The Fire Child: The 2017 gripping psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Ice Twins

Still.

STILL.

I think I understand it now, maybe. This is a place for distilling. Making herbal remedies, tinctures. A still room.

Turning to go, I see something totally unexpected. Three or four large cardboard boxes in the corner of the room, partly concealed by a case of ancient glassware. The boxes have the name Nina vigorously scrawled on them.

So this is her stuff? The dead woman, the dead mother, the dead wife. Clothes, or books, maybe. Not ready to be thrown out.

Now I feel really improper, like a trespasser. I’ve done nothing wrong, I am the new wife, a keeper of Carnhallow, and David wants me to explore so that I can restore this maze of dust: but the act of almost-breaking-in to this room, and happening upon these sad boxes, makes me blush.

Trying not to run, I retrace my steps, and I climb the stairs with a definite sense of relief. Taking deep breaths. Then a glance at my watch reminds me. I have to collect Jamie, soon, which means I have enough time for my final task.

There is one more interior space I want to see: the entirely untouched West Wing. And at its heart, the Old Hall. David has told me it is impressive.

But I’ve not once set foot inside this space yet. Only seen the gaunt exterior. Taking the corridor beyond the grand stairs, I cross from east to west, and from now to then.

This must be it. A large but unpainted and very heavy wooden door. The handle is a twisted, cast-iron ring. It takes an effort to turn, but then the door swings smoothly open. I step, for the first time, into the Old Hall.

The tall arched windows are Gothic, and leaded. Obviously from the monastery. The vaulted stone chamber is cold; it is also totally uncarpeted and unfurnished. David says that centuries ago they used to pay the miners in this hall. I can see them now. The humble men, stoically queuing, summoned by their surnames. The mine captains looking on with crossed and burly arms.

The room is imposing, but also oppressive. I shiver like a child in here. I think the atmosphere must be something to do with the size of the room. Here in the frigid empty heart of the house, I realize the scale of Carnhallow. Vast and engulfing. This is where I truly comprehend that I am in a house with space for fifty people. For three dozen servants, and a large extended family.

Today, just four people live here. And one, David, will be spending most of his time in London.

Three o’clock. Time to pick up my stepson. Heading outside, jumping in the Mini, I gun the engine – then slowly navigate the narrow drive, up through the sunlit woodlands. It’s a difficult road, but lovely, too. Inspiring. One day maybe my kids will play here. They will grow up in the magnificence of Carnhallow – surrounded by space and beauty, beaches and trees. They will see bluebells in spring, and pick mushrooms in October. And there will be dogs. Happy, galloping dogs, fetching mossy sticks: in the glades of Ladies Wood.

At last I hit the main road – and I drive west, threading between the green and stony moors to my left and the rioting ocean on the right. This mazy B road takes in most of the little ex-mining villages in West Penwith.

Botallack, Geevor, Pendeen. Morvah.

After Morvah, the road splits: I take the left turn, heading over the barrens of higher moorland to Jamie’s school in Sennen, a private prep school.

Two left turns, another mile of moor and the landscape has subtly changed. Down here on the southern coast sunlight dapples calmer seas. When I park the car near the school gates and swing the door open the air is slightly but noticeably softer.

Jamie Kerthen is already here, waiting. He walks towards me. He is in his school uniform, despite it being a Saturday. This is because Sennen is a pretty formal school that demands uniforms whenever the kids are on the grounds. I like that. I want that for my kids, as well. Formality and discipline. More things I didn’t have.

I climb out of the car, smiling at my stepson. I have to resist the urge to run and hug him, close and tight. It’s too soon for this. But my protective feelings are real. I want to protect him for ever.

Jamie half-smiles in response – but then he stops and stands there, rooted to the pavement, and gives me a long, strange, concentrated stare. As if he cannot work out who I am or why I am here. Even though we have now been living together for weeks.

I try not to be unnerved. His behaviour is peculiar – but I know he is still grieving for his mother.

To make it worse, another mother is coming out now, guiding her son, passing us on the pavement. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know anyone in Cornwall. But my isolation won’t be helped if people think I am weird, that I don’t fit in. So I give her a wide smile and say, all too loudly, ‘Hello, I’m Rachel! I’m Jamie’s stepmother!’

