The Girl on the Landing - Paul Torday

You think you know someone – but you never really do …

Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited from his parents. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her.

But then, on a holiday in Ireland, Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing. As he changes, life becomes so much more fun and Elizabeth sees glimpses of a man she can fall in love with at last. But who – or what – is changing Michael? As Elizabeth finally gets to know her husband she realises that their fragile happiness is threatened by his past – a past that seems as unsettling as Beinn Caorrun itself …