The Dead Tracks

you?'

    Healy glanced at the fencing. 'It sounds like here.'

    'It's been a century since Sykes died. About the same since the factories started hitting the buffers. That means at least seventy years in which the boundaries of the woods could grow out to this point, uncared for, and untouched. That's enough time for things to disappear. Big things.'

    'But they knocked all the houses down after Sykes got the rope.'

    'They knocked the houses down along here!

    'So, what — they just fenced off the other one and forgot about it?'

    'That's what I'm guessing. Back then it was something approaching superstition. These days it's health and safety. The council will want to make sure people don't go in there. A building as old and unstable as that would probably come down in a stiff breeze. People start climbing around, sleeping there, starting fires, it'll end up killing someone. That's why they're telling people to keep out.'

    'And that's why they put up the wall.'

    He meant the concrete wall Sona had described on the other side of the river. I nodded at him. 'I'm betting it was put up the last time this fencing was replaced; to keep out unwanted guests, and as an extra security measure.'

    'And on the other side of the wall?'

    'Is the river that carried Sona out to the Thames.'

    'And on the other side of the river…'

    'I'm guessing will be the house.'

    For a moment there was absolute silence. No distant car noises. No rain falling against the roof. It was as if the woods, and the thought of what lay inside, had sucked every single sound out of the night.

    Then my phone started ringing.

    It was Ewan Tasker.

    'Task. Everything okay at Jill's?'

    'I don't know.'

    'What do you mean?'

    'I mean she isn't there. The house looks like a morgue. No lights on, no answer at the door. I've worn the doorbell out I've rung it so many times.'

    'Did you try calling her number?'

    'Her mobile's off. The phone in the house just keeps ringing.'

    I glanced at Healy. He flicked a look back.

    'Did you check for break-ins?'

    'Back and front.'

    'Nothing?'

    'Zero.'

    Shit. I looked at Healy again and this time he wasn't even attempting to disguise his interest. He'd shifted in his seat to face me.

    'Who was the other guy?' Tasker said.

    'What do you mean?'

    'The other guy. I'm know I'm old, but I didn't need someone there to hold my hand, Raker. I can babysit with the best of them, I promise you.'

    'What are you talking about?'

    A confused pause. 'I assumed you sent him.'

    Who?'

    When I turned up at the house, some other guy's already in the back garden. He flashes a warrant card at me. Tells me he'll take care of things.'

    'A cop?'

    'Yeah. You didn't send him?'

    'No. Who was he?'

    'I don't know. Didn't tell me his name.' The line drifted. I could hear a car horn in the background. 'Thing is…'

    'What?'

    'I could have sworn to you it looked like he'd just come out of the house. Like he'd been inside, taken care of something and then locked up again. He looked shifty. On edge. I let the feeling go, because I thought he was with you.'

    Dread thickened and twisted in my chest. What did he look like?'

    'Medium height, dark hair.'

    'Anything else?'

    'He had this weird tic.'

    'Tic?'

    'Kept fiddling with his wedding band.'

    And then it hit me like a sledgehammer.

    The first time they'd taken me to the station, when Davidson and I had waited in the parking lot as Phillips went to his car to get his mobile phone.

    'Was he Scottish?'

    'Yeah.'

    'Did you see what he was driving?'

    'Yeah,' Tasker said. 'A red Ford Mondeo.'

    The same car Phillips had.

    And the same car that had been watching Jill's house.

Chapter Sixty-four

    We waited for dawn — sleeping in ninety-minute shifts — to help make navigating the woods easier. And at five- thirty, as the clouds started to thin out and the first smudges of daylight stained the sky, we left the car and headed for the fence. About twenty yards down, some of it had begun to rust, the wire mesh dissolving into a flaky brown crust. In the boot of the car, Healy kept a toolbox and had brought a pair of pliers with him. He dropped to his knees at the fence and started to pick away at the mesh, folding it up and creating a hole. After five minutes, he'd created a space big enough for us to get our hands in and peel back.

    A minute later, we were inside.

    The woods were as thick on the northern edge as they were on the south. Except here there was no path. Between the tree trunks, we could see further in, where a fuzzy grey light had settled in an opening about eighty feet away. I led us across the uneven ground, thick undergrowth against our legs, dew-soaked leaves brushing against our faces. At the opening, the canopy thinned out and the sky was starting to colour.

    Healy swatted a low-hanging branch away from his face and stepped in beside me. Ahead it was gloomy: lots of trees trunks side by side, and barely any room to make out what was between them. 'I see what you mean about this place,' he said quietly, and I wasn't sure if he was talking about how thick everything was — or the feeling that pervaded the woods. Just like the first time, the temperature seemed to drop the further in we got, and there was a constant noise in the background: a wind passing through the leaves.

    Except, every so often, it sounded like someone speaking.

    We carefully moved on in a southerly direction. The foliage was getting thicker and the light was fading, daylight blocked by the canopy and the network of tree trunks and branches. Eventually it got so dense we had to stop and double back. We came around in the same direction but further down, where small arrows of morning light managed to break through from above and angle down.

    That was when we hit the wall.

    It seemed to appear from nowhere. I'd imagined it being a grey-white colour, laid in the last ten to twenty years. Instead it was almost black, stained with age, mud and moss, and looked at least forty years old. Chunks of