Then a pause, and a gap, in which Hector was clearly addressing someone else about some deal or other. Another crackle, and Tom heard ‘…James Swinton, yesterday. As far as I’m concerned, Tom, you can stay there at Mundham, and if you need anything, don’t forget to ask my secretary – you’ve got her email, I think. She’ll…’ The message broke off, and was followed by another, slightly disappointed one from Fletcher, asking Tom to send him confirmation of the address.

With a flash of triumph, Tom texted it to Fletch, then, after a second of remorse, followed it with an apology. He shoved his phone back into his jeans pocket. His uncle must have squared his guardian earlier. He wondered if a similar letter had arrived and what the businesslike Hector would have made of it. He’d probably just shifted it over to his secretary and let her deal with it. Tom thought of the white, airless office, the trolleys stuffed with expensive food, the hum of quiet voices, the fluorescent lights.

Eleven o’clock, his uncle had said. And now it was 10.52. He kicked his feet together. He was bleary from not sleeping properly, and his stomach was annoyingly empty. The cut on his arm itched just a little, and he tried not to scratch it. He could do with a bacon sandwich and some hot, sweet tea.

There was a café on the platform. He went up to the door hopefully; though the sign said OPEN, it was locked, and a white-shirted employee scrubbing tables inside only glanced up at him when he knocked on the door, making no move to open it. Her eyes heavy, she simply looked back down and continued her work.

Tom was searching for a vending machine, jingling the coins in his pocket, when an unfamiliar noise made him look towards the road.

The slow tread of shod hooves on tarmac. Coming up the narrow road into the station was a large black horse, its nostrils flaring, and attached to the horse, by a leather harness, was a cart.

Sitting perched uncomfortably and as upright as a tree trunk on the driver’s seat, dressed, or rather swathed, in thick black clothes, was what appeared to be a finely featured young woman; but as the cart drew nearer, and the horse and cart came to a slow halt in front of Tom, he saw that it was in fact a boy of about his own age.

The boy moved slowly, almost as slowly as the horse, and when he turned and looked fully at Tom, Tom could hardly help drawing in his breath sharply.

His eyes were silver. The irises were not grey, as Tom had seen before in one or two boys at school, but a dull silver.

And so, underneath his black wide-brimmed hat, was his hair, a metallic gleam unlike anything Tom had ever known.