Writer William Caldicott's life is complicated enough. He is about to embark on divorce proceedings when he receives a cryptic letter of farewell from his estranged brother James together with the key to his house in a remote French village.

William --- out of exasperation, duty or self-dissatisfaction --- accepts the key and begins to look for James. Gradually, as he begins to unravel the complexities of his brother's strange life, he discovers things that, even as a writer, he could never remotely have imagined ...