‘No,’ Lou panted, her heart hammering at her ribs. ‘I’m not a ghost.’

The woman laughed nervously. ‘You’re not from the Council, are you? I wouldn’t want to get into trouble. One of the doors at the back was open. I parked out on the road. We haven’t done any harm, I promise.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lou said, still catching her breath. ‘I’m trespassing too.’

‘Thank heavens!’ The woman puffed out her cheeks. ‘Oh, I’m Julie.’

Before Lou could introduce herself, a muffled call came from the room behind the woman.

‘It’s all right, Uncle, don’t fret. Come on.’ Julie said to Lou, ‘Come and have a nosey in here. It’s the ballroom, apparently. Looks more like a bombsite, if you ask me.’

Lou followed Julie, picking her way over the rubbish strewn across the floor, their footsteps echoing around the vast emptiness. Once inside the ballroom, Lou’s only sense of the scale of the room came from the sweep of Julie’s torch. No matter how hard she peered into the darkness, she couldn’t make out any detail.

Julie directed her torch to the centre of the room where an old man sat in a wheelchair. Bundled up against the bitter cold, he barely registered their presence. Lou had never seen a person who looked so old. His upper body was bent, and his shoulders hunched, so that he seemed fixed in a position where he sat permanently forward. His chin rested on his chest and the harsh torchlight cast shadows in the deep creases etched into his face. His only reaction was to flinch when Julie tucked the blanket tighter around his knees, as though their approach had been sudden, their presence a surprise.

‘This young lady’s having a bit of a snoop around, like us.’ Julie raised her voice before lowering it to talk to Lou. ‘Uncle Bert grew up here, when his parents were in service. Hard to imagine that he was once a little boy, isn’t it? When I was small, he used to tell me stories about riding a tricycle in the corridors downstairs and taking tea with the family in the grand morning room on Sunday afternoons. He filled my head with pictures of such grandeur that I was expecting to find Blenheim Palace, not the ghost house! When I asked him what he’d like for Christmas this year, he said his only wish was to see this house one last time. And it had to be today. Insistent on it, he was. Isn’t that right, Uncle? He probably can’t hear –’

‘Such parties this room has seen,’ the old man said suddenly.

Julie clutched her chest. ‘Bloody hell, Uncle, you just knocked thirty years off me.’

‘Such laughter and music and dancing,’ he said, his voice creaking like one of the old floorboards. ‘You never saw more handsome men or prettier girls. Everyone a belle of the ball!’ He struggled to lift his chin from his chest and pull his hand from the folds of the blanket. With a bent finger, he pointed to the ceiling. ‘Two crystal chandeliers glittered like fairyland up there, hundreds of candles turning night into day.’