Alice and Leon sit by a flickering fire in the Black Squirrel, a pub just outside Whitby, a favourite haunt when they were a couple. Henry is sprawled on the rug in front of them. The sound of The Cranberries plays softly in the background, and a comforting smell of home cooking lingers in the air.

Alice’s fingers dance on her phone screen. ‘Here,’ she says, eyes wide as she hands Leon her phone, the portrait Faith sent frozen on the screen.

He stares for some moments.

‘Well?’ She takes a gulp of her gin and tonic. ‘What do you think?’

‘It looks like him. The eyes mainly.’ He slides his gaze from the phone to her. ‘But it can’t be him can it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice cracks, as she takes the phone back. ‘It’s so like him. But if it is, how did it end up on the wall of a hotel in Suffolk? A hotel I just happen to have been invited to stay at?’ She shakes her head. ‘This is all too weird.’

‘Perhaps your dad had it painted when he was younger and it ended up in an antique shop or something, and the bloke who owns the hotel picked it up because it suited the house. Just like your sculpture.’

‘I don’t believe in weird coincidences. And Dad was practically a hermit all his life. Why would he have had a painting done, and then get rid of it?’ She looks once more at the screen, before putting her phone face down on the table.

‘I agree it’s odd.’

Alice takes another gulp of her drink, the spirit warming her throat. ‘I mean, me making a sculpture identical to the hotel, and the owner inviting me to stay is odd enough. But now there’s a picture of a man who looks just like my dad when he was young on the wall there.’ She pauses, recalling her dad’s strange reaction to her sculpture of Gothic House. ‘And there’s this.’ She fishes the photo she was sent from her bag, hands over the black and white picture of Flynn House. ‘It came through the post.’

Leon narrows his eyes, as he studies the grand Gothic building so close to the cliff edge.

‘It looks a bit creepy,’ he says, turning it over.

She takes a deep breath. Since receiving the attachment from Faith, she’s known she has to go there, that the place holds some of the answers she’s craved all her life. ‘I need to go to Flynn Hotel, Leon. Will you come with me?’

He stares for a moment, his eyes asking her if it’s a good idea.

She claps her hands together as though praying. ‘Please.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘Now?’ He hands back the photo. ‘Now?’

‘Tomorrow then? I’ve got the free room. We could leave first thing in the morning.’