‘I’m tired … I … think I’ll go to bed.’ Tom backed away, and then leapt up the stairs to his room, two at a time, and slumped down with his back to the door, huddled in a patch of moonlight.

That night, all Tom’s thoughts were bent on leaving Mundham Farm. Jack. His uncle. Who was he? He no longer seemed an old eccentric, but someone alarming. What was he doing to Kit and Zita? What might he do to Tom? He hardly slept, imagining the red-brick farmhouse shivering on its foundations. He was more grateful than ever for the lurcher, who had crept in and slept on his bed at his feet, occasionally lifting her graceful head at some noise.

He would leave in the morning, he decided. He would have to call a taxi. Maybe there would be reception on the top of the mound. He’d spotted the scarlet livery of an old phone box on the drive in from the station, probably about twenty minutes’ walk away, by the side of the road. Might it still be in use? He had some change in his bag, from buying breakfast at Liverpool Street Station.

What had been the name of the taxi company? Ben’s Taxis, that was it. He could call it and have it meet him at the bottom of the drive. He fantasised about saddling up the horse and riding out.

Eventually, he slept, his sleep bleeding into dreams. In them he wandered the corridors of the house. Some were familiar, some were not. They twisted and turned out of his reach, sometimes opening into rooms that could not be there, full of secrets and shadows, and in the middle of all the dreams was a wooden chest that somehow was in all of the rooms at once and in none of them. Light and music poured out of it, dizzying and wonderful, and the music and the light enveloped him in warmth.

When he woke the next morning, he longed for them again.

Entering the kitchen, yawning, some time past nine o’clock the next day, Tom saw that breakfast was under way. Kit was already there, wearing his customary black, laying crockery on the table. Leana was snuffling about on the scrubby lawn outside, and the horse was out in the field. No trace of Zita, apart from a discarded silver scarf lying across a chair. And, fortunately, no sign of Jack. Tom poured himself a cup of tea from the pot on the table.

The first thing Tom wanted to do was apologise. Kit did not acknowledge him, but Tom touched him gently on the shoulder. The boy shuddered away.

‘Look, Kit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing.’

‘You be his kin,’ said Kit gently. ‘Your bond be to him.’