I can still hear a couple of the officers we brought along searching upstairs but I ignore them. The hallway doesn’t really reveal anything.
The front door leads into a narrow passageway with a straight staircase to the right and a coat rail attached to the wall on the left. The wallpaper is a faded rosebud pattern, yellowing with age. There’s a small cupboard door on the right near the end of the corridor, which upon quick inspection reveals nothing more than a hollow triangular space underneath the stairs filled with an old-model vacuum cleaner, a carpet sweeper like my grandmother used to have, and several cleaning items.
Once we enter the kitchen, I’m struck again with reminders of my grandparents’ house. Although meticulously clean like the rest of the house, it’s extremely dated. There’s an Aga instead of a regular cooker, and the cabinets all date back to at least the 1950s. Beside the back door, which leads out into the garden and old coal shed, there’s another door which I know from earlier inspection is the door to the pantry, an old-fashioned cupboard which housed food and kept things cool before refrigerators became commonplace. I have a vague recollection of my great-aunt having one back home.
I’d only given it a cursory glance earlier, dismissing it out of hand, but now I reopen the door and take a much closer look. It’s shelved along each wall, and each of those shelves contains canisters of sugar and flour, cereal and tinned foods. I step further into the cupboard and rap my knuckles against the walls behind the condiments and packets of food. Two of them are solid brick, as you’d expect of a house over a hundred years old, but the back wall of the cupboard gives a hollow echo as my knuckles tap against it.
Shoving all the packets and tins aside, I study the wall carefully until I find a small hole, just large enough to slide a finger through. I feel around inside the hole and sure enough, I discover something metal.
“What is it?” Maddie asks in fascination.
“I think it’s a latch of some sort.” I wiggle my finger awkwardly and suddenly the metal mechanism shifts, and with an eerie creak, the whole wall opens outwards, shelves and all, revealing a small passageway and a set of very narrow stairs leading down into pitch blackness.
“Uh, you first,” Maddie says weakly as she leans her head around the concealed doorway and looks into the darkness.
“Afraid of the dark?” I quirk a brow in her direction.
“Not especially, but I’ve seen enough Indiana Jones films to know there’s probably some giant spider webs draped across that very narrow… creepy… possibly boobytrapped…”
“Do you want me to go first?” Sam asks impatiently. “Or are we going to stand here until the old woman comes home?”
“I got it.” I shake my head, pulling my phone from my jacket pocket to use the flashlight function to light my way. After all, I don’t think Tristan would be too happy if I accidentally broke my neck falling down the stairs in a serial killer’s murder cellar.
I head along the short passageway to the top of the stairs and begin to descend. Although it’s not as obsessively clean as the rest of the house, this passageway leading down into the cellar is far from disused. I can hear Maddie and Sam behind me, and as I reach the bottom step I see an old-fashioned light switch mounted on the wall beside me. I flip the switch and the room is bathed with dim light from a bare bulb suspended from the ceiling.
I glance around curiously. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it just looks like an old cellar used for storage. Racking and industrial shelves line the walls, many of them containing storage boxes. In one corner is a huge black trunk with reinforced metal corners and a few more boxes. All in all, it doesn’t look like much.
“Well this is a little disappointing,” Maddie muses.
“What were you expecting to find down here?” I snort quietly. “Frankenstein’s laboratory?”
“Is it too much to ask?” she replies.
“Hey, you guys.” Sam draws our attention to the corner and I realise he’s already rooting through one of the boxes. He pulls something small out and tosses it to me.
As I catch it, I look down and realise it’s an outdated passport. Flipping it open to the correct page, I see a photograph of a younger, middle-aged version of Maeve, and the name on the passport is Harriet Walker.
“Bingo.” I smile as I look back at Sam. “Is there more in there?”
“See for yourself.” He steps aside and opens another box. Before long, all three of us are pulling out all kinds of documentation, including things in the names of all of Maeve Landon’s former identities and a few we didn’t know about.
“It’s like an archive,” Maddie muses.
“I do appreciate a serial killer that keeps meticulous records,” Sam remarks as he pulls out another box.
“What do you think is in there?” Maddie asks as her gaze lands on the dark trunk.
“Only one way to find out.” I crouch down in front of it, and as I do I see a small padlock securing the latch. “It’s locked. I don’t suppose you’ve seen a key anywhere?” I ask hopefully.
“Don’t worry, I got you.” Sam kneels down beside me and produces a small leather wallet with small needle-pointed lock picks from his pocket.
“Do I even want to know where you got those or how you even know how to use them?” I raise a brow.
“Probably not.” He grins as the lock springs open.
Unhooking it, he sets it on the floor beside us and reaches for the latch, then flips it open and lifts the lid. A sharp, pungent, chemical-like odour wafts from the open lid, forcing all three of us to cough unexpectedly. Blinking back the tears, I raise my forearm to cover my mouth and nostrils with my sleeve.
“What the hell is that?” I mumble.
