Unlike the other residents of Middleton Hall, Stella is elegant, smart and in control. Only Jenny, her care assistant, knows that she harbours a painful secret, and only she can prevent Stella from carrying it to the grave. As the women talk, Jenny pieces together the answers to many questions that arise: Why has she kept possession of a house that her family don't know about? What happened there that holds the key to a distant tragedy? As Jenny uses the house to meet her lover, she makes some unusual discoveries, but only when Stella leaves Jenny her tape recorder, into which she has recorded the true events of the past, can the truth be finally - and shockingly - revealed.

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has won many awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. She has also won the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.

One of Britain's finest actresses, Juliet Stevenson has an established reputation on stage, television and film. She has appeared with the RSC in As You Like It, and as Madame de Tourvel in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Film roles include Evie in Being Julia, Annie Pierrepoint in The Last Hangman and Diana Vreeland in Infamous, while on TV she has appeared in The Politician's Wife, Place of Execution and Hear the Silence.