The Bones in the Attic

A Novel of Suspense

Robert Barnard

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780743243957
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

Matt Harper, a television and radio personality and a former professional soccer player, has just bought Elderholm, an old stone house in Leeds in the north of England. It's ideal for him, his partner Aileen, and her three children. Even the attic space seems just right -- the perfect place for a game room or a children's retreat.
But as Matt and his decorator tour the property, they find something that will put the attic off-limits for a long time to come: a tiny child's skeleton that has clearly been there for years. What happened to the child, and how did its skeleton get into the attic?
Detective Sergeant Charlie Peace and his forensic team think the child's remains have been in the attic for thirty years. Thirty years? Matt remembers that time. It was 1969 and he was seven years old. He was in the neighborhood, spending the summer with an aunt. That was the summer that Elderholm's owner left her house empty when she went to visit a daughter in Australia.
What happened that summer? What memories lie deep in Matt's consciousness? Where are the other children from that summer who now, of course, are adults? Who killed the little child and why was he or she never reported missing? And who has now written to Matt, assuring him that he had no part in what occurred, that he had gone home to London before it happened?
As Matt struggles to recover his memory of that strange summer, both he and Charlie Peace ponder what it means to love and lose a child and how one thoughtless decision can change a life forever.
Richly evocative and deeply poignant, The Bones in the Attic is crime writing at its best from one of the great contemporary masters of mystery.

CHAPTER ONE

Remember
You Must Die

“It’s a good size for a dining room,” said the builder and decorator, who had said to call him Tony. “But then, I don’t suppose you have family meals anymore. No one does.”

“Sunday,” said Matt. “And anytime there’s something on offer the children particularly like.”

“How many you got?”

“Three. They’re my partner’s.”

The man nodded. He was used to all kinds of permutations and variations. In fact, he often reckoned the decline of the stable family had been wonderful for his business.

Matt stood in the center of the big room, unconscious for the moment of Tony, or of anything else except the house. It struck him that he and the house were at a crucial moment in their existence: the house had nothing of him, or of Aileen, but it did have him there, considering, determining its future. And his own.

He loved it. Standing outside in the lane waiting for Tony he had felt his heart contract at the mere sight of the stone. Stone. Solid, thick, permanent stone. Outside he had heard a radio, loud, from next door through an open window. Inside he heard nothing. And here it was, waiting, with its wood-burning fireplace, its bell push to summon the long-gone servant, its tentative moves in the direction of Art Deco. Eighty years old or more. Waiting for what he, Aileen, and the children were going to make of it. A strange thought struck him. He wondered if a stone house like this might have kept his marriage together.

Thank God it hadn’t.

“What color were you thinking of?” Tony asked.

“I thought blue—not too strong. The windows aren’t that large, and it’s a long room, so we need something pleasant and airy.”

“Blue. You’re thinking of paint, then?”

“I’ll have wallpaper if I find something that I know is right—something that grabs me round the throat.Otherwise I’ll have paint till I find something. Anyway, I like paint: clean colors and clean surfaces.”

Tony nodded, and as they went into the hallway he said, “I wish I could say I’d seen you play.”

Matt shrugged.

“Why would you? You’d be a Leeds United man. There was no great reason seven or eight years ago to make the effort to see Bradford City play.”

“Seven or eight years ago there was no great reason to go and see Leeds United play. Dullest football* in the north was what they served up then.” He thought, and thenadded, “Mind you, the new manager’s making a world of difference.”

“He’s good with the media too,” agreed Matt. “Does one of the best interviews of anyone in the Premier League.”

Tony shot him a quick look, then slapped his thigh.

“Got you! You’re on Radio Leeds. Matthew Harper. I was thrown by the ‘Matt.’”

Matt smiled and nodded, used to the delayed reaction.

“That’s right. I thought I’d take my full name, especially once they started using me for ordinary news-reading and chat shows.”

“I don’t hear it that often, I must admit. I go more for music, me. And I never connected the name with the footballer. But I have seen you now and then on ‘Look North.’”

Matt noted that the man, who had shown since he had arrived the sort of casual deference usual to a customer, was now positively respectful. Matt knew from experience that anyone involved with the media, on however low a level, received the degree of deference formerly given to members of the professions. He had got beyond the phase of feeling flattered by unearned respect, so he said briskly, “Let’s go upstairs, shall we? . . . I won’t be getting the bedrooms done till we’re well settled in. I may even try to do some of it myself, may be get the children to help.” They had gone round the bend in the staircase and were standing on the landing. Tony poked his head into the bedrooms, bathroom, and lavatory.

“Best leave the bathroom to professionals,” he said. “Too fiddly by half. The bedrooms won’t present too many problems. Stick to paint there, if you want my advice: then if the children keep wanting theirs changed it won’t come too expensive.”

“Yes, I’d already thought of that. Knowing my lot and their clothes and toys and reading matter and habits, they’ll want them changed at least once a year.”

“By ’eck, they have it made, the young ’uns these days,” said Tony with feeling.

“Yes, I’d love to know who starts each new vogue. What infant genius suddenly decrees it’s yellow this year, and Aussie soaps are out, and shoe soles are three inches high, and the whole childish world bows agreement and starts pestering parents.”

“Probably some future Richard Branson,” agreed Tony. “Anyway, you’ve got four very nice-sized rooms here. That’s the advantage of these older houses: you’re not squashed in like sardines. When was it built, did you say?”

“About 1920, the estate agent said, or may be a bit earlier. Did you see the bells downstairs to summon the servants? I suppose the First World War or its aftermath did away with all that.”

“Happen. Anyway, the kids who go into these new estates won’t get bedrooms like these—cubbyholes more like. And certainly not one each.”

Matt grimaced.

“Hmm. I was hoping to keep one of the bedrooms for my study. You might not think it to listen to, but a lot of the things I do on Radio Leeds need preparation. It would be good to have somewhere I can shut myself away in.”

“So, two of the kids sharing a bedroom, and one having a bedroom to him- or herself. Sounds like a recipe for nonstop guerrilla warfare to me. And I speak from experience.”

“I was hoping to bribe them by promising them the attic as a games room.”

Tony still looked skeptical.

“Have you looked at it?”

“Just poked my head through the trapdoor.”

“Attics are fine for games rooms if you are thinking of things like Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit—things you can play on the floor. They’re pretty useless for snooker† tables, or anything you have to stand up for, even supposing you could get a table up there. Want me to have a look?”

“Would you?” Matt took the pole with the hook on the end, clicked open the trapdoor, then pulled down the metal stairs and tugged at the light cord. He led the way up.

“There’s proper flooring down, but it’s pretty old, and I don’t know that I’d trust it.”

He stood...