Free Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) by James Costall Page B

Kuga.”
    “I took a Kuga.”
    “Bill, for Christ’s sake have you seen the weather? I need four-by-fours here to deal with real problems not the OAP’s day out to the coast.”
    “Sorry, Serg, struggling to hear you. Must be the atmospherics.”
    “Bill, don’t you dare-”
    William Fenn clicked the radio and the line went dead. He smiled to himself. His final days would be taken up running pointless errands , filling out crappy paperwork and checking on old ladies who hadn’t called in on their nearest and dearest recently. And if he wanted to take a Kuga to do it, he’d take a goddamn Kuga. Firing him now would just bring about a welcome beginning to life in the slow lane.
    He overshot the turning to the village.
    “Bugger.”
    The sign was covered in snow and the B-road hadn’t any tyre tracks so it was indistinguishable from the fields either side. Just a big, white blanket. He pulled the Kuga back and signalled to turn. There was no one there to signal to but he felt he should anyway.
    The entrance to White Helmsley preceded a small humpbacked bridge over a disused railway line. The Kuga slipped a few times on the way up, the wheels clicked as the traction control kicked in but Fenn was soon over the other side and into the village.
    There was only one main road and a few cul-de-sacs. Low Street wasn’t difficult to find. The housing was sparse. Some small cottages amongst the odd barn conversation and larger farm houses set back in grounds covered in snow. Everything pure white. Not a track in sight.
    Mrs Such-and-such – he hadn’t recorded the name but it didn’t matter – lived at the end of a small lane which, Fenn surmised, would be nothing more than a dirt track if he could actually see it. Her bungalow was newer than some of the other houses. A local farmer probably siphoning off a bit of land for development as the recession nestled in. Diversify, thought Fenn. Farmers were good at that. They had to pay for those brand new Merc trucks somehow.
    The old lady’s car – a Fiesta – was covered in thick heaps of snow. It hadn’t been moved in days. Fenn wondered whether she had taken a tumble and was lying on the floor somewhere. Shit, he thought. The last thing he needed was for this to turn into anything other than a quick knock on the door and a hi-how-are-you-perhaps-you-could-give-your-son-a-quick-ring-now-and-again sort of affair.
    He peered through the dull glass and made out the sort of furnishings he expected to see. Beige colours, everything patterned, heavy wallpaper. Doilies. Maybe those knitted things old people put over the spare toilet paper. Fenn wondered how long it would be before his own home started to look like this.
    “Hello?” He called out and knocked at the same time. Nothing. A second knock, tried the bell. Still nothing.
    He found the door unlocked. It creaked a little but the hinges were new. The warmth of the heating hit him. Winter fuel allowance gratefully received and spent here, thank you very much. The smell of an old people’s home. Maybe this is what he smelt like but everybody was too polite to tell him. The hallway led into a small kitchen and to a garden beyond. The living room was cluttered with ornaments and photographs of a young man in his thirties with an arm round a rather plump girl. Son and daughter-in-law presumably. Two bedrooms. Hers – fluffy pillows, sickly white duvet, more pictures and a pile of Ruth Rendall novels – and a spare.
    All empty.
    No food in the fridge apart from mouldy cheese and gone-off milk. A few things in the cupboards – tea, sugar, tinned mandarins – not much at all. The house was tidy but hadn’t been cleaned in a while. No indication that anyone had actually lived here recently.
    Fenn scratched his head. He debated calling into base but he’d have to speak to that dickhead Lister again. Fenn didn’t like that idea so he decided to have a word with the neighbours. See if they knew anything, seen anything. That