Mr Black said nothing further, but anything he might have had to say would have been lost anyway in the putter of the Ford’s engine and the rush of the wind. He drove the old car at a pace that struck Alice as distinctly unsafe, especially on the unpaved road, roaring down the straight bits and sending up sprays of gravel and dirt on the corners. She gripped the door handle so hard, her knuckles went white, although she was well aware that if Mr Black lost control and went careening off the road, holding on wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

The winding road was hemmed in on either side by trees, only occasionally opening out to reveal the distant glow of house lights. Each building was set well back from the road on considerable grounds, and separated by a fair distance from its neighbours.

She caught a blurred glimpse of a pair of mammoth stone beasts, lounging on tall plinths, as Mr Black wrenched the car through a nearly right-angle turn and onto a long gravel drive, not slowing until the bulk of a building came into sight. Then, mercifully, he let the car coast to a halt, leaving the engine pinging softly and Alice’s heart hammering like a tom-tom. It took an effort to pry herself from the handle, and her fingers went tingly as blood flowed back into them.

‘The Library,’ Mr Black announced, as though that was supposed to explain something. Alice heard gravel crunch, and someone opened the door on her side. She got out, legs as wobbly as a newborn fawn. Mr Black got out as well and started crunching away towards the building.

‘Come on,’ he said, when Alice took a moment too long to follow. ‘Emma, take her things.’

A girl of about Alice’s age in a plain brown dress, standing by the car door, bobbed her head obediently. Alice glanced back at the heavy trunks and gave her a doubtful look, but she presumed that Mr Black knew his business. Several deep breaths, cool and pine-scented, had gone a long way towards calming her, and she looked up at the building Mr Black had called ‘The Library’. It was mostly dark, a black blotch against the starlit sky, but she got the sense of a long, multi-storey structure. Directly in front of her, a pair of massive wooden doors stood half-open, set into a stone facade that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a medieval church. Tall, multi-paned windows flanked the doors, and a pair of gaslights at head height provided a flickering illumination.

Once she’d regained control of her legs, Alice climbed the stone steps up to the entrance, and found herself in a long hall. A faded red carpet ran into the middle distance, and on either hand the walls were adorned with odd statuary, interspersed with more gaslights.