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skylight above the stairwell. And this hem of vague luminance soon revealed a white
shape approaching through the lower passageway. A form seemingly suspended above the ground, with no limbs, jerking itself towards the hall.
    Before her confusion could become fear, a portly figure materialized wearing a brilliant-white apron, which in the half-light she’d momentarily taken for a ghost. It was a woman, with a
curved bonnet of hair bobbing from side to side atop a squat body that moved with difficulty. As the housekeeper struggled into the hall and was better lit, Catherine’s scrutiny of her turned
into gaping.
    Every trace of the feminine had been worn from the lined skin of the round face confronting her. And Catherine couldn’t recall ever seeing a face so grim, the kind of face that appeared
behind wire during wars that were photographed in black and white. The woman’s hair, as white as a lamb’s fleece, looked as if she had cut it herself around the rim of a bowl with a
knife and fork. The apron was pressed out by her hips, belly and bosom, all of which were large. Mannish lace-up boots peeked beneath the stiff hem of a gown. At the other end a high collar
disappeared under the woman’s jowls.
    Faded eyes beneath unkempt eyebrows fixed upon Catherine, though the woman did not speak. Her expression was utterly humourless, alive with irritation and what looked like disapproval.
    Catherine smiled and cleared her throat. ‘I’m Catherine. Catherine Howard.’ She walked into the hall and extended her hand.
    The curious figure turned and waddled to the foot of the stairs and began to climb without a word or backward glance.
    She watched the woman’s wheezy ascent. The back of what she thought was a gown was actually a high-waisted skirt that dropped to a pair of thick ankles. An undecorated blouse,
criss-crossed with apron strings, was separated from the skirt by a thick leather belt. Both the skirt and blouse were tailored from an unappealing grey material as coarse as sailcloth, and the
cuffs of the puffy sleeves were stained. The clothes resembled those worn by nineteenth-century factory workers, which made Catherine wonder if an eccentricity, long cultivated in rural isolation,
because the Red House was as remote as any house could be on the Welsh border, had now become something less charming. She’d seen plenty of decline before, but never like this. Trailing from
the mute housekeeper came the acrid scent she noticed in the reception.
    Halfway to the first floor the housekeeper paused, turned her pale face to Catherine and watched her in silence, waiting for her to follow. Which Catherine hesitatingly did, climbing into the
vaulted wooden interior as though she was inside a strange church tower, its walls ancient and oaken. There were two storeys above her and she could see balusters around their edges. A great
skylight of stained glass angrily watched over the stairwell.
    ‘Maude?’ she asked. The woman said nothing and continued up, into the Red House.
    They arrived at the bottom corner of an L-shaped corridor on the first floor, also poorly lit. All of the interior doors were closed, which kept the light out, and the house upstairs remained
silent and rigid with a tension that registered as a pressure against Catherine’s thoughts.
    Amidst the fragrance of polished wood and the inescapable staleness of old furnishings, a blend of jasmine, rose and lavender endured as a trace of the house’s owner, who Catherine must
have just seen wheeled along this passage. Perhaps returned to one of these rooms by the child she had seen from outside, looking through the window. Catherine thought of the doll sat in her lap at
the Flintshire Guest House. Same perfume.
    The first-floor walls were wooden like the hall below, which increased the dimness, and all of the doors she could see were six-panelled, the top two fitted with red stained glass.
    Maude moved to a door at the heel of the L-section and