After a few seconds, as if satisfied, he let go, muttering again, ‘You’re a Swinton all right. William Swinton’s child. My … nephew.’ He said ‘nephew’ as if it had a V in it. The girl moved about the room, drifting like a feather. Smoke curled from the fire and something was roasting nearby. Through the window, the breeze stirred the tops of trees.

‘A wondrous day. This is a wondrous day for Mundham Farm. And for the Swintons.’ He smiled, as if with a great effort. ‘You are home now, Thomas Swinton. Home. And there is much here for you. My dear Zita will show you everything. I must work. But I will meet you for a drink before supper tonight.’ He said ‘tonight’ with great emphasis, then grasped Tom’s hand once more.

‘Thank, you, er, James.’

‘Jack. Call me Jack, dear boy.’ He shook Tom’s hand weakly, and then shuffled off around a corner and was gone.

So much for the cheery old buffer in a waxed jacket, thought Tom. The light in the room seemed to alter slightly after Jack had left. Sunbeams now striped the stone floor. Tom turned to Zita, who was scowling, and said, ‘What about that arrow? Shouldn’t we be calling the police?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother with them. It’s just a little … local difficulty,’ sighed Zita.

‘Trespassers?’ said Tom.

‘If you want to think of it like that.’

That was all he got out of her. When he asked her if it was safe to go outside, she simply glared at him, fiddled with her white bow and said, ‘Don’t be so ridiculously stupid. Of course it is.’

At least James seemed friendly, thought Tom. Jack. His uncle. He wondered what he might know about his mother and father and resolved to ask him that night at dinner.

Zita took him upstairs, sighing theatrically as she did so. There was a long corridor and she led him along it, coming to a low wooden door, and showed him into the room that was going to be his.

She hovered on the threshold. The room was quite large and clean, with a high wood-framed single bed and a small uncomfortable-looking armchair upholstered in green. A porcelain washstand occupied one corner, with soap and a toothmug. Somebody had prepared the room for him, Tom thought. Dark oil paintings hung on the walls, of horses, hounds and rugged landscapes and one of a severe-looking woman dressed in black, which looked to be from the seventeenth century. She had a fierce expression and she was pointing downwards.

A bookshelf ran along the bottom of the window, on which were china figurines of people and birds and a few ancient books bound in red leather with the Swinton crest stamped on them in gold. The lurcher slipped in past him and leapt up onto the blankets as if she’d always been there.