It was a mild night in the forest that never sleeps. Below the dark sky, the heart of the deep wood holds its secrets. But one lone druid has made it his job to plumb them. I moved......cautiously.

You'd be forgiven for asking what the hell (no we don't believe in it, as you're asking) sort of work a druid Gumshoe does. Well, pretty well any thing, really. But the booze, broads and in flegranto delicti bread and butter stuff tends to go to the regular guys in the Yellow Pages. My missions came generally from higher up, you might say. And crossing dimensions might enter into it. Probably best not to ask about the Big Boss at this stage. But on forest command, he's at the top of the tree. When he pipes, you dance.

So here I was, out on my latest case: to investigate strange anomalies in the food chain. What the Fungal h****** did that mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Still, mine not to reason why......

I thumbed my belt, checking my wand for quick access. Best to be sure. There'd been an incident with a shaman last year that had come perilously clear to sending me a bit too near to transmigration, and these trackways looked ripe for booby traps.

I hitched up my druid camouflage, tucking its skirts into my belt: the reassuring clack of knife hitting hip flask reminded me that I was carrying the two chief necessities of my job. An emergency smudge stick suspended on a thong round my neck and garden flare tucked into my boot completed my ensemble. Except for the shades of course.

Did I ever trip over a tree root? Please: I am a professional. And the punters expect a certain image. With these shades, a waft of smudge and a confidential manner I could milk a dryad for information and watch her disappear beneath her bark thinking we'd just had a pleasant flirt. Why the hipflask? Well, not all the denizens of the forest are so rarefied. Take gnomes, for example. Grumpy little mothers, most of them - it's all the wood chopping, and a chip on the shoulder, for which I don't blame them. By the time those Grimm brothers had finished their hatchet job, the whole species was a laughing stock. Hence the need for the aforementioned hipflask. Strictly not to be touched, you understand, except in case of dire emergency....

A silver moon shone through the trees, lighting my path. I tuned in and distinctly heard hedgepigs snuffling through leaf litter. Just underground and to my left, near the bole of a grandaddy oak I felt the vibrations of a badger about to break cover. All well so far. In the distance a she-fox shrieked and I felt my back hairs bristle. Reminded me of one Beltane night when I'd met up with a witchlet who thought it her duty to do something for interfaith relations. I'm a polite guy, you know, so I let her have a go at persuading me about closer co-operation....... if you get my meaning. She was a honey, but doll or troll, you're glad of the contact. It's a lonely job. Excuse the digression; time can hang heavy and there's usually plenty of time for thinking. Until the corn sheaf hits the fan, as it eventually always does. The night quietened as the pigs went away. The oak shivered and I almost took its hint that I'd been pressing the bark for long enough now and should be on my way, when a new rustling came out of the stillness. I leapt for the tree' s large bole and teetered a few inches above the forest floor as, within seconds, the undergrowth came alive with small mammals. Voles, shrews and mice swarmed over the leaf litter, taking no notice of my movements as I dragged the hem of my robe tightly around my ankles. No use looking for trouble.

After a few minutes watching them bustling, as at home in the open as a high priest at a sabbat, I realised that my mission was in front of my eyes. "Anomalies in the food chain"? Who'd've guessed that the boos could do corporate- speak? The vermin were getting antsy, that was the size of it. The rodents were getting uppity. Whoever had heard of fearless mice? And it looked like they'd been playing bigtime whilst the cat was away. For a fearless mouse, every nook and cranny in the forest is honeymoon central with en-suite facilities. Well, at least I knew the problem now. Predators; where were the predators? I stepped away from the oak, threatening the vole population with every step: I swear they looked annoyed as they dodged, and I knew I wouldn't get a wink of sleep that night or I'd wake bald & shaven with the feel of rodent teeth too near my throat for comfort.

With a shudder I jumped over a stoat in the nick of time. Stoats have had a bad press and, whilst not my totem animal, I do find them sympatico. We share the same political affiliations, which is always a bond, and my blood boils over that eviction scandal.....you must have seen it? All planned by that bloody Badger, of course. Don't tell me that the Rat or the Mole had a brains to repossess Toad Hall.....Hmmm: too long in the woods alone, and you get to drifting off on odd trains of thought.

