a yawn as I tugged my leather jacket closer and hugged it to my body. What I wouldn't give to still be home, tucked up in my warm, comfortable bed and surrounded by all the comforts of Hell.

Lucifer hadn't been kidding when he'd said he wanted me gone first thing. Malick had come knocking outside of my room what felt like mere moments after my head had hit the pillow. I'd managed a quick shower, threw on the first clothes I could find – they just so happened to be dark blue jeans, a red sleeveless T-shirt with a black and white flannel shirt slung over the top for added warmth; layers were the key. I was well overdressed by human standards for the heat of the day, especially with the jacket on top of it all, but, when you're used to the heat from Hell, the heat from the Sun is nothing in comparison.

There hadn't been any time to find Lucas before I'd left either. I had wanted to wish him luck, or something of the sort, for his trial. Wondering about the outcome was going to niggle at the back of my mind until I could get back home and discover his fate for myself. All in all I felt distracted, decidedly unprepared and completely exhausted.

Ideally, what I really wanted to do was find myself a room for rent somewhere and sleep the rest of the day away. But, as far as this case was concerned, that was not a priority. As with every new job we worked, first goal was always to locate your target and find out how best to get close to them in the most non-intrusive way possible. The truly hideous lack of information that the slim file had provided me with, however, left me with very few ideas of where to begin.

I picked my way through the scrubby field, searching for a way out through the hedgerow and onto the road I could spy through the branches. That would be at good start at least. Only one little tidbit of information proved to be of any help in coming up with my initial plan for the day. Jesse worked as a bricklayer, I just had to hope that there was building work of some sort going on in the village where he was currently employed. Though even that task, it seemed, would not be unlike searching for a needle in a haystack. Besides, if he was working anywhere away from the village I would be right back to square one. Unfortunately, I had nowhere better to start, so, time for a little reconnaissance it was.

The village had to be one of the tiniest that I'd ever been sent to. It was a true, quaint little chocolate box place; nestled down in a wide sweeping valley and surrounded on all sides by brown, dry fields, winding hedgerows and narrow B roads. At least being small it wouldn't take too long to canvass the entire place.

Finally out of the field, I made my way down the gently sloping road towards the cluster of buildings at the bottom of the hill.

It was a pleasant walk, despite the chill in the air, and the scenery proved to be surprisingly pleasing. They say that all country villages have their own dark, hidden secrets, but at least they are hidden. Unlike so many of the inner city settings I often worked, with their dank streets, pollution, and gang violence, the rural settings, somehow, always managed to keep an idyllic veneer on their surface. It was peaceful, charming even, and I couldn't help but feel extremely out of place.

In such a small village, I hoped, there really couldn't be too many building sites currently employing brick layers. If Jesse was working anywhere nearby it shouldn't take me too long to find him. That was the theory, however, I had a feeling it was probably a pretty big 'if'.

It took all of two hours for me to walk the entire village, boarder to boarder. Down every narrow, winding street dotted with small cottages and large manor houses I had wandered to no avail. I found the school, a church, the corner shop, a pub...every insignificant landmark you would expect to find in a country village, and not a single building site anywhere amongst the lot.

I'd contemplated asking a few people that I had seen during my walk whether they knew of any good bricklayers in the area, but, in the end, decided against it. If I wanted a bricklayer I'd need a house or some land that needed building on, I had neither, I didn't even have so much as a room to stay in yet. If hiring Jesse ended up being the best way to meet him and spend time in his company then I was going to need somewhere for him to work. It sounded like a hassle I could do without, if it could be avoided of course. Though, as I'd only just arrived on the job, I wasn't about to count my chickens just yet.

Feeling severely deflated, I made my way back to the centre of the village. It was around 11am, according to the delicate sliver watch I'd strapped around my wrist, so I headed back for the pub I had passed a little earlier. A chalk written sign beside its door had proclaimed there were rooms for rent so, lacking anything more productive to do, I decided to bag myself somewhere to stay for a few days and work on a new plan of attack. Besides, the pub may also be my next best port of call when it came to finding my target. If Jesse wasn't working anywhere local so I could find him there, likelihood was that a young man in his mid twenties would be a patron of the only pub in the village; especially given the drunk and disorderly charges featured on his police record. It seemed like as good a place as any to head to next and if I could kill two birds with one stone, all the better.

The middle-aged landlady showed me up to one of the few vacant rooms. The first floor of the pub, directly above the lounge bar, served as a small bed and breakfast, while the second floor belonged solely to the landlady and her husband. I paid to stay for three nights, that would hopefully give me some time to find Jesse and get acquainted with him and his life. With any luck it wouldn't take me longer than that to figure out how to get this guy to corrupt his soul, it didn't really need too much help to get there after all.

I dumped my bag down on the bed as soon as Frances – the landlady – had bid me goodbye and took a look around the room. It was clean, that was one redeeming feature which made a nice change from most of the places I ended up staying while working my cases. Though everything in the room appeared a little on the frilly side.

