Their voices sounded different, more earthy, more countrified. Puzzled, Tom shot a glance at Zita, but she was poised as if about to run from the room.

‘What didst thou say? This day, with my kin, what didst thou say, when thou stoodst at the ash tree?’

Kit froze and turned his gaze on Tom.

‘Nowt, Master.’

‘If thou thinkst thou canst go agin me …’ said Jack softly.

‘Nuncle …’

With a sudden movement like a coiled snake striking, Jack slapped Kit with the back of his hand, leaving the boy sobbing.

Tom leapt up, knowing that somehow he’d made this happen.

‘Don’t hit him!’

Jack rounded on him, and for the first time, Tom felt afraid. His shadow was long and his body seemed more powerful than before.

‘Silence! You know nothing of this.’ His voice returned to its usual tone. ‘Remember, you’re a Swinton, remember that.’

He grabbed Tom’s arm and pressed it with his forefingers, holding him with surprising strength. Tom was now up close to him, and he saw a deep, dark fury in his eyes that he had not noted before. He found he could not move.

Release came from an unexpected corner. In her cocktail dress, her pearls glinting, Zita rounded on Jack, full of fury. ‘He’s not you, old man!’

A saxophone blared out from the gramophone. The needle stuck, the same note repeating again and again.

Jack closed his eyes and muttered. Tom watched, aghast, as something that looked like smoke issued from his fingers and, floating, oozed across the room in a rope, winding itself round Zita’s wrist, solidifying into a silver bracelet.

‘You old fool!’ she snarled. Then she gasped with pain. The bracelet was digging into her flesh. ‘You know I can get this off, darling,’ she hissed.

‘Try it then!’ Jack roared.

Zita, tossing her head back, swooped off to her room.

Kit simply stood with his back to the stone wall, limp, like a puppet. The silver, thought Tom. The silver is the same as in Kit’s eyes and his hair. What did Jack do to him? What did he do to deserve this? What kind of punishment is he suffering?

Jack released Tom and slumped into the armchair. His eyes were alight.

‘Tomorrow,’ he wheezed at Tom, ‘you shall go with him. And watch him. Leave her alone. She’ll stew. Kit! Pour me a drink.’

Without looking at Tom, Kit scurried to a side table and served Jack a glass full of wine, which the old man took and drank from deeply, smacking his lips. And then he motioned to Kit with a long finger and suggested that he should give Tom a drink as well. As he sat in the shadows, Tom couldn’t help but be reminded of the large spider he’d seen on the landing.