So, back to predators. At that very moment, the forest floor emptied. At lightening speed the rodents wheeled as one and disappeared under the leaf litter. Above me I heard the brazen clatter of a bird's wings and ducked instinctively as a giant owl flew over. The white flower-face with the stubby, wicked beak seemed to hold my gaze. I'd seen owls looking wise, smug and disdainful before. Actually, the genus bobo bobo and I had history: hell, I'd been given the bum's rush by one, a beautiful tawny, when I was a rookie. I just needed a winged familiar before I set up in the sleuthing business and I still remember that owl's response to my request. You'd have thought I was a pellet she'd just regurgitated. So little Gwion was the only druid on the block who setup his sleuthing business aided and abetted by a blackbird.

Tonight I got my revenge for that slight. I've seen horny, small, barn, eagle, long eared, screech and tawny owls, looking sniffy, snotty, smug and pretty sinister on occasion. But I have never seen an owl looking so confused. The undergrowth quivered: I don't often anthropomorphise, but I'll swear those hidden rodents were laughing. The penny dropped. In sudden horror, I watched the flower face clatter back into the wood.

The owl; scourge of vermin. Why? Because their flight is soundless, that's why. Not each feather rasping out a warning like a football rattle. No wonder the mice were cocky - and reaching epidemic proportions. Noisy owls; it was a reversion of the natural order. Like polluting druids or ego-less witches, if you get my drift. Who could have done such a horrible thing?

I hunkered down. How much further had this problem spread? I reached into my wren-pochette for some revealing powder. The elder branches above me rustled a warning as I produced a lighter: "Yeh, yeh," I muttered over my shoulder to the dryad sitting on the lowest branch, as I sprinkled the powder in a circle. These trees with lineage - it' like going to dinner with a dowager duchess: they think you know nothing, so they're constantly checking you.

Ostentatiously I held the lighter at arm's length, so every dam' shrub with attitude could see what I was about. With quick incantation some twigs became an ogham sigil and I stood in the circle, waiting. Someone had tampered with the natural order, and I was going to find out who, and how.

OK, you're new to this; I know the question you want to ask. 'What's the spell?'

Listen, brother, this stuff is my livelihood: you want in, you pay your dues and learn the hard way. A few run-ins with astral canines and incarnations of Egyptian priests, you'll get to learn real fast, without cribbing my stock secrets. So, what was out of kilter in this forest?

It had to be a spell to knock out all the predator's hunting advantages: question was, how far had it gone? The circle glowed, and as if in answer, the fox shrieked again. Mating. In August???? Another piece slotted into the jigsaw.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. That fox wasn't calling, she was hunting, but something had forced an early warning device on her: her own cries. How sick was that? I wondered how many nights she'd barked out her warning. How thin was she now? I tuned into the ground, smudging a rabbit hole and laying full length on the ground. I could almost feel those plump little bodies, procreating like.... well, like rabbits: safe and warm in the dark; numbers growing, growing, growing as they hopped unconcernedly away from the warning bark of their main predator.

Below their burrow, curled abjectly when he should have been racing through the tunnels to stave off night starvation with a couple of bunny-burgers followed by slug surprise, I sensed a large badger. Seemed like he'd just given up. Balance. Balance before all. The natural order. It's a Druid thing. I prepared to get to work.

Gwion Dubh, at your service. Surname pronounced Duv. Cleaning up psychic and spiritual messes a speciality. If you’ve got mischievous punks who don’t wait for punky night, dryads who dry your mortal sap or goblin gangs who try to gobble a bit more gravy than they’re entitled to, call on me: the country’s leading (spare my blushes!) Druid Investigator.

come from mixed Celt influences, as you’d imagine from my moniker. Bit of Irish, bit of Welsh, bit of Cornish and good old Anglo Saxon mixed in, a long time in the past. Natural home, the woods.

The life of a Druid private eye can be tough, but it has its compensations. Nearly ten years in the field, and I know my turf. The woods, pastures, leys, the tracks of these islands open to me and I call them my home. From them I get my messages, and my assignments. And the originator? “The Piper”. Numero Uno. He of the hirsute legs and twinkling yellow eye.

The Big Boss calls me to right the balance whenever it’s disturbed ... it’s a druid thing. And for my part, I keep my eyes and ears open for the signs. A message from a starling; portents in the sky; a whisper from a friendly shrub. Them’s my faxes and text messages.

Not usually, then, a slap in the face from a greasy chip paper on the sea front at West Kirby. I was out of my territory; did I but know it, I was well out of my field of knowledge and on a different patch entirely. But mine not to reason why; it appeared that my next job had arrived.

