York pondered briefly. ‘So who lives there now?’
‘Oh, erm, no one,’ said Graham. ‘A portion of the house is still fire damaged and no one’s ever bothered to repair it. But it’s up for sale. So we called the agency it’s listed to, and guess what, the contact details for Julian Faulkner have expired. Frank Blithe, the guy at the agency said, and I quote: It’s like the man dropped off the face of the planet.’
‘So he’s just abandoned the house?’ York queried. ‘Never goes back there?’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said Graham. ‘Anyway, Mason is considering it a dead end, but I definitely think it’s worth checking out. All depends on whether or not you fancy a road trip.’
York glanced over to Richards. ‘Like I said, Will, I’m off the case.’
‘Well I wouldn’t imagine that would stop a man like you now, would it?’
York smirked. ‘Where’s my hat?’
49
After three and a half days and a handful of blood transfusions, York discharged himself from hospital against the belligerent advice of a German doctor, a couple of well-informed nurses, and Cliff Richards. He told them he felt fine, which was a lie. A smouldering poker was jousting through his side and the painkillers weren’t making a dent.
The drive up to Lincolnshire took a little under three hours. The address Frank Blithe had given him directed him to a small town called Market Rasen, a rural diamond with a racecourse and one of those old police houses.
After a healthy-sized gammon steak in a pub called The Cup of Blood, he headed out of town. Julian Faulkner’s house was a couple of miles further out on the beaten skirts, one of a quartet in a small estate tucked away in the trees, well-trodden dirt track leading up to it. It had been easy enough to find.
The size of the estate was a little over six acres and so none of the four properties were close together. All the surrounding land was used for cultivation and farming, the only things encroaching on private property the grazing sheep and horses.
Pulling over at the bottom of the driveway and climbing from the car, he was hit with the aromas of the countryside. He loved that smell. It reminded him of growing up, his mum and dad taking him and his brother out to the Lake District where they stayed in an old converted barn on Ullswater.
Those memories were his fondest from childhood. His only memories. That was before everything changed. After the incident they never went back there. Like he’d spoken them yesterday, he recalled his dad’s potent words: Everything ends badly, son, otherwise it wouldn’t end. He hung himself the next day.
At the head of the driveway was the agency’s For Sale sign and an American style mailbox standing on a post, flap open as if awaiting unwanted mail. The scratched letters of the family name remained stencilled in green onto the box’s flank: F ulk er Resid n e.
He reached in and pulled out the wad of backlogged post: nothing of interest, most of it junk, damp, or both. The majority was still addressed to Julian Faulkner, some of it to an Arthur Faulkner. His father? Replacing the mail, he locked the car and began up the dirt track.
By the time he reached the house he was sweating freely, the trek mostly uphill and mostly under the harsh afternoon sun. The final section of track was hidden from the sky by colossal overhanging oaks. He was thankful for the reprieve.
Suddenly there it was, the abandoned Faulkner house, a fifteen-minute trek into the woods. For a moment he paused, gawped in awe at the breathtaking sight. The entire right side of the structure was only framework, charred sections of wood and brick lying where they had fallen. The left-hand side of the building was still intact and was overgrown with untamed vegetation, as if the surrounding trees were trying to absorb it piece by dead piece. Next to where he was standing was an old well, wooden pail lying splintered by its side, the only water it saw these days falling from the sky.
He found it difficult to move forward. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but something about the house felt…off. Finally he started up to the structure, the black windows staring hollowly back at him. Stepping over blackened debris he climbed up onto the recessed porch, a largely undamaged lounger-bench propped up against the wall, the front door swinging on its hinges.
Gingerly, he stepped inside. A clichéd floorboard creaked under his weight, and his nostrils were invaded by the fusty stink of negligence and abandonment. The house had been gutted. The floors had been stripped leaving naked and buckled wood. Not a single item of furniture remained, and he found himself wondering why the lounger-bench had been spared. Dust mites swirled in the lancing bars of sunlight as he made his way through the house room by room. He found only torn out shells of disappointment. Perhaps Braddock had been right. Maybe the Faulkner home really was a dead end. In the kitchen he paused, standing on a tattered and worn green carpet. It didn’t make sense. Why had only this room been permitted to keep its ill-fitting carpet?
He took off his hat and placed it on the sink, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. At the back wall of the room the carpet didn’t meet the
