'Where's the rest?'

Mother's smile tightened. 'We have all our luggage.'

'I see.' The maid straightened up, baring her teeth. She was stronger than she looked. 'This way, please.'

Mother turned to Delphine and mouthed 'Come on!' before following the maid through the double doors.

Delphine hung back, scraping surly arcs in the gravel. When was Daddy going to come? Why hadn't they waited till he was ready? It was horrible how Mother wouldn't let her see him. Delphine spat into the white dust. Mother was a beast.

Above the entrance, stout columns rose towards an architrave crusted in bird mess. As she craned her neck to follow them, she felt a surge of vertigo. She turned away.

'Delphine!' Her name echoed from the corridor.

Lawns spread ripe and unbounded. The distant treeline hung like an unresolved chord. She could run.

'Delphine!'

Then she saw him.

A figure was crossing the lawn an old man with white side-whiskers and high, knotty shoulders. She couldn't understand how she had missed him. His jacket was clay green against the sun-blanched green of the grass, the blood-dark green of the woods. In his right hand swung a shotgun; in his left, mole carcasses on a string.

He stopped. The dead moles swayed and came to rest, nuzzling his filthy boots. He coughed into splayed fingers, examined them distastefully. The hand dropped away; he glanced about with a sudden wary vigour.

Delphine held her breath. The man looked towards the Hall.

She stepped backwards across the threshold.

'Lord Alderberen is in bed, owing to his dyspepsia,' the maid was saying, her little voice resonating as the corridor opened out around her. 'Wait here in the Great Hall and I'll see who's about.'

'Oh.' Mother stood in the middle of a chequered marble floor, like the last piece in a chess game. 'Are you sure he's well enough to be receiving guests?'

'Oh yes, ma'am.' The maid shot a wistful look towards the domed ceiling. 'It comes and goes. Always seems to flare up when he's got visitors. He's a martyr to his dyspepsia.'

'Can't they do anything for it?'

'You'd have to ask Dr Lansley about that,' the maid called, retreating through a side door with their cases. 'He knows everything that goes on here.'

A slam boomed through the Great Hall.

Mildly buoyed by Mother's irritation, Delphine looked around at portraits of dull ancestors, the grand staircase and the crimson carpet that flowed like lava from the landing above. At the top of the stairs was a painting of a wan young lady with sad eyes and buttery hair. Above the painting, an alabaster frieze showed bulls trampling a phalanx of spear-wielding hoplites on giant ostriches. Electric lights glared in brass fittings. The whole place smelt of polish and hospitals.

'Don't wander off again.' Even with her voice lowered, Mother's rebuke rang off the walls. 'Come here. And don't look at me like that. You're still in disgrace.'

Delphine began walking to Mother across the chessboard tiles. She stopped. In the light from the tall portico windows, Mother looked angular and old. She had lost a lot of weight. Her head looked like muslin stretched over a pine-cone.

'Come here now.'

Delphine lifted her right foot. She held it over the boundary between one square and the next. She looked at Mother.

'Please, Delphine.'

Delphine did not move.

'Now!' The word resounded emptily, a thunderclap.

Delphine thought of Mother crumpled on the floor, of how Daddy had stepped over her, and felt a sickly, creeping scorn. She withdrew her foot like a knife. Mother blinked. Delphine turned away.

Her chest was pounding. She stared at the oak-panelled wall and waited for the tide to come crashing back in. Seconds passed. The expected slap to the back of the head did not come. Mother was not going to correct her.

Fear gave way to a numb, terrifying freedom.

'Mrs Venner?'

Delphine turned and saw him: a tall man in hunting tweeds, around Daddy's age, with oily black hair and a narrow moustache. He began descending the stairs, smoothing a gloved hand along the polished bannister. His slicked-back hair, receding at the temples, gave the impression he was moving at speed.

Mother's jaw worked dumbly. At last, she nodded.

The man stopped two steps from the bottom. He held out his palm. A wire ran from his ear to a large battery hanging from his belt. Plugged into the top of the battery was a microphone the size of a digestive biscuit. Mother crossed the floor and placed her hand in his. The man bowed.

'Dr Lansley, Lord Alderberen's personal physician,' he said, almost shouting. 'Pleased to make your acquaintance.'

Mother smiled. Delphine folded her arms.

'Very nice to meet you,' said Mother.

Dr Lansley kept hold of her palm. Her wedding ring caught the light and sparked.

'I hear the Earl is unwell,' Mother said.

'What?'

'The maid said his dyspepsia '

'Yes, yes. Alice gets overexcited, silly thing.' Dr Lansley placed two fingers in the small of Mother's back and began guiding her away from the stairs. 'Nothing to worry about some boiled milk and a good night's sleep and he'll be quite restored, I'm sure. Now, would you care to take the guided tour?'

'That's very kind of you, Doctor, ah '

'Please, call me Titus.'

'We've only just arrived. Delphine needs to unpack her things. She has private study to be getting on with.' She turned to Delphine. 'Don't you, dear?'

