The House in the Woods (Atticus Priest Book 1) Read online

  All of that had brought him to this wretched point: sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a messy room, in the office of a failing business, with no one in his life save for the rescued dog who was curled up in the space behind his knees.

  Atticus felt the emptiness in his gut and an ache in his heart. He drew down on the joint again, the red coal burning down to his fingertips, and then dropped it into the ashtray once more. He exhaled, closed his eyes, and tried to drift away to sleep.

  21

  Atticus woke to the sound of his alarm. He had deliberately left his phone in the office room so that he would have to get up to switch it off. He sat up and stretched out his aching limbs, his joints clicking and popping. Bandit had moved down to the bottom of the mattress in the night, and now he stirred too, getting up and shaking himself so that the tag on his collar jangled loudly. He padded up to Atticus and nuzzled him, his wet snout cold against Atticus’s cheek. Atticus scratched the dog under the chin.

  “Good morning, boy.”

  Atticus felt better with the benefit of sleep, even if he could have done with a couple of hours more. The pensive mood from last night was gone. He had a fresh puzzle to solve, and he would use that to distract him from wallowing in self-pity.

  The room was dark. He swung his legs around and stood up, stumbling through the abandoned clothes to the door. He opened it, the artificial light from the streetlamp outside the window drifting in through the dusty glass, and found his phone on the coffee table. He silenced the alarm and checked the time: it was just after five.

  He took his pills with a glass of water, dressed, found Bandit’s lead and attached it to his collar. He led the dog down the stairs and headed across the street to the car park. The dog hopped into the back of the Fiesta, and Atticus got into the front seat. He started the engine and drove out of the city to the west, heading towards Wilton. He passed the grand, stately pile of Wilton House, continued through the small town and then turned right onto Wishford Road. He passed beneath the railway bridge, passed the riding school and continued to the north until he reached the southern boundary of Great Wishford.

  He stopped the car at the side of the road and got out. The first light of dawn lit the tops of the trees and silvered the wide-open fields behind him. It was quiet here and isolated. Arable land was laid out all around, and, to his left, he saw the dark green fringe of the forest. It was cold, too, with a northerly wind blowing over the open ground. Atticus looked at the forest and the road that passed deeper into it and imagined what it might have been like on the night of Christmas Eve. It was lonely here and would be even more so once he started into the wood. He remembered the area well. The Priest children had enjoyed exploring the countryside as youngsters, their parents often taking them on long Sunday morning walks before finding a pub for lunch. It felt very different now when compared to his memories.

  Bandit pawed the car’s rear window, eager to be let out.

  “Hold on, boy. You can run around in a minute.”

  He got back into the car, turned to the left and continued on a narrow lane that was only just wide enough for one car to pass along it. He followed the track across the bleak, wide fields, the leaden skies stretching overhead as far as the eye could see. There were rows of trees planted to mark the boundaries of each field, and a fence on both sides of the road demarked those boundaries. After two or three minutes, Atticus arrived at a space that had been reserved for a car park. A single Land Rover, dusty and caked in mud, had been parked at the far end, and Atticus slid the Fiesta alongside it. He opened the door and stepped out, then opened the rear door for the dog. Bandit jumped out and shot off into the woods, his collar jangling.

  Atticus went around to the boot and opened it. There was a lot of junk inside, including a pair of Hunter boots. He sat on the lip of the boot, removed his Converse and pulled the boots on. He changed his leather jacket for a warmer overcoat, dug around in the junk until he found the leather pouch that contained his professional-grade lock-pick set, locked the car and started to walk. He whistled for Bandit and heard the dog as he changed course, a blur of white and tan as he darted between the tree trunks to Atticus’s left.

  The start of the woods was marked by a blue sign that read GROVELY WOOD – PRIVATE WOODLAND. Vehicles were not allowed beyond that point, and, a few steps ahead, there was a second noticeboard that displayed a map of the area. Atticus checked it to refresh his memory. He remembered facts that had lodged in his mind as a child: the long straight avenues through the trees that were reputed to have been laid by the Romans; the arms dumps that had been hidden here during the war; the myths and fables that their mother had told them as they tramped along the damp and muddy trails. He recalled his favourite: legend had it that four Danish sisters who lived in Wilton had been suspected of witchcraft after an outbreak of smallpox had killed dozens of locals in the 1700s. The sisters were taken to the wood and murdered, their bodies buried a little way apart from one another so that they could not conspire in revenge against their murderers. Four ancient beech trees were said to have grown from the graves to remind the killers of what they had done. Atticus remembered visiting the trees and finding a hollow in the back of the largest one in which people still left pagan offerings.

  The thought chilled him more than the weather. He zipped up his coat and set off down the track. The open fields were soon replaced by thick woodland on either side. Atticus followed the track as it bent around to the south, eventually reaching the junction with the First Broad Drive. The track continued on the other side of the avenue, and he hiked along it until he reached the Second Broad Drive. He paused there, standing still to watch and listen. It was eerily quiet. There was no one else in sight, and the only noise that he could hear was the call of a bird overhead and the rustle of a larger animal—most likely a deer—in the thick underbrush on his right-hand side. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled; Bandit crashed out of a bush, scaring a pigeon into the air.

