He walked quickly across the open land between the trees and the house. There was no sign of movement as he went, his footsteps silent. As he reached the house, his back flat against the gable, he listened out. There was nothing.
He eased himself around the corner of the house and crawled to the first window, listening again, his ears cocked for any noise. Still nothing. He had a quick look into the window. He saw it was broken, shards of glass hanging down.
He ducked back down again and pulled the gun out of its holster. She could surprise him, unless he got his shot in first. He walked along the front of the house, looking out for debris that might give him away. He made it without a sound. When he was at other end, he carried on down the side of the house, the side that looked down towards the cattle grid. He walked quickly to the back corner, trying to keep out of sight of anyone who came down the road.
As he got to the corner of the house, he peered round. No one there. Just the car he’d seen earlier and a garden seat. He smiled. This was no farmhouse. It was just a house on its own, for people who wanted to be on their own.
He walked to the door at the back of the house and looked through. He was looking into a kitchen, cast in semi-darkness by the closed blinds. He tried the door handle. It turned in his hand, no squeak, but when he pushed the door didn’t give. It was bolted.
He cursed and walked over to the kitchen window. It was an old sash window. He put his gun away and pulled out his knife. He was able to get it between the two panes and ease the catch round until the two frames just settled in their runners. He started to ease up the bottom half of the window, pushing against it as he did it, not allowing it to move in the frame, until there was enough room to get his body through. He took a deep breath and let go of the window, holding his hand underneath, anxious that it would crash down and wake her. It held, decades of paint making the sash-rope tight and stiff.
He put his head through and looked around. There was nothing in his way, so he put his knife on the sink and then put his shoulders through, grabbing the edge of the sink and slithering onto the floor. He listened out. There was nothing. Just the clunk of an old clock on a shelf by the door and the occasional creak of the house timbers. He looked around the kitchen. It was bare, nothing homely. No flowers or plants, no pictures on the wall. The house smelled cold and unwelcoming. It was as if no one lived there any more.
He started when he heard the noise of a car engine. He moved against the wall and pulled his gun out of its holster again. His breaths matched the steady beat of the clock, but there wasn’t much else.
Then he thought he heard something upstairs.
We were squinting through the shadows, looking for the house, trying to drive normally, when suddenly we emerged into sunlight and were overlooking a low green valley and an isolated grey-stone house.
‘Is that it?’ asked Laura, as we began to descend the light slope towards a covered bridge.
I looked ahead, holding my hand out for Laura to slow down. ‘I don’t know. We’ll need to check.’
‘I’m not stopping, it’ll be too obvious. We’ll drive past and then turn around further on.’
We carried on down the hill, and then our tyres rattled noisily as we crossed the cattle grid, the engine noise bouncing around the early morning.
Laura stopped the car, the tyres kicking up dust.
I looked at Laura in surprise. ‘What’s going on?’
Laura pointed ahead, tight-lipped. ‘We’ve run out of road.’
I looked in front, and then saw that the road just turned into a track.
‘Shit, it’s just for this house,’ I hissed, angry with myself for not making us more careful. I looked up at the house. We couldn’t get any further.
‘This must be it,’ I said. ‘We just have to make like tourists. Get some maps out, point, that kind of thing. We’ll do that for a couple of minutes and then I’ll go up to the house. I’ll pretend to be lost, and then ask her questions when I’ve got her to the door.’
‘No more secrets.’ It was a command, not a question. I held up my hand in agreement.
Laura turned to look at the house. ‘If we get out of this car so near to the house, she might just shoot us.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, feeling the adrenalin beginning to pump, ‘and she might just blow my head off through the front door, but it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’
I grabbed the maps and stepped out. I walked round the car to put it between the house and us. I put a map on the car roof, drew a line with my finger, but all my attention was on the house. As I play-acted, I could feel the stares of every window on me, each one maybe hiding a rifle, pointing right at me.