Delphine scowled.

Dr Lansley faced Delphine, as if noticing her for the first time. His head had a slight rightward kink, weighed down by the deaf aid, but he was not old his eyes were ravenous, alert, and beneath his slick dark hair his posture shivered with the concentrated tension of a mousetrap. He looked her up and down.

'Hello,' he said.

'Hello,' said Delphine.

He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Mother.

'Well, we've got a lot to get through but since we're on the subject of families I suppose this is as good a place to start as any.' He took Mother's hand and led her across the Great Hall, their footsteps sarcastic applause. Delphine watched them go. Mother shot a look over her shoulder. 'Now this fellow is Sir Robert Stokeham good chum of Pitt the Elder, apparently.'

Dr Lansley stopped before a gilt-framed portrait the size of a billboard, lit on either side by electric lamps. As he continued talking, Delphine edged towards a doorway. 'Look how they've composed the scene around him: the matchlock, the faithful gundogs, the quill and documents lying oh-so-conveniently in the background. You can just imagine, can't you? "Yes, do come in, I'm just cleaning my hunting rifle and oh look, what's this on the desk? A frightfully important letter from King George the Third? How scatterbrained I am!"'

The Doctor's whinnying laughter faded as she entered a long corridor lined with south-facing windows. She walked in and out of the light, enjoying the cool lakes of darkness.

Why had Daddy insisted they come to this stuffy old place? Surely, if he wanted to get better, the best place for him was home. She stopped beside a door, tried the handle. It was locked.

Pinned to a corkboard beside the door was a typewritten timetable: S.P.I.M. ACTIVITIES.

Monday: 9 a.m. morning orientation 10 a.m. breakfast 11 a.m. true work (M) / hidden steps (F) 12 a.m. luncheon 1 p.m. archery 2 p.m. true work (M) / hidden steps (F) 4 p.m. wakefulness drills 5 p.m. dinner 6 p.m. private study time 9 p.m. discussion 11 p.m. supper There were similar lists for Tuesday to Friday, with minor variations: 'surgery' on a Wednesday afternoon, 'fencing' instead of 'archery' on Tuesday and Thursday, and a 6 a.m. slot on Friday called 'dawnbath'.

Delphine followed the corridor until it opened onto a spacious music room. Her sandals slapped against worn, waxed boards. Sunlight from four windows converged on a dusty harpsichord. On a stand above the harpsichord's double keyboard sat some handwritten sheet music: The Shadowed Way Sequence 15. The corner of the page was initialled: I.P.

Mother had forced Delphine to take piano lessons. Just thinking about the tak-tak-tak of the metronome made her throat tighten. She rested an index finger on middle C. The key colours were reversed: the majors ebony, the sharps and flats ivory. The key sank; a nasal, spidery twang died beneath the lid.

She entered a wider, longer corridor. As far as she could tell, she was in the west wing, heading north. On her left were tall windows, on her right, white statues of men in laurel wreaths and togas, pottery fragments, a bull's head in alabaster. She came to some double doors. She listened at the keyhole. Nothing. She tried the door knob. The door opened.

The room was thick with the sweet, rank stench of dead flowers. Huge drapes smothered the windows. As her eyes adjusted she saw a billiard table, a leather sofa and a globe the colour of autumn. She could taste the dust in the air. She approached the fireplace. A deep rug swallowed her footsteps.

She wondered if Mother had missed her yet, if she was pacing the hallways, calling. Delphine looked at the oil painting over the fireplace: a Venetian plague doctor in leather overcoat, wide-brimmed hat and white beakmask, gazing down upon a sea of corpses. She did not know much about art,* but something in the mask's dark sockets made the hairs at the top of her spine rise.

On the mantelpiece sat a glazed earthenware jug. It was shaped like a puffy, leering face, the eyes rolled back, the skull hanging wretchedly open. Beside it, bracketed to the wall, was a gun.

Delphine walked over for a closer look. It was a duelling pistol a flintlock, with a rounded walnut grip, a cleaning rod slotted under the barrel. Duelling pistols usually came in pairs, and she glanced round for another, but it seemed to be the only one. The manufacturer's name was incised on the iron plate beneath the hammer: Dellapeste.

In her belly, she felt the flint fall, the flash of black powder, the musket ball thudding into the heart of her arch foe. She lined up candidates and shot each in turn: Mrs Leddington (through the left bosom), Eleanor Wethercroft (headshot). Then, though she was not sure why, she shot Dr Lansley (kneecap, making him bow) before reloading and shooting him again (headshot, point-blank).

Delphine reached for the gun. Her elbow nudged the jug. Its face turned away and, as she grasped for it, the whole thing pirouetted off the edge of the mantelpiece, struck the hearth and broke apart with a chime.

She looked at the brown chunks. Amongst them was a key.

Tingles spread from the nape of her neck down her spine and up to her scalp. She stooped and picked up the key. The head was club-shaped. She glanced around for a locked cupboard or chest. A lacquered Chinese cabinet stood behind the billiard table. She tried the key, but it was too big. She was wondering whether to return and try the locked doors in the corridors, when she heard footsteps.

