Rocco would know what to do. His decision whether or not to go straight to the police and tell them the whole sorry tale trumped any that I might take.
It took me a few minutes to reach his cottage on the Wyche. As I thumped on the door, a man, climbing into a van outside, looked across. “Nobody there, love. Must be on holiday, or something.” Next, I hammered it to Worcester, taking bends too fast and overtaking blind. Breathlessly, I parked opposite the cathedral. Despite the early hour, sunshine bleached the pavement, the walls, and every building in between, the city of Worcester gasping in its thrall. The insane heat felt like another obstacle in a trail of others and I staggered up to the crescent near the cathedral and hurried into ContraMed. Blissfully cool inside, it exuded professionalism and respectability. It felt safe.
A middle-aged woman with heavy features sat in reception, pecking intently at a keyboard with short powerful fingers. She did not look up. I waited, feeling invisible. When she eventually glanced up, I plastered on my best people-pleasing smile.
“I was wondering if I could leave a message for Rocco Noble.”
“He no longer works here.” The way she said it you’d think I’d asked to speak to a celebrity convicted of indecent behaviour.
“I don’t suppose you know where he’s gone.”
“Even if I did that information is entirely confidential.” End of.
I thanked her and slunk out. Now what? The chance of Rocco actually being in his flat seemed remote. I tried it anyway. Pressed the buzzer. No reply. ‘You’ll know where to find me,’ he’d said, except I didn’t. So, I had a better idea.
From Worcester, via the M5, I drove to Winchcombe and the location of a crime scene known to at least three of us. The house could have been done up and sold. In fact, it was likely, and I was hardly going to ask its new owner whether I could poke about in a fruitless attempt to look for the remains of an old well. Yet I couldn’t turn my back on where it had all started. I owed it to Scarlet and to Drea.
I parked in a gateway not far from the phone box Zach had used that night and from which he’d sent his SOS. It was still there and in working order. I walked a little way up and turned onto an unmade drive on my left that veered off from the main road. Long and winding, up a steep incline, it almost appeared to reach back on itself. The higher I climbed, the more the noise of traffic receded.
The drive petered out, squirming into a narrow track with high hedges. Instinctively, I looked about, my blood running a little too quickly, my breath too slow. Seemed I was alone.
Squatting down, I examined the ground for human activity, like tyre tracks from a quad bike or small tractor, but the earth was too dry and difficult to read.
Rounding a bend, the house appeared. A construction of brick and timber made invisible by woodland. Regarding it through Zach’s eyes, I instantly saw the appeal. Secluded, secret, out of sight, it was the perfect place for illicit and illegal activity. Strangely, I felt as if Scarlet was with me in spirit. Maybe that’s why I felt as if someone was watching. Would Mallis’ halitosis give him away if he were near? I craned my head to see if anyone lurked in the undergrowth then swivelled my gaze from the building to the surrounding web of trees. There was no wind, but I swore the leaves rustled.
A sign, not very recent from its dog-eared appearance, warned me that demolition was in progress and to keep out. I drew near and skirted cigarette butts, used condoms, crisp packets and empty cans.
Traditionally built, with timber weatherboarding, the front of the house had a lean-to entrance with a single window beneath an oak lintel. The door had been replaced with sheet metal, impossible to penetrate. I peered through the broken glass. Aside from a rank smell of damp, mildew and dead flies, there wasn’t much to deduce because stone walls obscured my vision and mirrored the weird Tardis effect of a house within a house that Zach had described. Even if I could climb in, I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I’d find after so much time had elapsed. Like most people, I knew the value of DNA and the fact that every contact left a trace, but criminals still got away with murder. If anyone could cover his tracks, or rather Zach’s, my father could.
I slipped round the back, my footsteps loud against dry air that hummed with insects. The back door had also been replaced with sheet metal. Every window in the back elevation was boarded up, but on the ground floor, below a stretch of guttering suspended mostly in thin air, the planks across one aperture had crumbled from damp and woodworm.
With a couple of tugs at the rotten section, it came away quickly, yet there still wasn’t enough space for me to climb through. Banking on the fact that when wood rots, it quickly spreads, I grasped hold and, digging my heels in, used all my body weight as leverage. Sawing back and forth, two more boards came away and made a big enough opening for me to burrow through. I put my hands flat against the window-ledge and clambered up and through on my tummy, arms extended, landing headfirst.
The gap between the new and old house spread to about three feet. Whoever had made the site secure hadn’t bargained on or allowed for the first line of defence being breached. With little room to manoeuvre, I entered the original building through the first available entrance, which happened to be the front door.
Inside was dark and musty, and the damp organic smell increased to suffocating proportions. Fumbling in my rucksack, I took out the torch Lenny gave me, switched it on, letting the light play on the walls. I’d expected bare stone, brick and silence. Instead, the house whispered. Its walls were covered in wallpaper mottled with black mould. Holes in the fabric told me that there had once been wall lights, but these were ripped out, only wires remaining. Beneath my feet, quarry tiles, old newspapers, mail and litter.
Doors off to the left and right were open. Mindful that the place was a death trap, I shone the torch around from the safety of the corridor. Mahogany furniture, too heavy to nick easily, glared back. In one room: chairs without seats and a sofa sprouting horsehair. An ornate gilded mirror, that must have been wonderful once, now cracked in three places, hung off the wall. Gingerly, I ignored the stairs and edged my way towards a door at the end. When I pushed it open, with a loud creak, fear zapped my spine. I had the sensation of being entombed.