Free Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series by David Wingrove Page A

see. The house has been boarded up more
     than eighty years now.’
    She was silent a moment, thoughtful, and knew he was thinking the same thing. Augustus.
     The mystery of this house had something to do with their great-uncle, Augustus.
    ‘Well?’ she prompted after a moment. ‘Shall we go inside?’
    ‘Yes. But not this way. There’s another door round the side. We’ll get in there, through
     the kitchens.’
    She stared at him a moment, then understood. He had already studied plans of the old
     house. Which meant he had planned this visit for some while. But why this morning?
     Was it something to do
     with the soldiers’ deaths? Or was it something else? She knew they had had a visitor
     last night, but no one had told her who it was or why they’d come. Whatever, Ben had
     seemed
     disturbed first thing when she had gone to wake him. He had been up already. She had
     found him sitting there, hunched up on his bed, his arms wrapped about his knees,
     staring out through the open
     window at the bay. That same mood was on him even now as he stood there looking up
     at the house.
    ‘What exactly are we looking for?’
    ‘Clues…’
    She studied his face a moment longer but it gave nothing away. His answer was unlike
     him. He was always so specific, so certain. But today he was different. It was as
     if he was looking for
     something so ill defined, so vaguely comprehended that even he could not say what
     it was.
    ‘Come on, then,’ he said suddenly. ‘Let’s see what ghosts we’ll find.’
    She laughed quietly, that same feeling she had had staring down at the cove through
     the trees – that sense of being not quite herself – returning to her. It was not fear,
     for she was
     never afraid when she was with Ben, but something else. Something to do with this
     side of the water. With the wildness here. As if it reflected something in herself.
     Some deeper, hidden thing.
    ‘What do you think we’ll find?’ she called out to him as she followed him, pushing
     through the dense tangle of bushes and branches. ‘Have you any idea at 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