Sunset was orange and ochre, casting a spectacular mural of light on to the white bedroom wall. I stood, staring out at the sea and sky and boats, drifting through colour. It was as if Dar Portuna was a tower at the edge of the world. Slowly, the room turned old gold, then shadowy violet. I sat on the bed and lay my cheek on the crisp cotton pillow, thinking of how different this wide room was to my cramped, creaking cot next to the stove at the inn, with my coverlet of flea-bitten cats, and the rats running across the floor, their claws like the tapping of rain …

I opened my eyes to pitch darkness. For a second, I had no idea where I was, though I could smell roses and the earthy-salt scent of rain on the sea. I could hear wind, mouthing at the walls, sticking its tongues through the gaps in the carved shutters. I pushed myself to my elbows in horror. I was in Langham’s room, had fallen asleep, where anyone might have found me.

Eyes wide, I listened. Everything was quiet in the house, only the sound of drenching summer rain and wind, throwing a tantrum-like squall to break the endless, sticky days. I got to my feet, feeling my way in the darkness towards the window. There was a little light from a drowning moon, and I closed the shutters, hoping none of the rain had found its way inside. Out in the corridor, I tried to remember where the switch for the light was. I found it eventually, sending a sickly, yellow glow down the stairs. It flickered as the wind blew the wires and I shivered, more from unease than cold.

No one had returned. I was the sole guardian of Dar Portuna. The house had an abandoned feel to it, as if its doors had been left open to the wind and weather for years as I slept.

In the kitchen I splashed myself a tumbler of cooking wine and sat down at the table, to wait out the loneliness, and the storm. I was nearing the bottom of the glass when I saw something through the window: a flicker in the darkness of the garden, like a firefly tossed between wet leaves. I stopped, the wine halfway to my mouth, sour on my tongue. There, again, a spark, moving in a strange, weaving pattern. Despite the humid air, my body turned cold. It was torchlight. Someone was out there.

Carefully, I set down the glass, keeping my eyes fixed on the light as it swayed closer to the house. Whoever it was, they hadn’t come through the front gate: I would have heard. They had come in another way, as I once had, illicitly, like a thief.