I hadn’t meant to fall asleep in Petra’s room, but I woke with a start, the armchair’s gingham cover wet with drool beneath my cheek, and my heart pounding for reasons I could not put my finger on. Petra was still slumbering in her cot as I struggled upright, trying to figure out what had happened, and what had woken me so abruptly.

I must have drifted off while waiting for her to fall asleep. Had I— Shit, the thought came like a sudden punch to the solar plexus—had I slept through school pickup? But no. When I checked my phone it was only one thirty.

Then it came again, the noise that had woken me from sleep. The doorbell. Doorbell sounding flashed on my phone. And then Open door? Confirm / Cancel.

A Pavlovian jolt of dread flooded through me, and for a moment I sat there, paralyzed, half dreading, half expecting the creak . . . creak . . . to commence as it had last night, but it didn’t, and at last I forced myself to move. I swung my feet to the floor and stood up, waiting for my blood pressure to settle and my heart to stop drumming with panic in my ears.

As I did so, I wiped the corner of my mouth and looked down at myself. It was only a few days since I’d turned up—note-perfect in my rendition of Rowan the Perfect Nanny, in her tweed skirt and neatly buttoned cardigan. I looked far from perfect now. I was wearing crumpled jeans, and my sweatshirt was stained with Petra’s breakfast. I looked much closer to the person I really was, as if the real me was leaking out of the cracks in the facade, taking over.

Well, it was too late to change now. Instead, I left Petra sleeping peacefully in her cot, and made my way down the stairs to the hallway, where I pressed my thumb to the panel, and watched as the door swung silently open.

For a second it seemed like a continuation of last night—there was no one there. But then I saw the Land Rover parked across the driveway, heard the retreating crunch of gravel, and peering round the side of the house, I saw a tall, broad figure, disappearing towards the stables, two dogs bounding at his heels.

“Jack?” I called, my voice croaky with sleep. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hey, Jack, was that you?” “Rowan!” He turned at the sound of my voice and came striding back across the yard, grinning widely. “Yes, I rang the bell, I was going to ask if you fancied a cup of tea. But I thought you must have gone out.” “No . . . no, I was . . .” I paused, unsure what to say, then, in view of my sleep-crumpled face and draggled clothes, decided maybe the truth was best. “I’d fallen asleep actually. Petra’s down for her nap and I must have drifted off. I— Well, I didn’t get a very good night’s rest last night.” “Oh . . . were the girls playing up?”

“No, no it’s not that. It’s . . .” I paused again, and then screwed up my courage. “It’s those noises I was talking about. From the attic. I got woken up again. Jack, you know those keys you mentioned . . .” He was nodding.

“Aye, sure, no problem. Want to try it now?”

Why not? The girls were at school, Petra would probably nap for at least an hour longer. It was as good a time as any.

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll have to hunt them out, give me ten minutes and I’ll be with you.” “Okay,” I said. I felt better already. The chances were, there was a simple explanation for the noise, and we were going to discover it. “I’ll put the kettle on. See you in ten minutes.” * * *

In the event, he was back sooner than ten, a tangle of rusty keys in one hand and a tool kit in the other, a big bottle of WD-40 sticking out the top. The dogs followed him in, panting excitedly, and I found myself smiling as I watched them sniffing diligently around the kitchen, Hoovering up all the scraps the children had dropped. Then they flopped down on their beds in the utility room as though the whole trip had exhausted them beyond measure.

The kettle had just boiled, and I poured out two mugs and held one out to Jack. He shoved the keys in his back pocket, took it, and grinned.

“Just what I needed. D’you want to finish the teas down here or take them up?” “Well, Petra’s still asleep actually, so it might be a good idea to crack on before she wakes up.” “Suits me,” he said. “I’ve been sitting in the car all morning. I’d rather drink on the go.” We carried everything carefully upstairs, tiptoeing past Petra’s room, although when I peered in she looked like she was out for the count, sprawled like someone dropped from a great height onto a soft mattress.

Up in my bedroom, the curtains were still drawn, the bed rumpled, and my worn clothes were still scattered across the soft wheat-colored carpet. I felt my cheeks flush, and putting down my cup I hastily picked up my bra and knickers from the night before, along with a blouse, and shoved them into the laundry basket in the bathroom, before opening the curtains.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not normally such a slob.”

That was totally untrue. Back at my flat in London the majority of my underwear lived in a pile in the corner of the room, washed only when the clean pairs in my drawer ran out. But here, I’d been trying to hard keep up the image of meticulous neatness. Apparently it was slipping.

Jack, however, didn’t seem bothered and was already trying the door in the corner of the room.

“It’s this one, is it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And you’ve tried all the other cupboard keys?”

“Yes, I tried all the ones I could find.”

“Well, let’s see if any of these match.”

The ring he was holding held maybe twenty or thirty keys, all of varying sizes, from a huge black iron one, which I guessed must be the original key to the gate, before the electric lock had been installed, through to small brass ones that looked like they might be for desks or safes.

