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The unveiling of the plans for a dramatisation and the presence of the television company had dispelled many of the mysteries that had been slowly building. Yet one remained.

What if someone had kidnapped Clive Dawkins?

And what if this old abandoned house in the woods was a perfect place to keep him hidden?

Kelly pulled out her phone. Up here on the hilltop, unlike down in Briar Speckles itself, she could get a good signal, so she would be able to call for help. Down in the village she could only use Wi-Fi at the pub, but up here she could call the police if necessary. And it was a small enough area that they would easily know how to find her.

She headed down the path, easing her way through nettles and brambles, using a stick she picked up to keep them away from her trousers until she reached an old stone wall buried in undergrowth, clearly the boundary of this ancient abandoned property.

She climbed over, feeling long-buried gravel shifting beneath her feet.

The harder she stared at the mounds of vines and brambles, the clearer the former garden features became: a flower bed here and there, a stone wall, an old concrete bird bath, the remains of a gazebo that may once have stood above a raised patio now buried in nettles and piles of leaf litter.

The house itself seemed to pull back the drapes of the surrounding forest, appearing before her tall and long-forgotten. Three floors of ancient, faded opulence. It had a wide entrance with double wooden doors and large ornate brass knockers.

She didn’t expect it to be unlocked, but to her surprise the door opened without resistance, and a creak granted her entry.

She went inside, finding herself in a vast entrance hall, dusty, dirty, and almost empty besides a pile of rotted furniture in one corner and weeds and vines that had managed to sneak in beneath the doors and begun to climb up around the inside walls.

If there was anywhere in this village that was genuinely haunted, it had to be here in this great, silent, abandoned mansion.

Kelly took out her phone, took some photographs, and used its torch function as she moved from room to room. Sometimes she found nothing but faded wallpaper. Other times, old sets of dining tables and chairs, old, dirty dresses, beds little more than wire frames and splintery rotten wood.

In one room she found a chandelier still hanging, almost complete. In another, she found old family portraits hanging from the walls.

Here she paused, staring at the ancient dusty faces of people long dead. She took pictures and then headed to the upper floors, but with each room that passed, she became more and more certain that Clive Dawkins was not here. There was no sign that anyone had been here any time recently. No footprints other than her own. No disturbed dust.

And even when she found a door that seemed to lead down into a basement, it was dark and silent, the stone steps still coated with dust.

While she really ought to go down and check, just in case, she couldn’t bring herself to do it, and figured that, on balance, it was pretty likely that there was no one down there.

In fact, unlike other areas of the village that had left her spooked, the ancient mansion just left her with questions.

After an hour of wandering around, she headed back to the Hanging Tree, leaving the ancient mansion behind.

Questions were burning up inside her. More than ever, she was determined to find the answers.

22

A Tale of Misfortune

Armed with her new discovery, Kelly headed back down the hill into Briar Speckles in search of answers to the questions that, an hour before, she hadn’t even had.

On the way, as she passed the pathway that led up to the aqueduct, she met several men coming up the path carrying large television camera equipment, reminding her of what she had discovered the night before. Hopefully, the whole mystery of the mansion wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She could only imagine how terrible she would feel if it turned out that the mansion, so seemingly authentic, was actually an elaborate movie set that she had now trespassed on and left dusty footprints all over.

Unsure where she might find answers, she decided to ask the oldest person she had so far met, Glynnis Flowers.

She knocked on Glynnis’s door but received no answer, meaning Glynnis was probably at the museum. She headed there instead and found the old woman sitting behind the reception desk with a cold pad stuck to her forehead and a large mug of coffee by her side.

‘Oh, there you are, dear,’ Glynnis said. ‘I was wondering if you might stop by sometime today.’

‘Did you predict it with your Stones of Mayhem?’ Kelly asked.

Glynnis just laughed. ‘No, of course not, dear. I just figured that at some point you’d want to know something or other about the village, and you would know that there’s no better person to ask.’

Slightly concerned that it did appear, in fact, that Glynnis had predicted exactly why Kelly had come, Kelly said, ‘Well, as it so happens, I did come across something I’m yet to be able to explain. And I was wondering, you know, since I was just passing, if you might know anything about it.’

‘Let me just get you a cup of coffee,’ Glynnis said, ‘and replace this pad on my head. I should be through the hangover in another half an hour or so.’