Will looks up at an entrance that’s not so much a doorway as a boarded-up slot in the wall, over a metre clear of the ground. He cups his hands under her foot and she leaps up to the ledge.

‘Surprise, surprise!’ April says. ‘We are not the first.’

She bangs at the sheet of plywood and it wobbles, split along one edge where it’s been jemmied open in the past. She helps Will up to the ledge and between them they manoeuvre the panel a third of the way open.

The air inside is wet and fridge-cold. Will stoops and advances slowly, with April so close behind he can feel her breath on his neck. Three metres in and they are through the outer wall and at a small landing. Ahead is a circular room. The floor is covered with cigarette butts and food packaging, a filthy duvet heaped at the far side. To their left is a concrete staircase. It curves gently out of sight as it follows the outer wall but there’s a suggestion of blueish light seeping down from wherever it leads.

‘What we waiting for?’ April says, easing past Will and beginning the climb.

The walls are green with damp, webs of slime stretched from bottom to top. The narrow steps are greasy, each footfall echoing like a penny in a well.

‘Now that, my friend, is a view,’ she says.

Will emerges into the dazzling light behind her. The centre of the tower is recessed where a cannon would once have been aimed out over the sea. He follows April to the edge and peers over. He can see the coastline, undulating from cliff edges to sandy bays, for miles in both directions. And behind them the town looks to have been tilted for their benefit, giving a perfect view over the evacuated streets, crowds assembled at the cordons, and the blazing library at its heart.

Will smiles at April as she leans on the wall with her head propped in her hands and her hair jetting out in front of her. The salty wind blasts past his face and rips the breath from him. He swaps the lens on his camera for a long zoom and scans the town.

It will take some weeks, but fire officers will eventually conclude that the library’s aged structure was weak long before the fire took hold. They will deduce that the upstairs walls and the front gable were only held in place by the timberwork of the roof and floors. Which, after burning for three hours, is all but gone.

At first, Will thinks it’s a distortion caused by the long lens. He’s zoomed in on the building. The top half seems to rock back and forth. He brings it into sharp focus. It’s real. It’s moving.

Watching it all come down …