The writing was hard to decipher, flowery and scratchy, with flourishes in unexpected places. Somebody had spent a long time writing this letter. The boy, standing patiently in front of him, scratched his nose. Tom struggled to make out the writing.

Mundham Farm

Mundham

Suffolk

To my well-beloved cousin Thomas James Swinton,

You will come to stay with me, your dear Uncle James who has thought of you for so long and with such hope.

There is not much here but it is time for you to see and time for you to understand.

There are many things that I need you to do and many things that you shall need to learn.

You are the only other Swinton who remains.

Zita has arranged everything. You shall use the coupons herein. I am to hope that you shall know and do what is required. You shall be met at the post.

I remain, your most affectionate uncle,

James Swinton, Esquire

It was signed with an elaborate, curlicued swoop.

Uncle? Tom didn’t have an uncle. At least, nobody had ever told him he had an uncle. His father had been an only child. Could this James Swinton be a great-uncle? No, his grandfather only had sisters, and they’d changed their names when they’d got married, and as far as he knew those cousins were ranching in Australia or playing golf in Canada.

He looked more closely at the cards he held in his hand. A train ticket – a single one – and a receipt for it. Paid in cash, he noted. On the back of the receipt were scribbled the names of his stops, in different, more conventional handwriting.

It was for tomorrow. The 09.03 from Houghton to London, a quick change on the underground to Liverpool Street Station, where he had to get off, then a train on to Colchester, and then another change to a small station he assumed was in Suffolk. Mundham must be near enough to it.

What did ‘You will be met at the post’ mean? Maybe there was a post office outside the station where you waited. It could be local slang. He didn’t know anything about Suffolk. The whole thing was very strange.

Tom sensed a shadow passing over him.

He looked up. He had forgotten about the boy who’d delivered the letter.

But there was no boy. There had been no crunch of gravel on the path as he’d left.

The quad bell was still ringing: … 11.

The litter-picker finished his stretching and began to cross the lawn once more. Clouds scudded across the sky.

All this had happened in the gap between the bell sounding the tenth and the eleventh stroke.

Chapter 2

16th April, 1846

Today, he told me his name. As far as I can transliterate it here, it is Rohenga, which means in his tongue Hawk in the Mist. When he says it, my heart dances.

— From the diary of Margaret Ravenswood