“Can I try it?” I ask. He hands it to me. “Bloody hell!” It’s H-E-A-V-Y. I can lift it to thigh level but no higher. A quick reappraisal of Uncle Dervish—he looks wiry as a rat, but he must have hidden muscles under all the denim.

We meander through the downstairs rooms, Dervish explaining what each was used for in the past, pointing out items of special interest, such as a stuffed bear’s head which is more than two hundred years old, a cage where a live vulture was kept, rusty nails which were used by the Romans to crucify people.

There’s a large, empty fish tank in one of the main living rooms, set against a wall. Dervish pauses at it and taps the frame with his fingernails. “The last owner of this place—before it fell into ruin—was a tyrant called Lord Sheftree. He kept live piranhas in this tank. One day, a woman turned up with a baby—she claimed it was his, and she wanted money to pay for its upkeep.”

Dervish crouches down and stares into the abandoned aquarium, as though it’s still full of circling, multicoloured fish.

“Lord Sheftree invited her to stay for the night,” he says calmly. “While she was sleeping, he crept into her room and removed her baby. Brought it down here and fed it to the piranhas. Took the bones away and buried them. The woman raised almighty hell, but search parties couldn’t find a corpse, and nobody had seen her arrive with a child—so there was no proof she ever had one. She ranted and raved and was eventually locked away in a mental asylum. She hanged herself there.

“Years later, when Lord Sheftree was an old man and his mind was wandering, he boasted about the murder to one of his servants, and told her where the bones were buried. She dug them up and informed the police. They came to arrest him, but the local villagers got here first. He was discovered chopped up into tiny pieces—all of which had been dropped into the piranha tank.”

Dervish stops and I gaze at him in silent awe.

He stands and faces me. “I’m not saying this to scare you,” he smiles, “but this house has a long and bloody history. There are dozens of horror stories, none quite as gruesome as that one, but all of them pretty gut-churning. I think it’s best you hear about its past now, from me.”

“Is… is the house haunted?” I wheeze.

“No,” he answers seriously. “It’s safe. I wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t. If the nightmares of the past prove too oppressive, you’re free to leave. But you’ve nothing to fear in the present.”

I nod slowly, thinking about Lord Sheftree and his piranha, wondering if I have the courage to spend the night in a house like this.

“Are you OK?” Dervish asks. “Would you like to step outside for fresh air?”

“I’m fine,” I mutter, turning my back on the fish tank, acting like I hear this sort of stuff all the time. “What’s upstairs?”

Mostly bedrooms on the first floor. All are fully fitted, the beds freshly made, though Dervish says only four or five of the rooms have been used since he renovated the mansion.

“Why bother with all the beds then?” I ask.

“If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” he laughs.

Some of the beds are four-posters, imported from foreign countries, with histories as old and macabre as the house. It’s only when Dervish is telling me about one particular bed, in which a French aristocrat hid for four months during the Revolution, that I think about how much they must have cost.

“What do you do?” I ask my uncle. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t recall Mum or Dad ever mentioning Dervish’s line of work.

“I dabble in antiques,” he says. “Rare books are my speciality—particularly books regarding the occult.”

Dervish looks at me questioningly—we haven’t mentioned demons since he picked me up at the institute. He’s offering me the chance to quiz him about them now. But I’m not ready to discuss Lord Loss or his minions yet.

“You must be good at it, to afford a place like this,” I say, sliding away from the larger questions and issues.

“It’s a hobby,” he demurs, leading me down a long corridor full of framed portraits and photographs. “The money’s good, but I don’t worry too much about it.”

“Then how do you pay for all this?” I ask nosily.

Dervish quickens his pace. I think he’s avoiding the question, but then he stops at one of the older portraits and points at it. “Recognise him?”

I study the face of an old man—lined, quite a large nose, but otherwise unspectacular. “Is he famous?” I ask.

“Only to us,” Dervish says. “He was your great-great-great-grandfather. Bartholomew Garadex. That’s our original family name, on our paternal side—it got shortened to Grady around your greatgrandfather’s time.” He points to a nearby portrait. “That’s him.” Waving a hand at the hall in general, he adds, “They’re all part of our family. Garadexes, Gradys, Bells, Moores—if one of our relations has been photographed or painted, you’ll most probably find them here.”

Returning to the portrait of my great-great-great-grandfather, he says, “Bartholomew was a sublimely clever man. He started with nothing but had amassed a fortune by the time of his death. We’re still living off of it—at least, I am. Cal preferred to make his own way in the world, and only dipped into the family coffers in emergencies.”

“How much is left?” I enquire.

“Quite a lot,” Dervish says vaguely. “Your great-great-grandfather—one of old Bart’s boys— wasted most of it. Then his son—the one who changed the family name—restored it. It’s been fairly constant since, much of it tied up in bonds and properties which yield steady profits.”

“Who does it go to when…” I stop and blush. “I mean, who’s your heir?”

Dervish doesn’t answer immediately. He gazes at the face in the portrait, as though seeing it for the first time. Then he looks away and says quietly, “I have no children. I’ve willed portions of the estate to various friends and causes. I always meant for the majority of my assets to go to Cal and his kids. Since you’re the only survivor…”

My stomach tightens—Dervish sounds as if he’s accusing me of caring more about money than my family. “I’d swap any amount of a fortune if I could bring Mum and Dad and Gret back,” I snarl.

“Of course you would.” Dervish frowns, glancing at me oddly, and I realise I was only imagining the accusation.

“Let’s go,” Dervish says. “There’s another floor to explore—and a cellar.”

“A cellar?” I ask nervously.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s where I bury the bodies.”

I freeze, and he has to stop and wink broadly before I catch the joke.

Lots of storage space on the second floor—rooms packed with crates, statues and boxes of books. There are a couple of small bedrooms, including Dervish’s, and the centrepiece—his study.

Unlike every other room in the mansion, Dervish’s study is carpeted and the walls are covered with leather panels. It’s a colossal room, the size of seven or eight of the bedrooms, with two desks larger than most of the beds I’ve seen. There are bookcases, on which small numbers of books are carefully arranged. He has a PC, a laptop, a typewriter, several writing pads and a multitude of pens. There are five chess sets in the room, each different; one made entirely of crystal, another with solid gold pieces. A sword and axe hangs from each wall, their handles encrusted with precious jewels, their blades gleaming brightly.

“This is wild,” I grin, circling the study, checking out some of the book titles—all to do with ghosts, werewolves, magic and other occult-related items.

“Some of my rarer finds,” Dervish says, picking up a book and smiling as he flicks through it. “The great thing about having loads of money is not having to sell to survive.”

“Aren’t you afraid of burglars?” I ask. “Wouldn’t this stuff be safer in a museum?”

“The contents of this room are protected,” he says. “Anyone breaking in is free to plunder the rest of the house as they please—but they won’t take anything from here.”