Page 99 of Glasshouses

The line went dead. I dialled her back, the call going straight through to voicemail. We had a network notification for Lily’s number, which would also give us the location, but I had that anyway, if she was telling the truth. After what happened in Afflecks, I wasn’t confident.

I called Wrigley and he answered on the first ring. “Lily’s phoned me. She says she’s trapped at her dad’s house.” Which was odd; she’d been uncomfortable referring to her parents as mum and dad, but it had rolled off her tongue. “I’m about three miles away. I’ll head straight over.”

“Don’t go in there without back up. Wait on the main road – Vinny, get your arse up to Thornley End – Mia, do not go inside. Mia - ”

The reception dipped out, either side of the road shaded with tall, thick trees and a lack of residential properties requiring it. I was working off my sense of direction rather than sat nav, not having had the chance to programme it in and I didn’t have the oxygen in my lungs to say it out loud.

The roads felt like they’d been stretched, the car feeling like it couldn’t accelerate any more, the bends and turns limiting my speed. I drove past the tiny centre of Thornley End, the church squat in its yard, like it was part of a picture off a chocolate box or a jigsaw. The idyllic English countryside where secrets were buried between foxgloves and laburnum.

I parked up in the same spot as previously, the blackened bricks of Roselea looming through lush leaves as the wind rushed through them, dappled sunlight dancing on the dry ground. Birdsong echoed from the bushes and branches, and I wondered whether anyone would notice if I sat down for five minutes and just was, no need to use words or even think, just to be.

The idea of a holiday was becoming more appealing, but I pushed fantasies of the French countryside and old castles to the side as I carried on towards Roselea. A couple of messages came through to my phone, service catching briefly. One told me that Lily had been seen on camera yesterday evening; we knew she was alive and not locked in somewhere. The second was Wrigley, telling me Vinny and a team were on their way, and I was not, under any circumstances, to enter Roselea.

But we all knew I was never very good at following instructions.

There were no vehicles other than mine, so if Lily was here, she’d come on foot. If she was here, then why? Had she been back here before, but if she had, it would oppose what she said about how she felt about her past. Being here would dredge up memories, even inaccurate ones, from the night of the first fire and her childhood.

The windows were clouded with grime, unseeing and dull. The door strapped closed with metal bars, but anyone with any motivation could’ve found a way through.

I checked my phone again, no signal. No way to call Lily. No way to call anyone.

The gates keened as I pushed them open, no attempt made to secure them, opening to a view of a garden that had been left to design itself. Oaks and sycamores, poplars and laurel provided a layered canopy, vast undergrowth hiding under their shade, the rustling of leaves not just from the breeze.

At the back of the house was an old patio, one I was now familiar with. Signs of the forensics team lingered, the area around the outhouse covered with soot and broken glass, a dropped chocolate wrapper and tissue, probably from a careless cop’s pocket.

There was a stillness to empty places that could be felt in your bones, a sense of being unwelcome because nonhuman things had taken over and they weren’t interested in guests or invaders. But the stillness I expected wasn’t there.

My skin felt like it was crawling, the back of my head felt pinpricks, and I was convinced I wasn’t alone here. I took the brick steps up to the back doors and peered through the window that was no longer boarded up.

Dust and ash and decaying furniture. Lives ended here, even for the ones who kept on living. The door to the kitchen had been blocked up by a piece of metal, but that was now loose, pulled away. Someone had been here.

Maybe someone was still here.

I slowed my breathing, something taking me back to gymnastics competitions when I was fourteen and about to perform the vault, the focus I needed, a way to block out the judges and people watching. When I was fourteen, I was training most weekends, until it stopped. When Lily was fourteen, she was in a secure psychiatric unit.

There but for the grace of god.

I pulled the metal off the wall, a task easier than it should’ve been, but I didn’t enter that way.

Always have two exits.

My heartbeat took over my body.

There was another door at the side of the house, what would’ve been the tradesman’s entrance, up a flight of steps where the stone had been worn by footsteps over a century. The door hadn’t been secured, and it didn’t take much jiggling of the handle to open it, although if anyone was in the house, they’d now know they had company.

I left the door open, the light illuminating dancing particles of dust. Footsteps on floorboards, the creak of wood straining under my weight.

I moved fluidly, years of gymnastics and dance training embedded in my muscles. Move light, move with the air, toe-heel and grace. I heard my dance teacher’s voice, calling out steps from the side of the stage as we rehearsed and I heard the voice of my gymnastics instructor, the man who lived in my head with a bounty on his.

But the voice I heard now wasn’t his. It was my name, falling down the stairs and through the hallways of the house, the first syllable dragged out as if it was being sung.

Lily.

I resisted the urge to run, adrenaline kicking in, but the part of my brain that thrived off it counteracting impulsivity.

Slowly, slowly. Listening for everything. Old houses moved with the earth as well as their whispers, sometimes covering for someone who was trying to remain unseen.

“Meee – a.”