Chapter 1

      Clearing out Gran’s attic had seemed pretty straightforward right up until the point at which Lucy Jackson fell through the floor.

      Okay, so there was the amount of stuff. Turned out there was a simple reason why Gran had kept such a tidy home that had nothing to do with housekeeping skills of a bygone age. It was because there was seventy-odd years’ worth of clutter filling the bloody roof. Stack after stack of boxes, an old clothing rail hung with dust covers, black bin liners bulging with who-knew-what, odd bits of furniture. From Lucy’s vantage point, currently waist deep in a hole in the attic floor, she could see a pile of photographs spilling from a nearby box, the topmost one of a smiling toddler in the arms of a skinny young woman in shorts and a halterneck top. They shared the same honey-coloured curly hair. Typical. There must be a few hundred pictures in this loft, and she had that one in her sightline, like what she really needed right now was a reminder of her mother, currently AWOL somewhere in the Mediterranean while Gran was struggling in hospital. Despite the jaw-dropping size of the tat pile, which spoke of a serious hoarder, it had, right up until ten minutes ago, been just a simple matter of transferring it all from the top of the house to the bottom.

      If it hadn’t been for the box.

      Even in the dim light from the one dusty bulb, it had looked expensive. A wooden box with a curved lid, the kind of box that might organise a jewellery collection, the kind of box that Gran would surely have given pride of place in her bedroom instead of shoving it away up here out of sight. It had been sitting all by itself in the furthest cobweb-filled corner, in a place where the sturdy attic floorboards ended and where the thin board between the wooden joists looked as if it might not hold the weight of a thirty-year-old who was half a stone short of reaching her target weight but who had abandoned dieting because Christmas, with all its cheese and crackers, was only a few weeks away. She had taken a tentative step towards the box, and added her weight slowly. She had stretched her arm out, and her fingertips tantalisingly brushed the lid, drawing soft lines in the dust that coated its polished surface. There had been a small creak, but nothing serious, it was obviously going to hold, so she relaxed and lunged forward.

      The room disappeared from view in a cloud of dust and plaster as she plummeted through the attic floor with a yell and a splintering crash.

      As the dust cleared, she could see the box, still sitting smugly