And then the same noise came from upstairs, the creak, the lower creak, and then, differently to before, another one and another one. It sounded like footsteps. I did a mental roll call – Bette, house; Hessel, vet’s; Basil . . . And then from the floor above, a bump, and then a scrape.

Right. That was it. Ghost or possum or trickstering Basil . . . I had to check this out.

I put one foot on the staircase, and then the other, and actually, despite appearances it seemed solid. The steps creaked and groaned, but they didn’t move or shudder or shake, so I kept going and when I reached the top I looked around.

There was open space on one side, a large and empty room, dust-ridden with a half-removed internal wall and boarded-up windows. On the other side was a closed wall with a door – the glass-windowed room I had seen from outside, the one with the added-on room at the back of it. I opened the door and looked inside, but while I could see the window with glass that faced back to the house, at the back of the room, where the extra room should be, there was just a boarded-up window. I walked tentatively over to it, put my fingers under the sash and heaved.

It was firmly stuck. There was no budging it. It was almost as if it was locked from the other side.

I put my hands above my eyes to peer through the cracks in the boards. There was darkness behind, but still glass in the window and the weak light from the room behind me bounced back into my eyes. I tried different cracks in the boards, but it was always the same; the room beyond gave away nothing of itself.

I stepped back and dusted my hands, then crossed back to the glassed window and looked out. It was all spread before me, the small domestic view of the few places I had been here – the house, the stable, the cairn, with the curved belt of trees in the distance and the backdrop of the wider expanse behind it. I imagined seeing myself walking around down there, my figure truncated by the view from above, moving between the house and Bromley and the cairn. I imagined seeing myself and Basil climbing all over the cairn together, small and childlike from this distance. I looked and saw at an angle my own lean-to bedroom window, itself gleaming in the daylight as I had seen this window gleaming.

The alarm clock on my phone blared out and I jumped, goosebumps spreading immediately all over my body. It was a study-break alarm. I swiped the alarm dead, turned the volume on my phone right down, and was suddenly as uncannily aware of myself as if someone had been watching me. I turned and gave the boarded window a hard stare.

Downstairs I sat down on the mattress again and nestled my face into my arm, into Nassim’s sleeve, pretending he was holding me, trying to recapture the warm glow this room had first given me, trying to remember that this was the house of my ancestors, trying to feel like there was more to the house than just bluestone and mortar. Like there was a beating heart in it somewhere: something or someone who cared . . .