WILL WOKE EARLY. THERE was a reasonably modern bathroom on the corridor, so he treated himself to a good wash, which he needed after yesterday’s running around, and went to the room they had identified as Kim’s because his baggage was in there.

He knocked quietly, and let himself in. Kim glanced up at him, turned over in bed, and grunted without enthusiasm.

“Morning. Didn’t sleep well?”

“No.” Kim rubbed his face. “You look revoltingly perky.”

“I’ve slept in worse places.” Will sat on the bed. Kim was wearing satin pyjamas of a lurid purple shade. He slept naked when they shared a bed, which was preferable on several levels. Will wondered if he’d be amenable to having his pyjamas taken off for him, and decided not. He wasn’t in the mood himself. This place was pretty passion-killing: the sterile atmosphere, the simmering hostility, the sense of being unwelcome and under siege, and the heavy hand of privilege pressing down from every direction. It was giving him an urge to kick things, and Kim didn’t look too bright either.

“Come on, get up,” he said, trying for cheerful. “It’s a beautiful day out there. Do you reckon I’ll have my face in the papers yet?”

“A good question,” Kim said, shoving back the bedclothes. “If not today then tomorrow. Something to look forward to.”

Breakfast was served in the Breakfast Room. Will kept his thoughts to himself on people who had an entire room just for breakfast, and felt grateful that it was help-yourself from chafing dishes. He wasn’t up to dealing with flunkies in evening dress at this hour.

“When are we going to talk to your father and Chingford?”

“This afternoon, I suppose. He won’t be in a hurry to hear me out. And even if he was, it is important that he should do so at his convenience rather than mine, to emphasise our respective importance. We may as well make use of the day until then. Would you care for a tour of the house?”

Will was pretty sure he wouldn’t, but the feeling battled with morbid curiosity and lost. “Go on, then.”

He regretted it fairly quickly. It wasn’t just that the place was so big and so lavish and so horribly empty. It was that as they walked through room after room, decorated with trappings Will didn’t know how to appreciate, the tomblike silence of the place descended on them both. Kim’s descriptions were mannered and forced, and when he didn’t speak, it was not in the usual way they were quiet together, but in a nothing-to-say way that made an empty space between them. And how could Will talk when it felt like he was on a Cook’s Tour of a stately home, and everything he said was an advertisement of how little he belonged?