I’ve always loved the coast: hell, what’s the point of living on an island if you don’t? The green earth beneath me, the blue sky above; the grey sea surrounding..... so fair and free an isle.....that dude who wittered about ‘this sparkling jewel set in a silver sea’ could have stopped writing right there for me. I mean, once you’ve said it, why go on? SO, we’re on an island. And nowhere is this more apparent than on a peninsula.

The dark time had been damp this year; as in sopping, drenching, wetting, drenchingly bone-achingly wet. We druids like triads; in fact we’re addicted to threes, but after that triple-soaked winter I just had to spread myself with the old adjectives.

Now lying in a carpeted yurt, strong Mongolian tent that it is, cuddled up with your book and the soft warmth from a woodburning stove, is the ideal winter scenario; and that’s how it started for me. This was closely followed by the solstice time; lying awake with the damp striking through the tarpaulin even through layers of insulating duvet. And a soundtrack of slugs sliming their way over soggy beech leaves is no Radio Three programme. Yep, you really can hear them; doubting Taliesins give it a go.

So by this time I was getting the message that someone, or thing, would rather I was elsewhere. A deluge of iced water cascading down from the bulging folds of the bulging canvas above my head was the crude but probably comic intimation that I hadn’t yet understood the urgency of the call. Indoor showers are for houses, not canvas constructions. I was off. Packed and out of there within the hour.

Besides, Hugo, my raven familiar, had been looking a bit peaky and would obviously benefit from a change of scenery. He was a relative newbie to the Dubh enterprise: he’d picked up the job well, but there wasn’t yet that druid/familiar intuitive rapport that I’d had with my last. So I was being careful with his wants and needs. If he was going moulty, then a change was in order.

Miraculously, as these things happen, all my half-packed travelling kit was still dry. Most of my gear is supplied by the forest, but the odd gizmo can come in handy. A quick check showed the spider-strong spaling rope, willow concentrate (careful with that; it can lay out a troll, but there are side effects) light body flare and all the other paraphernalia, ready to go.

I hoisted the badger bag, filled up the trusty hip flask with raw spirit - a gift from my cousin and a castle up north, which might or might now fully exist in our dimension - and emerged from the forest, headed for some health giving ozone.

I landed on the red earth of The Wirral soon afterwards. Lifts always come quickly when I’m on the job and one of the signs that I’m getting it right is the flow. Rhythm and flow; it’s a druid thing. Means you don’t always get dry weather and certainly get wet like everyone else, but when the flow’s right, you just don’t mind. Which is why the shock of my initial dowsing had been a wake up call. You follow?

So, motorists randomly and in quick and synchronicitous procession appeared happy to offer a lift. Even to a robed and mysterious yet strangely compelling and handsome figure on the side of the road. And that was another indication that things were going as they should.

To tell the truth, I was a bit surprised by the direction I’d been taken. I’m at home in any forest - Anderida or Broceliande, for choice - and lean to the traditional Celtic lands, as you might guess from my name. For the first five years after I set up in business I hardly crossed the border from the land of leeks and bards to the Island of the Mighty at all, and a long overdue return would have been very welcome. So zipping up the M5, passing the march lands and Wales on the left at seventy plus miles an hour, was a bit of a surprise. I mean, the gull calls as I’d left the forest had warned me that the coast was on the cards, and where better than the land of the Cymry? The brotherhood. That tribe whose name is still to be found in our bleak and beautiful Cumbria. I realised that I’d rather banked on a cushy number in my native Wales. Still, never presume that you know what’s happening is a rule in my game.

I held my breath as we skirted the territory of the mysterious black men: Birmingham. I’d had some dealings with pretty iffy magicians there and was in no hurry to be sent back again until I was sure that those particular ripples had fully dispersed. Not to mention the assault of their old and honourable accent. The inhabitants insist it harks back to the relics of the most ancient mode of speaking in these islands, great salesmen that they are. Always make your disadvantage into a selling point, I say. Still, I’d also had some great times with Steiner-inspired mystics on the fringes of that blue varicose vein of modern road planning they call the M42: I sent them good wishes via the small flock of Rhiannon’s winged messengers from out the half-open window of a Winnebago whilst my driver chatted. After half an hour he shoved over a greasy paper bag with a pie in it. Brummagem hospitality; best in the world.

The third lift sped up the M6 and then the tiny motorway which raced to the top of the Wirral.

So here I was, on the peninsula. Red rock, sandstone, some marl and most definitely foreign territory, culturally speaking………..