Free Ice and Fire by David Wingrove Page A

all?’
    ‘None,’ he yelled back. ‘Maybe there’s nothing at all. Maybe it’s an empty shell. But then why would they board it up? Why bother if it’s empty? Why notjustleaveittorot?’
    She caught up with him. ‘From the look of it it’s rotted anyway.’
    Ben glanced at her. ‘It’ll be different inside.’
    A broad shaft of daylight breached the darkness. She watched Ben fold the shutter into its recess, then move along to release and fold back another, then another, until all four were open. Now the room was filled with light. A big room. Much bigger than she’d imagined it in the dark. A long wooden worksurface filled most of the left-hand wall, its broad top cleared. Above it, on the wall itself, were great tea-chest-sized oak cupboards. At the far end four big ovens occupied the space, huge pipes leading up from them into the ceiling overhead. Against the right-hand wall, beneath the windows, was a row of old machines and, beside the door, a big enamel sink.
    She watched Ben bend down and examine the pipes beneath the sink. They were green with moss, red with rust. He rubbed his finger against the surface of one of them, then put the finger gingerly to his lips. She saw him frown then sniff the finger, his eyes intense, taking it all in.
    He turned, then, surprisingly, he laughed. ‘Look.’
    There, in the middle of the white-tiled floor, was a beetle. A rounded, black-shelled thing the size of a brooch.
    ‘Is it alive?’ she asked, expecting it to move at any moment.
    He shrugged, then went across and picked it up. But it was only a husk, the shell of a beetle. ‘It’s been dead years,’ he said.
    Yes, she thought, maybe since the house was sealed .
    There was another door behind them, next to an old, faded print that was rotten with damp beneath its mould-spattered glass. Beyond the door was a narrow corridor that led off to the right. They went through, moving slowly, cautiously, side by side, using their lamps to light the way ahead.
    They explored, throwing open the shutters in each of the big rooms, but there was nothing. The rooms were empty, their dusty floorboards bare, only the dark outlines of long-absent pictures interrupting the blankness of the walls.
    No sign of life. Only the husk, the empty shell of what they’d come for.
    Augustus. Not Amos’s son, Augustus, but his namesake. His grandson. No one talked of that Augustus. Yet it was that very absence that made him so large in their imaginations. Ever since Ben had first found that single mention of him in the journals. But what had he been? What had he done that he could not be talked of?
    She shivered and looked at Ben. He was watching her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
    ‘Shall we go up?’
    She nodded.
    Upstairs it was different. There the rooms were filled with ancient furniture, preserved under white sheets, as if the house had been closed up for the summer, while its occupant was absent.
    In one of the big rooms at the front of the house, Meg stood beside one of the huge, open shutters, staring out through the trees at the river. Light glimmered on the water through gaps in the heavy foliage. Behind her she could hear Ben, pulling covers off chairs and tables, searching, restlessly searching for something.
    ‘What happened here?’
    Ben stopped and looked up from what he was doing. ‘I’m not sure. But it’s the key to things. I know it is.’
    She turned and met his eyes. ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Because it’s the one thing they won’t talk about. Gaps. Always look for the gaps, Meg. That’s where the truth is. That’s where they hide all the important stuff.’
    ‘Like what?’
    His face hardened momentarily, then he looked away.
    She looked down, realizing just how keyed up he was; how close he had come to snapping at her.
    ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up again.’
    She nodded, then followed, knowing there would be nothing. The house was empty. Or as good as. But she was