In The Garden Of Stones (20 page)

She
circles the building, arms sticking out at right angles to avoid
the nettles, stepping carefully, taking care to avoid the broken
slates, bricks and glass littering the surround, giving each of the
plywood covers a push in case one is loose. They all seem secure,
as does the back door with its own aluminium barrier.

“
Maybe I could shin up a drainpipe.”

She
steps back from the building, shielding her eyes from the sun, and
peers up to the windows on the upper floors. These too are boarded
over, and even if they weren’t, unless she can morph into some kind
of multi-limbed spider monkey, there is no way she can climb up
there and get inside without breaking her neck. She is about to
give up when a glint of light winks at her from deep within the
Virginia creeper growing wildly over the back wall.

She
pulls the vine aside to reveal a square of glass. A tiny window. It
hasn’t been covered over because nobody knew it was there. So small
and insignificant, it had been easily overlooked.

The
frame looks rotten, and she thinks that with a little encouragement
it might come open, if it doesn’t give way completely. Either way,
she has found her way in. All she has to do now is find something
to stand on… and a lever.

Grace
creaks open the door from the tiny washroom and steps into a cold
damp kitchen, walls and ceiling the colour of a smoker’s lung,
smells just as bad, too.

Mould.
Moss. Dead spiders. The foosty odour of neglect and abandonment
with the underlying stinks of backed up drains and rotting
vegetation.

She
rummages in her rucksack, bringing out her torch, clicks it on and
turns herself around, sweeping an ice white beam around the room
like a lighthouse, picking out a table and chairs, worktops,
stained sink, rusted cooker. Three doors stand open, each leading
off the main kitchen - number one to a utility room, number two to
a store room, and number three...?

The beam
of her torch vanishes before she can make out more than half the
steps down into the cellar, the light swallowed whole by the dark.
No chance in hell of her going down there.

The
hinges are rusty and stiff and she has to put all her weight
against the door to push it closed, wondering as she does whether
boogeymen have opposable thumbs and can work door handles. There is
a lock, but no key, only a barrel bolt about a foot from the top of
the door. On tiptoes she can just reach it with her fingertips and
drive it home. Better than nothing.

Through
another door and into a short passageway, then out into a panelled
hallway, high ceiling above, chipped terrazzo tiles crunching
underfoot.

The
torch beam leads the way as she explores two reception rooms, a
dining room, a study lined with empty bookshelves, and a closet the
size of her flat. All are in a desperate state of disrepair with
lath slats showing through peeling paper and cracked plaster. The
floorboards are bare, and a heavy mouldy bread-like smell hangs in
the air.

She
shines the torch up the staircase. The beam reaches only as far as
the half landing. If she wants to see more, she needs to go up, no
matter how dark and forbidding it looks.

The
banister rocks when she puts her hand on it and the middle part of
the steps feel spongy underfoot.

“
Okay, best stick to the edges where there is more support
and less chance of me putting my foot through a rotten board, or
the whole thing giving way and me tumbling base over apex into a
cellar full of rats.”

She
manages to reach the half landing without incident, and then picks
her way up the right flight. Up here is no better than downstairs.
Very little light due to the wooden shutters placed over the
windows, and there is that same foosty smell, except up here it is
joined by the chalky acid tang of pigeon droppings.

Grace looks up through a hole in the ceiling to the rafters
above, to the fat grey birds
hrooing
to each other as they jostle for space. The floor
beneath their roost is speckled with grey white blobs of pigeon
poop and feathers.

She
edges round the blobs of guano, not wanting any of the filthy goop
on her shoes, and works her way systematically from room to room.
Four bedrooms, two bathrooms. All are in a pretty poor state of
repair, some worse than others, although many of the original
period features of the building are still there – fine plaster
cornices, ceiling roses, fireplaces and corbels, and the designer
part of her cannot help but begin to see some potential under the
wreckage.

Over to
the other wing. Same here. Bathrooms and bedrooms, decay and
decline. She reaches the last unexplored room and waves the torch
beam around it. Just like all the others.

And then
the light picks up something out of place. A flash of colour.
Something red. She concentrates the light on it. It looks like a
hat. A knitted woollen hat … with flaps like spaniel’s ears, a few
strands of matted grey poking out.

She
moves the beam down and freezes. It takes all of two seconds for
her to register what exactly it is she is looking at, and when her
ear splitting scream breaks free, it rebounds from every niche and
nook and cranny in the building, sending the cooing pigeons into
whistling flight from their roost in the attic and the mice back to
their holes under the skirting boards.

She staggers back until her feet get in the way and she
tumbles hard onto her backside. The torch jolts from her hand and
drops to the floor with a
clunk
, rolls and comes to rest with its beam pointing
at the bundle in the corner, its low angle highlighting parts
whilst elongating and deepening the shadows in between, stretching
and twisting light and dark into something grotesque.

Grace
presses herself hard against the wall, eyes squeezed tight shut,
breathing in short sharp gasps.

“
Okay, not what I was expecting, but … it’s fine … it’s a
dead body … but it’s fine. It’s been dead a long time, so it’s not
like it’s going to jump up and rip out my throat, is
it?”

She
risks a quick glance with one eye into the corner. It’s still
there. She hasn’t imagined it. Both eyes make sure. It hasn’t
moved. She edges forward on her hands and knees until her
outstretched fingers touch the rubberised handle of the torch. She
snags it, then grabs it and retreats to the wall, all the while
keeping the beam trained on the body.

Only now
the angle of light is different and the shadows have lessened. She
makes another adjustment, shifting the focus of the beam until the
body is fully illuminated by a flat white glare. Not so
bad.

