Suddenly blue flashing lights on the receding horizon in her rearview mirror, grabbed her attention. Charley put her foot slowly on her brake and steered the car as far into the side of the road as she dared, without fear of getting stuck in a snow drift. She let the fire engine pass. Radio now off, she looked at her watch. Becoming increasingly warm, she turned down the heater. The windscreen began to mist over, just slightly, but it was enough to make her wind down her window only to be confronted with a confusion of cawing. She looked up. A murder of crows circled their roost in a well-protected copse of trees, which hugged the rocky base of Millstone Edge. ‘It’s an omen…’ she could hear granny’s caution. She remembered how her younger self, puzzled by her granny’s discomfort, had questioned the remark. Charley was an inquisitive child. ‘It’s the harbinger that guides souls from the realm of the living into the afterlife, lass.’
‘What a load of old codswallop,’ Charley could hear her mother Ada retort, quite clearly. Turning to Charley, Ada’s voice had softened to a whisper in her ear. ‘Your granny is ruled by the moon. Another day she’ll tell you a crow is a sign of a spiritual blessing. Whatever suits. Isn’t that right, Mother?’ Charley’s mother had no time for the old lady’s fables, but Charley loved spending time with her granny. Unkindly regarded as ‘loopy’ by some, Granny was hugely entertaining. Never short of telling a good story, Granny had been the youngster’s favourite playmate.
When the fire crew had passed, Charley nudged the accelerator with her foot, and very slowly the car crept forward on the packed ice. Looking ahead at the darkening sky, she found herself transfixed by the number of large birds diving, lunging and cawing in singles, and in pairs, as they flew around above her vehicle in a circle, before they began to break apart. The car then plunged into another wall of dense fog, and the birds were lost to her. Concentrating hard in order to see ahead, Charley carefully navigated her way around a hairpin bend, and then another, until all of a sudden, the fog snapped away again and she was upon Eastergate, as if the car had found its way all by itself.
Below her, the hill peaks reared up into the low clouds, and in front she saw the shadow of an impressive detached, period property smouldering in the distance; Crownest. Locally, the house was of huge interest, rumoured as it was to be haunted, with its extensive grounds used by witches in days gone by, for dark, satanic rituals. Or, at least that’s what Granny said. What couldn’t be mistaken was the hive of activity that now surrounded the property, just as Charley envisaged after hearing the earlier radio announcement concerning the fire.
At that moment her phone rang. It made her jump, such was her focus on the house. She steered the car off the road, and into the gateway to Crownest; the only place that was free from snow.
Detective Constable Annie Glover didn’t give her boss time to speak. ‘Have you been stood down?’
‘No, why?’ Charley was slightly confused.
‘I’ve just been reading the Chief’s log. Dylan’s just pronounced the body as not suspicious, so I guess you will be stood down soon.’
‘Good,’ Charley said, her eyes seeking out the extent of the fire damage at the house. Then it came to her. ‘Wait on, what are you doing at work?’
Annie grimaced. ‘Err… I’ve been called in.’
Charley frowned. ‘What for?’
‘Ricky-Lee asked me to cover for him, apparently the Force’s rugby team has had several cry off, and it’s an important match.’
‘I bet.’ Charley mumbled under her breath. ‘Where’s the nearest race meeting?’
The line went deathly quiet. ‘Wetherby, I guess. He’s circled the runners and riders in the paper on his desk.’
Realising she’d potentially dropped Detective Constable Ricky-Lee Lewis in it, Annie quickly ended the call, but she needn’t have worried, as Charley’s attention had been drawn to the name on the demolition company’s vans parked in the driveway. NEVERMORE adorned the vehicles’ rear and side which were tucked in tightly against the dry-stone wall boundary of the property, which had long since seen a reduction in height since it was built.
A lanky young lad with a hard hat, and an oversized, threadbare donkey jacket that had seen better days, came alongside the fire engines towards Charley’s car. He saw her looking at the faded, battered ‘For Sale’ sign hanging on the gateway.
‘Howya! You’re a bit late if you were thinking of buying it.’
Charley smiled. ‘Oh, no, I’m not in the market for buying a house, especially one with such a ghastly history – or thrilling – depending on your position on the macabre.’
‘Well, while you’re here, crack on and help yourself to some of that lovely dry-stone walling,’ he smiled with twinkling Irish eyes. ‘It makes a nice rockery, so me oul’ fella says, and he should know; he’s a real cute hoor!’ When he saw Charley’s questioning look, he continued in a whisper, ‘Don’t worry, no one’s going to notice a few stones missing now, are they, the wall’s banjaxed, and I’m not about to tell.’ With his mind very obviously on more important things the young man looked this way and that, as if anticipating someone’s imminent arrival.
Charley nodded her head, and made no attempt to move. ‘Indeed. I bet that’s what they all say –