The woman looks my way, then at Jamie. Who still stands there, motionless, his eyes fixed on mine.

‘Um, yes … hello.’ She blushes faintly. She has a round, pretty face and a posh, clear voice and she looks embarrassed by this strange, loud woman and her wary stepson. And why not? ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again. But – ah – really must be going,’ she says.

The woman hurries away with her boy, then looks back at me, a puzzled frown on her face. She probably feels sorry for this frightened boy with this idiot for a stepmother. So I turn my fixed smile on to my own stepson.

‘Hey, Jamie! Everything OK? How was the football?’

Can he stand there in rooted silence for much longer? I cannot bear it. The weirdness is prolonged for several painful seconds. Then he relents. ‘Two nil. We won.’

‘Great, well, great, that’s fantastic!’

‘Rollo scored a penalty and then a header.’

‘That’s totally brilliant! You can tell me more on the drive home. Do you want to get in?’

He nods. ‘OK.’

Chucking his sports bag in the back seat, he slides in, clunks his safety belt in its socket, then as I start the car, he plucks up a book from his bag and starts reading. Ignoring me again.

I change gear, taking a tight corner, trying to focus on these tiny roads, but I am nagged by worries. Now I think about it, this isn’t the first time Jamie has acted oddly, as if suspicious of me, in the last few weeks: but it is the most noticeable occasion.

Why is he changing? When I met my stepson in London he was nothing but laughter and chatter: the initial day we met we got on brilliantly. That day was, in fact, the first day I felt real love for his father. The way man and boy interacted, their love and understanding, their joking and mutual respect, united in grief yet not showing it – this moved and impressed me. It was so unlike me and my dad. And again I wanted some of this paternal affection for my own child. I wanted the father of my children to be exactly like David. I wanted it to be David.

The sex and desire and friendship were already in place – David had already charmed me – but it was Jamie who crystallized these feelings into love for his father.

And yet, ever since I actually moved in to Carnhallow, Jamie has, I now realize, become more withdrawn. Distant, or watchful. As if he is assessing me. As if he kind of senses that there’s something awry. Something wrong with me.

My stepson is quietly looking my way in the mirror, right now. His eyes are large, and the palest violet-blue. He really is a very beautiful boy: exceptionally striking.

Does this make me shallow – that Jamie Kerthen’s beauty makes it easier for me to love him? If so, there’s not much I can do; I can’t help it. A beautiful child is a powerful thing, not easily resisted. And I also know that his boyish beauty disguises serious grief, which makes me feel the force of love, even more. I will never replace his lost mother, but surely I can assuage his loneliness.

A lock of black hair has fallen across his white forehead. If he were my son, I’d stroke it back in to place. At last he talks.

‘When is Daddy going away again?’

I answer, in a rush. ‘Monday morning, as usual, day after tomorrow. But he’ll only be gone a few days. He’s flying back into Newquay at the end of the week. Not so long, not long at all.’

‘Oh, OK. Thank you, Rachel.’ He sighs, passionately. ‘I wish Daddy came home longer. I wish he didn’t go away so much.’

‘I know Jamie. I feel the same.’

I yearn to say something more constructive, but our new life is what it is: David commutes to and from London every Monday morning and Friday evening. He does it by plane, in and out of Newquay airport. When he gets home he burns his silver Mercedes along the A30, then crawls along the last, winding moorland miles, to Carnhallow.

It is a gruelling schedule, but weekly, long-distance commuting is the only way David can sustain his lucrative career in London law and retain a family life at Carnhallow, which he is utterly determined to do. Because the Kerthens have lived in Carnhallow for a thousand years.

Jamie is silent. It takes us twenty-five muted minutes to drive the tortuous miles. At last we arrive at sunlit Carnhallow and my stepson drags himself from the Mini, tugging his sports bag. Again I feel the need to talk. Keep trying. Eventually the bond will form. So I babble as I rummage for my keys, Maybe you could tell me about your football match, my team was Millwall – that’s where I grew up, they were never very good – Then I hesitate. Jamie is frowning.

‘What’s the matter, Jamie?’

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing.’

The key slots, I push the great door open. But Jamie is staring at me in that same bewildered, disbelieving way. As if I am an eerie figure from a picture book, come inexplicably to life.