In fact,
the more she looks at it, the less afraid she feels. Her shocked
heart reduces its rate from that of a skittering rabbit to
somewhere close to normal, and her gasping hyperventilation
steadies into a regular in and out rhythm.

The body
is definitely male, proven by the few wispy strands of grey beard
still clinging to the leathery covering of his chin, and must have
been dead a long time to be in this advanced state of
decomposition.

There
are no eyes in the skull, just empty holes. No nose either, or
lips. The rats have helped themselves to all the tasty bits. The
skin they left behind has dried out and cracked and taken on the
texture of a worn out leather purse, peeling away from the
underlying structure in strips, exposing a manic grin of yellowed
tombstone teeth, top set for the most part present, bottom row
missing all its molars.

A dirty
red Aberdeen Football Club supporters bobble hat is rammed hard
over the head, its cold weather ear flaps pulled down, fraying
cords tied together loosely under the chin.

A length
of twine nips in the waist of a filthy, padded jacket over baggy
corduroy trousers, well worn and with a hole in the knee – like
some she’s seen before.

He’s
wearing mismatched trainers, their soles almost worn through, no
socks, and a pair of fingerless gloves cover fleshless
phalanges.

Scattered around are empty bottles and cans - strong lager,
cheap supermarket cider, methylated spirits from the DIY store,
along with polystyrene containers, the type used by fast food
outlets and chippers, and probably plucked from the bin or out of
the gutter in the hope of a few bites of left over burger or a
handful of chips.

A sad
scenario begins to play out for Grace – this poor wanderer, looking
for somewhere to shelter for the night and have a quiet drink,
finds his way in here, snuggles into this corner because it’s the
driest and out of the draught, and then … what? Drinks himself to
death? Has a heart attack? Dies of hypothermia?

Judging
by the number of cans, bottles, fast food containers and other
accumulated detritus lying about he must have used the place
frequently, felt safe here, found some degree of sparse comfort in
the dark and the quiet.

Could it
be that he’d drunk himself into a stupor and the place had been
secured with him inside and when he woke, found he couldn’t get
out?

“
Nobody knew you were here, did they? Imprisoned with no
food or water, slowly dying of starvation and dehydration, nobody
hearing your cries for help, nobody caring if they did. You died
alone and afraid, and nobody even noticed you were gone. You poor
bastard.”

She
draws out her mobile phone. No matter who he is or how he died or
when, somebody needs to know about it, and she calls the
police.

“
You’ll need a pair of bolt cutters,” she advises
them.

They
arrive an hour later, a standard patrol car carrying two bored
looking constables, and they make their way inside, guided by
Grace, who has more than a few questions to answer to explain away
her presence.

In the
interval between her call and their arrival, she has had ample time
to make up a convincing story.

She is
researching local history she tells them, and needed to take some
photographs and didn’t want to bother anyone for a key, didn’t mean
any harm etcetera. She’s had a shock, and she’s very sorry for
trespassing and certainly won’t be doing it again any time soon,
officer. She’s learned her lesson. If push comes to shove,
particularly if it stops her from being arrested, she might be able
to turn on the waterworks.

None of
it is necessary. The police don’t seem particularly interested in
either how she got in there or what she found, merely taking her
name and address and giving her no more than a ticking off. She
finds their nonchalant attitude somewhat disturbing.

“
When you find out who he is you will let me know, won’t
you?” she says, standing back as two authorised operatives
manhandle the corpse, now encased in a blue plastic sheet, into the
back of a black transit van marked 'private ambulance' for
transportation to the morgue.

The
policeman in charge, after some persuasion, agrees that he will,
takes her contact details and lets her go on her way.

Back
home after her adventure the shock sets in, leaving her shaky and
shivery, and it takes a full bottle of Australian shiraz to put a
soft and fuzzy edge around the day.

“
You okay? Ye look like yer cat’s left a jobbie in yer
shoe,” says Colin as he hoes industriously at the rose
bed.

“
I found a body yesterday,” Grace says.

Colin stops and stares at her. “A body? A
deid
body?”

“
Of course a dead body. What other sort is
there?”

“
Where?”

“
At the Larches.”

“
What were you deein’ theer? Didn’t ye say it were derelict
and falling doon dangerous?”

“
I had a point to prove and I was curious. It looked so much
like this place that I just wanted to have a poke around … make
comparisons.”

He
stares at her. “Ye broke in didn’t ye?”

“
I didn’t break anything. Didn’t have to. Not my fault they
left a window open.”

“
Aye, that’ll be shining. So what did ye find?”

“
Apart from spiders, pigeons, mould, oh, and a body?
Nothing. The place is a wreck. I expected it to be run down, but
not quite that bad.”

“
No like our own splendid edifice, eh?” He hoiks his thumb
over his shoulder, toward the big house out of sight beyond the
hedge.

“
I haven’t been inside this house yet,” she says. “I’m
saving that treat for when I have the nerve. I want to, but I just
can’t seem to bring myself to do it. It’s like there’s a barrier
up, stopping me.”

“
Aye,” he murmurs. “I ken fit ye mean.” He clears his
throat. “Any idea who the deid man is?”

“
Not yet. I called the police and they came, saw, and took
him away. I did ask them to keep me informed, but I won’t hold my
breath. Some poor homeless alcoholic dying in a derelict house
isn’t going to impact on their Home Office crime busting targets is
he, so why bother? Would have shown more compassion if I’d found a
dead dog.” Sigh. “Nobody should have to die like that, alone, cold,
with only the rats and pigeons for company. Somebody has to know
who he is and claim him. Take him home.”