Sykes walked the perimeter. Someone had bent the railings at a point where an apple tree and blackberry bushes grew. Nature must be having a field day. The dark shapes of nests added to the sculpted impression of the beech trees. A feral cat stopped long enough in its patrolling to stare and snarl. Sykes guessed that only the forbidding aspect of the place prevented it from being burgled of whatever dusty possessions lay within. The height of the building would deter strippers of lead or roof tiles. Perhaps this was the kind of place where a legend grew up that kept local people at bay. At the back of the house, only a broken fence separated the kitchen garden from the land beyond.

Sykes entered the grounds. He walked round, looking through dirty windows at empty rooms, half expecting to see a body or to hear a cry of distress. A feeling of emptiness and absence prevailed. Even a tomb might be filled with busy spiders.

He turned and walked back the way he had come, feeling a cold place in his lower back, as if something malign and damp had attached itself to him.

“No wonder you didn’t come back here.”

On his way back to the car, Sykes shone his torch over the ruins of Rothwell Castle. Perhaps the ghosts of long ago kings and their knights had returned to distress and usurp the newcomers who had the temerity to take over their manor.

His informant with the dog had advised him to drive straight on to the vicarage, all along the lane to the edge of the village, passing the last houses, looking out for a high wall on his right. This surprised Sykes. He had expected the vicar to be housed near the church.

As he drove, Sykes wondered what it was about the parishioners of Rothwell that prompted the vicar to put such a distance between himself and his flock.

He pulled up near the gate in the high wall.

The gate was locked. A dog began to bark. Short of scaling the wall, there would be no way to gain entry. He looked through a gap between gate and gatepost and made out the shape of a house, in total darkness

A cloud slid away from the moon, outlining the dark and somewhat forbidding building, much larger than he had expected. Rothwell was turning out to be full of surprises. First an ancient house abandoned, and now a vicar who lived like a bishop.

The church clock struck one.

Sykes consoled himself that he at least knew his destination. The Vicar of Rothwell would not be going anywhere. Sykes would come back tomorrow.

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

Gertrude and I were having breakfast. Benjie had gone from the house, leaving his newspaper and a magnifying glass on the table.