At the crest of the hill, she pauses, doubled over and panting for breath. She can see a dark pocket of woods ahead, next to an old railway line. According to the blurry map on the Motorola, Orton Hall is just behind the trees.
She reaches the bottom of the hill with relief. Drystone walls rise on either side of her, the flint green with age and moss. Raindrops begin to fall in earnest as she enters the woods. The trees are tight and claustrophobic, and she can barely see the sky for the branches overhead. The winding trail is uneven and overgrown: greenery rustles as she walks, and a pale rabbit streaks away into the undergrowth.
The downpour grows heavier, and soon the leaves and tree trunks are shining wet. Kate pulls up her hood. She looks at her phone: she should be nearing the edge of the woods now. She walks a little faster. Something about the woods makes her feel uneasy: the cloying scent of damp earth, the snap of twigs around her. A shape flickers at the edge of her vision, shadow-black, a shiver of wings against leaves.
She turns around, scans the twisted canopy overhead. There is nothing, other than a brown and orange butterfly quivering on a leaf. She takes a deep, steadying breath and keeps walking.
The woods are so thick that she doesn’t see Orton Hall until she is almost out of them. It rises up before her so suddenly that she gasps. She was not expecting this. She wonders if Emily was wrong about someone living here – the whole place looks as if it’s been abandoned for years. Its stone is dull and faded, with great craters where the render has worn away. Thick ropes of ivy climb the turrets. Movement flutters on the roof, and she sees that the gutters are lined with birds’ nests. As she approaches, she can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched – but that could just be the huge, dark windows, staring down at her like eyes.
She walks through the weed-choked gardens to get to the imposing front door. There is no doorbell. She clangs the heavy iron knocker and waits.
Nothing. Kate shuffles her feet. The stone is slick with a patina of old leaves, the balustrades fissured with cracks. The whole place has an air of neglect, sadness, and she has just decided to leave when she hears the scrape and click of a bolt being drawn back. The door creaks open slowly, until she and a wispy old man in a tartan dressing gown are staring at each other in mutual surprise. The viscount. It’s got to be him.
‘Yes?’ says the man in a thin, reedy voice. ‘What do you want?’ His eyes narrow behind the clouded lenses of his glasses, and for a moment Kate can’t think what to say.
‘Hi,’ she begins. ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you – um – my name is Kate. I’ve just moved in around the corner. I’m doing some research into my family history, and I think some of my relatives used to live here …’
She trails off awkwardly. The man blinks and for a moment she wonders if he hasn’t heard her, if he could be deaf. The whites of his green eyes are yellow, the lids pink and hairless.
He opens the door wider, and then turns, disappearing into the fathomless dark of the house. It takes her a while to realise that he means for her to come inside.
She watches the ragged hem of his dressing gown lick away from his feet as she follows him into a dim entrance hall. The only source of light comes from a dusty-looking lamp on a large side table. In its yellow pool, she can see that the table is stacked high with mail: old, gnawed-looking envelopes at the bottom, and plastic covered brochures at the top. The stack of mail rustles as they walk past, and Kate notices that the curling envelopes are covered with a strange, glittering film, like tiny particles of broken glass.
The other furniture in the room is covered in ragged dust sheets, as is a large painting on the wall, above a cavernous fireplace. Something glints on the mantelpiece, and Kate sees that it is an old carriage clock, swathed in cobwebs. Its hands are stopped; frozen forever at six o’clock.
Kate wonders how on earth the man can see as she follows him up a sweeping staircase. The large windows over the staircase are dark with filth, and only let in a chink of light here and there. Kate squints to see the little man bobbing up the steps in front of her. For a moment, she stumbles and grips the banister, feeling grit under her palm. Peering at her hand, she sees it is the same glittering substance that covered the mail. It is not dust, she realises with horror. Her palm is coated with the crystal flakes of wings. Insect wings.
With a jolt, Kate realises that she has lost sight of him. There’s the creak of a door opening somewhere. She reaches the top of the staircase, and, following the sound, turns left down the corridor.
There is a slender chink of orange light ahead, and her eyes adjust to make out the form of the old man standing outside a slightly open door, waiting for her. When she is a few paces away, he enters the room and she follows. As she crosses the threshold, fear leaps in her veins, for what she sees unsettles her even more than the rest of the house.
There are no wings to be found in this room, which would have been impressive, once. The space is dominated by a beautiful mahogany desk. A floor-to-ceiling window, largely hidden by rotting curtains, takes up much of the wall behind the desk. The rest of it is covered by a dark portrait of a bald man with an angry expression.
The desk itself is crowded with strange trinkets: mirrored boxes, an old compass. A globe, half of its sphere rotted away. Most startling is an elephant’s enormous tusk, which she initially takes to be a human bone, yellow in the dull light.
There is a sour stink of flesh, and Kate quickly averts her eyes from a sort of nest in the corner of the room, made from blankets, rags, and even items of clothing. There’s another smell, too: over-sweet and chemical, abrasive in her nostrils. Insect repellent. A hurricane lamp – of the kind she’s only ever seen in old films, or antique shops – burns on the floor, giving the room its gauzy glow. Empty tins glint orange in the lamplight. He has been living here, she realises. In this one room.
‘They can’t – couldn’t – get in,’ the little man says, as if he has read her thoughts. ‘I made sure.’
He gestures to the door, and Kate turns to see a roll of fabric nailed to it, another stretched across its hinges. Turning back, she realises suddenly why the room is so dark: behind the frayed, rotted curtains, the windows have been boarded up.
The little man sits down at the desk, slowly lowering himself into a high-backed chair, its leather streaked with mould.
‘Please,’ he says, gesturing to a small chair in front of the desk. Kate sits, and dust rises around her. She stifles a cough.
‘What did you say your name was?’ the man asks. Kate finds the contrast between his cut-glass accent and shabby appearance jarring – unsettling, even. She notices that his hands are shaking, that his gaze flickers repeatedly to the edges of the room. He’s looking for them, she realises. The insects. The skin on the nape of her neck prickles.
‘Kate,’ she says, her unease growing. She wants to leave, to get away from this little man with his vacant stare and animal smell. ‘Kate Ayres.’ He leans forward, the papery skin of his forehead furrowed.
‘Did you say Ayres?’
‘Yes, my grandfather was Graham Ayres,’ she explains. ‘I think he used to live here, as a child. With his sister, Violet. Do you – are we … related?’