Mum rang the bell and knocked on the front door, even though we had our own key. She said it was the right thing to do, but when Henry Lake didn’t answer, she gave up on the right thing pretty quickly and we let ourselves in. Her favorite mug has a Groucho Marx quote on it: These are my principles, and if you don’t like them . . . well, I have others. I shoplifted it for her one Christmas (using the principle of common ownership) and she has no idea, but that’s a whole different can of worms. This can of worms was Henry Lake, who must have felt rather than heard the key in the lock and the mortise rolling open and us standing there underneath him in the empty hall, waiting for the next great big chapter in our lives to begin.

Inside, the house was quiet and full of echoes, kind of dank, like a cave. High ceilings and low lighting. Room after room, full of nothing. Dark, bad-weather-gray walls, old floorboards the color of pricey honey. The hallway alone was bigger than the whole downstairs of our old flat. In a room at the back, a slice of window filled with nothing but the petrol-blue sea, churning and hypnotic, oddly silent behind the glass. Henry Lake came out of his room and stood over us at the top of the staircase, a man steeling himself to make any kind of entrance. If Mum was hoping for shining armor, she was disappointed. He was old as hell and oddball perfect. Stooped over, kind of tall, apologetic almost, bone thin. His jeans hung from his hips like they were empty on a peg, like half of him had already given up and started disappearing. Sunglasses, even in that gloom, and a faded black baseball cap pulled down low as it would go over the bridge of his nose. Out of its shadow, the rest of his face was just gray beard. There was a rhythm to the way he took the stairs, a deliberate thump that bounced off the walls and made the light fixtures tremble. Over that, I could hear the music still playing in his ears, distant and tinny, a dropped box of pins on repeat, headphones the size of ear defenders over the top of his cap. He didn’t turn it down or take any of it off, just stood there in full disguise, full armor, insulated against our normal, whatever that was. There was no way of telling who he was under there. It occurred to me for a second that he might be wildly famous, because only a proper celebrity would meet someone for the first time and try to get away with a look as batshit as that.

“You’re here,” he said, and Mum said, “Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “Welcome. I’ve been waiting.”