Violet looks up at the tall, Gothic windows. They look back at us, black and vacant. Silence covers everything, and I begin to wonder if we really saw or heard anything strange at all. Unsurprisingly, at this late hour the tall arched door of the museum is firmly shut.

“Where does that go?” says Violet. She’s pointing at a flight of ancient steps that wind up around the back of the building.

“Side way in,” I reply. “But…”

Vi darts out into the moonlight and crosses to the castle. Then she trots up the steps and vanishes from view.

“What are you doing?” I shout in my loudest whisper. “Violet!”

I find her standing on the top step, beside a gnarly wooden door. Of course, she’s testing the handle.

“Seriously, Vi, it won’t be open. We should go.”

Violet releases the door handle with a sigh. “After all that, we’ve missed it,” she says. “Whatever ‘it’ was.”

From the steps we can see over the highest part of the town’s ramparts, down to the shore far below. The sea mist, which has by now entirely seeped out of the town, is collecting on the beach beneath us. With the moonlight pouring down, it looks like a rolling ocean of silvery vapour, making it impossible to see what may or may not be on the sand below.

“Have you got a torch?” asks Vi. “I just want to peek through the window.” When she sees the expression on my face, she adds. “And then we’ll go, Herbie. I promise.”

I rummage in the enormous pocket of my coat and pull out a small torch. I join Violet at a window beside the door, place the business end of the torch right against the glass – to avoid reflection – and click it on. Inside the museum, dark shapes and twisted shadows are thrown into relief by the sudden light.

“Happy now?” I whisper.

Vi squints in, shielding her eyes. “I can’t see much.”

“Which is why we should come back tomorrow when the museum is actually open,” I say, and I shut off the light.

But Violet suddenly gasps and grabs at the torch in my hand. It’s an unexpected movement, and the torch falls and hits the hard flagstone with a crack.

“What are you doing?” I say, but Violet ducks down and pulls me after her.

“There’s something in there!” she hisses in my ear.

“It’s a museum,” I say. “Of course there’s something in there.”

“Something moving.” Vi puts her finger to her lips.

Slowly, we both rise up and peer into the window.

Nothing.

Just dark, and blackness, and nothing. But then …

… two pale orbs, side by side, blink at us with reflected moonlight.

I say that bad word again. I can’t help it. If those are eyes, they are the size of grapefruits!