‘Oh, Will, it’s not the house. It’s Kate’s illness that’s turning everything into a nightmare. Holland House is beautiful, and you’re doing an amazing job on it. We have to try to make her see the place for what it is, and to forget all the macabre stories.’ He drew in a long breath. ‘Listen, you say she’s into tracing its history, so maybe I really can help there. I have photographs and all sorts of stuff relating to Whisper Fen and Tanners Fen, so what if Liz and I offer to help her with her research? I don’t mean the macabre stuff, just interesting local history. We could try to gain her trust that way? It might help, and at the very least, you’d know that there are other people looking out for her and you’re not alone.’

‘If you would,’ Will said, ‘that might just work. She refuses to socialise, but she’d bite your hand off for any piece of information about this place.’

‘Let me talk to Liz. We’ll formulate a plan, and then I’ll text you and we’ll take it from there. After all, we’ll be in your neck of the woods quite a bit from now on, trying to help out Emilia.’

Will exhaled. ‘Thank you, Matt. You’re a bloody good friend!’

Matt stood up and hugged him. ‘I’d better go.’

Will accompanied Matt to the lane and then returned to the house. Feeling as if he’d just been poleaxed, Matt continued on to his car. Before getting in, he stood for a while looking out over the marsh. In the distance, he could make out Gerald Grove’s cottage, a black silhouette against the huge sky. Though it was a warm day, a trace of smoke filtered up from the chimney. The damp out there must be appalling if Grove needed a fire. Tylers Lane ended at the cottage, as near as you could get to the Wash without being inundated when the notorious autumn tides swept over the marsh. He pictured that man hunkered down in his shack and shivered. As he stared, he saw a point of light out on the fen. Odd. It wasn’t even dark yet. So that was the light Will had seen.

He recalled some of the old-timers’ stories about a local phenomenon called the hobby lantern, a will-o’-the-wisp that drew unsuspecting travellers to their doom on the lonely marsh. He shook his head. ‘More like bloody poachers. Someone up to no good, anyhow.’

He got into his car and with a last look at Emilia’s decimated Eden, drove back to Cannon Farm.

* * *