  The forest continued on the north of the Second Broad Drive, but it had been cleared to the south to open out onto a broad field that had been planted with wheat. Atticus took out his phone and looked at the Ordnance Survey map that he had downloaded. The farm was another five hundred feet to the south, following the continuation of the track that he had taken as it skirted the eastern boundary of the wheat field. There was a collection of buildings on the western side of that track; Atticus walked on, finding a gap in the overgrown hedges so that he could look at them.

  Atticus saw a large farmhouse and a number of agricultural outbuildings.

  Grovely Farmhouse, the scene of the Christmas Eve Massacre.

  He continued along the track.

  22

  Grovely Farmhouse had been built on a corner of another large arable field. Atticus selected a satellite image on his phone and saw a large lawned area next to the house; the grass was a much darker olive green than the washed-out chartreuse of the fields, the latter marked by the patterns of the tractor tracks that swept across them in a left-to-right fashion.

  The track ended at a gate. Atticus pushed it open and waited as Bandit bounded through. He followed, closing the gate after him. There was a garden to his left, its perimeter marked by a yew hedge. The buildings were directly ahead. There was a large barn first of all and then, behind that, the farmhouse itself. He walked up to the barn, opened the door and looked inside. There was nothing of note: unused mangers, neatly stacked bales of hay and bags of animal feed. An old Massey Ferguson tractor, missing both front wheels, was propped up on a stack of breeze blocks, ready to be attended to.

  Atticus closed the barn door and continued to the house. It was empty. Atticus had seen the wills of Hugo and Juliet Mallender. They had left their estates to each other, with the stipulation that everything would be split equally between the children when they were both dead. Now that Ralph was the only one of the children still alive, he stood to inherit it all. But now the property was caught in limbo. Probate had be
en suspended until the trial had been concluded.

  He walked all the way around it, looking at the plan that he had photographed from the box of documents that Cadogan had provided and comparing it with what he could see. The front door faced him, with two large rooms on either side that were identified on the plan as the dining room and sitting room. Both rooms had wide windows that were obscured by the closed curtains inside. He continued around the house, following the wall of the sitting room until he reached the back door. He looked at the plan again. The door, as was so often the practice in the countryside, was the one that was used most often. It opened into the scullery, which, in turn, offered access to the kitchen and the downstairs den.

  Atticus tried the handle: the door was locked. There were three locks securing it, all of them substantial. The house had reportedly been burgled in the months prior to the murders, and the experience had made Hugo fastidious about security. Atticus could understand why that might be: it was isolated here, far from anyone who might be able to help in the event that it was needed. The witness statements reported that Hugo locked the doors at dusk and was careful about opening them. That, of course, was a reason in favour of the defence’s assertion that the killer must have been inside the property. It would have been difficult for someone outside to get in without the cooperation of someone inside.

  The locks had been replaced after the police had smashed their way inside, so there was nothing to be gleaned from an examination of them now. Atticus crouched down next to the door and took out the leather pouch that he had taken from the car. He unzipped and opened it. The lock picks came in a number of sizes, together with tension tools and a broken key extractor. He took out a torsion wrench and, using his left hand, slipped it into the bottom of the keyhole and applied just a little pressure. He slid the pick into the top of the lock with his right hand and pushed it all the way to the back. He scrubbed back and forth with the pick as he maintained the torque to the wrench. The pins became set, one by one, and the mechanism unlocked.

  He repeated the trick with the second and third lock and then tried the handle.

  It turned and the door pushed open.

  He stepped inside.

  23

  Atticus had memorised the order of events that the prosecution had constructed and had no need to refer back to his notes. He paused again, soaking in the atmosphere and trying to imagine what the night of the murders might have been like. He wanted to transport himself back there—to will himself to be an observer—as a way to test the competing explanations that would be made by the prosecution and the defence. Some of the facts were not in dispute—the locations of the bodies, for example—but it was how they came to end up where they were found that needed to be ascertained.

  Bandit came inside, but, rather than go into the kitchen, he stayed close to Atticus. The dog’s tail was clamped between his legs, almost as if he knew what had happened here.

  “It’s all right, boy,” Atticus said, scrubbing the back of the dog’s head.

  Atticus closed his eyes, listening. He couldn’t hear anything. He opened his eyes and looked around: the door to the kitchen was open, but the room was dark, the curtains drawn across the window. He went over and opened them. The room was rustic, with horse brasses fixed to wooden beams. There was a large Aga, a butler-style white ceramic sink and a painted wooden dresser that bore a selection of crockery. A rug sat on the bare floor next to the range.

