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four doors, also painted white, and a matching tiled roof. To the left of the house, a magnificent conservatory and, beyond it, another wing seemed to have been added as an afterthought. The house appeared somehow to have grown out of the ground rather than having being built, as if it had pushed itself out of the earth as a living, breathing entity.
    Nightingale drove slowly towards it. The paved road merged into a parking area large enough for several dozen vehicles, now littered with dead leaves, and in the middle stood a massive stone fountain, whose centrepiece was a weathered stone mermaid surrounded by dolphins and fish. There was no water in it. He parked the MGB and climbed out. He looked back down the road that disappeared into the woodland. There was no sign of the main road, no sound other than birdsong and the occasional bark of a far-off dog. He turned back to the house. ‘And it’s mine, all mine,’ he muttered to himself. When Turtledove had given him the keys Nightingale had assumed there had been some mistake, but as he stood looking at the grand house he realised such mistakes didn’t happen – people weren’t accidentally handed multimillion-pound mansions. Checks would have been carried out, assurances given, and the only way that the house could be his was if Ainsley Gosling really had been his father.
    The thought that his parents had lied to him so completely made his head spin. If he really had been adopted, they couldn’t have kept the secret to themselves, surely. Other members of the family must have known – babies didn’t just appear from nowhere. He took out his mobile phone, scrolled through his address book and called his uncle Tommy. He hadn’t spoken to him since the previous Christmas when he’d driven up to Altrincham to spend the day with him and his aunt.
    His aunt answered the phone. ‘Auntie Linda? It’s Jack.’
    There was a moment’s hesitation as if she wasn’t sure who Jack was, then she almost yelped: ‘Jack!’
    ‘Hi, how’s things?’
    ‘Jack, it’s so good to hear from you. Is everything okay?’
    ‘Everything’s fine. And Uncle Tommy, how is he?’ He looked around as he talked, and frowned when he saw a CCTV camera half hidden in the ivy over the front door.
    ‘He’s taken the dog out for a walk. He’ll be so sorry that he missed you. How’s work? Are you married yet?’
    ‘No, I’m not married yet.’ Jack laughed. ‘Look, I know this is a strange thing to ask out of the blue, but do you by any chance know if I was adopted?’ He spotted another CCTV camera on the side of one of the chimneys, and a third atop the conservatory. There was a long silence and Nightingale thought for a moment he’d lost the connection. ‘Aunty Linda, did you hear me?’
    ‘What a question, Jack. We don’t hear from you for almost a year and you ask a question like that.’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry, but something very strange has happened. You’d know, wouldn’t you? You’d know if I was adopted?’
    ‘Jack, I can’t . . .’
    ‘You can’t what, Aunty Linda?’
    There was another long silence.
    ‘Aunty Linda?’
    ‘Jack, this is really something you’d have to talk to your uncle about.’
    ‘Why can’t you tell me?’
    ‘Because Uncle Tommy was your father’s brother – he’s blood. I’m just Tommy’s wife. You have to talk to him.’
    ‘Aunty Linda?’
    ‘I have to go, Jack. I’ll get your uncle to call you. Goodbye now.’ The line went dead.
    Nightingale put away the phone. She’d sounded nervous, scared even, and he’d never known his aunt to be scared of anything before. He stood back and scrutinised the front of the house. He spotted another three CCTV cameras. He took out the keys Turtledove had given him and walked up to the door. There were two locks, which opened with the same key. The door creaked as he pushed it open. He stepped into a hallway with wood-panelled walls and a marble floor, dominated by a massive chandelier hanging