They were heading north, coming up through the statue gallery. She recognised the loud, reedy voice.

'These two are Minerva and, uh, Bacchus,' Dr Lansley was saying, 'which reminds me, your throat must be dry as a, ah yes. We'll take cocktails in the orangery shortly. The light this time of day ah!'

'I'm not sure I '

'Now at the end of the west gallery is the smoking room . . . '

Delphine scurried to the ashy hearth and began sweeping the shards of broken jug into her bonnet. The footsteps drew nearer. As she reached for the last thick sliver, she noticed a slit in the patterned wallpaper. It ran from the floor to just above head height, forming a rectangular outline. She walked up to it and pressed. It gave slightly. She pressed harder. It was a door.

And it was locked.

She ran a hand down the pink embossed fleur-de-lis wallpaper. Her fingertip snagged a keyhole. Mother and Dr Lansley were at the double doors.

'The Society holds a symposium on the last Saturday of every month. You mustn't feel obliged to attend.' The door knob began to twist. Delphine slotted the key into the hole and tried it. It would not turn. Of course it wouldn't. 'Please understand I admire Lord Alderberen's forbearance immensely. Immensely. But we live in a country full of those willing to take advantage of a generous nature.' The doors started to open.

'He's been very kind to us, yes,' said Mother.

The door stopped. 'Oh, I . . . I didn't mean to imply . . . Not you, of course.'

Delphine jerked the key the other way. A tumbler clucked and a hinged section of wall swung out.

Dr Lansley stepped into the smoking room, facing Mother. 'I'm talking about a lot of the . . . creative types who've arrived since Lord Alderberen opened his home to the Society.'

'Yes. Gideon and I were honoured that Mr Propp thought to invite us.'

'Gideon?'

Clutching her bonnet full of broken earthenware, Delphine stepped through the doorway.

'My husband.'

'Ah.'

She plucked the key from the lock then tugged the lip of the door. She pulled her hand clear just in time. The door shut with a click.

'What was that?' said Mother.

Delphine stood in the darkness, her back to the wall. The air was warm and thick with dust.

'I said "Oh, I see",' said Lansley. 'And is . . . your husband coming to stay also?'

'I thought I heard a noise.'

Delphine held her breath.

'Oh, you will do. Alice, I expect, or Mrs Hagstrom, our housekeeper. We get by on a skeleton staff Lord Alderberen is rather . . . particular when it comes to domestics. Now, this also serves as the card room. What's your game? Bridge? Oh Hell? No, don't tell me let me guess.'

Her eyes began to adjust. A faint thread of light picked out the door frame. To her right was a narrow passage. It continued for the length of the wall, curving round the fireplace, fading to black.

The tingle spread down the back of her neck again, stronger. She felt like a ghost. She set down her bonnet, closed her fist around the cold brass key.

Behind the chimney breast, the passage waspnecked. Delphine exhaled and squeezed through. Mother and Dr Lansley's conversation faded with the last of the light.

The passage smelt of dry rot and the acrid smack of rat urine. Rough beams scraped her shoulders; something yanked at her cardigan and she gasped. When she reached into the darkness behind her, her hand closed round a three-inch splinter, talon-sharp. She took a step back, unsnagged the loop of wool, continued.

A pipe near her head gurgled and clanged. She tore through a sheet of cobwebs, finding a dead-end. She felt the wall. Wooden rungs like pick-axe handles poked out at two-foot intervals. They formed a ladder leading up. Delphine lifted her head and strained her eyes at the flat and fathomless black.

'Pow,' she said. The word rang slightly, as if there was an opening. 'Pow!' she said, louder. The way it echoed suggested a hollow space above. She tucked the key into her sock, gripped the first rung and began to climb.

The going was easy, with a wall to lean back on if she got tired. She climbed one-handed, keeping the other over her head, flinching with each rung, convinced she was about to dash her brains out against the ceiling.

The ceiling never arrived. Soon, she could hear she had emerged into a second enclosed space. Gripping the ladder, she leaned out, dangling a toe in the air. Her stomach clenched, but her chest surged with warmth. She imagined stepping into a void, falling, breaking her neck, her mangled body lying undiscovered for decades. 'The Venner Vanishing' would become one of the world's great unsolved mysteries competing theories would abound: kidnapped and sold into slavery in Yemen to settle the Earl's gambling debts; dragged by vengeful spectres into one of the Hall's many ghastly paintings, where she can still be seen, selling matches in a Spanish marketplace; slain by the infamous 'cursed jug' of the Stokehams, which also disappeared on that fateful, terrible day. Then, in the year 2000, a citizen of some queer, barely human future would poke around the ruins of this ancient house, whirring and puttering with his electronic devices. A needle on his chromium instrument panel would swing towards the wall. He would locate the hidden doorway, spring the lock with a special magnetic ray, and there, crumpled in the dusty cavity, the bones of a little girl.