I skirt the building. The path is laid with woodchips and lined with grasses and clusters of late-flowering plants. The place is immaculate, nothing is out of place, not even a leaf or petal. He must have a team of gardeners to keep it like this. But it also seems empty somehow, lacking. I turn the corner and reach the long section facing the water. The side of the structure we’d approached had the odd window and an imposing front door, but this side is pretty much just glass, massive panels two storeys high giving Kleine views over another lawn which stretches away until it reaches the water itself. A flagpole stands naked right at the water’s edge, and a wooden jetty juts out over the water, which today is as steel-grey as the sky. At the end of the jetty the two curved metal poles of a ladder arch off the wood and into the water below. They’re like smooth slinkies caught in motion.

Turning back to the building it strikes me that with the lights on inside at night you could sit out on the water in a little boat and see pretty much everything that went on inside. As I walk round I wonder if that ever bothers him. Or did, before his daughter was killed. I can’t imagine this overt luxury is bringing Kleine much pleasure now. I step closer to the glass to take a look inside and see a moving head. My heart goes into overdrive until I realize it’s just my reflection. Stupid, I tell myself as I try to slow my heart back down. I can faintly hear the bell still ringing inside, an on–off rhythm which tells me Vermeer is a) stubborn, and b) still round the other side. I take the opportunity and reach for my vape, wandering across the lawn down towards the water’s edge.