The estate agent said a man had died in the house. Not how. It was in the paperwork somewhere, probably. She moved on to the terrace.

The bedroom ceiling is old wood and plaster. Two beams, dark, the kind people call rustic now. Between them, a nail. Black iron. Thick as a finger. It sticks out at an angle, maybe four inches, and it has held weight.

You can tell because the wood around it is compressed. Slightly concave. The plaster has a crack that starts at the nail and doesn’t spread. Just sits there.

I lie in bed and look at it.

It is a good nail. Load-bearing. The beam is solid — oak, probably, or something that has had centuries to harden. You could hang a lamp from it. A plant. A ham, the way they do in the villages. Anything up to, say, eighty kilos.

I know my weight.

The estate agent calls on Tuesday to ask how I’m settling in. Fine, I say. Quiet. Good light.

I don’t ask them to remove it.