Condemned, R.C. Bridgestock [most romantic novels TXT] 📗

Grandpa watching down on them. But even that beautiful sight didn’t sway Charley from thinking of the enquiry and the days ahead. She shook her head as she turned her key in her front door and let herself into the dark, cold house lit only by the moonlight through her undrawn curtains. She had eaten very little, but felt too tired to prepare anything now. Getting her clothes ready for the next day was a normal routine for Charley, after all, she was on-call senior detective and could still be required to attend another major incident, but hopefully not tonight, she prayed; she already had enough on her plate.

The weather, it appeared, was being kind in the morning when she woke. Seeing it dry and bright, Charley’s mind was active the minute she opened her eyes.

Today’s priority at the station was to get the Incident Room established. The investigation, as always, had been named by Headquarters as Operation Angus. This meant that no other operation, either in this Force’s area or countrywide, would be known by the same name, to avoid any confusion. The Incident Room intelligence cell under Charley’s command were digging into the history of the house and its occupants. The Operational Support team was on standby to search, or even sieve, the dirt from the area where the body had been discovered behind the fireplace. In addition, a small team was set to do a fingertip search of the basement. Nothing would be left to chance, every eventuality being covered, in the hope that there was some evidence yet to be discovered.

The owner of Nevermore was waiting for Charley when she and Annie arrived back at the house.

‘I’m intrigued to know more,’ Joe said, enthusiastically.

‘Aren’t we all,’ said Charley, watching on as Ted and three of his colleagues prepared to go into the house, and then the tunnel. Dressed in protective clothing, they were making final safety checks which included ensuring that their lights were in good working order. In turn, Charley was preparing to leave the site, to make enquiries of her own at the church.

‘I’m contactable by mobile,’ Charley reminded them.

‘Say a prayer for us lass,’ Ted called above the noise of the team’s banter. A little mischievous smile tugged at his aged lips.

‘If the stories my dad told me about what you two got up to as kids are true, Ted, I better say a couple, or three.’

With a smile on her face, and a happy gut feeling, Charley called out for Annie to meet her at the front door. ‘People to see, places to go.’

The church was still in use, but sadly by the few rather than the many. Charley and Annie walked in silence through the partially neglected graveyard, past dark, weathered headstones blackened by the passage of time, and mostly illegible now, depending very much on how sheltered their location. In some respects, it appeared to Charley that they were walking through time, as the elaborate headstones changed to an assortment of single crosses and statues, possibly the preferred mark of respect for a particular era, the taller of them peeking above the wild grasses of the graveyard. Annie halted Charley by grabbing her arm, and with a finger to her lips, she pointed out a little fat robin being fed a worm by a larger slimmer bird, who appeared more alert to the surroundings. When the exchange of food was over, they conversed with one another, seemingly unaware, but Charley saw that they weren’t the only ones interested in the birds’ antics.

Under a nearby memorial bench, edged by a mass of brambles on the periphery of an expanse of grass with white marble grave markers, sat a cat. It was the cat that Charley had seen before in the cellar at Crownest, and who was now, to all intent and purpose, waiting for the right time to pounce. Charley clapped her hands, and the loudness of her actions in the quiet of the graveyard made the birds startle, look up, and then fly into a big oak tree.

‘Just look how disgusted that cat is with me,’ said Charley. ‘Well, serves you right for frightening me the other day.’

They walked onwards and it seemed as if the two robins followed them, flying from one bush to another, until they flew up into the tangle of ivy that hung from the Yew tree which half-blocked the path. Charley bent down, pushed the ivy out of the way and squeezed through. She walked in front of Annie towards the arched, double doors of St Anne’s Church, with locks that reminded her of a fortress. Charley reached for the large black iron door knocker and it was only as she did so, that she noticed the shape of an ugly-looking half-man, half-creature resting in the palm of her hand.

‘The Hob?’ asked Annie.

Charley shrugged her shoulders as she slammed the knocker hard against the wooden door, to hear the echo coming from within. A drop of water fell directly on her forehead and, brushing it aside, she looked upwards to see large stone gargoyles staring back at her.

Annie followed her line of sight. ‘Most probably they were put there for drainage. I do love Catholic Renaissance art, don’t you?’

Charley pulled a face. ‘Yes, but symbolically I don’t think they’re appropriate for a church, do you? Why do you think they used figures of demonic creatures instead of angels on a house of God?’

It was Annie’s turn to shrug her shoulders. ‘Dunno, I do think they are rather cool to look at though.’

When no one was forthcoming in answering the door, Charley lifted the door knocker once more and rapped it harder against the wooden door three times in succession. ‘I read somewhere that the Catholic Church is pagan, perhaps that’s why,’ she said.

Annie laughed. ‘I’ve heard that too, but if that is so, tell me, where do Protestants come from? Before the sixteenth century, there were no Protestants, so if you’re calling the Catholic