Briarbank

Phoebe Straiton has never met the uncle who left her a house. Briarbank stands three storeys deep into a Borders hillside, crammed with books, models, and forty-seven reel-to-reel tapes recorded by a man who spoke to a machine because he could not speak to anyone else. Sixty days' residence, the will says, before she can sell. On the third night, Phoebe presses play and hears her uncle begin to describe a drowning that the village called an accident.