‘This file could be the jackpot, Raker,’ Healy said, his face coloured with excitement, his fingers fanning the pages of the file.

I stepped closer to the wall. ‘Maybe.’

A cut-out of a front page was pinned in the centre.

Or maybe not.

The photograph was of the farmhouse at Black Gale, shot from the bottom of the mud track with the other homes on the fringes of the frame.

Under that was a simple, two-word headline.

GHOST HOUSE.

3

I was still thinking of the hotel room with the Black Gale case pinned to its walls when Ross Perry asked me, ‘Do you want to go inside the house?’

I looked at the other homes in the village and then back to his parents’ place. I did want to search it, but first I wanted to spend a little longer outside, looking at the view and getting a sense of Black Gale itself. All the power was off in the homes anyway, which meant they were unlikely to be any warmer. We moved closer, beneath the shelter of the Perrys’ porch.

‘When did you realize something was up?’ I asked him.

‘I called Mum on the 1st of November,’ Ross said. ‘As I’m sure you know, this would have been the end of 2015.’

‘But she didn’t respond?’

‘No. She didn’t pick up the landline or her mobile phone, so I tried Dad’s mobile instead. But he didn’t answer either. Mum was useless on her phone, but for Dad not to answer … that was unusual.’ He shrugged, eyes watering. It was hard to tell if it was tears or the cold. ‘Anyway, I guess I didn’t think too much about it at the time. Mum had been to the doctor’s a couple of days before because she needed to talk to them about her blood pressure pills – they were making her light-headed – so I was only checking in on how things went. I just figured the two of them were out to lunch or something.’ He shrugged a second time, but it was less certain now. ‘There was a country club in Skipton they loved.’

The wind picked up again, rattling the fence posts that separated the houses. Rain dotted my skin, and then sleet. I started making notes, sheltering my notebook from the weather.