She sees his face light up.
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘wow. That’s amazing. Are you published? I mean, I guess you must be, otherwise you wouldn’t say “novelist”, you’d just say “I’m writing a novel.”’
She laughs. ‘Well, you say that, but you’d be surprised by how many people still ask me if I’m published when I tell them I’m a novelist. But yes, I am published. And no, you won’t have heard of me, unless you’re Danish or Swedish or Norwegian. Oh, or, for some reason, Vietnamese. I sell a lot in Vietnam.’
He shakes his head at her in awe. ‘That’s incredible,’ he says. ‘Wow. That must be just amazing, thinking of your work outthere in all those languages, all those people in other countries reading your work. What sort of novels are they?’
‘They’re what’s called in the trade “cosy crime”.’
He nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I think I’ve heard of that. Like crimes without violence, kind of thing?’
‘Yes.’ She smiles. ‘That kind of thing.’
‘Oh God,’ says Liam, ‘I’d love to read one. Do you write under your own name?’
‘No, I have a pseudonym. P. J. Fox.’
‘And what’s it called? Your book?’
‘It’s a series, actually, called the Little Hither Green Detective Agency. I’m not sure it would really be your—’
‘Wait,’ he says, pulling a phone from his trouser pocket, ‘wait. I want to write this down. What was it again?’
She repeats it and watches as he painstakingly types it into his phone. He jabs at the screen with one fingertip, not with two fast-moving thumbs like most people his age. She swallows down a smile.
‘There,’ he says. ‘I’m going to order myself a couple.’
She smiles and then notices that he looks as though he needs to be on his way.
‘Listen,’ she says, ‘before you go. Remember when we were talking last night? And you said that you were the world expert on Maypole House?’
Liam smiles, but then narrows his eyes and says, ‘Why do I feel like I’m walking into a trap?’
Sophie laughs. ‘No trap, I promise. But I just wondered what you knew about the woods?’ She gestures towards them with a tip of her head.
‘The woods?’
‘Yes. I know it might sound strange, but I found something near the woods. Just behind the head teacher’s cottage. Something really interesting, to do with the missing teenagers. And I’m starting to think that maybe it had been left there on purpose, for me to find. Or for Shaun maybe. I just wondered if you had any ideas.’
He looks at her and then towards the woods and she sees something shadowy pass over his face. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘sure. Maybe later? I could, I dunno, I could meet you? I finish work at four. Shall I come to the cottage?’
‘Yes,’ says Sophie knowing that Shaun won’t be back until at least six, if not later. ‘Come at four. I’ll see you then.’
Sophie has discovered more about Dark Place over the past day or two. As well as the Wikipedia entry, the house appears in many online documents about buildings of architectural note and historical interest. She finds an article from a local historian based just outside Manton. He describes the house as ‘a hodgepodge of styles and eras, soldered together like a broken cake, but somehow appearing all the more glorious for it’. He retells the various stories attached to the house in much more colourful language than that used in the Wiki post, bringing the characters vividly to life. The moment when the assassin is brought down by the animal trap is described in painful, agonising detail. It was high summer apparently, the trap was laid in an unshaded area, the man lay scorching, toasting, his skin blistered and looking like ‘the hide of a spit roast pig’ when his body was found six days later.
Towards the end of the article, the historian makes brief mention of the most recent inhabitants:
Currently, Dark Place is under private ownership, the main home of a family originally from the Channel Islands. Planning applications show that they have added a glass extension to the rear of the central Georgian wing and installed a swimming pool at the back, with a separate pool house, designed to echo the surrounding architecture and bounded by a sweep of reclaimed Palladian-style pillars, said to have once belonged to a mansion just outside York burned to the ground by a vengeful lover. A suitable addition to a house that has never stopped evolving and never stopped finding tales to tell about itself and its inhabitants.
There was one section in particular that had really grabbed Sophie’s attention. About halfway through the article, the historian casually tosses in the lines:
There has long been a rumour of an escape tunnel linking Dark Place to the woods that abut it, dug during the English Civil War, but evidence of either an entrance or an exit to this tunnel has never been found, despite concerted efforts from inhabitants over the years.
A shiver had run down Sophie’s spine as she read the lines.
She checks the time now and sees that it’s nearly four. She turns her phone camera to selfie mode and inspects her face.Feeling she looks a little lacklustre, she applies an extra coat of mascara and some tinted lip balm. A moment later there’s a knock at the front door.
‘It’s me, Liam.’