Toby’s first impression of the inside of the building was surprise. He had taken Dora McCreedy’s words at face value (a terrible mistake for any journalist, to rely on the testimony of a sole source) and expected the inside of the tower to be shabby at best, and most probably stinking of damp. Instead what struck him immediately was a sense of warmth and a smell of fresh sweetness that reminded him of his grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon.

In the next moment they were welcoming him in, an old man peering at him from the armchair and a woman standing behind the counter, offering him coffee as if they were djinn conjured to grant his wishes.

‘Early to be out and about,’ the old man observed, as Toby made his way across the floor beneath the immense geode of books. ‘And in the rain, too.’

‘I like an early morning walk,’ Toby said, ‘and it wasn’t raining when I left. I sometimes forget I can’t move as quickly as I once did. No popping back to pick something up anymore.’

The old man chuckled. For the first time Toby noticed the large tabby cat curled up on his lap. ‘I empathize.’

Toby saw the woman behind the counter glance at his legs, but she said nothing about his general state of disrepair as she poured him coffee. She handed it to him with a small smile as he reached the counter. She had to lift her chin to look him in the eye. He registered the curiously pale aqua tint of her eyes against her short dark hair, how petite everything about her was. He was not given to flights of fancy, having grounded his life in the immutability of fact, but still the words beautiful but also elfin occurred to him. She would fit well into the forest through which he had just waded. He liked the calm reserve he saw in her face, which suggested some kind of otherworldly wisdom befitting of folklore. Except that she was dressed for the too-real world in a soft white shirt, an oversized blue cardigan, a pair of slim blue jeans and brown boots that had a button at the ankle. He took in all of these facts, but could not pinpoint how old she was, as if perhaps she did not have an age at all.

‘Is there anything in particular you’re looking for in the bookshop?’ she asked, after he’d taken a piece of shortbread from the proffered plate.

Toby shook his head. ‘Not really. I just wanted to see it.’

She smiled, but was no longer looking at him, and he thought this was probably something she heard a lot.

‘Unless you have any literature about the place?’ he asked, not wanting to be dismissed as a mere tourist, despite the fact that he was. ‘The lighthouse, I mean – when it was built and why, about the man who built it, that sort of thing?’

‘There’s nothing like that, I’m afraid.’