Read Online The Man Who Built the World by Chris Ward - Free Book Online Page B

even with the heavy dampness of the air the view of the immediate valley was unhindered and breathtaking. An old clay quarry lay abandoned to the right, a clutch of farm buildings to the distant left, and in the middle was a sparse forest dissected by a thin river that tumbled down a succession of craggy waterfalls. The water gurgled and sloshed over the rocks before finally vanishing into the trees where this valley met the foot of the next. On its way to meet the Tamar, he assumed, though had never found out for sure.
    And there, in the centre of his vision, about two hundred yards further down the slope from the old military buildings, he saw something that chilled him like the fog that dribbled down his back.
    The cottage of the Meredith sisters.
    Matt shuddered as he looked upon it, only the roof and upper floor visible over the valley’s lip, because the house had been built into a deliberately carved hollow and then had trees planted around it which had now grown up to form a screen. On the far side of the valley a thin gravel lane snaked down to end in a courtyard which seemed built for the Meredith sisters alone. No other houses existed for miles; they lived in perfect seclusion.
    A thin trail of smoke drifted up from a chimney at the north end of the house, telling Matt all he needed to know. They were still there. In the years since he had left, the Meredith sisters, or one of them at least, had stayed.
    Knowing they were still around made him distinctly uneasy, but at least it confirmed what had happened last night. He hadn’t just been chasing ghosts.
    Or had he?
    No one in the village would openly speak of them. Drunks slumped in a corner of the pub or couples locked inside their warm living rooms with a fire blazing would only speak of them in whispers. As though they were nothing but ghosts.
    Matt didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t ghosts .
    Hadn’t been when he had seen them.
    He closed his mind, shutting out the humiliation of the memory.
    His curiosity satisfied, he started to turn away. He had a couple of hours left before the funeral, and the pub would be open by the time he got back down to the village.
    Movement across the valley caught his eye, and he squinted to see clearly through the stray wisps of fog.
    A big black car was making its way down the gravel trail towards the cottage.
    Over the distance it was difficult to tell, but it certainly bore a striking resemblance to the car he had seen at the foot of his father’s lane. He watched as it pulled into the courtyard and stopped. Matt strained his neck, leaning precariously out on to the window ledge, but the screen of trees obscured his view of the figure as it got out and went into house.
    Was that one of them ? He couldn’t be sure. If so, why had the car been parked where it had? Who had they been visiting last night?
    But if it wasn’t their car, who was visiting them ? No one had ever visited them when he had lived here, but he had been gone a long time, after all.
    He waited for a long time, but no one came back out. The car might not have even been the one he had seen. The world was full of black cars, and he couldn’t even tell the model from this distance. A little presumptuous, not to mention nosey. Just . . . a feeling , that was all.
    Time ticked on. Matt had been getting that familiar pang in his stomach for several minutes, the one pining for a drink, something to calm him. He felt edgy, nervous; the Meredith sisters and their mysteries would have to wait. He climbed back down through the old communication tower, and after one last look towards the cottage, vanished now besides a thin wisp of smoke rising into the grey sky like an Indian signal, started off towards the village.
    And as he did so, he suddenly remembered the blinking light he had seen upstairs at his f ather’s house. A feeling of uneasiness found him, and wouldn’t go away.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    13
     
    Rachel had thought long and hard about