He nods. ‘Yeah, but let’s keep away from the edge. The fence is flattened in parts and it’s a sheer drop.’ He glances towards the tall trees swaying, moaning in the wind, and shudders.

‘Let’s take a look,’ Mitch says, stepping out across the lawn.

‘What part of stay away from the edge do you not understand, Mitch?’

He stops and turns back to Leon and Alice, a gust of wind catching inside his hood, making it appear like a bright green balloon at the back of his head. ‘Fine,’ he says.

‘We should head down to the sea,’ Alice says. ‘Whatever it was, it will be down there somewhere.’

They leave the garden, and make their way down the hill, wind bashing against them, stinging rain coating their faces as they head towards the jetty, where pumpkins are scattered, smashed by the wind.

‘Where’s the boat?’ Alice says, her eyes widening.

‘Yeah, I noticed that earlier.’ Leon casts his torch across the choppy sea. The boat they’d come in on is further out now, a child’s toy on the horizon.

‘It must have come free in the wind,’ Mitch says, and laughs. ‘Looks like we’re stuck here until midday tomorrow.’

Alice stares at Mitch for a moment, wondering why he finds everything so amusing. She moves her gaze to Leon, who looks up towards the hotel. Aims his torch.

‘There’s the flattened wire fencing where I fell.’ He lowers the torch. ‘Whatever went over the cliff will be round this bend,’ he cries over the wind.

‘Hang on.’ Mitch hurries towards a shed. He drags open the door, and disappears inside, returning with three boat oars. ‘If there’s a ghost out there, we need to be armed.’

‘You can’t kill a ghost,’ Leon says.

Alice wraps her arms around herself. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’

A memory flashes in. She’s playing on a swing in a garden she doesn’t recognise – it’s not Whitby, not Seafield Island. Her father watches, smiling from an upstairs window. A woman stares from the foot of the sweeping garden, too far away to see clearly. Suddenly her father appears at the back door, pulls her from the swing.

‘Who is that?’ she cries, looking over her shoulder as he pulls her inside the house, but the figure has gone.

‘You imagined it, Alice,’ he says. ‘Nobody knows where we live.’

The memory dissolves, leaving way for the noise of the sea crashing against the rocks loud in her ears.

‘Fine, if you don’t want one.’ Mitch goes to throw two of the oars to the ground, his face barely visible in the folds of his hood.