“And, yes,” he murmured, “the house is actually made of tin.”
The two-story house had been clad in corrugated tin sheets, which were green in colour. They even covered the roof. At some point after Kirkwood’s disappearance, the windows had been covered with mesh security screens. From the outside, anyway, the house looked in a perfectly good state.
As he tapped his knuckles on a tin wall, he imagined what the din would be like inside during a fierce hailstorm. Meanwhile, he breathed deeply, enjoying the tang of salt air. From the distance came the forceful hiss of surf. He pictured himself on that very beach twenty years ago: an adventurous child with senses tuned for the next mystery that came his way.
“Hey you … get out of there; it’s private property.”
Newton saw a man striding through the drive gates. Aged about forty, he wore a bulky jacket in brown leather; he also wore an expression several degrees nearer anger than irritation.
“Mr. Kirkwood?” he asked pleasantly.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Newton. You are Mr. Jeremy Kirkwood?”
“Of course I am. Who else would be hanging around this Godforsaken hole?”
“I’m here to photograph the house; then I’ll give you back the keys.”
“Photograph the house? Whatever for?”
Newton explained that taking photographs before handing over keys to next-of-kin was standard procedure.
“Police rules and regulations, eh?” snorted Kirkwood. “You’d think taxpayers’ cash would be better spent on catching murderers.”
Newton’s professionalism dictated that he would neither like nor dislike the man, although he suspected Kirkwood’s face probably always wore an expression of bad temper. This gentleman had been born with angry bones. For some reason, Kirkwood didn’t approach Newton, and he remained near the driveway gates, hunching his shoulders against the cold.
The man shot him a sour look. “So this it, you’re closing the case on my uncle?”
“Lord Kirkwood is still listed as missing.”
“But scaling things back, eh? Taking things easy on the investigation?”
The Chief had told Newton that the case would be going in the deepfreeze, seeing as investigations had reached a dead end; however, the case wouldn’t be officially closed. After Newton politely stated that the investigation would continue, he pulled the keys from his pocket and nodded in the direction of the front door.
“I’ll take the photographs,” Newton told him. “You might want to check inside for yourself.”
“No, thank you.” Jeremy Kirkwood spoke primly. “I’m staying out here.”
“It’s starting to snow again.”
“If I go in there, I’ll be sneezing all night.” He scratched his throat as if he’d started to itch. “My family used that shack as a beach house. Whenever I stayed here, I’d have a violent allergic reaction to the place: spores, or dust, or something. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me in there.”
“It’ll probably take me about ten minutes.”
“Go and take your ten minutes, then.” The man visibly shuddered as he gazed up at the bedroom windows. “What a God-awful box it is. Being in there’s like being in a tin coffin. The place scared me half to death when I was a boy. I’d lie in bed at night and hear the entire house squealing, tapping, clicking, moaning. That God-awful racket kept me awake for hours.” He permitted his stone-hard features to soften into something near a smile. “I didn’t realise back then that the sounds were caused by all those tin sheets contracting as they cooled after the heat of the day. Ergo: contraction of metal, not noisy ghosts.” He briskly cleared his throat. “My sisters tried to convince me it was haunted. Nothing like siblings to tease one, eh? Especially at the witching hour.”
“What made your uncle choose to live out here?”
“Pardon?”
“After all, he’d have been an extremely wealthy man, so what made him want to spend his time in a small beach house made from tin?”
“Well, detective, that’s none of your business, is it?” Jeremy Kirkwood thrust his clenched fists into his jacket pockets. “Didn’t you say ten minutes?”
People often describe a haunted house as an Unquiet House. The Tin House wasn’t the least bit quiet — though whether that suggested this quirky building was actually haunted wasn’t, he decided, for him to judge one way or the other. As Newton walked along the hallway toward the kitchen, he heard a series of clicking sounds, together with squeaks, loud popping noises, and the creak of timbers under pressure. He recalled Jeremy Kirkwood talking about the racket the tin cladding made during the night as it cooled.
“This is November,” he told himself. “It’s been cold all day. This can’t be the metal contracting.”
He rested his palm on the kitchen doorframe. The woodwork trembled as it might do if the house was hit by a storm. But outside was relatively still. Just a few snowflakes drifted by. This is a mystery. He loved myster-ies — he’d love to spend time investigating the popping noises and the sharp tapping coming from upstairs, but he’d been ordered to take the photographs then hand the keys to Jeremy Kirkwood. Perhaps there were rats in the walls — however, rodent infestation wouldn’t be a police matter.
Newton switched on the kitchen light. The place had been left tidy by the forensic team. Of course, the bowl of soup that the missing man had abandoned had gone — no doubt for fingerprint and DNA testing. He photographed the old fashioned stove, the Belfast sink, then moved onto the lounge. Again — tidied, vacuumed, and untouched by man or rat … at least, untouched in the last six months anyway. After taking photographs of the 1950s era armchairs, he worked his way through the ground floor rooms. Meanwhile, the scratching, tip-tapping, and popping continued. Dear God. Who’d live in a house made of tin?
Upstairs, he photographed tidy bedrooms and a trim bathroom. He’d been ready to head back downstairs when he recalled the Chief’s order: I want you to photograph every room. And I mean every room, no matter how small.
He checked the master bedroom. Straightaway, he realised he’d missed a narrow door in the corner. As he walked toward it, he glanced out through a window that was covered by steel mesh. From up here, he could see the dark expanse of ocean. While on the driveway stood Lord Kirkwood’s nephew, and heir to his fortune. A man with a motive. Though no doubt the Chief’s team would have scrutinised that angle already: greedy, impatient nephew murdering rich uncle would top the list of suspects. Jeremy Kirkwood had retreated to the driveway gates where he stood, glaring at the house. The man’s expression was strange. He looked as if he expected the building to lunge forward and bite him. Kirkwood appeared decidedly scared of the Tin House.
Newton took a moment to scrutinise details of the master bedroom. Several framed photographs of Lord Alfred Kirkwood hung from the wall. The missing man clearly preferred to see photographs of himself when he woke in the morning. On a table beside the window was a hairbrush. He noticed long, white hairs sticking to the bristles. When he glanced back at photographs of the elderly Lord he saw the same white, shoulder-length hair. In his youth, the man must have been an aristocratic dandy.
He opened the narrow door in the bedroom to discover a small antechamber. Perhaps four feet by eight feet, the vestibule might have been used for storage, although now it was completely empty.
After taking the single photograph, he’d have walked away if it wasn’t for a sudden, frantic clatter from the far end of the room, which formed part of an outside wall. There was a rapid, metallic popping, as if tiny, bone-hard fists rapped on the tin sheet at the far side. For some reason, he felt compelled to rest his palm against that part of the wall. This was the only section to be covered in wallpaper; the paper itself had a furiously busy pattern of tiny red roses peeping out from green leaves.