Rowena Shawn is fed-up. She and her family have recently moved into a new house in a small English village. They've taken on a local builder, but his efforts to knock two cottages into the bigger single house she envisages is fraught with problems.

And then there's her daughter, Eva, who has always been odd, but is now positively strange. Once fat, she appears to be starving herself, becoming thinner with each passing week. Then Rowena's eldest and prettiest daughter, Jennifer, goes missing.

As a frantic search is mounted, the house reveals its darkest secret: a hidden room with no windows and no obvious entrance. Boarded up, it smells of breath, custard, Dettol -- and death.