The gatehouse was small, with whitewashed walls and a grey tiled roof spotted with moss. There was one bedroom with a narrow bed up in the eaves, and the ground floor was a single room with a short couch, dining table, and kitchen counter, all also painted white. It was serene and peaceful—Knox’s own monk’s cell.

Knox’s handwritten draft reports on Victoria and Australia were currently sitting on the dining table, filled with as much detail as he’d decided they deserved. And he was standing in front of the window above the kitchen counter. The radio was on but he wasn’t listening to it. His ears were searching for another sound.

Eventually he heard the quiet thud that heralded the return of his one regular visitor.

He poured some milk he’d bought in the village an hour earlier into a saucer, then opened the window to let in the mottled caramel and white cat that was perched on its outside sill.

‘Hello, Stinky,’ Knox said. ‘Been keeping an eye on the place?’

The cat paced up and down the counter, flicking his tail from side to side and pointedly ignoring both Knox and the milk.

‘I’m sorry,’ Knox said. ‘I had to go away for work again.’

Stinky sat down, curled his tail round his feet, let out a single meow, then started lapping at the milk.

‘Good boy,’ Knox said, stroking Stinky’s head and eliciting a series of faint purrs.

Knox had no idea who the cat belonged to, or what his actual name was. It was probably more sensible and noble than Stinky, but that’s what Knox had christened the cat when he’d found him a few months ago in the depths of winter when he was walking the grounds after a heavy storm. The poor animal was caked in cold mud and mewling weakly after some misadventure in the rain. Knox had taken him to the gatehouse, cleaned and dried him off, and ever since he’d come to say hello and enjoy a saucer of milk whenever Knox was at Rabley Heath.

As soon as Stinky finished the milk he butted his head against Knox’s arm, demanding one last stroke, then jumped back through the window. Knox watched him disappear into the hedge that lined the lane that led away from Rabley Heath wondering, as ever, where his real home was. Then he turned the radio off, pulled on a thin windbreaker, and set out to stroll the grounds.

Knox never went into the big house, but he would peer through its windows as he circled the estate, checking everything was as it should be. By now he knew every piece of fallen ceiling plaster, torn wallpaper and worn fabric.