‘Can you see?’ Nell stood back and held up the phone. Chris bent close and looked inside, the blue-white beam trembling slightly.

‘No. Not really,’ he said, pulling at the wood and trying to slip his hand in. The gap was too narrow, too narrow for Chris at any rate.

‘Can I try?’ Maude asked.

‘No,’ said Nell.

‘Rats can get ever so hungry all alone in the dark,’ said Chris, standing now, pulling a face at Maude, who for once didn’t seem to get the joke. She moved closer to Evie, who slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle, reassuring hug.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Nell, frowning at him. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Maudie.’

‘Fine,’ said Chris. ‘You give it a go.’

There was no way of avoiding it. Nell gave the phone to Chris and knelt, and – trying not to think about rats, or spiders, cobwebs or . . . dead things . . . she slid her hand into the gap.

There was a sort of shelf. She ran her fingers gently across the surface – lightly ridged in places, dusty and cold – making sure to press into the corners; her fingernails scrabbling against the stone.

It was maybe twelve inches long and went back three or four inches into the wall. She could feel herringbone marks cross hatched into the stone, like little crosses.

‘There’s nothing there,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ said Carolyn, who had been watching intently.

‘Yes.’ As she drew her hand back her fingers brushed over the cool stone and caught against something. ‘Shit.’

‘What is it?’ asked Maude.

She had them now, both Chris and Carolyn were leaning in closer and Nell found she was tempted to give them a fright, to start screaming as if there was a rat after all, something with teeth.

‘I’m not sure.’ She felt around carefully, trying not to think about what she might be catching under her nails. ‘Oh.’

‘What?’

It wasn’t stone. Whatever it was gave slightly under the pressure of Nell’s fingers. It was soft, collapsed – something dead.

‘I think it’s . . .’

Skin.

She wrapped her hand around it and carefully, she pulled it out into the light.

It was a shoe.

*

‘Well,’ said Carolyn, lifting it up, tilting it this way and that.

‘Is there another one?’ asked Maude.

‘No.’ Even if there was, Nell wasn’t about to shove her hand back into the wall.

It was made of leather, stained and worn; thick with dust.

A child’s shoe.

‘How old is it, do you think?’ asked Evie.

‘I don’t know, as old as the house?’ Nell rubbed her fingers against the leg of her jeans. She wanted to wash her hands; she wanted to get into the bath and scrub everything away.

Carolyn handed the shoe to her daughter, who turned it over, examining the sole.

‘Shouldn’t we show it to someone?’ said Maude.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’