She should never have left the book in the beach hut; the damp has sealed the fragile pages together. Carefully, she separates the parchment with a scalpel which is a delicate operation. The

recipes exposed are as pale as moonlight. Even under her rechargeable LED light, Great Grandma’s scrawl is hard to decipher.

Eye of frog

Claw of cat

Scale of fish

Spoonful of golden syrup

The last ingredient was added by her mother and is written in the margin in biro; she always had a sweet tooth. She smiles as she takes a photograph of the recipe, using AI to fill in the gaps.

Walking across to the bookcase, stained-white like the rest of the interior, she pulls out the last book on the second shelf, and presses the lever behind it. 

Sand rains down onto the painted, wooden floor and the bookcase shifts, exposing a hole beneath and the first rung of a ladder. The rungs creak as she descends into the darkness, which smells of wet paper, salt, vinegar and seaweed. It does not frighten her but reminds her of her childhood. Whilst her friends made sandcastles and dug moats, she helped to bury secrets.

Once in the hidden room, she searches amongst the shelves of jars for the things she will need. It is lucky that Frinton has retained its old worldly charm and independent shops. The

town, a stone’s throw from Walton, has always provided what’s necessary: nail-clippings from the vet, scales from the fishmongers, an eye from St Joseph’s school biology lab.

She carries the ingredients over to the iron pot in the corner, which hangs above a firepit. Beside are stacks of driftwood and dried bladderwrack. It is safe to cook down here; the walls are lined with flint and selenite, and the beach beyond deadens all sound. 

Grandmother bought the hut cheaply and converted it after the East coast floods. They have lived their lives washing away their tracks. She adds the ingredients in the order grandmother wrote them in. Admiring the de Mandeville’s family crest on the handle of the ladle, she stirs the mixture anticlockwise as it

heats up. The ladle was stolen from service; the women in her family have always been cooks.

She thinks of her brother as the mixture whirlpools. It is because of him, her recurrent dreams, and her sister-in-law, Jane’s, Facebook posts, that she has returned to the hut.

Grandmother always said she had the third eye.

Wincing, she adds the rabbit blood, as there is no synthetic alternative. It is hard being a vegetarian and following the old ways, but she owes it to Tom. If Tom can visit her from

beyond, she can suck it up for one night. There is no one else. She is the last of a line that escaped the clutches of Matthew Hopkins. The mixture bubbles, sugar pools slick on the surface. Finally, she drops in the dyed-blonde hair, plucked from the sink in the golf club toilets, and the smear of red lipstick from the coffee cup. Despite the cloying scent, this potion will taste of nothing but sugar. 

She clears her throat, speaks the rites written under the ingredients, to give energy to them. The bladder rack pops,

punctuating her words. Ladling it into a bottle, she stoppers it with a cork. Jane won’t notice the potion in her collagen drink, which she believes keeps her young. It is ironic that inside, Jane is as slippery and rotten as dead fish.

Still, Jane’s rituals will make this easy: her nightly dose of sleeping pills; her liquid marine breakfast; the beach walk ending behind the 11th hole of the golf course; her constant

check on the time until she can enjoy her skinny latte at the members’ club.

If Tom really was missing of his own volition, as Jane’s Facebook page declares, his watch would not adorn Jane’s bony wrist. He would never give away a present from his sister. Until Tom’s found, Jane is entitled to everything, including the family beach hut.

That is a sacrifice she isn’t prepared to make, especially after Tom’s communication.

Dawn invades, pooling light across the floor. She must have fallen asleep in the rocking chair after her nighttime chores. She switches the lamp off, hopes no one noticed. Overnight stays are prohibited and the last thing she wants is to stand out.

Glancing around, she finds everything looks and smells as it should: the bookcase is repositioned, the air scented with Ocean Febreze, the empty, stoppered bottle is drying next to

the sink. She checks her phone. It is a quarter to eight, and the members club opens in a few minutes. Grabbing her power bank, charger, and phone, she leaves the hut, clamping the padlock tight onto the metal latch. Grandma’s book is safe underneath, wrapped in plastic.

The Golf club is busy with a breakfast buffet, but they make space for her. Tom was part of the 1895 club, as established as the pebbledash. They ask if there’s any news, and she shakes her head. Half-way through her meat-free, full-English, there is a commotion. An early morning golfer demands to use the landline. There is a nine iron in his hand and a sense of urgency. The gossip whips around the room like the east wind.

‘Have you heard?’ they say.

‘A woman is trapped under one of the wooden groynes. They don’t want to move her until the tide goes out further, in case something’s broken. All mobile signals are down. How is that possible?’

Mopping up tomato juice with her sourdough bread, she tries to look earnest. ‘That’s terrible.’

She’s not a killer, unlike Jane. When the tide recedes and her sister-in-law is rescued, they’ll find Tom in his shallow, sandy grave, along with the remains of Jane’s first husband. It’s

her modus operandi.

A spell in prison is the least Jane deserves.

And she has a book of them to decipher.