Tania Carver - Cage of Bones

The third book in the Detective Inspector Philip Brennan series, 2011

It was a house of secrets. Dark secrets, old secrets.

Bad secrets.

Cam knew it as soon as he saw it. Felt it, sensed it. Not just derelict but desolate, collapsing under the weight of its own despair. A solid shadow, deeper than black.

The old house was on a patch of ground just by the river, opposite the Old Siege House pub and restaurant at the bottom of East Hill in Colchester. Beside where an old mill had been converted into a set of fancy apartments. It was an area of old buildings, some dating back to Elizabethan times, mostly all sympathetically restored. The area had managed to retain some character and the properties were starting to go for inflated prices. There was a demand for more of the same. Or at least a cheap contemporary copy.

But first the area had to be cleared. And that was where Cam came in.

His back to the morning traffic, walking down a single-track road, he had felt good. His first job after three months claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance. A labourer with a building and demolition company. Seventeen years old, one of the few from his class to actually get a job. Not what he wanted; he loved reading and wished he could have gone to university, studied English. But he was realistic. Kids like him didn’t go to university. Especially not now. Still, he should be grateful to be working, to be busy. Happy to be anywhere except at home watching Jeremy Kyle become Cash in the Attic .

He had passed an old brick wall on his right, behind which a grand Georgian house had been renovated, turned into offices. All gleaming white sash windows, polished brass plaques, ornamental trees guarding the huge front door before the curling gravel drive. Cars for the office staff were parked on his left, their engines still ticking, cooling.

Cam imagined himself driving a car like that one day, working in an office like that one day too. Having a secretary, even playing golf. Well maybe not the golf. But something like that. Perhaps they would love his work at the demolition company so much he’d be promoted. Move on up the company until he was top man.

Cam smiled. Walked on.

Then the trees overhead closed in, darkening the morning, chilling the air, and Cam’s smile faded. The traffic noise diminished, absorbed by the trees. Old and thick-trunked, they deadened the mechanical rushing sounds of vehicles, replaced them with the natural white noise of rustling leaves. Cut off from the road, the noise of the leaves increased, shushing and whispering all around him. The sunlight barely glinted through the dark overhead canopy. Cam’s smile disappeared completely. He shivered. Felt suddenly alone.

Beyond the cars was a wasteland. Poured concrete posts, heavy, moulded from old oil drums. Chained together, bordering a weed-infested gravel patch. The first line of defence, keeping people away from the building.

Then the fence.

He stopped before it. Sturdy, heavy mesh panels anchored into solid concrete bases. The surrounding bushes and weeds had grown through and around it, pulling it towards them, trying to claim it for themselves. ‘Dangerous: Keep Out’ and ‘Do Not Trespass’ notices were attached to it by plastic ties, barely visible amongst the green. Warnings to the curious. Cam didn’t look at them. He was just glad he wasn’t doing this at night. Place was creepy enough in the daytime.

Behind the fence was rubble and weeds, fighting for space, dominance. And beyond all that was the house itself. Cam took a good look at it.

A solid black shadow, absorbing the daylight, holding it within. Giving away nothing. Then he saw something rise from the side of the building, slap down again with a leathery sound. Like huge crow’s wings. A horror-film monster. He jumped, gasped.

Cam turned, thinking of running away. Stopped. Tried to get hold of himself. This was ridiculous. It was morning, and it was just an old house. He looked at it again. Studied it, confronted it. Hoped his scrutiny would take its power away.

It was more like an old barn or storage house. And it was old. Very old. Black wooden slats cladded the exterior, most of them askew or collapsing with age and disrepair, leaving exposed lath-work and bare brick underneath. What he had taken for crow’s wings was a huge sheet of black plastic attached to one side of the building. A cheap makeshift repair, now tattered and useless, left hanging beyond its useful life.

There were huge gaps in the roof tiles, exposing the aged, water-damaged skeletons of beams and joists. At the far end was a one-storey extension, blackened plasterwork, rotted wooden window frames. A crumbling brick wall exposed a flat concrete area. Beyond that was the River Colne, dirty brown, plastic debris and greasy scum bobbing slowly along. 5

So close to the road, the town, and he could have been anywhere. Or nowhere.

Just a house, Cam told himself. Just a house. Nothing more.

‘What you waitin’ for?’ A voice behind him, loud and angry-sounding.

Cam jumped, startled. He turned.

‘Come on, get a move on. We’re on the clock here.’ The newcomer looked at his watch to emphasise the point. ‘Shift it.’

‘Sorry… ’ Cam found his voice. ‘Sorry, Gav… ’

His boss had been following him down the path. Cam was so wrapped up in the house that he hadn’t even noticed. Galvanised into action by Gav’s words, pleased to have some reinforcements, he pushed and pulled at the fence, tried to get it to budge. Sharp branches slapped at his face and limbs. Leathery green tendrils seemed to wrap themselves round his arms and legs, tugged at him. Cam felt panic, unreasonable but insistent, rise within him. He gave one final heave and eventually, sweating from the exertion, his knuckles red and sore from the metal and green from the foliage, he managed to make a gap wide enough to squeeze through.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Gav behind him. ‘Just make enough room for yourself, you skinny little bastard. Selfish twat.’

Cam thought of answering, explaining his sudden panic, his irrational, instant fear of the building before them, apologising even. Had the breath in his mouth ready, but didn’t use it. Gav was just joking. In his own way. Funny and charming, he thought himself, while other people just found him loud and offensive. Plus he wouldn’t understand why Cam was so suddenly scared. But then Cam didn’t understand it either.

Just a simple job, Gav had said. A two-man crew, do a recce, decide how best to demolish the place, plan it, do it. Clear the land to cram in yet another development of boxy new houses and flats. The last thing Colchester needed, Cam thought, more boxy new houses and flats. But he tried to have no opinion on it. Because he needed the job. And because some of those boxy little houses weren’t bad. He quite fancied living in one of them.

Cam heard the fence rattle and clang behind him, felt it vibrate and shake. He also heard curses and expletives, as Gav forced his steroid-pumped body through as loudly as possible. Cam, reluctant to enter the house alone, waited for him. The other man joined him, stood beside him looking at it.

‘What d’you think?’ Gav said, sweating from the exertion.

‘Like the House of Secrets,’ said Cam, instantly regretting it.

Gav turned to him, a sneering smile on his lips. ‘The what?’

Cam began to stammer. ‘Th-th-the House of Secrets. It’s from a comic.’