The Bones in the Attic Read Free Page A

policemen and -women clad in white overalls, and went out the little back gate and toward his car.
    â€œExcuse me.”
    Matt turned round and looked down. A small man had come out from the house next door to his, and was standing beside him looking up. He was about five feet four, thin and weedy in appearance, with sparse hair and frown lines in his forehead. There was a sort of self-importance about him that was neither comic nor impressive.
    â€œYes?” The moment Matt said the word it sounded ridiculously cold, and, concealing a degree of reluctance, he held out his hand and said, “You must be one of my new neighbors. I’m the new owner of Elderholm. I’m Matt Harper.”
    â€œAh . . . Edward Cazalet. I believe I should have heard of you. The estate agent has mentioned it to someone. You’re some kind of footballer.”
    Matt, mischievously, decided to take him literally.
    â€œCenter half as a rule. My footballing days are over now. I work for Radio Leeds and ‘Look North.’”
    The man nodded. Those two things had swum within his ken.
    â€œAh . . . I—I hope there’s nothing wrong ?”
    He cast a limp hand in the direction of the police activity, as if he was nourishing the hope they were rehearsing for The Pirates of Penzance. Matt felt a strong disinclination to give him a reason for their presence in Elderholm.
    â€œI hope not. That is what the police team is here to find out.”
    â€œMy wife and I do hate any unpleasantness.”
    â€œNo more than I do myself.”
    The little man shook his head, as if that was impossible, and to show he had dire forebodings.
    â€œSuch a bad way to begin.”
    â€œVery true. It was a great shock, finding what I found.”
    â€œAh. This concerns something that you found, or say you found?”
    â€œSomething that I found. Not something I could conceivably have brought with me. I am not at liberty to say what it was, of course.”
    â€œN-no, of course not.”
    â€œBut it is something that has been in the house for a long time.”
    â€œOh. Oh, dear! Well—I don’t know what to say.”
    And he retreated back behind his little gate.
    Getting into his car and driving away, Matt felt dissatisfaction with the encounter, and with himself. He had always thought of himself as good at reading signs, judging people by their outward appearance and behavior. This man he could hardly even guess the age of. He looked the sort of person who, even in his cradle, had seemed worried by the human condition, or perhaps the state of the property market. And as a consequence, now he could have been forty, sixty, or any stage in between. Querulous, pernickety, with an old-fashioned concern about keeping up appearances. He couldn’t hide it from himself: he didn’t like the man. And Cazalet in his turn had seemed determined from the start not to like him.
    Then he shook himself. What did it matter? He was only one of seven sets of neighbors in the old stone houses. And he could well have a pleasanter side to him that did not show through on a first, casual encounter.
    Still, there was no disguising the fact that this rated very low on the thermometer of warm welcomes.
    *Soccer
    â€ Pool

CHAPTER TWO

Broadcasting It

Matt didn’t tell the children that night. For some reason they were off on a tangent about getting another animal “as company for Beckham,” though since they had never even considered the possibility of a second dog, Matt regarded that as a bit of a smoke screen for acquiring something new, interesting, and different. As the various possibilities—cat, rabbit, hamster, parrot—were canvassed he kept out of the discussion, rather as he would in an exciting radio talk-in, expressing himself forcefully only when someone proposed a snake. “It’s your mother who’ll have the final say,” he said, “so nothing will be done until she’s back.