‘Yes, I suppose we do, Mr French.’ Sparling replied. ‘Follow the driveway and Lara will greet you at the front door. I’ll be waiting for you in my study.’

The gate proceeded to slide slowly behind the wall, its gears buzzing like a beehive.

*

Sparling’s home was a stark block of stone – a dull, characterless building not unlike the man himself, and reminiscent of the Anglo-Irish manors of the sixteenth century. Two storeys were lined with evenly set window frames, tall and slim, befitting a lofty ceiling and a fondness for light. Above them, in the attic, were smaller panes granting fractional fresh air to the old servants’ quarters. Its grey walls had bruised over the centuries. Never painted, never washed. The double-leaf door with its pillared awning was flanked on both sides by flares of bottle-green ivy, ravelling out the higher it climbed.

‘Sparling isn’t shy a few euro, is he?’ Chloe said, leaning forward in her seat.

The estate was large but lacking in features. Its lawn was sprinkled here and there with coppered leaves and had grown just tall enough to look untidy. There were no shrubs or flowering buds. Its upkeep would have been a soft affair for any gardener. Ben couldn’t imagine Sparling donning a pair of gloves to tear up some weeds. Did they even make gardening gloves in black?

There was someone standing at the front door, waiting for them, presumably Lara. Her olive complexion and dark, wavy hair was decidedly continental. If she was a maid or housekeeper, then Sparling wasn’t strict regarding uniform, as she was dressed casually in jeans and a laurel-green sweater.

‘Check out the windows,’ Chloe said. ‘It looks like Alec’s had some work done.’

Atop each frame was a white rectangular block; a modern mechanism that didn’t aesthetically belong. They stood out against the dirty, stone walls. Ben had worked in enough shops to know a roller shutter when he saw one. They had to have been steel or aluminium. But security features like that were designed for jewellers and banks, not country manors.

There were no CCTV cameras. It would seem that Sparling had no interest in looking outside once those shutters dropped.

‘I agree with you now,’ Ben said, causing Chloe to frown in confusion. ‘Everything is fucking weird.’

‘I told you so.’

He parked the car facing the front steps. The woman didn’t move to greet them. She watched their approach with quiet apprehension, her brown eyes tarrying on Chloe’s hair.

‘If you will both follow me,’ she said before Ben could offer a greeting, ‘Doctor Sparling will see you in his study.’

‘Okay,’ he replied awkwardly, glancing back at Chloe who seemed to share the suspicion that the woman wasn’t accustomed to unexpected callers.