Ralph opened the boot. Frank joined him.
“Just a spare tyre, a foot pump and a bottle of water,” Ralph said.
Joel peered over their shoulders. “Why would someone just leave their car here with its engine running?”
Ralph closed the boot. “Maybe they were injured and couldn’t drive.”
Joel put his hands in his pockets. “But if they were injured, why would they leave the car?”
“Should we call the police?” Magnus suggested.
“If we can’t find the driver, then yes,” said Frank.
Magnus was looking downwards. “I’ve found some drops of blood on the road, heading away from the car.”
“I’m calling the police,” said Joel. He took out his mobile and dialled. Put the mobile to his ear. He waited, frowning.
Frank looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t get through.”
“What?”
“The network’s down. Try your phones.”
“I’ve got nothing. No signal. No fucking network.” Ralph tapped his phone as if doing so would solve the problem.
“Same here,” said Magnus. “I was wondering why Debbie hadn’t called me in a while.”
Frank couldn’t even get a ringtone when he dialled.
“Bollocks,” said Ralph.
“What do we do?” Joel was glancing up and down the road again.
There was thunder in the distance.
“This is fucking weird,” said Magnus. “I think we should head to Wishford, or even that farmhouse we passed on the way to the cottage. Tell someone about this.”
“Tell them what?” said Ralph. “That we found an abandoned car? What’s a bloody farmer gonna do about it?”
“We have to tell someone,” said Frank. “Maybe they’ll have a landline telephone we can use. And if the driver is walking the road, we’ll catch up with him.”
Joel nodded eagerly. “That sounds good. I don’t want to stay here.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nobody was walking the road.
“Maybe they travelled across the fields instead,” said Joel.
They approached the farm, a dark house at the top of a slope of gravel and dirt. There was a mud-streaked Land Rover and a rusting transit van with flat tyres and missing windows. A tractor was parked by a barn. Crows lined the roof of the barn, pecking at one another and cawing insults.
Frank stopped the car in front of the house. He got out. The others stayed inside. He turned back to them. They looked at him, hesitant to leave the car. He shrugged.
Ralph was first to relent. Joel and Magnus followed him.
They walked to the house.
The house was in poor condition, with scarred walls with paint peeling off in small flakes. The smell of dampness and wood-rot. Cracked roof tiles. The front door was open. A leering brass face for a knocker. Frank was reluctant to touch it.
Scattered boot prints in the dirt.
There were two downstairs windows at the front of the house. The curtains were drawn.
“Think anyone’s home?” Joel glanced around nervously. “Looks like the house is empty.”
“Why would they leave the door open?” asked Frank.
Magnus wiped his glasses with his sleeve. “Maybe they’re at the back of the house.”
“Looks haunted,” said Ralph with a little grin.
“That’s helpful.” Joel said, and then looked over his shoulder, as if someone was standing behind him.
Frank rapped his knuckles three times on the door. Three dull thuds. Too loud in the silence. He waited, listening for movement inside the house.
No response.
Frank knocked again.
Ralph stepped back and looked up at the upstairs windows. “Maybe the farmer’s on the toilet squeezing one out.”
“Let’s just go to the village,” said Joel.
Frank ignored him. He took a step towards the doorway and hesitated.
“What’re you doing, Frank?” Joel asked.
“Taking a look.” He slowly stepped inside. “Hello? Anyone home?”
Joel was right behind him. “Farmers have shotguns. He might think we’re burglars...”
“Calm down,” Frank whispered. “And lower your voice.”
“This isn’t right. We can’t just walk into someone’s house, even if the front door’s left open.”
“We already have.”
They stopped in the middle of the hallway. Joel stood close to Frank. Magnus and Ralph paused at the doorway.
Frank looked around. The hallway had shadowed corners. Muddy wellington boots were left by the front door. Coats and jackets hung from a rack on the wall. Umbrellas and walking sticks collected in a stand. Two doorways led to a living room and a kitchen. A wooden staircase ascended into darkness. Wooden beams supported the ceiling, draped in cobwebs. Frank had a phobia of spiders ever since he’d left a glass of water by his bed overnight when he was a kid, and had woken in the morning, taken a sip of the water and realised too late that a spider had fallen into the glass and drowned. The spider’s legs had brushed his lips as he went to drink.
He shivered at the memory. He could hear the scuttling of arachnids in the silent recesses of the house.
“Hello?” Frank called out. “We’re sorry to enter uninvited but we’ve got a bit of a problem. We found an abandoned car nearby, wondered if the driver’s come here...”
No answer.
Joel stood at the foot of the stairway, fidgeting with his hands. “Let’s get out of here. No one’s home.”
“Joel’s right,” said Ralph. “They must be out somewhere.”
“No,” said Frank. “Something doesn’t feel right.” He walked into the living room and was swallowed by the darkness. He opened the curtains. Sudden grey light revealed a dirty and stained carpet. Peeling wallpaper. An old television with a layer of dust on it. A cold fireplace below a mantelpiece topped with clay figurines. There were photos of a middle-aged couple. Paintings of the English countryside on the walls, and old furniture that belonged in a museum. No sign of life.
Ralph flicked the light switch. “The power’s out. You think that’s the farmer’s wife in the photo?”
“Could be his sister, but I doubt it,” said Frank.
“Could be both,” Ralph said.
“We’re from Somerset, mate. We’ve got the monopoly on inbreeding.”
“How dare you insult our home county,” Ralph joked.
Frank tried the house phone. No dial tone.
With Ralph’s help, Frank searched the rest of the house while Magnus and Joel stayed in the hallway.
The back door had been left open. It looked out on a small garden with an allotment lined with cabbages and rhubarb. A greenhouse with shelves of tomatoes growing.
A clothesline with a few drying towels on it, and a basket of damp washing on the ground.
There was a loud crashing-like sound from far away, echoing around the fields. Like a thunderclap.
“What was that?” said Ralph.
Frank tried to determine which direction it had come from. “It wasn’t thunder.”
“Can we please leave now?” Joel asked them as they returned inside.
Ralph and Frank exchanged a look.
“Might as well head to the village,” said Frank. “We’ll find a phone that works, call the police, and tell them about the abandoned car.”
“Then we can go home?” Joel said.
“Yeah.”
“Good. At last.”
CHAPTER NINE
Two miles outside Wishford.
Ralph was telling a dirty joke about nuns and an archbishop, when a horse ran onto the road from an adjacent field, tottering on weak legs.
Frank saw the animal too late.
The Corsa clipped the horse. Frank hit the brakes, but the car was already out of control. The tyres shrieked. The horse made a terrible sound. The car swerved off the road, shuddered along the embankment, too fast, and crashed into an oak tree. Hard impact. Scream of metal. The bonnet buckled and flew open. The seat belt cut into Frank’s chest and his neck twinged sharply as he was pitched forward. The airbag deployed and cushioned him.