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and who knew how many people had lived and died in it. Somehow it made the hotel seem different. That dimly lit street and those dark houses with their big blank windows. There were new buildings among the old in that part of Amsterdam, but somehow the old buildings won through, despite the cars and the trams. The past seemed closer there.
     
    ‘It’s good that you made up with Angelien,’ said Alex’s father as he stood in the doorway that connected their two rooms.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Alex matter-of-factly.
    ‘You’ll be OK with her again tomorrow?’ said his father with a raised eyebrow.
    ‘It’s fine,’ said Alex with a yawn. ‘I don’t mind.’
    ‘Less drama this time.’
    Alex nodded.
    ‘Well OK then. Goodnight, champ.’
    ‘Night, Dad,’ said Alex.
    Alex’s father switched off the main light and went through to his room, closing the door behind him. Alex switched off the bedside light, yawned and pulled the duvet up around him, sinking into the pillows, and almost immediately slid into a deep sleep, filled with tangled dreams, where Amsterdam and England were one impossible place filled with a confusion of faces old and new.
    But he hadn’t been asleep long when he was dragged back from these dreaming depths and into a wary consciousness. He had the strongest sensation that something was in the room with him. He sat up, peering suspiciously into the gloom around him. There was nothing there, he was sure. That is, he was sure and yet not sure.
    He turned on the bedside light. Alex was startled to see that the mask he had bought was now on top of the chest of drawers. He hadn’t noticed it there before he got into bed. He looked around the room for any other sign of disturbance but everything was just as he had left it: everything apart from the mask.
    Someone must have been in his room. Maybe the maid had been going through his stuff? But why? And in any case the maids worked in the morning, not the evening.
    Alex heard his father walking round the room next door. Had his father come in and looked through the drawers?
    Alex looked towards the connecting door, scowling. What was his father doing going through his stuff? He looked down at the mask, opened the drawer and slid it inside once again.
    Alex got back into bed and turned out the light. He shivered, pulling the duvet tight about his face and body so that he was wrapped up like a mummy. Still he felt cold, as though the temperature had dropped ten degrees. He wondered if the air conditioning was to blame but didn’t want to get out of bed to check.
    Alex closed his eyes. He was tired, so very tired. If he could just distract himself from whatever was unnerving him for long enough, he knew that he would fall asleep.
    And Angelien’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, like sunshine in a dark well. There was something about her that warmed him, relaxed him. He relived their walk together, a walk that now seemed bathed in sunshine rather than threatened by rain. In no time at all he was drifting away with her down the canal in a white boat and off into a peaceful sleep.

Chapter 6
     
    A barge sounded its horn on the canal outside and Alex woke suddenly, fully alert, with a disturbing sensation that something had woken him.
    A milky morning light was seeping lazily through the floral curtains and making the room glow.
    The barge sounded its horn again and Alex realised that this must be what had woken him.
    He pushed the duvet away and got out of bed. He opened a drawer in the chest and there was the mask staring back at him with its dark, empty eyes. He took out a pair of socks and hurriedly closed the drawer, but seeing the mask reminded him of his suspicion that his father had been going through his things.
    ‘Dad,’ he said, when his silence over breakfast had been ignored. ‘Have you been in my room?’
    ‘Course I have,’ he said, slurping his coffee. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘When I was asleep. Have you been going through my