Chapter 1 Behind the plaster

The wall waits until I have laid six places for supper before it starts shedding plaster into the butter.

I remove the butter dish. A second white chip lands exactly where it stood, followed by a thin stream of brownish water. Above the sideboard, the wallpaper swells like a blister. I look from it to the dining-room clock, which offers me twenty-seven minutes and no sympathy.

"Absolutely not," I tell the wall.

Outside, rain freckles the windows overlooking the garden. It is ordinary border-country rain, persistent rather than dramatic, the sort that makes visitors ask whether Wales is always this wet. We are still in England, although the hills beyond the orchard tend to disappear before I can explain that.

I shift the bread basket, stack the clean plates on a table, and put a mixing bowl beneath the drip. Then I fetch the stepladder and my grandmother's broad decorating scraper. She kept it beside the roasting tins because, according to her, an old inn required repairs and gravy in roughly equal quantities.

A year after inheriting the Traveller's rest, I have yet to prove her wrong.

The six supper guests are out enjoying the countryside, or sheltering from it in the village pub. I am alone with a pot of leek soup, a tray of unbaked cheese scones, and a building that has selected this afternoon to develop a new opening. There is enough money for a roofer. There is not enough money for a roofer and an unnecessarily dramatic ceiling.

I climb two steps and prod the wallpaper.

A wet strip peels away, bringing a palm-sized piece of plaster with it. Behind the damaged surface is a narrow wooden panel, its edge exposed by the crack. I catch the falling plaster in the scraper and lower it into the bowl. A small victory, but I accept those.

My phone buzzes on the cleared sideboard.

Dad: ‘Still raining there? Can come over if that patch is worse.’

I sent him a photograph this morning. I now regret including the wall.

‘Under control, I type.’

The words look less convincing beneath the dripping hole. I turn the phone facedown before he can reply, then press the scraper under the panel's loose edge. If I can remove it, I can at least see where the water is coming from. Inspection does not commit me to doing anything foolish.

The panel comes free with a sharp wooden click.

Behind it sits a book.

For a few seconds, I hold the scraper suspended beneath the opening. The book occupies a shallow recess between two old timbers, wrapped in a piece of dark cloth. Water trickles down the timber beside it, but the recess itself appears dry.

"Of course," I say. "Why store things in a cupboard?"

I set down the panel and reach into the hole. The cloth feels stiff, almost waxy, and catches on a splinter as I pull it loose. Beneath it is a brown leather cover, small enough to fit comfortably between my hands. A brass clasp holds the book shut.

There could be something useful inside. A record of repairs, perhaps, or the name of whoever thought concealing an inspection panel beneath plaster was sensible. I bring it down the ladder and lay it on a clean tea towel, away from the damp debris.

The leak continues. I wedge a folded cloth along the exposed lower edge to guide the drips into the bowl, then check the kitchen. The soup is simmering gently. Nothing else has attempted to collapse.

I put the scones in the oven and set the timer for fifteen minutes.

My mother gave me the apron I am wearing for my twenty-sixth birthday. Across the front, in cheerful blue lettering, it says QUEEN OF THE KITCHEN. I wipe plaster dust off the crown and go back to the dining room.

The book's clasp is stiff, but it yields under my thumbnail. Its cover bears a shallow impression of three nested squares. There is no title, and the first page has been torn out, leaving a narrow strip of paper against the binding.

The remaining pages are crowded with handwriting.

Some entries are neat and brown with age. Others slope across margins in darker ink. I recognise drawings of a hearth, a doorway, and something that might be a nail. Several pages contain lists, but the lettering is cramped enough that I would need daylight and considerably less soup to decipher them.

Halfway through, a folded corner marks a page headed For the opening of the keeper's eye.

I glance at the hole above the sideboard.

"Bit late for that."

Below the heading are three short lines in clearer handwriting. I can make them out without squinting, which feels like encouragement from a book otherwise determined to be inconvenient.

"Let the hearth bear witness," I read aloud. "Let the threshold hold. Let the hidden company be known to the keeper of this house."

There is more underneath, but a stain has eaten through the words. I tilt the page towards the window, trying to distinguish ink from damage.

A latch clicks somewhere behind me.

I look over my shoulder. The dining-room door stands open, as I left it. Beyond it, the passage is empty, with my grandmother's framed photograph hanging beside the stairs.

Probably the back door. The old latch never quite catches unless I lift the handle.

I close the book and carry it into the kitchen, where there is better light. I have just put it on the counter when a woman says, "Those scones are catching, dear."

She stands beside the oven in a floral apron, with her hands folded over a comfortably rounded middle. Her greying hair is pinned back. She looks like somebody who would know precisely how much tea remained in a pot without lifting the lid.

For half a second, relief wins.

Someone has come to help. Dad has ignored me and sent a neighbour, or one of Mum's friends has arrived with the firm intention of being useful. Then I remember that I have heard neither the front bell nor the back door.

"Hello," I say. "How did you get in?"

The woman looks up.

Her expression changes so abruptly that I take a step back. She glances behind herself, then at me again, her warm smile gone crooked with uncertainty.

"Are you speaking to me?"

"There isn't anyone else here."

"Oh." Her hands press against her apron. "Well, that's unexpected."

The oven timer begins to beep.

I turn it off and pull open the door. A ribbon of smoke curls from the tray, carrying the bitter smell of scorched cheese. The woman reaches towards a scone near the back.

Smoke passes through her wrist.

I stop with one oven glove on and the other dangling from my hand. Through her forearm, I can see the black edge of the tray. Not beside it. Through it.