Oh, this was silly. Crying wouldn’t help one bit. Maggie blew her nose, dried her eyes and pulled herself together.

She heard a noise out in the corridor. She held her breath and listened. Nothing for a moment but then, it came again. A voice, a murmur. A child, giggling. Thank goodness it wasn’t dark down here else she might have had a seizure. As it was, her heart was hammering like an ack-ack gun. Perhaps the Hall really was haunted?

Maggie tiptoed towards the door, wiping her hands on her skirt. She put her head out into the corridor.

There was a little boy a few feet away, kneeling on the floor with his back to her and softly singing as he played with a toy. She glimpsed his socks, short trousers and little leather boots before she pulled her head back inside the scullery.

Not a ghost then, after all. He was tiny, like a doll, with a mop of dark curls. Maggie’s heart lifted as his sweet voice grew louder. German! He was singing in German and it was a song she knew well.

‘Bunt sind schon die Wälder

gelb die Stoppelfelder

und der Herbst beginnt

Rote Blätter fallen

Graue Nebel wallen

Kühler weht der Wind …’

She pressed her back against the wall and smiled as she mouthed the words. She’d known this nursery rhyme since she was a child. It was about autumn: fields of stubble, red leaves falling and the cool wind.

Mutti used to sing it to her and Vi.

Smiling now and laughing at herself for being frightened by a child, Maggie swung her arms out in time with the song and – oh blast! She’d caught a mop with her finger and sent it crashing to the ground.

Instantly, the singing stopped.

Maggie put her head around the door again. The boy was staring back at her with troubled dark eyes. She’d never seen a child with such a pale, pinched face.

‘Hallo,’ she said, as gently as she could. What was he doing here? A German child?

She stepped slowly out into the corridor. ‘Ich bin Maggie,’ she said, gently, pointing to herself. What else could she do but tell him her name? She crouched down and held out her hand. ‘Und du? Wie heisst du?’

The child’s face crumpled. ‘I must no German speak,’ he said, so quietly she had to lean forward to catch the words. ‘It is …’ He was clearly struggling for the word. He finally resorted to ‘verboten.’

Who had forbidden him to speak German? Before Maggie could ask, he jumped up and raced down the corridor, his leather shoes slapping on the floor.

He’d left his toy behind: a little brown teddy bear. She picked it up. The fur was worn around its nose and paws, as though it had been held, and loved, for many years. It smelled, oddly, of tobacco.