Most of the interior walls had been riddled with gunfire and then smashed and burnt and blown apart. There were great holes in the old stonework, and the wood panelling had been almost completely burnt away by fierce heat. It was hard to find anything I recognised. The great statues and important works of art, the wall hangings and the family portraits: gone, all gone. I realised Molly had stopped to look up at the ceiling, and I followed her gaze, checking it quickly for spreading cracks.

No, she said, without looking round. It s just our room was up there, on the top floor. Is it possible?

No, I said. All the upper floors have fallen in on themselves. There s not a few feet of roof left intact anywhere. Everything we had up there is gone.

Everything you had, said Molly. I kept most of my stuff in the woods. Oh, Eddie I m so sorry.

It s just things, I said. You can always get more things. What matters is I still have you.

Forever and a day, my love, said Molly, slipping her arm through mine again and briefly resting her head on my shoulder.

We moved on into the gloom and the shadows. The sounds of our slow progress seemed to move ahead of us, as though to give warning we were coming. All the great paintings that used to line the walls, portraits and scenes of the family by all the great masters, were gone forever. Generations of Droods, great works of art preserved by the family for generations, reduced to ash, and less than ash. Even the frames were destroyed. Someone had swept the walls clean with incandescent fires, probably laughing as they did. I crouched down as I spotted a scrap of canvas caught between two pieces of rubble from a shattered statue. Molly peered over my shoulder.