Tom had a hankering to leave the grounds, and also he wanted to see if he would be permitted to do so. He thought of Zita’s warning. He hadn’t seen Jack for many days now, and the oppressive feeling had left him, although he still dreamed of music and light, and of strange, ever-decreasing spaces which led down into nothingness.

So one bright morning, when Leana was basking in the sunshine on the lawn, Zita was playing Mozart on the gramophone and Jack was brooding in the depths of his rooms, Tom clambered into the cart with Kit.

As the horse plodded down the drive, Tom watched the mound for any sign of movement. But there was nothing apart from the breeze in the trees.

The village was not far, and Tom, sitting beside Kit, enjoyed the air on his face.

As soon as they passed through the wards, Tom felt a change, and something happened to Kit: his speech became slower. There was a glamour on him, preventing him from speaking to anyone outside. Tom’s heart filled with pity.

A single track with a line of grass down the middle led the way to the village, and they met nobody on the way, though they did pass the church, which had a lonely sign on it advertising Mass and a coffee morning.

Not for the first time Tom wondered if people kept away from Mundham Farm, sensing the wards somewhere at the back of their mind, like a high-pitched buzzing just out of hearing. There was probably a powerful glamour on it, he thought, deflecting unwelcome attention.

The village was really just a cluster of houses set away from the high street. There was a small supermarket, a couple of cars parked in front of it, another church and a bus stop. After tying up the old black horse to a post, they entered the supermarket.

Air-conditioning hit Tom, and he felt momentarily discomfited. There were a few people rustling through the aisles, and he was surprised that nobody gave Kit a second glance. They made their purchases, household items mostly, whose packaging reminded Tom with a pang of his normal life; a large sack of potatoes, rice and cooking oil. Everything smelled faintly of disinfectant.

When they’d finished, Kit produced a roll of twenty-pound notes and counted them out carefully.

‘You up at the farm, then?’ said the woman at the checkout to Tom. She was middle-aged, wearing a pinny, and had a streak of red-dyed hair. She looked jolly and her name, Tom noted from a badge on her lapel, was Sally. It struck him that this was the first time he’d spoken to anyone who wasn’t Kit, Zita or Jack for a while.

‘Yes. For the summer.’

‘Ah, you must be the poor boy whose parents died. Oh, I am sorry.’ She clucked.