‘The guys who put in the well,’ I say patiently, ‘and the generator. Who were the men who did the improvements on this cabin?’

‘They’re gone,’ he says, unwilling even to give up this seemingly innocuous bit of information.

‘Yes, but where did they come from in the first place, who hired them? Was it the previous owners?’ God knows, I don’t mean to heckle him but I have a bona fide reason for asking these questions. Before going bellyup, the Toronto owners had sunk a substantial amount of money into Temerosa, putting in the basic amenities of electricity, telephone and, thank God, water – in the form of a 250-foot well – and my game plan is to take up where they’ve left off. Renovate the rest of the town and sell it on as a spa, or a retreat. Considering I have only the most basic idea how to go about this, it’s fair to say I’m going to need all the help I can get.

Benjamín just shrugs.

‘Was the job run by some kind of a foreman?’

‘Four men?’ he queries artlessly.

‘Foreman – uh, you know, somebody who tells the builders what to do.’

‘Okay, sí’, yes, a man.’

‘Okay, good. So was it someone local to here? Was it an outside person the developers brought in?’

‘No,’ he repeats stubbornly.

‘Come on, Benjamín, if it wasn’t you, who wrote up the maintenance file? Who organized the work? Who paid the workers, drew up the plans, kept the records? ¿Quién lo hizo? Who did it and what was his name?’

Benjamín runs his hand over his jaw then pulls down on his moustache.

‘Duval,’ he says croakily. ‘His name is Duval.’

5

Jack is the first to hear it. The children are lolling around on the kitchen floor, apathetic and fractious from tiredness or possibly my refusal to make them jam sandwiches for the fifteenth night running, when Jack sits bolt upright, clamps a hand over his mouth and looks to the door, eyes widening.

‘Vinny!’ he whispers through his fingers.

Vinny is our dog from London, a handsome if very stupid lurcher currently boarding with my father in Scotland. ‘Oh, Mummy, it’s Vinny, can you hear?’ He jumps up and starts a headlong rush towards the door but I whirl round and catch him by the arm. It’s stormy outside and the wind is rattling the glass in the window frames but, even so, I can hear it, a whining and scratching against the wood. I hold Jack tight and listen.