  Atticus took out his phone and found the photos that he had taken of the crime scene evidence. He had recorded all of the crime scene photographs that had been disclosed, and now he scrolled through them until he found the ones that had been taken here. Hugo Mallender had been found next to the range. The oven was next to a door that gave access to the service stairs leading up to the first floor. The chair was still in the same place as it had been in the pictures. Atticus knelt down next to it, looking at the photograph of Hugo’s body. Hugo had fallen across the toppled chair, his body jackknifed over it. The chair supported the weight of his body, with his head coming to rest atop a coal scuttle. There had been blood smeared across the beige paint of the range, a puddle that had congealed on the floor beneath his body, and spatters that had fallen across the wooden legs of the chair.

  The prosecution’s explanation made sense. Hugo was paranoid about security and would only have opened the door to someone that he knew. He would certainly have opened it to Ralph, his son, who had then murdered him and his mother, sister and brother. The police contended that Ralph had shot his father once and then struck him on the side of the head with a blunt object, but that the older man had still been able to put up a fight. The struggle had been violent, and the heavy oak kitchen table had been knocked all the way back to the worktop. The bowl of fruit that had rested atop the table had been overturned and was found smashed on the tiled floor.

  Atticus considered the alternative. The defence’s suggestion was that Cameron Mallender had attacked his father. Both scenarios were possible, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Atticus would continue to test them until one was left standing.

  He stood. Everything had been tidied now, the debris cleared away and the blood scoured from the surfaces. Atticus was a practical man who preferred science to superstition; he did not believe in psychic echoes, yet it was undeniable that the room had an unusual atmosphere that was, given the context and what he knew had happened here, unsettling. Bandit was feeling it, too; the dog remained close, his muzzle brushing up against Atticus’s leg.

  “Let’s keep looking.”

  Atticus continued through the kitchen and into the hallway. The front door was ahead of him now, with the doors to the sitting room and dining room to the left and right. He would deal with those last of all. The main stairs were to his left, and he climbed them to the first floor. There was a box room at the front of the house, and to his left and right doors led to the master bedroom. The bed was made, and everything was neat and tidy, as if the occupants had gone away for a few days but would shortly be returning to take up residence once more.

  He went to the guest bedroom where Cassandra Mallender had been staying. Atticus scrolled through his phone until he found the pictures that had been taken here: there were two single beds, a dresser and a table that had been littered with a collection of makeup products, a hair dryer and straighteners. The table had been cleared and was empty now.

  Atticus returned to the landing and took the short stair up to the hallway that ran down the middle of the floor. There were three more bedrooms, together with a WC and the family bathroom. Cameron Mallender had been staying in his old bedroom, on the right-hand side of the hallway. Atticus pushed the door open and stepped inside. It was the smallest of the three bedrooms that he had visited, with a single bed in the corner and a fitted cupboard next to the door. Atticus stepped inside and went over to a bookshelf. Books from Cameron’s childhood were still arranged there: Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy game-books, a complete set of The Lord of the Rings, books by Stephen Donaldson and David Eddings. Atticus ran his finger across the spines, all of them bearing creases that suggested that they had been well-loved. He had read the same books as a child.

  He closed the door behind him and went back downstairs. He put his head around the dining room door, saw nothing of interest, and crossed the hall to the drawing room. Bandit padded after him but, as he opened the door, the dog stayed where he was. Atticus left him there and went inside.

  This was where the remaining three members of the family had been found.

  It was a large space. Atticus swiped to the pictures that had been taken here. There had been a Christmas tree in the bay window, but that had long since been taken away. The main pieces of furniture had been a three-seater sofa and then two smaller sofas arranged in front of the flat-screen TV on the wall. The larger sofa and one of the smaller ones were still in place; the second smaller sofa had been removed, and a rectangle of carpet that had been underneath had been cu
t out to reveal the floorboards. Atticus could guess why: the sofa and carpet had been soaked with blood from Juliet Mallender. She had been found sprawled out across the seat. Cassandra Mallender had been found on the three-seater and, as Atticus crossed the room to get a better view of it, he saw that two of the cushions had been removed. They, too, must have been soaked in blood.

  He turned and looked back to the wall. Cameron had been found slumped up against it. The Browning 9mm had been found on the floor a reasonable distance from the young man’s body. It was close enough to have fostered the suggestion that he had used it last, yet far enough away to lend credence to the counterargument that it could not have been fired and still find its way to its final resting place.

  Atticus went over to the wall and lowered himself so that he was sitting in roughly the same position that Cameron had been when he was found. He put his index finger and middle finger together and held them against the side of his head. He imagined what it must have been like to pull the trigger, and then allowed his hand to flop down. The gun would surely have landed in his lap or, perhaps, might have fallen onto the floor nearby. That wasn’t where it had been found, though; it had been more than a metre away. Even if he allowed for the possibility that Cameron’s arm had jerked spasmodically just after he had pulled the trigger, it was still a stretch to suggest that the pistol could have travelled the distance across the room to the location where it had been recovered. It was impossible to be sure, but, on the balance of probabilities, Atticus found the suggestion difficult to credit. That was unhelpful to Ralph’s version of events.