“What is it?” Webber turns to me, shifting his bulk in the passenger seat.
“Did you ever have a suspect called Peter Flack?”
“Who?”
“He died suddenly, unexpectedly in his late twenties.”Could it have been him? Could he have been part of this?“Carbon monoxide poisoning in the front room of the house.”
“When was this?”
“December 2001.”
He makes another note in his small black pad.
“Any idea how long he’d lived here?”
“Not sure, but I get the impression his grandmother owned it for a good long time.”
He fires more questions at me about the previous owners and the next-door neighbor who seemed to know everyone’s business. At Webber’s insistence, we walk around to number ninety-three and rap the heavy brass knocker of Mrs. Evans’s front door. While we wait, I send Jess a quick text to let her know I’m bringing someone over who might be able to help. There’s no answer from Mrs. Evans and no sign of life through the opaque porch window, so we return to my house and I show him into the hall. He takes it all in silently, shaking his head when I offer him a drink, the black briefcase still clutched in his left hand.
He’s wheezing by the time we’ve walked up the stairs to the second floor, standing on the last step for a moment to catch his breath and take in his surroundings. Back when it was first built in the 1880s, I assumed that this floor would have been the servants’ quarters. Many of these houses had been built for the wealthiest men of the county, the mill-owners and coalminebosses who had paid some of the most notable architects of the time to make each residence distinctive and unique.
The landing runs in two directions from here: right, to Leah’s bedroom and the small shower room next to it; and left to two more irregular-shaped small rooms, one with its long-defunct fireplace and damp stains in the pitted plaster above it, the other with a single wood-paneled wall, the planks and panels of the old fitted wardrobe still piled in the corner where I had taken them down.
This was the room at the very end of the corridor, the farthest away from the front door, from the outside world. The room where all of this trouble had started.
“Still a bit of a mess up here in the two small rooms,” I say. “Need to watch your step.”
He nods and follows me down the corridor, his bulk almost filling the doorway from side to side, eyes roving over the interior. The room has become a bit of a dumping ground for boxes, ornaments, and picture frames that we’re not sure where to place, all of it piled haphazardly on the floor and leaning against the walls. Webber is taking care, I notice, not to touch the door or the frame or any other surface.
“Tell me again,” he says. “How many items in total?”
I count them off in my head. “Six. Plus the phone.”
There are three left, I tell him—the glasses, the wallet, and the pet collar. The unknown caller has the rest, part of the failed bluff that we had tried with the drop-off at Wollaton Park. The watch remains in the pocket of Webber’s suit jacket.
“So what are they?” I say. “Keepsakes? Souvenirs?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“By getting the police to examine them, right?”
“Yes,” he says, “but I needallof it first, every item—we’ll only get one chance at this, and there’s no sense going off half-cocked. So I need background, context;weneed to build a compelling case for the police to reopen this as a live inquiry. You know how much it costs for full forensic profiling of multiple pieces of evidence?”
I pull two heavy boxes of books away from the hidden door, sliding them across the bare floorboards until they’re under the small, square dormer window.
“Have to keep it blocked during the day,” I say over my shoulder, “so my kids can’t get inside. I’ve told them it’s out of bounds but you know what children are like—you might as well put a sign above the door daring them to come in.” I push a third box out of the way. “Have you got any yourself?”
“One of each,” he says. “Grown and gone now, though.”
Running my hand over the dark wooden paneling, I feel slowly from side to side until my fingers brush the join in the wood that is all but invisible to the naked eye. Even now, after going through this door countless times since we moved in, I’m still impressed with the craftsmanship, with the skill of the person who had built this hidden door and made it virtually impossible to detect. I push the rectangular panel, and with a softclick, the door pops open a centimeter toward me.
“It’s a low doorway,” I say. “So watch your head. And be careful inside the room; there are some nails sticking out of the roof beams and a few other places that have drawn blood on me a few times.”
I pull the door open and duck my head to fit through the low doorway, standing back up to snap the light on with the pull-cord swinging next to my head. Everything is just as it waswhen I last set foot in here, the dresser pushed up against the wall on the left, the old armchair, the side table, a thick layer of dust disturbed where I have walked across the floorboards, sat down, opened and closed the small drawers in the dresser. The air is still stale with the smell of old bricks and slow decay.
A moment later, Webber follows me in and I sense him standing silently behind me, his bulk crowding the space in this small room. I’m still talking, explaining how I came to find the key hidden in the back of the dresser’s wooden frame, when the shadows deepen and I realize he’s pulled the door fully shut.
When I turn back I notice two things: first, he’s snapped blue surgical gloves onto his hands, the latex straining taut against fleshy knuckles.
