Hunted - Paul Finch

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at the house as there’d be nobody there. Apparently Lansing had lived alone; he’d employed the Beethams, an elderly couple, as housekeeper and gardener, who – very conveniently, perhaps too conveniently – had been away together on holiday on the day of his accident, and both of whom were now presumably looking for jobs elsewhere. But it couldn’t do any harm to check.

      He walked along the front of the house, which was very well concealed from the road by the near-impenetrable hedge, the net effect of which was to create a real air of privacy. It had five large downstairs windows, suggesting a spacious interior, though all their curtains had been drawn, which was perhaps understandable with the lord of the manor recently deceased. The front door was a huge slab of varnished oak studded with brass nail-heads, and was firmly closed. To one side of it a slate plaque bore the legend Rosewood Grange, and underneath that there was a brass button. Heck pushed it, the bell sounding deep inside the house; a dull, reverberating jangle, as though great pieces of hollow metal were knocking together – but it brought no response.

      Eventually he continued along the front of the building and around to one side, where the drive became a parking space large enough to accommodate as many as four or five vehicles. From here, a paved path led him onto a lawn the size of a junior football pitch and dotted with white wrought-iron garden furniture. On the right of that, a newly built annexe was attached to the rear of the house, with a row of circular portals instead of full-sized windows. When Heck glanced through one of these, he saw an indoor swimming pool, a blue rubber sheet resting on its undisturbed surface. The rest of the pool area – the tiled walkways around it, the frescoes of dolphins and mermaids on the walls, the additional pieces of furniture – lay in silent dimness.

      Heck turned to check out the rest of the rear garden, which was even more expansive than he’d expected. Beyond the lawn lay flowerbeds and topiary, through the midst of which a central walk led away beneath a trellis roof woven with leafy vines, presumably to connect with other lawns, maybe with one of those ornamental lakes or fish ponds. Overall, it was a majestic scene; the evergreens handsomely pruned, the blooms in full summer profusion. Yet the stillness that pervaded this place, and the quiet – it was almost as if the birds themselves were observing a reverential silence – gave it a melancholic air. It could be quite a while before anyone else enjoyed the late Mr Lansing’s garden, and who knew what condition it would be in by then.

      From somewhere nearby came an echoing clank.

      Another sound followed on its heels: a splintering crack, like timber breaking.

      Heck glanced around, expecting to see someone working – the gardener perhaps, putting in one last shift before sloping off to his new life. There was no one in sight, but now Heck spied the entrance to another wooded walk. This one was in the far corner of the garden, behind a wicker gate, which for some reason hung open. Thinking this off-kilter with the overwhelming neatness of everything else on show here, Heck strode over to it. When he reached the gate he peered along a grassy, rutted side path, which meandered through a clutch of shadowy thickets. Curious about the sound he’d just heard, he stepped through. It was amazing how, once he was amid the foliage on the other side, the sunlight was blotted out and yet the air remained warm, turning muggy. Insects droned; spiders’ webs dangled between the intertwining branches. About thirty yards ahead stood a small wooden structure, like a shed. The door to this also hung partly open.

      Heck walked towards it, feeling, for no good reason he could explain, increasingly wary. The small structure was ancient, lopsided with dilapidation. Its door jamb was visibly broken – all that remained of its latch were a few rusty scraps hanging from loose screws. But it might have been broken for years; such damage didn’t necessarily need to be recent. He glanced inside, seeing nothing more than an old workbench and a few garden tools. A personal planner of some sort hung dog-eared on one of the walls. Alongside it there was a single window, its pane so thick with grime that scarcely any light passed in through it.

      Heck stepped back and closed the door. Beyond the shed lay more open space, though no grass grew here thanks to the high branches interlacing overhead. Instead, it was beaten earth covered with pine needles. On its right sat a massive compost heap. So far so normal, he supposed, except that a few yards further on there was a second shed; larger than the first and in better condition. But this hung open too.

      When Heck advanced now, he did so quickly. Even from a distance it was clear that this door had also been forced, but in this case the padlock hanging from its twisted hinge looked shiny and new. Wondering if he was about to make his first arrest in Surrey (criminal damage to a garden shed, of all things), he yanked the door open. Again, there was nobody in there, and nothing of apparent value: a few more tools, an oil can, a coil of hosepipe, a few tubs of weedkiller.

      A second passed before he stepped back, closing the door, glancing around.

      Deep clumps of rhododendrons ringed this area, further tracts of shady woodland lying beyond them. He listened, ears attempting to attune to the breathy rural stillness. When you were isolated on foreign soil it was all too easy to imagine you were being watched, so even though this was exactly how Heck now felt, he paid it no heed. The outline of the house was vaguely visible through the foliage. It was no more than a couple of hundred yards away, and yet suddenly that seemed quite a distance. He turned again, scanning the crooked avenues between the trees. He wasn’t a woodsman. If there was someone else here, he wouldn’t necessarily know about it. But the chances were there was no one. This was the countryside. Odd noises were commonplace.

      A fierce clatter split the silence, like something fragile impacting on stone.

      Heck spun, gazing deeper into the encircling undergrowth – and spying something he found a little reassuring. The upper section of another manmade structure stood beyond the rhododendrons; by the looks of it, a greenhouse. Was it possible the gardener was here after all?

      He pushed further into the underbrush, catching his arms and hands on thorns, but coming out alongside the greenhouse, which he now saw was extensive, maybe forty yards in length, but in a poor state of repair; its windows were cracked and grubby, the basic ironwork from which it was constructed rotted and furred with moss. However, it was still in use. When he entered, he gazed down a central concrete aisle, to either side of which thick jungles of luxuriant plants grew from trays of black soil mounted on waist-high metal shelving. Down at the far end, transverse to the central aisle, stood another rack of steel shelving, this one taller than those on either side, rising to about head height and crammed with garden breakables; plant pots and the like, even a few figurines like gnomes and elves.

      There was no one down there that Heck could see. He strolled forward – only to forcibly stop himself after several yards. Okay, he’d heard something. But did it really matter? Someone was working nearby. That was all it was. In any case, time was short; he’d come here to assess the accident scene, not flog his way through the surrounding woods, freezing like a scared rabbit at the slightest irregularity. Whether he liked it or not, it was time to return to the crash site. But as he swung round to head back, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

      He glanced sharply to the far end of the aisle.

      And saw it again.

      It was one of the figurines on the upper shelf; definitely a gnome or elf, one of those trashy little objects which, in truth, he’d never have expected to find on a stylish estate like this – and it had just moved.

      Of its own accord.

      Heck stared in astonishment, trying to laugh it off as a bizarre optical illusion. But now it moved again – just slightly, the merest quiver. Again of its own accord.

      Slowly, disbelievingly, he walked down towards it. ‘You’re losing it, pal,’ he said to himself. ‘You’ve got to be …’

      The figurine quivered again, more violently, bringing Heck to a dead halt.

      A few moments passed as man and manikin stared at each other, Heck’s neck hairs prickling. This time the thing remained stationary, even when he advanced again and came up close to it. It was exactly what he’d thought it was: a garden gnome, complete with beard, pointed nose, pointed ears, and pointed hat. It was about a foot and a half in

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