Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all. Then something would bring it back or it would return in a dream The dreams began in the same way. She and ... » 

Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all. Then something would bring it back or it would return in a dream The dreams began in the same way. She and her mother would be climbing the stairs following Heathers lead through the bedroom to what was on the other side not a bathroom in the dream but a chamber floored and walled in marble. In the middle of it was a glassy lake. The white thing in the water floated towards her its face submerged and her mother said absurdly quotDont lookquotThe dead man was Ismays stepfather Guy. Nine years on she and her sister Heather still live in the same house in Clapham. But it has been divided into two selfcontained flats. Their mother lives upstairs with her sister Pamela. And the bathroom where Guy drowned has been demolished.Ismay and Heather get on well. They always have. They never discuss the changes to the house still less what happened that August day. But now with painful inevitability hidden truths start to emerge.Rendells psychological novels remain in a class of their own Sunday TelegraphRendell is in full control of her craft here Sunday Times «