Zita mistook his angry look for one of reluctance. ‘You should end up a QC, darling. Won’t your guardian want you to do something like that? Or there’s the City, isn’t there? Or he’ll want you to work with him in Hong Kong, isn’t that how things are done? You don’t want to stay here, with us, in this place. And we, presumably, can’t stay here without you.’

Silence, blowing through the house. The sound of Leana’s claws on the flagstones as the lurcher surged into the room and curled up by Zita. Zita’s eyelashes, fluttering. Kit’s long slender hands, clasped tightly in front of him.

Tom didn’t want any of that. All of it came back to him, the endless meetings with tutors and advisers, the terse notes from his guardian, the school reports, the questions about what he should do, what he would do, what his future was. Fletcher putting the cap back on his fountain pen and giving him a hard stare.

‘It’s not what you want, darling.’ She was still, the sunlight reflecting off her luminous eyes. ‘What we want isn’t always what we get. It’s what’s expected of you.’ Zita folded her arms as if she’d decided for him already.

‘You didn’t do what was expected of you,’ said Tom. ‘You left your home, your parents, your future.’

‘And look what happened to me,’ she replied softly. ‘What a paragon am I!’

Zita was right. They would want him back soon, at the end of the holidays. He calculated quickly how long that was. A couple more weeks, at the most, though he wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been in Suffolk. Fletcher would be making up the room allocations for the year. His guardian, Hector Tsang, would be portioning out the fees and his small allowance. They would want to know what he’d been doing at Mundham.

How could he tell them? What could he tell them? They would not believe him. He’d be forced to go back, to revision and to muddy games socks and timetables and the smell of lasagne and cabbage lingering in the school corridors.

‘You have to do what’s right, Tommy boy.’ Zita settled herself among the cushions and closed her eyes. Leana placed her head on Zita’s knee and yawned.

What’s right. What was right? It had been right to stop Jack, who was bent on power and destruction. But what would Tom do? That threat had been removed, and now he had his own power. Tom paced the room and came to a halt in front of the painting of William Swinton, Jack’s father, hanging above the fireplace. There was a softness in his face which reminded Tom of his own father.