The house. The voice of the house. That, or a possum. Or one of Basil’s ghosts.

I smiled at the thought and then whatever it was gave a great thump and I yelped and jumped up in my seat.

Calm down, Anna. Hessel was right – that possum sounded angry. I would really have to get used to being alone in an old and chatty and possumy house if I was going to be able to do this. And I had to be able to do this.

Over at the little house Bette ushered me inside. ‘Quick,’ she said, waving me towards the unopened double doors. ‘Hessel will be along, but hurry, hurry, because coffee is being served.’

This is what Bette said, ‘Coffee is being served’, rather than simply acknowledging, as was absolutely apparent to me, that Bette herself had laboured in the kitchen while I studied and Hessel tended to his horse, to polish the silver tray which now stood on the kitchen table, wash the special jug and cups and saucers which stood glistening on the tray, and to bake, too – I could smell it. ‘Gevulde koeken,’ Bette said. Little Dutch specialties that she hoped I would like, even though they probably weren’t that good because Bette wasn’t in fact Dutch like Hessel and me, but that she baked anyway because Hessel wouldn’t eat any treats from the supermarket, Dutch or otherwise, and eleven o’clock weekly coffee had to have Dutch treats.

‘But your arm –’ I said.

‘It’s alright,’ she said, and then with a smirk, ‘I make extra and freeze them and then just reheat them in the oven. Don’t tell Hessel.’ She turned me towards the double doors of Dutchness, as Basil had called them. ‘Now, go on, go on,’ she said.

The doors themselves were dark wood, fairly plain but stylishly finished. European deco. Now that I looked properly, I realised these doors had clearly been brought from somewhere else to fill an open space. This part of the house was obviously supposed to be more open plan, and that little television alcove off the kitchen was just a poor remainder of what should have been an open kitchen, dining and lounge area. But instead this wall had been installed, and the double doors too, to make another room. A private retreat.

I reached out and turned one of the two bronzed-metal oval handles. The door swung inwards.

The room was softly lit by two standard lamps, and two small dark leather couches sat either side of a low coffee table. Bigger than the kitchen and Cathy’s room and the alcove put together, the room was actually still quite small, despite the grand entrance. The small couches and coffee table took up most of the room, and above them on the far wall was the window with its curtains open, looking out over the plains, away from everything: away from the road, the old house, the cairn. It was just a view of ground and sky, and far in the distance, a curving belt of trees.