I kept a folded copy of it in the back pocket of my jeans. Over time, the image became less and less like something human, and more and more like a fortress, a silent fortress, built to guard a secret. I liked to take it out and look at it when no one was watching, the face of the dead man, a blind seer, a map to nowhere on earth. Some things touch something inside you, and you don’t know why. Then you get a feeling, not a usual feeling, but something special, like there were two of you, the everyday one and another. The other was often absent, not there, or asleep, a Merlin buried deep under his mound, and the special feeling was an awakening, an eye inside sliding open.

I’ve read about people feeling such things when they are in love, an awakening, a coming alive, but I was not in love, not yet anyway.

In the rose garden, David emptying cans of beans into a saucepan. The sun was already gone, but in the west the clouds were raging crimson and pink and orange. Swallows dropped from the manor’s eaves, to bob over the lawns.

A fortnight in and we had the place kitted out: a camping stove, a set of pans, torches, blankets and sleeping bags, cans of food, cereal, coffee, long-life milk. The camping gear was ancient, had belonged to Peter’s parents.

“Have you mentioned us being here to Uncle Darren?”

Marcus shook his head.

“He wouldn’t mind though, would he? It being us?” I had my head on his knee. I looked up, as sweet-faced as I could manage. In the corner of my eye I checked to see if David was watching. I avoided looking at him directly, but Peter made up for it. Marcus looked at me, and Peter looked at David, and David and I did not look at one another, and Em looked at all of us, pencil in hand, sketchbook on her lap.

“Wouldn’t have thought so. But he’d want to be asked.”

“But then he might say no. I don’t think you should say anything, Marc.”

I think we all shared Peter’s alarm. Darren saying no. Or perhaps even worse, him saying yes, and it not being secret anymore. I liked Darren. In the pub, he drank pints of orange juice and lemonade, never a sip of beer, but he had a drinker’s complexion. Even his hands were red, as though he had more blood than the rest of us. There were rumors of him putting a Paddy in the hospital for smashing up one of his diggers.