Marcus parked the van in front of the gate and we climbed over quickly and moved up the driveway, out of sight of the road. There were weeds growing up through the gravel and the lawn was knee-high in wild barley and thistles. As we drew nearer and the sound of the cars—already muted by the firs—diminished, I became aware of the murmur of bees in the grass. I suppose there were crickets and hornets and wasps as well, but what I remember was that heavy, satisfied sound that bees make. The brick had weathered to a darkish pink, and each one was surrounded by a rime of white mortar. With the morning sun upon it, it made my heart quicken.

We stopped a few feet away from the front door and dropped our bags on the stone steps. Peter peered in the windows and as I bent over to untie my laces, I heard him bang the knocker against the door, and the sound echoed through the empty building. Marcus was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing upward.

The manor was three stories high. On either side, set back a little, and a story shorter, were wings. The roof was shingle, the facade brick, and around the mullioned windows, the builders had incorporated seams of local flint. Further on, if you followed the drive round, were stables and a clutch of outbuildings.

“Are you going to take that side?”

With his chin, Marcus indicated left. That way, the climb was fairly easy owing to a chimneypiece edged in sticking-out brickwork, and nearer the top, a string course, a line of bricks that stuck out edge-ward from the wall.

No other route was immediately obvious, but I knew that Marcus had found one, and that it was hard, which was why he was nudging me toward the easier climb. Every way I looked, the eaves were the problem. Then I caught Marcus cast a quick look right and, following his gaze, I saw in the shaded corner where the wing met the main house, there was a tree. Tiny green-and-brown dappled pears hung from its branches and, while it barely reached to the first-floor windows, coming halfway down the wall was a piece of drainpipe, and above that a series of jutting cornerstones.

I went to stand beneath it with Marcus at my heels.

“I’ll take the tree and the pipe. You take the chimney,” I said.

“You sure?”

“The world ends today.”

“Right.” I wasn’t going to be told what I could and could not climb and Marcus was smart enough to know it. Besides, it was one of the things he liked about me. His mum, Darren’s sister, was a bag of nerves, forever calling up Marcus or Darren and asking them to drop whatever they were doing because she thought she smelled gas or the fridge was making a funny noise.

“I’ll watch you.”