First 40 pages:
In the heart of Bodmin Moor lies the village of Penbode. Barren and beautiful. A ghost town of second homes only inhabited on weekends and bank holidays.
Retired music teacher, JULIET MOSS, 70s, is in denial about her dementia. She doesn’t see that her husband, NEIL’s idea to move permanently to their country cottage is more about wrapping her in cotton wool than making the most of their retirement. The removal van is barely out of the drive, with a house full of unpacked boxes, when the stress of the move triggers a heart attack – and Neil is dead.
Grief exacerbates Juliet’s condition. The question for BEN, 40s, Juliet’s stepson, is whether she can look after the house (and herself) on her own. After Juliet explodes with fury at Ben for bringing a doctor to evaluate her (something she suggested), Ben decides he’s going to contest Neil’s will and take the house for himself.
Fortunately, Juliet has a new carer, MICHAEL, professionally direct, subservient, and detached. He believes he can teach Juliet memory techniques to help Juliet pass a cognitive test, which will quash any hope of Ben revoking the will.
Alone in the house at night, Juliet is terrorised by unexplained events. At first, it’s noises - then disappearing items - a door held closed against her, even though there’s no-one on the other side. Then one morning she wakes to find raw cuts across her wrists… and no memory of how they got there; but it’s only when Juliet wakes with a raw cut across her throat that Michael forces her to see a doctor.
As the cognitive test draws nearer, Juliet’s chance of passing seems slimmer and slimmer, and they’re no closer to discovering the cause of her wounds. Are they self-inflected? Could Juliet’s persistent rebuffs of her surly neighbour’s advances made him violent? Or could they be connected to who Juliet suspects is behind the bumps in the night -- Neil.
