It was easy to climb up the spiral staircase, slip through the trapdoor and close it behind me. Now that it was daytime, there was enough light coming in through the tower’s small windows to see the staircase properly. It stretched up and up in a tight spiral like the inside of a shell. Staring at it made me feel slightly dizzy, so I looked at the steps beneath my feet instead and began to climb. I had to tread softly to avoid my shoes making loud clang, clang, clang noises on the metal stairs.

The curved granite walls looked bare at first, but then I saw the faint outline of fixtures and fittings that were no longer there, the ghostly silhouettes of old machinery once housed in the tower for some 111forgotten purpose. There was a great empty feeling about the place now, a hollowness that was almost heavy in the air.

I returned to the room where Will had been. Despite the creepy photos of the lighthouses on the wall, it was actually kind of nice to have a private space like this that no one else knew about. I sat behind the desk, opened a packet of crisps, and then my eyes fell on a logbook, still lying open.

12th November 1972

A fearsome storm ravaged Bird Rock yet again last night. The worst one yet. In fact, I haven’t seen its like in more than twenty years. Was worried the shutters might blow away entirely, but upon inspection this morning the lighthouse appears mercifully undamaged – except for the damned eels that found their way into the pipes again. Savage brutes, they are – I once saw a conger eel bite clean through a length of chain down at the harbour. But they’ll have to be fished out regardless.

Of more concern than the eels is the question of Hartley’s state of mind. He seemed a mild-mannered 112enough fellow when we first arrived, but now… Last night he swore he heard someone walking around in the Strangers’ Room, and this morning he went outside and screamed at the gannets in the most unholy rage. I think he would have murdered every last one of those birds if he could. It was enough to make the blood run cold.

He appeared perfectly normal by the time we sat down to breakfast, but that only makes it worse in a way. These mood swings that come and go in the blink of an eye. Not at all a good temperament for a keeper. You want a calm, steady fellow beside you when working the lights.

1 a.m.