“Peter can do it. I’ll meet you at the top.”

He looked at the route up and poked the toe of his trainers into the ground. The lawn at the base of the tree was soft and springy, but even so.

“You fall, Andy, you’re fucked.”

“Think so?” Our smiles met. Peter, hearing his name, ambled over, a finger thrust between the pages of a book to guard his place.

“There’s a piano inside.”

Em was sitting on the lawn and had taken out her sketchbook. She lifted her skirt so the sun could get to her legs, her gaze settled upon the fountain and its stone cherubs, and she sighed contentedly.

I stepped into Marcus’s cupped hands, swung up into the pear tree, and a couple of birds shot skyward. Following the trunk, I hauled myself up and then, as I got higher, shifted my weight so that the tree bent over toward the wall of the house. As it did so, I pushed off with my feet and caught hold of the drainpipe. It was easy and within a few seconds, I had shinnied up and got my hands around the first of the cornerstones. There was a breeze higher up. A little winged creature, a beetle with petrol-blue iridescent wings, landed on my forearm. I got my feet right up under me and grasped for the next cornerstone and then the next, feeling the oil from my palms seeping into the stone.

The guttering was choked with rotting leaves and bright green moss. I reached up and put my hands on the roof. The shingles seemed firm, but they were old and I wondered when was the last time a human hand had touched them. It seemed likely that they would take my weight, but I wouldn’t know until it was too late. There were no handholds on the tiles, so the thing was just to get the feet up and run, keeping low and hunched forward. I got the first chimneystack in my sights, drove up with my legs, and went for it.

By the time I got my hands to the stack, I was panting. The chimney pots were covered in bird shit and I held on tight to them, managing a single whoop as I caught my breath. Marcus was coming up over the other side. From the other chimney he walked the length of the roof to me as though along a tightrope, his arms held out for balance. I swiveled round to get my first look over the back of the manor.