a few tasty-looking eggs. Then the perch collapses under its weight, and the lid slams shut on it.’
‘Which means the farmer has a cage with two crows in it.’
‘Larsens are supposed to be checked every day. The lure bird has to be given food and water. And any trapped crow has to be destroyed.’
Fry shuddered. ‘It does look cruel to me. I’m surprised it’s allowed at all.’
‘It won’t be allowed for much longer, I suppose,’ said Cooper. ‘But some people would point out that the crows are destroyed a bit more humanely than the way they kill their own victims. They don’t call them carrion crows for nothing, you know.’
‘I don’t want to know any more, thanks.’
They left the crow in the trap and reached a wall, where they could see the black outline of Trafalgar Terrace through the screen of chestnuts and sycamores. Water was dripping steadily from the dense canopies of leaves. ‘So far, so good,’ said Fry. ‘Give me a hand over the wall.’
Inside the first house of Trafalgar Terrace, the air smelled fungal and sour, like old cider. These houses were slightly lower down the hill than the other terrace, and the damp had crept into them over the stone steps and risen up through the floors from the black peat, which soaked up water like a sponge. But beyond the dampness and the stale odour of long-abandoned carpets and ancient wallpaper, there was a more acrid smell.
The broken back door had opened on a loose hinge to let them in easily. Fry stepped over some cardboard boxes that had collapsed and begun to disintegrate in the middle of the floor. She reached the facing doorway.
There’s been a fire here/ she said.
Cooper joined her and shone a torch into the derelict kitchen. There was scorching around the sink and the window frame, and a blackened area on the wall where an electric cooker might once have stood.
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‘Do you think someone’s been living here?’ said Fry.
‘It was probably just kids playing around. By all accounts, one or two of them like setting fires. Jake, for a start.’
‘You think so?’ She poked a pile of debris with her foot. ‘Take a look at this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Silver paper. And half a Coke can. It looks as though some of the kids have set up a drugs den down here.’
‘It’s nothing, Diane. Want to try upstairs?’
She hesitated a moment. ‘OK. Where are the stairs?’
Cooper could remember the layout of the houses from his visit to Fran Oxley’s. Thanks to that night, he could practically find his way round in the dark. Fortunately, he had a torch this time. There would be two torches - if only Fry’s didn’t keep shooting up into the corners of the ceiling, lighting up hanging cobwebs.
‘Not frightened of the spiders, are you, Diane?’ said Cooper from the stairs.
She didn’t answer, but gazed overhead like a surveyor looking for cracks in the plaster.
‘Diane?’
‘Oh. Carry on. I’m coming.’
Upstairs, there were some floorboards missing and ancient electric wiring exposed in the gaps. Cooper shone his torch downwards to guide his steps.
‘Watch where you’re walking, Diane. And don’t shine your torch at the back windows, in case anybody sees the light.’
‘But you said there’d be nobody in.’
‘None of the men. But we don’t want to frighten Mrs Wallwin at number 7. And Wendy Tagg is probably at home with the children.’
Rain was getting through the roof in several places. They could hear it dripping on the ceilings above them, like the sound of tiny footsteps. In the corner of one of the bedrooms, a stream of water glittered against the mouldy wallpaper. A rotten floorboard snapped under Fry’s foot. Cooper put out a hand to steady her. When he touched her shoulder, he was surprised to find that she was trembling.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
Cooper pointed the beam of his torch towards the bathroom at the end of a short passage. The porcelain toilet bowl, washbasin
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and bath were still in there. They gleamed in the light.
‘You think we might find a stash of antiques in here, then?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. There’s a stash somewhere, that’s for sure. They can’t be shipping them constantly.’
Cooper stuck his head inside the door of the bathroom. ‘Heck, I bet there are some big spiders living in that bath.’
‘Where?’
‘Only kidding. There’s nothing up here. No attic trap door. I wonder if there’s a cellar.’ ‘God.’
He couldn’t quite see Fry’s face, because she was looking back towards the stairs.
‘If there is, I’ll go down. You can wait by the back door.’
‘I’m fine. Really.’
