She didn’t feel like an imposter as she stood on the ridge and watched the cottage through a pair of binoculars. She wasn’t just a busybody raking through people’s lives or an ex trying to find out why she’d been jilted. She was a private detective with a client who wanted the answer to a question: What had happened to the missing cobalt-60?
Her engagement meant more than that. Maybe it was a legacy of years of police work, but she’d always assumed people would believe there was no smoke without fire. Dr. Abiola was trusting her and had said she believed Harri was innocent. It gave her hope for the future, because she’d feared wherever she went people would tar her as a killer and assume she’d been responsible for the death of Alan Munro, but this quieted that worry. At least some people were prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was a tiny beacon of hope after so many weeks of darkness, and she was determined not to betray the faith of someone who’d believed in her.
Harri had parked her car on a farm track on the other side of Hen Cloud, the rocky outcrop east of the Asha family home, and had hiked a mile to her vantage point. The rugged countryside was a mix of gritstone cliffs, stretches of colorful gorse, and fields of short grass cropped by small herds of sheep and cattle. There were a few horses and ponies, but in the main this was functional farming land or wilderness, a disorganized patchwork patterned by crooked drystone walls that crisscrossed the landscape.
Harri was hunkered beside one such wall and rested her elbows on it to help support her binoculars. She’d been watching Longhaven for over an hour, and her patience was finally rewarded when Ben Elmys led Elliot Asha from the house. The two of them exchanged words that became indistinct by the time they reached Harri. They climbed into Ben’s black Land Rover Defender, and moments later it was a speck on the winding lane that snaked east towards the main road.
Once the car was out of sight, Harri climbed over the wall and crossed a patch of gorse to the footpath that led to the cottage. The black grit trail was bordered by purple wildflowers, and bees and butterflies took flight as she passed. The cottage didn’t look as inviting from the rear. There was a small patio and a garden of wild grass and flowers that stretched from the back of the house to the drystone wall that delineated the edge of the property. The back garden looked neglected and in danger of going to weeds.
Harri kept her eyes on the lane as she hurried down the slope. She reached the stone stile, climbed over the wall, crossed the overgrown garden and the moss-covered patio, and went to the back door. She produced a set of picks and solved the Yale lock.
She pushed the door open slowly and checked inside. A red tiled floor, white walls, old shelves, a boiler, washing machine, and dryer were all still and silent. She stepped inside the utility room and shut the door behind her. An archway to her left led to a larder, shelves almost empty. She walked through a doorway into a large farmhouse kitchen.
An Aga squatted opposite, and pine units covered most of the walls. A large oak table and two long benches stood in the heart of the space, and a set of copper pans dangled from cast-iron hooks above a wood-topped butcher’s block off to her right. Photographs of the Asha family lined a dresser to Harri’s left.
This might have once been a warm, vibrant family kitchen, but it was now a mess. Used plates and pans filled the large butler’s sink; books, files and papers covered the table and benches; and the remains of meals on plates were half-concealed beneath scattered documents. This didn’t look like a healthy environment for a child, and the mess made Harri reflect on the state of her own home. It was the sign of a damaged mind, and she told herself she would do something about her own situation the moment she got back to her flat.
Harri removed a PCE-RAM radiation detector from a bag slung over her shoulder. The device looked like a simple mobile phone with a small keypad and a large black-and-white screen. There was a circular sensor at the top that was designed to detect decaying particles. At least that’s how Dr. Abiola had explained it when she’d demonstrated how to use the device. Harri switched it on and examined the display to see the readings within normal range. Dr Abiola had told her what to look for: a sudden spike in levels would indicate the presence of an isotope. If she found the cobalt-60, she was to phone an emergency number and the relevant authorities would be notified and a cleanup team dispatched to recover the radioactive material. Under no circumstances was she to touch it.
Harri ran the detector over the papers scattered on the table and saw nothing abnormal. The documents seemed to be a mess of mathematical formulae, and there was a line or two of strange poetry here and there. The formulae made no sense to Harri, and neither did the out-of-context poetry. She swept the rest of the room before moving into the hallway.
The detector registered normal as she walked on. She opened the cloakroom door and leaned in, reaching into her pocket for her phone. She’d get a picture of the Elsewhere House poem this time, but her plan was thwarted. The poem was gone and had been replaced with a photograph of the Elsewhere House itself. Unsettled, Harri backed out. Had he put the poem there for her visit? Or was the photograph another message? Why would Ben have a picture of Elsewhere in his house?
She reminded herself of Sabih’s advice that she shouldn’t be so paranoid and tried to convince herself these changes had nothing to do with her, but deep down she knew they did. Ben had told her she was connected to him, but she couldn’t see how, and that blind spot tormented her almost as much as the question of what had really happened to Elizabeth Asha.
Harri shut the door and moved to the room opposite, the one Elliot had been sitting in when he’d asked her if she believed in ghosts. It might once have been a dining room. There was a small fireplace set in the opposite wall, but there was no other furniture, just stacks of books and papers arranged on the floor. Harri ran the detector around the space, but it registered nothing.
She went down the hall to the living room, which was near the front door. There was a sofa, some shelves with photographs of the Ashas, and yet more papers scattered on a Persian rug. On top of a pile of papers was an iPod and a set of headphones. Harri heard the tinny sound of something playing through the earpieces, so she picked them up and put them on.
She recognized Ben Elmys’s voice instantly.
“Your challenge will be to live through the sacrifice. It is greater than you can possibly imagine. You will give all of yourself and more. People will call me evil for what I will do to you, but they don’t know the truth, and you must trust that I have acted for the greater good. When you’ve lost faith, and all seems broken, the last beacon of hope will break the rock of despair.”
Harri shook her head in dismay. What was Elliot Asha listening to? It sounded like gross religious raving, the brainwashing of a cult.
She prepared to listen to more, but her heart stalled and she shrieked when she felt a hand on her shoulder.