Janet seems to have her life neatly organised. She’s hardworking, she has a nice boyfriend, she lives in a comfortable house and she drives a dark-green Golf. Recently, however, she has been receiving messages from her mind. Seizures (which also occurred in her childhood) will strike without warning and leave her humming with nervous tension — a struck tuning fork.

Janet disregards this important signal of an imminent decline; in any case, her attention is diverted by a call from a solicitor. She is told that she has inherited, from her mother, a house beside the sea. Janet is puzzled by this news. She had always believed — had been told by her father — that her mother was killed in an accident when Janet was a little girl.

Naturally enough, Janet doesn’t wait for the boyfriend to get time off work, but sets off alone to investigate her new property. Arriving in the house, she discovers, Famous-Five-style, that the ashes in the fireplace are still warm. On the nearby beach she is accosted by a man who tells her he lives in the house — that it’s his home, and that it belongs to him as much as it does to her.

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