The sun must have been cast behind cloud because when I re-entered the landing it was steeped in shadow and an iciness had gathered. I walked a few paces to the next room. A pale light plundered the dimness but it was enough for me to see a row of toy soldiers that told me that this must once have belonged to William. I was curious, to view the space that had once belonged to him, to seek some sign of the things that I had been told. A quick search yielded nothing – only dirt and damp walls. As I turned to leave, my eye caught something beneath the dresser. I knelt and placed it on my palm. No larger than the pad of my thumb, cool and smooth to the touch and perfect in every way, it was the skull of a mouse. A combination of this discovery, the cold clamp of air and something in the hush made me uneasy and I left quickly, opening and shutting doors in my haste to find Mary.

It was as I stood in what must once have been her own room that through the window, I saw her – on the beach, a bucket swinging from her hand, her head turning this way and that in search of me.

I felt a moment of chilling shock. There was another shift somewhere in the house, and the boards groaned beneath a step that could no longer belong to her. I was not alone, and whoever it was was listening to me in the quiet.

It came to me then that Mary had never been in the house, that whoever I had heard had always been someone else. My neck shrank to iciness and it was as if everything unpalatable that had happened since my arrival at Iskar was rolled into a ball and pressed beneath my skin. I wanted to run but I could only stand, paralysed, and see her crouched over her stretch of sand. Although the world had momentarily stopped for me, birds still wheeled in the air and the tide crept unceasingly up the beach.

I could not breathe. I opened my mouth to call but the words were smothered in a sweat of fear.

There was another sound but I was already at the top of the stairs, steadying my hands on the rail. And then I raced down and outside to the open air and the cry of gulls.