‘A poor start to the century,’ I said.

‘Was yours much better?’ he asked, sounding genuinely interested.

I thought back those twenty-one years. I remembered being in Esteberg and at a garden party for the whole day. Just who was our host I couldn’t recall, but we toasted the clock striking twelve. Made the best of it, though few could hide the pangs of envy that our night-siblings would see in the new century proper. I managed with some decorum only because I knew Christophor would not make the most of it. Those were his busiest years as he began systematically removing his own necessity as a Special Inspector, one poor soul at a time.

Normality tried to resume in Drekenford in 1701: a pleasant springtime view was my impression. Flowers in window-boxes, somehow brighter than they were in previous years. A crispness. Spring lambs cavorting in the streets would not have surprised me.

‘You overcompensated this year,’ I said.

‘I was young.’

‘Not that young.’

I gave each of the following paintings my attention, noting the slight changes in season that suggested Marcus finished his painting early or late that year. One such late painting was 1717, which I almost disregarded until I stopped, mid-step, caught between two years.

‘What’s this?’ I said, waving at the canvas.

The floorboards creaked and popped as he came to stand beside me. He said nothing for a moment, but did lean a little closer to the painting.

‘The river.’

‘River? Where?’ I said. I glanced back along the line, certain I hadn’t seen anything that could remotely represent the Dreken river, even in Marcus’ style.

‘Where they didn’t want it.’ He drew a line that snaked from the edge of the painting, ghosting behind buildings and streets, until his finger left Drekenford behind. ‘That was the year they changed the course of the river. Changed a lot of things in town, that did.’

‘But what for?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. They probably gave a reason at the time, but damned if I can remember.’

‘Why does anyone move a river?’

‘It did used to flood badly, back when I was a boy,’ he said. ‘There was talk, though, I remember that much.’

‘Talk?’

‘Talk. Thirsty work it is too.’ He turned and disappeared into his modest kitchen. He returned with a weak white wine and two glasses. I watched him spill a little on the floorboards, and then accepted the glass from him. He drank without fanfare. ‘Some said they moved the river, tore up half the town, spent all that money, just so they could build the bridge.’

‘The animal bridge,’ I said. I moved through the years and, now I knew what to look for, I could see the small changes wrought on the town, even though Marcus’ balcony didn’t command a full view of the river or the bridge. The river could be seen in the absence of a few otherwise insignificant buildings, the new prominence of others, the subtly changed shape of the streets of Drekenford. The bridge was a grey mark on the extreme edge of each painting – in some cases it was covered entirely by a more intrusive frame. But invariably it was there, after 1717.