Alice slumped. Groaned. Then scuffed her way into the lounge and sulked back out again dragging one of the wooden dining-room chairs behind her. Thumped it down beneath the hatch. ‘It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?’
‘Up you go, Monkey Girl.’
‘Should’ve gone and waited in the car.’ She clambered up onto the seat, wobbled a bit, then shoved at the hatch, forcing it up on squealing hinges. ‘If I get spiders in my hair, I’m suing Police Scotland for mental cruelty, PTSD, and punitive damages.’
‘Stop milking it.’
Another slump, then Alice grabbed the edges of the hatch and pulled herself up into the attic. Sat there, black jeans and red shoes dangling in the mildewed air over our heads.
‘Anything?’
Her muffled voice filtered down from above. ‘Filthy up here. And cold! And... Aaaahhh... Aaaaaahhh...’ A high-pitched squeaky sneeze. ‘Dusty! Horribly dusty.’
‘What about boxes, or suitcases, anything like that?’
‘No, it’s all dust and fibreglass insulation and SPIDERS! OH GOD, THEY’RE SODDING HUGE!’ Her legs kicked and squirmed, then she dropped from the hatch, arms at full stretch, hands clinging to the edges, feet swinging as the chair clattered over onto its back. ‘AAAARGH!’ Alice let go and crashed to the hall carpet in a tangle of limbs and chair legs. Then lay there, making spitting noises as she wiped at her face.
‘Well, that was dignified.’
‘I hate you both.’
Mother’s face soured. ‘That’s that, then. No further forward than we were half an hour ago.’
Alice accepted my hand, scrambling to her feet and scowling. ‘Honestly, they were this big!’ Holding her hands about a foot apart. ‘Now can we get out of this spider-infested horror show before the house falls down?’
Might as well.
‘Come on then.’ I chucked the chair back into the living room where it bounced off the pile, setting loose a little mahogany avalanche of furniture. That medicine cabinet crashed into the floor, the doors flying open as the mirrors shattered; a wardrobe keeled over, jammed against the double bed; and a coat stand timbered down, the curled crown snapping off as it battered into the rug. BOOOM...
Henry jumped about two feet in the air, scuttling away from the living room, hackles up. Barking at the pile of furniture.
The echoes faded away, but the pall of dust — kicked up by the falling pieces — lingered in the cold dark air.
Hmm...
Mother wafted a hand in front of her face, spluttering the dust away. ‘We’ll get a lookout request sorted, see if N Division can find the brother’s croft and get Gordon Smith picked up.’ She opened the front door and a scream of wind shoved its way into the house, bringing with it the hissing roar of the sea as it gnawed on the headland only thirty or forty feet away.
Alice followed her out, muttering about spiders and lawsuits.
Leaving Henry and me alone in the darkness, with nothing but the weakening light from my phone for company.
I raised the rubber tip of my walking stick and jabbed it down again, into the hall carpet. It made the same hollow thumping noise it had when we’d searched the place. Henry barked at that too.
Might be nothing, but still...
The hallway was completely carpeted, as were both bedrooms and dining room. Linoleum down in the bathroom, kitchen, and utility room. Which left two options.
Down to the end of the corridor — shouldering open the door through to the garage. A row of empty shelves ran along the rear wall, a pegboard opposite the door, with black marker outlines where tools were meant to be. Spattered spray paint making a crime-scene outline of a workbench that wasn’t there any more. A concrete floor, littered with leaves blown in through the sagging up-and-over door. With the front door open, the wind whipped straight through the house, sparking the fallen leaves up into an angry ballet of whirling greys.
Hard not to picture the waves crashing against the cliff, less than a dozen feet away. Eating them.
Henry looked up at me, a whine rattling at the back of his throat.
Yeah. Good point.
I got out of there fast and shoved the door shut again, killing the wind tunnel.
One place left.
By the time I’d returned to the living room, Alice was standing in the hall, arms folded, crease between her eyebrows, mouth turned down. ‘Can we please go now? Before the house falls into the sea?’
‘Give me a minute.’
She took the proffered lead and frowned down at the wee man. ‘Your dad’s got a death wish.’
The daft hairy sod sat on his bum, tail wagging as he gazed at her with his gob hanging open.
‘See, I’ve been wondering: why pile all the furniture up like this? There’s only two reasons I can think of.’ I clunked my walking stick down on the windowsill and grabbed the wardrobe that had nearly fallen over. Helped it all the way. ‘One: you’re planning to burn the place down and maybe claim on the insurance. Assuming you can insure a house somewhere like this.’ The double bed’s legs juddered across the carpet as I dragged it into the corner. The armchair went on top of it.
‘What’s reason number two?’
Foot was beginning to ache now. Every step sending another burning needle slicing all the way through to the sole.
The broken medicine cabinet got picked up and tossed onto the bed.
‘Ash?’
I did the same with a pair of dining room chairs. ‘Who do you think our victim is?’
Then a bedside cabinet joined them.
‘What’s the second reason?’
‘Someone he knew, or a complete stranger?’ A standard lamp got javelined into the corner. ‘And how long does it take for a body to rot down to a skeleton? Twenty years?’
‘Eight to twelve. Assuming it’s not been embalmed, and you’ve not buried it in a coffin, or sand, or peat.’ The light from her phone cast shadows on the wall as I heaved another wardrobe off the pile. ‘I’d really like to go now, so if you can stop messing about, we—’
‘That means we’re looking for someone who went missing between eight and... how long did Helen MacNeil say Gordon Smith lived here? Fifty-six years, wasn’t it?’ The kitchen table thumped into the bed with the sound of cracking wood, as one of the legs gave way. ‘So our victim went into the ground sometime between then and eight years ago.’
‘If they weren’t already here when the Smiths moved in.’
‘True. Which makes it at least forty-eight years’ worth of missing persons to troll through. Assuming anyone missed them enough to report it.’ The sideboard was a sod to shift, but it hit the wardrobe with a satisfying crash. ‘And, given the storm’s currently busy washing the remains out to sea, we’ll probably never find out who they were.’ Welsh dresser next. Thing weighed a ton. ‘Unless Gordon Smith coughs to it, when we catch him, of course.’
And there was sod-all chance of that happening.
The shirt stuck to my back, steam rising from the shoulders of my damp coat. Breathing heavy.
Used to be a lot more fit than this.
Another couple of dining room chairs went flying. ‘Mind you, see if I was him? I’d “no comment” everything. No way anyone’s going out there, on a crumbling clifftop, to dig up what’s left of the bones. Health and Safety would have a prolapse.’ The sofa groaned and squealed as I pushed it back, off the rug. ‘So Gordon Smith can sit there, smug and quiet, while the North Sea destroys every last bit of evidence, and get away with murder.’
‘This is all fascinating, but can we please get out of here now?’