And with that, he hung up. An hour later, the email pinged into his inbox. His palms sweaty, Tom opened the contract. His father had decided upon a loan period of twenty-four months with an interest rate of ten point four per cent. Ten point four per cent. The point four cracked him up. This from a man who had millions in numerous bank accounts, who barely spent any time at all with his two sons while they were growing up. Nannies, boarding schools, forgotten birthdays … And Tom could have applied for a loan at half that rate with a repayment period of up to a decade. It took every ounce of self-control not to shoot back an email telling his father to shove the money right up his arse.

But he had no alternative.

And now, even though his father has not reneged an inch on that tyrannical arrangement, not even when he learned that Aurelia had died, Tom is calling home once more.

‘Dad,’ he says, feeling nothing, feeling everything. ‘I need money. I’ll pay whatever interest rate you want.’

Clive is appeased and the workers are paid. The company is injected with forty thousand pounds, but it isn’t enough to stop half the construction team walking off site. The next Monday morning he stands at the edge of the cliff, looking over abandoned girders and sheets of glass, sucking on a fag. The stress has made him take up smoking again. He’s frustrated beyond words, but he can’t half blame the poor guys for leaving the job. These sheets of glass weigh five hundred pounds each. They’re massive – fifteen feet by twelve – and therefore not easily shifted. All six sheets were found two hundred-odd feet below here, right at the bottom of the cliff in the tidal waters of the fjord. The guys had looked everywhere for these vanished glass walls. Clive has hefted them himself – not alone, obviously; it took six men to move them off the helicopter that delivered them – and has a keen knowledge of their weight. For them to wind up in the fjord is mysterious. For them to wind up in the fjord unbroken, completely undamaged, is downright supernatural. Add this supernatural mystery to the other weird things about the build – the storm, the moose, the voices the crew say they’ve heard, rumours about the site being haunted – and he has a mind to tell Derry they’re getting the next flight home.

But then, that would be defeatist. There’s yet a small voice in his head that says this build, this house, could turn everything around. Put the company on the map. Enable him to get what he wants. Finally.