‘There’s no one here, Jack,’ said Akiko. She held the sleeve of her kimono to her mouth, breathing shallowly. ‘I’m sorry, but let’s go now.’

‘No,’ Jack replied firmly, ‘not until I’ve searched this whole house for her.’

He knew he might not like what he found, but he had to know his sister’s fate. He first looked in the pantry. Here the stench was strongest, the stores having turned rancid and rotten at least a month or more back. Gagging, Jack stuffed a fist into his mouth. It was all he could do not to vomit. A quick inspection, though, told him that Jess wasn’t there.

Turning on his heels, he headed up the creaking staircase to the floor above and entered the main bedroom. Even here the dormer window was boarded up, condemning the room to a permanent dusk. Hidden in the gloom was a four-poster bed, hung with heavy drapes. Jack approached it and slowly drew back the drapes. The mattress was sunken and the blankets pulled aside, the sheets looked stained and musty: the bed had clearly not been slept in for some time.

‘Any luck?’ asked Yori, peering round the door frame, as Jack hesitantly lifted the lid to a large oak chest that stood against the far wall. It just contained spare bedding and some old clothes.

Jack shook his head and crossed the landing to his old room … Jess’s room. In here was the wooden-framed bed he’d shared with his sister when they were little children. The blankets were in disarray, but the layer of dust on the floorboards suggested no one had entered the room for a while. It was as if Jess and Mrs Winters had vanished and left the house to rot.

Jack looked around for any evidence that she’d ever been there. On the windowsill he spied five small, smooth white bones. The knucklebones he and Jess used to play with! He picked them up, weighing them in his hand. Were these all that was left of their time together?

As he stashed the bones in his purse, he heard a scratching, like fingernails on wood. He glanced over at Akiko and Yori.

‘It’s coming from under the bed,’ Akiko whispered.

His pulse racing, Jack crept over. ‘Jess?’ he asked gently.

Lifting the dusty covers, he peered into the inky blackness beneath. Two gleaming eyes stared back at him. Startled, the large black rat leapt out from its hiding place. Jack tumbled backwards in shock as the rodent scurried across the floorboards, between Yori’s legs and down the stairs.

‘Did you see the size of that?’ squealed Yori, his eyes wide in horror. ‘It was so big I thought it was a dog!’

Recovering his breath, Jack slowly got back to his feet. ‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ he said.