FROM THE outside the house didn’t look like a home, rather the sort of cavernous modern steel structure a museum would build on the outskirts of town to store its less attractive artifacts out of public view. The original house was still there, a pretty mansion with a hundred years of genteel life written in every stone, but now looked like a small bird trapped in the jaws of a metal wolf, the new extensions sticking out the back and right side. They had obviously been added at different times, and although the presumably expensive architect had made every effort to design something striking, in this setting they couldn’t look anything other than monstrous and threatening.
What stood out for Darian as he walked up the drive to the front door of the house, part of the original building, was how little there was to see. On either side of the driveway there were lawns and the grass was cut short but there were no flowers or shrubs whatsoever. The only trees were those ringing the garden wall and there was no evidence of garden furniture. The windows of the building were all covered by blackout blinds so there was no chance of seeing in and there was one car on the drive, a little hatchback he assumed was the housekeeper’s. Darian couldn’t see a garage and assumed Simon Sutherland had no car of his own.
Olinda Bles led them into a hallway that was remarkable only for its pristine state: it was clean and bare. The floor was dark wood, as was the staircase to the right, and both looked polished enough to slide along with minimal propulsion. There was no furniture and nothing on the walls. Miss Bles turned right and along a long corridor and through to a room that was, very obviously, part of the extension. The wooden floors gave way to black tiles, the walls were plain white, and there was a huge window to their right covered entirely with a white roller blind. The high-ceilinged room was totally empty, with nowhere for them to sit, but this was where Miss Bles wanted them to wait.
She said, “You will stay in this room and you will not go into any others. If you do I will call the security team and have them throw you out.”
Darian said, “There’s a security team?”
“There is, and if they want to keep their jobs they will do what I tell them so you will do what I tell you.”
“Are they here, the security team? In the building?”
“No, but they’re close.”
As she turned to the door behind her, which led deeper into the extension, Sholto said, “When was the last time Simon left the house?”
It took her a few seconds to decide to answer and when she did she threw it hastily at them. “It was a few months after his mother died, so he would have been fifteen. That was nine or ten years ago. They forced him out and he didn’t want to go. He didn’t speak a word to anyone for months afterward, so they didn’t try again.”
“So they built the extensions around him?”
“Yes. He didn’t enjoy it but he insisted they be built. He needed the room. But that is not why you’re here. I’ll get him, you’ll have a few minutes and no more and if you say something I don’t like it is over.”
Now she went through to the extension and left them in the meeting room. Alone in each other’s company in the bare room, Darian said, “What do you suppose he needs all this room for?”
Sholto shook his head. “Normally with rich young men it would be frivolous crap that my life savings wouldn’t buy a fraction of, but he doesn’t seem to be the frivolous crap type.”
“He doesn’t seem the any-crap-at-all type.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any harm left in asking him because we’re not getting a second interview no matter how we play this one. Just being here burns every bridge in Challaid that might lead us to a Sutherland, even the one across to Vinny’s Dr. Watson.”
There was movement behind the door Miss Bles had left through and it opened. She led in Simon Sutherland for their first look at him. He was tall and thin and pale enough to inspire Bram Stoker, and there was a clear resemblance to both Phil and Harold Sutherland, especially in the shape of the round mouth, but Darian could also see sharpness in the blue eyes that all Sutherlands near the center of the family tree seemed to share. He had a thin face and high forehead, and his long fingers were entwined as he stood in front of them.
Sholto said, “Thanks for talking to us, we appreciate this.”
Simon nodded and didn’t say anything, remaining just inside the door so that he wasn’t close enough for them to touch. Neither Darian nor Sholto made a move to shake his hand as good manners would usually dictate because he obviously didn’t want that.
Sholto, convinced he was the less threatening of the two, said, “We won’t keep you long, Simon. There are just a couple of questions we wanted to ask you. Miss Bles will already have told you that we’re looking for a woman called Freya Dempsey, and I wondered if that name meant anything to you.”
Simon shook his head and said quietly, “No, it doesn’t, sorry.”
“You’ve never seen her, met her, heard about her?”
“No, I never have.”
“You know William Dent, Simon?”
“Yes, I know Will.”
“What does he do for you?”
Sholto, bored with yes or no answers, had asked him something that required more and Simon looked annoyed by it as he replied, “He’s a driver for my uncle Harold, sometimes he brings my shopping here, that’s about all.”
He had, of course, a posh end of the Challaid accent, smoother than a cue ball and less obviously designed to speak Gaelic. Still, there was a hint of something in it that Darian didn’t think was local, as if he was a young man who didn’t hear a lot of other Challaid accents so was influenced by the housekeeper and what he saw on TV instead.
“And Will Dent never mentioned her? Because he has met her.”
“No, not to me.”
“Does anyone else come to the house, other than Miss Bles and Will?”
“My uncle Harold comes round now and then.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, just those three.”
“Okay, well, last question then, Simon. Why do you need so much space when you’re living here on your own?”
Simon seemed shocked by the question, as though it were more intrusive than Sholto realized. He said, “I like to keep things, my own things, so I need it.”
It was a halting, uncertain response, as though he felt the need to justify it, which from someone else might have seemed guilt-ridden, but from Simon Sutherland appeared no more than the words of a man not used to talking to strangers.
That was the end of the interview and Simon left through the same door he had entered from while Miss Bles led Sholto and Darian out of the house and down the driveway to the gate.
“You can see he has nothing more to say to you, he knows nothing about this woman, there’s no way he could. He doesn’t leave the house, he doesn’t have people here and he doesn’t like to touch people.”
Sholto said to her, “Why did you let us in to talk to him?”
“To get rid of you.”
With that, Miss Bles walked back up to the house, the gates sliding shut automatically behind her. Darian and Sholto got into the Fiat and Sholto started it with his usual entreaty, “Come on, Fiat, don’t fail me now.”
Darian said, “What did you think of that?”
“I think if you told me there were bodies piled up in that place I wouldn’t call you a moron straightaway. And I don’t believe for a second that she let us in to get rid of us.”
“So why did she let us in?”
“That, my boy, is the next wee puzzle we have to crack.”