Five minutes later, Christine is sprawled on the double bed, staring up at the ceiling. She looks different without her glasses – now on the bedside unit – her eyelids heavy. It’s the first time Alice has properly studied the quaint little woman who chirpily greeted them in the white boat, what now feels like weeks ago. Her face is lined by life, her eyes carrying dark shadows. Her cropped hair and trendy red-framed glasses gave her a younger vibe when they first met her, but now the harrowing day seems to have aged her a decade.

‘Do you live nearby?’ Faith asks, turning from where she’s sitting in the throne-like chair facing the window, to look at Christine. Alice can’t help thinking she’s trying to kill time, fill a void with pointless conversation until Leon returns.

‘I’ve lived in Dunwold on the coast all my life,’ Christine says, sounding nostalgic. ‘I remember Flynn House fascinated me as a child, but none of us kids ever went too close.’ She half-laughs. ‘The thought of Felix Flynn catching one of us trespassing – and putting us in one of his wooden boxes and chopping us up – was a pretty good deterrent.’ Her smile says she’s back there in the past, a child once more running along the beach without a care. ‘The place had a mysterious vibe back then.’

‘Still has,’ Faith says, turning her eyes back to the window and the view of liquid black, her blurry reflection in the glass haunting.

‘Do you remember the children, Verity and Hugh?’ Alice asks.

‘No, not really, they rarely ventured out – kept under lock and key by Felix.’

Alice picks up on something dark in her voice, or perhaps it’s the heavy mood in the room.

‘Hugh was a sad little creature, I vaguely remember,’ Christine goes on. A brief sigh seems to hold a note of regret. ‘I was strangely excited when I got the opportunity to work here. To finally set foot inside Flynn House, find out what it was like inside the mysterious mansion that fascinated us as kids.’ She paused for a moment, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Though I still miss working in my little shop on the mainland.’

‘You owned a shop?’ Alice asks.

‘Mmm, for many years – my parents owned it before me. Happy times. But when my Terry died six months ago, and my son moved away—’

‘I’m sorry to hear about your husband,’ Faith says, glancing over.