trap for all you know.’
She squealed and grabbed his arm. ‘It’s beautiful though, isn’t it? I mean it has so much potential. I can’t wait to get it cleaned up and started.’
***
He couldn’t help smiling to himself in the darkness. Her enthusiasm was catching. It did seem to be a pretty remarkable building.
They were so busy looking down at the floor, making sure it was safe to walk on, that neither of them saw the faceless, black, hooded figure hovering at the top of the stairs watching them. Kate’s torchlight caught the corner of the thick, silver crucifix that hung around its neck, making the light reflect a little. It disappeared back to where it had come from. Back into the shadows where it had dwelled for far too long.
As they walked further into the house, Oliver just hoped that Kate had the money to turn it from this into something habitable. He knew that Martin had taken everything away from her after the court case and he couldn’t help wondering where she had got the money to buy it from. Maybe it was a severance gift from Martin.
***
They walked from room to room. There were a lot of broken windows, which was why it was boarded up, and there were also an awful lot of crosses on the walls. They were everywhere and Kate felt a cold draught run down her back. It was creepy to have so many in one house. Even the church didn’t have so many of the damn things plastered around. Whoever lived here must have been some kind of religious nut. She made up her mind that her first job would be to take them all down when she came back with boxes, bags and a huge skip to fill with all the junk from inside.
She was also going to do some digging and find out the house’s history. When she had a minute, she would go to the records office attached to the local library and see what information they had on it. She wanted to make a scrapbook about the house now and what it would be like when it was finished. Something for her girls to treasure and that guests who stopped by might find interesting. This was her house now and whoever lived here before her had left years ago. She would turn it into the kind of home she’d dreamt about since she was a teenager.
There were still a lot of pieces of furniture that had been left behind, which was a nice bonus. Most of them were covered in dirty, grey dust sheets and she lifted the corners to take a peek at what was hiding underneath. Although some of it was no good, there were some pieces that were still okay. She would put them all in the outhouse and either sell them or have a go at restoring them herself to use in the bedrooms. Once they’d been painted white or grey instead of the dark, almost black oak they would be much brighter and look a lot better.
***
Oliver and Kate cautiously made their way from room to room. The ground floor was pretty solid. There were a couple of holes in the floorboards in three of the rooms, but the other five were not too bad. The plaster was falling off some of the walls and the wiring wasn’t very good. Oliver didn’t think it would be a huge job to knock out walls and add en-suites to the bedrooms. Years ago, he’d owned a thriving building business which had refit offices, hotels and pubs, so this wasn’t going to be anything that he couldn’t do. The only reason he’d sold the business was because his wife Ellen had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease and he’d wanted to take care of her.
He felt excited at the prospect of some real work, a proper project to get his teeth into. Martin Parker was an egotistical prick, but he’d come in handy and Oliver had needed something to do to keep his mind from dwelling on Ellen’s illness and her awful, drawn-out death. The odd jobs he’d done for him had kept him busy enough that it kept some normality in his life.
***
It was much colder on the first floor than downstairs and Kate found herself wishing she’d worn her jeans and not a pair of cut-off shorts and a strappy vest top. It was dark and gloomy, and there were even more of those bloody crosses. She couldn’t wait to rip them all down. They came to the smaller staircase that led up to the second floor and attic. Oliver went first and she followed close behind.
It was a little lighter up here because there were a couple of gaping holes in the roof. There were fewer rooms up here, but they were huge. This floor would be perfect for her to have a large en-suite bedroom and the girls could each have a large room. Not to mention their own living quarters if they decided that’s what they wanted – and if she could afford it after the work had been done on the rest of the house.
There were some crumpled boxes shoved into one corner and she pushed one open with the tip of her torch. Inside were piles of old leather Bibles and psalm books. Whoever had lived here must have been a travelling Bible salesman. The thought made her smile. Either that or some kind of religious fanatic. She wondered what the previous owner would have made of a woman buying this house all on her own. She did the same with the next box, which had an old, wooden cigar box inside it. She pulled it out to take a closer look.
Oliver was studying the holes in the roof and had dragged a wooden trunk over that he could stand on to get a better look. Kate opened the cigar box and smiled to see a thick, navy book with gold edges on the pages and the word ‘Diary’ stamped in gold on the front. She picked it up, wondering who it had belonged to and if whoever it was had loved this house the way that she did.
Across the room, Oliver was making lots of ‘ah’ noises. She stood up and walked towards him. Halfway across the huge, open space she heard the sharp sound of scratching coming from one of the darkened corners and paused. Her heart began to race. Oh God. Mice, she didn’t mind, but that sounded loud. Too loud to be a mouse. She’d die if the house came with resident rats.
She waited and listened to see if it happened again. Relieved that it didn’t, she put it down to a bird or maybe one of those nuisance grey squirrels that everyone kept saying were vermin, but that she found cute. She could cope with mice, birds and even squirrels. She wasn’t even going to acknowledge that bigger things with long tails and sharp teeth could be behind the noise. That way it wouldn’t be true, would it? She reached Oliver and shone her torch at the gaping hole, not really understanding what he found so fascinating about it.
‘So here’s the big question: what do I need to have fixed first and would you be willing to come and work for me full-time?’
He stepped down off the trunk. ‘The roof. You need to make the building waterproof before you even think about doing anything else in here. As keen as you are to get started, if we don’t seal these holes you might as well take your money and throw it on a bonfire.’
‘Can you do it for me, or if not do you know someone who could?’
‘I can do it. I’ve got a few jobs on for Martin, but they’re only small so I can make a start. I know a couple of lads who’ll labour for cash, but this isn’t going to be cheap, Kate.’
‘I know, don’t worry. I have the money. I’ll pay you a lump sum up front and the rest on completion. Can you draw me up some plans or do I need an architect?’
‘It’s up to you. I know a very good architect if you’d like me to give him a ring and get him to come out for a site visit. I can’t really give you a proper price until it’s all been taken into consideration.’
They made their way back downstairs and she breathed out a sigh of relief. She didn’t like the attic as much as the rest of the house. Even though it was open in places it felt as if the air was much heavier up there. She was sure once the roof had been fixed and there was working electricity it wouldn’t feel so dark and oppressive. Back on the ground floor she returned to the large room, which was off the huge room she assumed had been the lounge.
