In about twenty minutes the tube was running over-ground, past suburban houses, joined together row upon row in the sunshine. He looked again at the address he had in his trouser pocket as he got out of the train: Copperfield Hall, Acacia Avenue. The tube station had flowers growing in a flower bed on the platform and the ticket collector, in shirt sleeves, was bent over some fuchsia bushes pulling at small weeds. He waved Harry past with his hoe. Harry walked quite slowly, feeling the hot sun on his face, looking at people’s gardens, noting that there was even a butcher’s shop on the corner; not many butcher’s shops left in the world, his father would have been pleased.

Copperfield Hall stood stolidly at the bottom end of Acacia Avenue, a turret pointing skywards, rose bushes, an oak tree beside the wide iron gates. Like cemetery gates. He put on his jacket.

Then he rang the bell and waited. He had made an appointment; he had decided.

The woman who opened the door was younger than him and rather pretty, and that gave him a surprise, cheered him slightly.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said, ‘my name is Harry Donaldson, I have an appointment to see Mrs Beale.’

‘I am Mrs Beale, Mr Donaldson,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

First he noticed a smell of disinfectant mixed with another, slightly sour, smell, then he noticed the red carpet, then he noticed all the pictures on the walls. There was a huge painting of the famous old actor Beerbohm Tree in the entrance hall. He stared at the theatricality of it, all strange lights and vapours and gestures to the heavens.

‘Macbeth,’ said Mrs Beale. ‘We have lots of pictures, people often leave them to us in their wills, we even have some of the pictures Garrick owned. And see this, this picture of a girl, Ellen Terry painted that. Come into the lounge here and have a seat.’

But Harry stared back for a moment at the painting of Macbeth.

‘It’s very – Victorian, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Beale, smiling.

‘Very. I didn’t know Beerbohm Tree played any of the big Shakespearian tragedies, I thought it was more Falstaff and Malvolio and Bottom.’

‘He was very keen to try,’ said Mrs Beale, ‘but he had a slight German accent you know, he was actually born in Germany. He gave his Othello, terrible apparently. I expect you know he built Her Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket so I suppose he could play whatever he chose, and like most actors didn’t always make the right choices.’

‘How do you know all that?’ asked Harry curiously.

‘My grandfather was an actor, and was in his company at Her Majesty’s for some time. I was brought up on actors’ tales.’

‘Have you ever acted yourself?’