The Names in the Wall

In Bellhaven-on-Sea, old paper has a habit of keeping the truth.

Cecily Mallory, owner of The Margin Note bookshop, is called to St. Petroc's when workmen restoring the derelict almshouses uncover a copper box sealed inside the east wall. Inside are a bundle of letters, a mourning brooch, and a small leather-bound registry listing twenty-two women beside three unexplained initials: P, S, and D.

The discovery unsettles Rowena Chalke, whose own family history may be tangled in the list. It unsettles Cecily even more when a bare-handed touch of the brooch leaves her with an echo of cold rooms, locked doors, and fear.

Then Daniel Ferris, the project architect, is found dead at the base of the scaffolding.

DS Imogen Hale is cautious, practical, and determined to build a case from evidence no court can laugh out of the room. Cecily can only offer leads: old letters, missing survey notes, a ghost who points but never explains, and the unnerving sense that someone wants the registry hidden before Bellhaven learns what its oldest charity really did.

As a polished conservator asks the wrong questions and Ptolemy, Cecily's large grey cat, watches Hale with far too much understanding, the past begins pressing its initials into the present.

Because some names were not lost.

They were put away.

Short Blu