There was a matching set of dark pine furniture: bed; dressing table with an oval mirror and a small wardrobe. The bed was dressed in pale pink with chintz pattern covers that matched the curtains and upholstered chair that sat in the corner. The bed even had a ruffle that fell to the pale pink carpet, and a genuine fabric doily, embroidered with pink honeysuckle, covered the surface of the dressing table. It certainly was not a room dressed for my tastes, I stared for too long and felt the cringe start to fall over my face. But it was clean and comfortable; I just had to keep reminding myself of that.

The chintz and the frills, thankfully, ended where the stairs back down to the main bar began. I'd slipped Jesse's case-file into one of the empty drawers in the dressing table then headed back downstairs. It was probably too early for anyone of interest to my case to pop in, but I was famished and they served lunch.

The rest of the place was decorated like every other classic English country pub. All dark wood, polished to an obscenely high sheen, bare brick walls interspersed with wooden beams; there were even horse brasses and decorative plates hanging from the brickwork. A wide open fireplace stood, clean and empty, on the far wall. In the winter, I could imagine, the room would become beautifully warm and toasty with that fire roaring, but in the midst of summer, however, the bar became a cool haven from the heat outside. Not that I was appreciating this much, I shivered as a trail of goose-flesh crawled up my arms; even under my leather jacket which I still hadn't removed. But for a plate of hot food I would gladly tolerate the cold.

Only a couple of customers already sat in the lounge bar when I joined them; too early for most but the lunch service would probably draw in a few more visitors as the hour moved on. One elderly man sat perched on a barstool with his newspaper spread open on the bar and a pint of dark ale clutched in a grizzled hand. A business woman in a charcoal grey skirt-suit sat at a table by the window, a mobile phone glued to her ear as she ranted about property prices and the lack of a lucrative market in the local area; a glass of some clear spirit and tonic water, almost empty, sat on the table. I placed my order for lunch with Frances at the bar then grabbed one of the many vacant tables in the middle of the room.

There wasn't much to do but twiddle my thumbs while I waited for my food. The silence in the pub, broken only by hushed remarks from the business woman on her phone, verged on uncomfortable. That was until the door burst open and a trio of young, boisterously chatting men strolled inside.

Two of them walked straight to the bar while the third dashed quickly through a wood panel door that bore the label 'Toilets'.

“Don't think you can use that as an excuse every time to get out of buying a round!” The one with spiky blonde hair yelled after his disappearing friend, while the one with the shaved head ordered drinks.

“You're in early today, boys,” Frances said, though there was no joviality in her voice to match the smile she bore them. “You know I can't be serving you more than one round of beers if you're all heading back to work this afternoon. I won't be responsible for any accidents on a building site, or while you're driving.” She bit home the last remark hard, affirming her no-nonsense stance as landlady.

“Nah, don't worry about it Frances. Finished up the job this morning, so we're all good till the new one starts tomorrow. And yes, we will welcome the hangover and tackle it like men.”

They'd finished their short conversation with the landlady as she poured their drinks, made it over to a table and even managed to finish about a quarter of their pints before the third member of their party finally returned from the rest-room.

I'd shifted my chair so that I might better listen in to their conversations, the mention of them being builders had piqued my interest, though I needn't really have bothered. They spoke loudly and boisterously enough in the quiet bar for me to clearly hear every word. Though, it was not until that moment when their third returned that their words became of particular interest.

“Hey Jesse, mate. What the fuck took you so long? You get your arse stuck down the bog or something?” The blonde guy shouted across the room, which arose a great cackle of laughter from the one with the shaved head – whose spray of close knit freckles and pale facial hair told me he was a probably a red head. Knowing their names would have been much more convenient than calling them blondey and baldy in my head, but the name of the third had indeed reached my ears. Could it really be that easy?

They'd certainly called him Jesse. Not exactly the most common of names, especially in a little village without a huge populous. He looked about the right age, and they all worked on building sites too. It was all too much to be just a coincidence.

I turned my chair, subtly, a little more towards them. I set a mask of irritation on my face that almost perfectly mimicked the one the business woman wore as the tutted at the trio and pressed her phone even more firmly to her ear; I was just another customer annoyed at the noise disrupting my quiet lunch, and in a better position to study this Jesse person in the hope that he was indeed the target of my current case.

Taking in the sight of him, my mind wandered back to the picture that had been attached to Jesse's police record – I was grateful for the visual assist, especially when the case-file lacked so many other details, as not all of the files came with photos. This had led to some issues in the past with demons bagging or corrupting the wrong soul, an issue we all though should be worked on, Malick and his demons just said we should all be more careful and thorough in our work.

The guys dark hair fell messily around his face, he seemed to have a habit of pushing it back out of his eyes every few moments, only for it to fall straight back down again. His eyes were a pale, chocolate brown set in a heart shaped face that ended in a strong jaw and pronounced chin, that was peppered with a day or two's worth of stubble. His full lips, though curved in a lazy smile that was quite unlike the blank expression he'd worn in the picture, were definitely the same.

That was unquestionably my guy. Perhaps this case would prove to be easier than I had anticipated.