‘You won’t need to be going in there,’ said Jack. ‘Although Zita does enjoy her wine.’

There was a definite countryfied tang to his accent, thought Tom, much less pronounced than Kit’s, but still there. Jack must have been living here for years, almost a recluse, without company apart from Zita and Kit.

Jack’s rooms on the first floor were all the way at the end of the corridor. As they approached the door, something lively entered his gait, and he pushed it open with ease.

The space was unlike anything Tom had ever seen before. He could not help letting out a gasp of appreciation. Jack seemed to enjoy this and went through, muttering quietly to himself.

Tom paused on the threshold to take it in. It occupied one whole side of the house, with large mullioned windows looking out over the scrubby, weedy lawn below, across the clear water of the moat and over the unkempt fields towards the woods beyond. There was another door, which Tom presumed led to a bedroom. A profusion of vials, some filled with dark liquids, covered the whole of one surface. Shelves lined every wall right up to the ceiling, and each shelf was bursting with volumes, some tatty and ancient, others glowing with bright bindings.

From the ceiling hung a glass box. It swayed gently, as if in a breeze, and caught the light, splitting it into rainbows. There was something a little odd about it, as if its edges were not quite lined up with the space it was in. As he approached it, he felt his skin prick a little, as if he were near something electric. He moved away from it gratefully.

Jack went to sit behind a large desk, on which was a clutter of brass instruments and things that looked like bits of clockwork; there was no computer to be seen.

On the far wall was a rectangular mirror with a gilt frame, and Tom stopped to check himself in the reflection, uncertain whether Zita had come in behind him or not. She had not.

‘You do honour to your family, by coming here,’ said Jack. ‘Great honour. Well pleased I am, my most well-beloved cousin.’

‘I don’t know …’ Tom shifted his weight from his left foot to his right.

Jack scribbled something on a piece of paper, held it up to the light, read it through and then put it on a pile to one side. When he looked up, something flickered behind his eyes, some emotion that Tom couldn’t quite grasp. It was like hunger or pity.

Jack cleared his throat. ‘’Twas a terrible tragedy that happened to your parents. I give you my deepest condolences.’

Tom did not know what to say. He was used to people avoiding the subject or, worse, teasing him.