Sarah remained silent, watching the headlight beams as they shone across trees and overgrown shrubs while the gravel driveway wound its way between them. After a few hundred metres, the shrubs gave way to what had once been a manicured lawn. It was now overgrown, with whole flower beds lost to a jungle of green.
Dan coaxed the vehicle round the driveway as it curved to the right, the headlights illuminating a large house. Built from brick with large bay windows facing the driveway, the house looked forbidding.
Dan glanced over at Sarah. ‘It looks better in daylight.’
‘Really?’ She looked up at the building as Dan brought the car to a halt. ‘I hope it’s got heating,’ she said as she unbuckled her seat belt.
‘It will have once I’ve lit some fires,’ he replied and opened his door. ‘It’ll be ages before the old oil furnace gets up to speed.’
Stepping round to the back of the car, he reached in and pulled their bags off the back seat. Dan’s feet crunched across the gravel as he made his way up to the front entrance, a large double door under a covered porch. Dropping the bags at his feet, he retrieved his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. He hit a switch just inside the doorway and a series of lights lit up through the hallway. He turned to Sarah and executed a mock bow.
‘After you.’
Sarah glanced at him briefly and stepped through into the house, intrigued by the thought this really was Dan’s home. He followed her, took off his jacket, hung it on a coat rack and placed the bags at the bottom of an ornate flight of stairs.
‘We’ll deal with those later. Let’s get a fire going then I’ll show you around.’
Sarah hugged her coat around her, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of neglect. She followed Dan through a doorway to the right of the hallway. He hit another switch and a series of wall lamps flickered to life. A couple of light bulbs had blown, sending pockets of shadows across the room in places. Dan walked into the room and leaned over an armchair, switched on a table lamp and then turned and stepped over to the large bay window and pulled large velvet drapes over the glass.
‘That’ll help keep the cold out,’ he said.
Sarah looked around the room in amazement. It was a living area, that much was evident, but most of the space had been taken up with bookcases. She walked up to one of them and cast her eye over the titles, brushing away dust and cobwebs. Geology of Scotland, The Jurassic Coastline of Dorset, Petrified Forests of Papua New Guinea. Journals and articles filled the spaces in between. She wandered along the display, turning her head left and right to read the spines, faded gold leaf catching the light.
In places, fossils and lumps of rock jostled for space with the books, leaving crumbs of mineral deposits scattered across the shelves and mixing with the dust. Sarah picked up one of the rocks, a large black, shiny lump of stone with small holes like pinpricks dotted over the surface.
‘Tektite,’ Dan called out from the other side of the room. ‘Driest rock on Earth.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sarah and put it back. She turned to watch Dan as he tore up an old newspaper and stacked it in the grate with kindling wood.
He rolled up his sleeves, reached up to the fireplace and felt around until his fingers found a matchbox, then lit the fire, moving the kindling around until it caught properly. He leaned over and picked up a couple of logs from a basket next to the fireplace and stacked them neatly on top of the flames.
‘Right, that should do it,’ he said standing up. He turned to Sarah. ‘What?’
She was looking at him with her arms folded across her chest. ‘You know what. When were you going to tell me about this place?’
He shrugged. ‘Probably never. But we needed somewhere safe to stay and I don’t think anyone will find us here. I hadn’t even really thought of it myself until earlier at the hospital.’
Sarah fell into one of the armchairs next to the fire and looked at the dust cloud that reached into the air. ‘When was the last time you were here?’
‘I don’t know – hang on a minute.’ Dan reached down into the fire and pulled out a piece of newspaper, the end smouldering. Squinting in the bad light, he waved it in the air to put the flames out and read the date at the bottom. ‘Here you go. January twelfth.’
Sarah looked around. ‘Only two months ago – and you didn’t clean?’
Dan laughed. ‘January twelfth – last year.’
Sarah stared at him. ‘Is there anyone else here?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not unless next door’s cat still hunts in the barn.’
Chapter 37
London, England
Dan walked out of the underground station and began to walk up the street. The pavements were slick with rain and grease, slippery to the step. Dan grimaced. It was a dirty city, with chewing gum and dog shit vying for position with litter strewn over the path and gutters. Pulling up his jacket collar to shield himself from the fine drizzle being blown horizontally down his neck, he side-stepped an empty fast food container and turned the corner.
The offices of David’s team occupied a nondescript nineteen-sixties edifice four doors down, the steps partially hidden behind two vagrants wrapped in blankets sleeping off the depressing morning. Dan caught the eye of one of them as he climbed the step and reached into his pocket for some money, handing it to him as he passed. The man nodded in appreciation and pulled his woolly hat down lower over his ears. Dan bent down to whisper to him.
‘Grow a beard or something – you stand out a mile.’
The man’s eyes opened wide and he stared after Dan as he opened the entrance door and stepped through. Grinning to himself, Dan walked over to the sleek reception area and waited while the security guard finished a phone call. He looked around at the sand-coloured marble walls and at the installation art gracing the atrium and wondered if he could work in such a place. Probably not.
He turned around as the security guard finished his call. Walking over, he handed him David’s business card. ‘Hi – can you tell him Dan Taylor is here to see him?’