Chapter 58

And yet still, my Master catches me unprepared…

Centrepiece to the entrance hall is a pair of mirrors. The frames elaborately carved, gilt finished, they face each other from opposite walls. In proportion to the hall, supported at the base with a dado rail at waist height, each must be eight feet tall, reaching for the ceiling above.

Making for the stairs and the bedroom, as I pass between them, the two great mirrors give that odd, vanishing-into-infinity effect. I'm looking at my face and the back of my head at the same time. Then, pausing at some peripheral detail in the reflections that catches my eye, I look up.

There, in the ceiling above me, a hook. Solid steel by the look of it, the thing would easily support, for example, the weight of a human body.

I chuckle.

Nothing changes…

… and I'm about to head upstairs when, from outside, comes the growl of a car engine.

A bare moment to check myself in the mirrors, finger-comb my hair and smooth down my pullover, the door clicks and swi