The kettle started to boil – he could see it from his bed misting up the windows of the small front room – and he got up and poured hot water into his mug. He watched the teabag float in the water, bleeding out into the rapidly darkening liquid, until the tea was almost black. Then he fished out the bag and dropped it into the sink with a moist thud, where it lay steaming like fresh cat prey. He managed to extract a few dribbles of milk from a frozen carton and then reached up for the sugar, his fingers again brushing the urn next to the jar. He added two teaspoons of sugar and hurriedly took a slurp, instantly burning his mouth.
He lit the paraffin heater and quickly got dressed while his tea cooled to a more manageable temperature. He needed some new shoes – the ones he had had developed a leak – and he wondered whether there might be a bring-and-buy at the church. Perhaps he could prevail upon Mrs Muir at the B&B for a bath afterwards, and, if he played his cards right, maybe even some supper; that’s if she hadn’t started on the sherry. Once he was dressed, he opened the front door and stood on the porch, sniffing the cold, deliciously fresh air, and he was about to take a sip of tea when the sudden feeling he wasn’t alone ran through him. He paused, straining his ears for the slightest sound, and scanned the woodland around the lodge. There was nothing but silence – or Blackwater Silence, as he called it. It couldn’t be the Creeper at this hour, surely?
As he turned to go back inside, a noise made him stop in his tracks: a voice, somewhere in the distance. He’d been right, there was someone out there; the contractors must have arrived early, despite the snow. He downed the tea, leaving the mug in the sink, quickly made the bed, and turned off the paraffin heater. He put on his coat, wound his scarf around his head turban-style and locked up. As he made his way to a pathway through the trees, he felt a blister forming on the roof of his mouth where he’d scalded it. His mother had always told him off for drinking his tea too fast. You’ll burn your tongue, Ray, love. He smiled at the memory, as banal as it was. God he missed her.
CHAPTER 4
‘Why the fuck didn’t anyone mention this Sweet character earlier?’ Anderson growled, as they made their way towards the Old Lodge.
Kirby wondered the same, but fumed quietly.
The lodge was concealed in a small clearing, completely surrounded by trees and tangled undergrowth. A path had been beaten through, but to the untrained eye it was all but invisible. What he’d been expecting, he wasn’t quite sure, but the small house in front of him came as a surprise. All the buildings he’d seen so far reeked of neglect and decay, but the Old Lodge was the converse. It was a raised one-storey building, with a small flight of steps leading up to a wooden porch and gabled entrance. The paintwork was well maintained, albeit in a variety of colours, and the fabric of the building looked to be in good nick. Window boxes, empty at the moment, hung from the two front windows. A lean-to had been erected on the left-hand side of the property, made up of sheet metal and what looked like the side of an old shed. Even that had a rustic charm about it. If nothing else, Sweet was house-proud, and Kirby wondered how much the land was worth if Simmons’s claim that he had squatter’s rights was correct.
Anderson was peering through one of the lodge windows in an attempt to see if Raymond Sweet was at home. No one had answered the door when he’d knocked, and the place was locked up. Fresh footprints in the snow led from the porch off into the trees, and Kirby was willing to bet that they led to the entrance on Daylesford Road.
‘He’s not here,’ said Anderson, unhelpfully, as he moved around the property.
Kirby followed the fresh prints in the snow, being careful not to disturb them. They disappeared beneath the trees, but a clear path trailed through, and sure enough the footprints began again at the other end, where Kirby tracked them to the side entrance that opened on to Daylesford Road. The entrance consisted of large wrought-iron double gates and a smaller gate to one side. The large gates had been blocked off with sheet metal and had security spikes along the top. The smaller side gate was also spiked, but unlike the larger gate it hadn’t been blocked off, so he could see through to the road outside. A new closed shackle padlock gleamed against the rust-flecked metal chain that secured it. The footprints led to the small side gate, and the snow had been pushed to one side in a quarter-circle where the gate had recently been opened and closed. Kirby headed back to the lodge, his mood darkening.
‘Anything?’ asked Anderson, when Kirby arrived back at the small clearing.
He shook his head. ‘He’s gone.’ He pulled out his phone and punched in the number for the office, where Mark Drayton picked up.
‘Lew, what’s up?’
‘Run a check on a Raymond Sweet for me, will you? Apparently he’s an ex-patient of Blackwater Asylum and lives on the site. I want to know everything about him.’ Kirby’s eyes roamed over the lodge, and the Heath Robinson-esque lean-to, as he hung up.
Anderson’s phone pinged. ‘The ME’s arrived,’ he said, reading the message. ‘You coming?’
‘I’ll follow you in a minute,’ said Kirby. He wanted a few moments to himself to get a sense of the place – and of Sweet. As Anderson’s muffled footsteps receded into the distance, silence engulfed the small clearing. Kirby would never have guessed how near he was to an inner-city road, let alone flats and houses where people had left for work that morning or were now cosy in their beds after the night shift. Life went on all around, but the clearing felt like a world apart. Snow clung to the tree branches like thick icing – a good few inches had fallen overnight – and the ground was smooth with unspoilt snow. He wondered what it was like to live here all alone – and not only that, but in the grounds of the very institution that had once removed you from society.
He moved around the lodge and peered in through the windows, images of the dead woman flashing through his mind. It was hard to see much inside, as the interior was dark and his eyes had to adjust from the brightness of the snow. The main areas looked tidy enough – the draining board and small kitchen table were clear, even the bed was made – but every other available space was crammed with objects. He went back round to the window nearest the bed and looked in again. On the bedside table were an alarm clock and a framed photo. He was about to move away when something caught his eye, half hidden in the shadows. He cupped his hands around his eyes in a bid to see better and at first thought it was Sweet, watching from inside. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the dark interior he soon realised that it wasn’t Sweet at all, but some kind of dummy. What was it, a dressmaking model? He moved along the window, his breath steaming up the glass, and peered in again, holding his breath. Although he could see more clearly, it was still too dark to make out much detail. One thing was clear though, the dummy was wearing a coat; and, as far as Kirby could discern, it was a woman’s coat.
CHAPTER 5
‘Ed, it’s me. Where are you? Call me. Let me know you’re okay.’ Connie ended the call and slipped the phone back into her pocket and pulled out her keys. Where the hell was he? She pushed open the heavy wooden door and manoeuvred herself and a large roll of drawings into the building, letting the door slam shut behind her. Her friend Ed worked in a local school, which was shut today due to the weather, so there really wasn’t any good reason for him not to have called – especially after last night.