Jack tried a medium-size one that fit through the hole but rattled around loosely inside, plainly too small for the lock, and then a slightly larger one, which fit but did not turn all the way.

He squirted the can of lubricant inside the lock and tried again, but it still turned only a quarter of the way, and then stopped.

“Hmm . . . it could be jammed, but if it’s the wrong key I don’t want to risk forcing it and breaking the shank in the lock. I’ll try a few more.” I watched as he tried maybe four or five others of the same size, but they were worse, either not fitting in at all, or jamming before he’d managed even a quarter turn. At last he seemed to make up his mind and returned to the second key he’d picked out.

“This is the only key on the bunch that has any give at all, so I’ll try it again with a bit more force, and if it breaks, well, we’ll just have to get the locksmith in. Wish me luck.” “Good luck,” I said, and he began to force the key.

I found I was wincing preemptively as I watched him apply pressure, first gently, and then harder, and at last so hard that I could see the shaft of the key bending slightly, the round bow at the top twisting, twisting . . .

“Stop!” I cried, just as Jack gave an exclamation of satisfaction and there was a noisy scrape and click, and the key completed the full turn.

“Got it!” He stood, wiping the lubricant off his hands, and then turned to me with a mock courtly bow. “D’you wish to do the honors, milady?” “No!” The word was out before I could think better of it, and then I forced a laugh. “I mean . . . I don’t mind. It’s up to you. But I warn you, if there’s rats, I’ll scream.” It was a lie. I’m not afraid of rats. I’m not afraid of very much, normally. And I felt like the worst kind of female cliché sheltering behind the big strong man. But Jack had not lain there, night after night, listening to that slow, stealthy creak . . . creak . . . above his head.

“I’ll take one for the team, then,” he said with a very small wink. And he twisted the handle, and the door opened.

I don’t know what I expected. A staircase disappearing into the darkness. A corridor hung with cobwebs. I found I was holding my breath as the door swung back, peering over Jack’s shoulder.

Whatever I expected, it wasn’t what was there. It was just another closet. Very dusty, and badly finished so that you could see the gaps in the plasterboard, and much smaller and shallower than the one where I’d hung my clothes, but a closet nonetheless. An empty bar hung, slightly lopsided, about six inches down from the ceiling as if awaiting hangers and clothes.

“Huh,” Jack said. He tossed the keys on the bed, looking thoughtful. “Well, that’s weird.” “Weird? You mean, why lock up a perfectly usable closet?”

“Well, I suppose so, but what I really meant is, the draught.”

“The draught?” I echoed stupidly, and he nodded.

“Look at the floor.”

I looked where he pointed. Across the floorboards were streaks, where a breeze had plainly forced dust through the narrow gaps, and looking more closely at the stained and dusty plasterboard I could see the same thing. When I put my hand to the gap, there was a faint cool breeze, and the same dank smell that I had noticed coming from the keyhole last night when I had peered through, into the darkness.

“You mean . . .”

“There is something back there. But someone boarded it up.”

He moved past me, and began rummaging in his tool kit, and suddenly, I was not at all sure that I wanted to do this.

“Jack, I don’t think— I mean, Sandra might—”

“Ah, she won’t mind. I’ll board it back up more neatly if it comes to it, and she’ll have a working closet instead of a locked door.” He took out a small crowbar. I opened my mouth to say something else—something about it being my bedroom, about the mess, about— But it was too late. There was a crunching noise, and a slab of plasterboard toppled forward into the room so that Jack only just got out of the way. He picked it up, carefully avoiding the rusty nails that were sticking out of the edges, and propped it against the side of the closet, and I heard his voice, echoing now, as he let out a long, satisfied “Ah . . .” “Ah, what?” I said anxiously, trying to peer past him, but his big frame filled the doorway, and all I could see was darkness.

“Have a look,” he said, stepping back. “See for yourself. You were right.” And there it was. Just as I had imagined. The wooden treads. The swags of cobwebs. The staircase winding up into darkness.

I found my mouth was dry, and my throat clicked as I swallowed.

“Do you have a torch?” Jack asked, and I shook my head, feeling suddenly unable to speak. He shrugged.

“Nor me, we’ll have to make do with phones. Mind your feet on those nails.” And he stepped forward into the blackness.

For a moment I was completely frozen, watching him disappear up the narrow stairs, the beam of his phone a thin glimmer in the black, his footsteps echoing . . . creak . . . creak . . .

The sound was so close to the noise of last night, and yet, there was something different about it too. It was more . . . solid. More real, faster, and mixed with the crunch of plasterboard.

“Holy shit,” I heard from above, and then, “Rowan, get up here, you’ve got to see this.” There was a lump in my throat as if I was about to cry, though I knew that I wasn’t; it was pure fear that had lodged there, silencing me, making me unable to ask Jack what was up there, what he had found, what he needed me to see so urgently.

Instead, I switched on my phone torch with fingers that shook, and followed him into the darkness.