the grass, crushing daisies underfoot, the ground springy beneath their feet. ‘D’you reckon they keep cheetahs here?’
He looked up at her. ‘Why cheetahs?’
‘Why not?’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps your dad’s a fast runner.’
‘He was in a coma for seven years.’
‘All the more reason to run now he’s awake, then.’
Linus chuckled. ‘I think you’re the crazy one, Bell.’
‘You could very well be right, Linus,’ she grinned.
They were at the top of the lawn now, just a few metres from the feet of the white-haired man. He hadn’t moved a muscle in all that time. The suitcase was still standing on its side, beside him.
Linus gave a little startle at the sudden nearness of him and turned back, realizing he had distractedly left his mother and sisters by the trees. But they were not there now. Only a rabbit, hopping lazily through the longer grass, ears pinned back as it began to nibble on a dandelion.
Bell squeezed his hand and made him look at her. She gave him the slow blink they sometimes shared in the playground when he didn’t want to hug her in front of his friends.
‘You must be Isobel?’ the man said to her, after a moment.
She turned to face him, gripping Linus’s hand more tightly in hers, though whether that was for his benefit or her own, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was, she had to protect this child against these people. ‘Yes. But please call me Bell.’ Her voice was polite but firm, her eyes steely.
To her surprise, the blue eyes looking back at her were kindly. ‘I am Måns, Mr Von Greyer’s valet. And this must be Master Linus?’
Linus stared back at him, anachronistic against the grand orange house and the valet’s crisp suit, in his cut-off jean shorts and trainers. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ His voice was robotic and he looked ready to run.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, young sir. Everyone is very excited that you have come to stay with us. Won’t you please follow me?’
They both stared after him for a moment, wrong-footed by the warm welcome. Bond villains weren’t supposed to have friendly old men as their sidekicks. Nor orange lairs.
They followed him into the building. It was immediately cool and shaded inside, the brightness of the day falling in long strips through the large windows. They both looked left and then right. The house was a series of interconnecting, open airy salons, high-ceilinged with old, worn strip-wood floors. There didn’t seem to be much furniture but what there was – stickback chairs, diamond-doored cabinets, curvy long-case clocks – was very old and seemed to be largely pale and peeling, in the old Gustavian style, a baroque fashion that was very different to the Mogerts’ modern, minimal aesthetic. Bell had the impression of peering through bright light and dust, even though the place was clearly spotless; everything was muted, hushed, as though a veil of silence had been hung over the roof, in distinct contrast to the bright, almost shouty exterior. She tried to imagine Linus haring about in here, and couldn’t. It wasn’t that it was grand per se, just that it was somehow disapproving of frivolity.
They caught up with Måns on the stairs – which wasn’t hard – treading slowly behind him, their eyes casting nervously around at the dark oil paintings on the walls, up at the crystal lights, hands gliding over the polished elliptical handrail. They swapped glances in silence, noticing every creak of the floorboards, the sheer scale of the house dwarfing them. Bell felt like it was swallowing them whole.
Upstairs, the house felt a little cosier, but it was a matter of mere degrees – maybe half a metre off the ceiling heights? There was more furniture, though, dressing the spaces and making it feel like a home rather than a museum – rugs at spaced intervals on the floors, an antique smiling wooden horse on bows.
Måns walked towards a closed door at the end of the corridor, furthest from the stairs. ‘Master Linus, you will be sleeping in the room that your father had when he was a child. He was most insistent it should now be yours. Everything has been kept exactly as it was, including all his old toys.’
Bell arched a quizzical eyebrow, but said nothing. Clearly neither Måns nor his employer knew the first thing about kids. They wanted new and they wanted tech; old Action Man figures – or whatever the guy had played with as a boy himself –