'So, Mr Arkwright's mill — is it right on the canal?'
'Close enough,' Mr Gilbert replied. 'You won't be able to see it from the barge — it's hidden by trees and bushes — but from the canal bank you could throw a small stone into the edge of the garden without straining too hard. It's a lonely place, but no doubt you'll be well accustomed to that.'
We lapsed into silence again, but then I thought of something that had struck me on the journey.
'There are a lot of bridges over the canal. Why does it need so many?'
'I wouldn't quarrel with that observation,' Mr Gilbert said, nodding. 'When they dug the canal, it cut a lot of farms in two. They'd paid the farmers for taking their land but also had to provide them with access to fields that lay on the other side of the canal. But there's another reason. Horses and barges travel keeping to the left. So when you want to change direction, your horses can switch banks. Anyway, we'd best get on now. You would do well to reach the mill before dark.'
Mr Gilbert hitched the horses to the barge, and we were soon moving slowly north again. It had been misty at dawn, but rather than being burned off by the sun, this soon became a dense fog that closed the visibility down to a few paces. I could see the backside of the nearest horse, but its companion and Matthew Gilbert were hidden from view. Even the rhythmical clip-clop of hooves was muffled. Every so often we passed under a bridge, but apart from that there was nothing to see and I grew weary just sitting there.
About an hour before dark Mr Gilbert brought the horses to a halt and walked back to where I was sitting. 'Here we are!' he called out cheerily, pointing into the mist. 'Bill Arkwright's house is straight over there. '
Collecting my bag and staff, I clambered out onto the towpath. There was a large post on the canal bank, to which Mr Gilbert tethered the leading horse. The upper section resembled a hangman's scaffold and from this hung a large bell.
'I ring the bell when I bring supplies,' he said, nodding towards the post. 'Five clear rings to tell him it's me with a delivery and not somebody needing a spook — it's customary to ring three times in that case. Bill comes out and collects what I've brought. If there's a lot, I sometimes help him carry it back to the boundary of the garden. He's none too keen on anyone going closer than that!'
I understood. He was just like my master in that respect. People needing help rang a bell at the crossroads and I was usually sent to find out what they wanted.
All I could see beyond the post was a grey wall of mist, but I heard the gurgling of a stream somewhere below. At this point the canal was elevated above the surrounding fields. From the towpath a steep grassy bank sloped down into the mist.
'It's only about ninety paces or so to the edge of his garden,' Mr Gilbert said. 'At the foot of this bank there's a stream. Just follow it. It flows right under the house and used to drive the waterwheel when it was a working mill. Anyway, good luck. I'll probably see you again next time I'm passing by with salt — or cases of wine,' he added, giving me a wink.
With that, he untied the horses and walked off into the mist. Once more there came the muffled sound of hooves and the barge glided away northwards. I remained standing there until the sound of hooves faded away altogether. Then, apart from the babble of water below me, I was enveloped in a blanket of silence. I shivered. I'd hardly ever felt so alone.
I scrambled down the steep bank and found myself on the edge of a fast-flowing stream. The water surged towards me before rushing into a dark tunnel under the canal, no doubt to reappear on the other side. The visibility had improved somewhat but was still no better than a dozen paces in any direction. I began to walk upstream, following a muddy track in the direction of the house, expecting it to loom out of the mist at any moment.
But all I could see was trees — drooping willows — on both banks, their branches trailing into the water. They immediately impeded my progress and I kept having to duck down. At last I reached the perimeter of Arkwright's garden, a seemingly impenetrable thicket of leafless trees, shrubs and saplings. First, however, there was another barrier to cross.
The garden was bounded by a rusty iron fence: sharp-pointed, six-foot palings linked by three rows of horizontal bars. How could I get into the garden? The fence would be difficult to climb and I didn't want to risk being impaled on the top. So I followed the curve of the railings to the left, hoping to find another entrance. By now I was beginning to get annoyed with Matthew Gilbert. He'd told me to follow the stream but hadn't bothered to explain what I'd find or how to actually reach the house.
I'd been following the railings for a few minutes when the going began to get very soggy underfoot. There were tussocks of marsh grass and pools of water, and in order to find slightly firmer ground I was forced to walk with my right shoulder almost touching the railings. But at last I came to a narrow gap.
I stepped through into the garden, to be confronted by a trench filled with water. The water was murky and it was impossible to say just how deep it might be. It was also at least nine paces across — impossible to jump even with a running start. I looked right and left but there was no way around it. So I tested it with my staff and, to my surprise, found it came no higher than my knees. It looked like a defensive moat but was surely too shallow. So what was it for?
Puzzled, I waded across, quickly soaking the bottoms of my breeches in the process. Thickets were waiting for me on the other side but a narrow path led through them, and after a few moments it opened out onto a wide area of rough grass, from which grew some of the largest willow trees I'd ever seen. They emerged from the mist like giants, with long thin wet fingers that trailed against my clothes and tangled in my hair.
At last I heard the babbling of the stream again, before catching my first glimpse of Arkwright's mill. It was bigger than the Spook's Chipenden house but size was the only impressive thing about it. Constructed of wood, it was dilapidated and sat oddly on the ground, the roof and walls meeting at strange angles; the former was green with slime, while grass and small seedlings sprouted from the gutters. Parts of the building looked rotten and unsound, as if the whole structure were just biding its time, waiting for its inevitable demise in the first storm of the winter.
In front of the house, the stream hurled itself at the huge wooden waterwheel, which remained idle, immobile despite the furious efforts of the torrent; this rushed on into a dark tunnel beneath the building. Looking at the wheel more closely, I could see that it was rotten and broken and probably hadn't moved for many a long year.
The first door I came to was boarded up, as were the three windows closest to it. So I walked on towards the stream until I reached a narrow porch enclosing a large, sturdy door. This looked like the main entrance so I knocked three times. Perhaps Arkwright was back by now? When nobody came in response, I rapped again, harder this time. Finally I tried the handle but found the door locked.
What was I supposed to do now? Sit on the step in the cold and damp? It was bad enough in daylight but soon it would be dark. There was no guarantee that Arkwright would be back before then. Investigating the body in the water might take him days.
There was a way to solve my problem. I had a special key, made by Andrew, the Spook's locksmith brother. Although it would open most doors, and I expected the one before me to present little difficulty, I was reluctant to use it. It just didn't seem right to go into someone's house without their permission, so I decided to wait a little longer to see if Arkwright turned up after all. But soon the cold and damp began to seep into my bones and changed my mind for me. After all, I was going to live here for six months and he was expecting me.