The Ghost House. Helen Phifer

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter 1

      Annie Graham studied the selection of keys on the rusty hook behind the kitchen door, looking for the one to the crumbling, Victorian mansion. Recognising the white, plastic key ring she plucked it off the hook and pushed it into the bottom of her pocket. Earlier she had filled her rucksack with a torch, some rope, a bottle of water, a bag of Quavers and a bar of chocolate: all the things a girl couldn’t live without. She felt like Indiana Jones, about to go on an adventure.

      Her training as a police officer made her less inclined to fear the things most of her friends would. Through work she had been in some really sticky situations. She just hoped the inside of the house wasn’t in as much of a state as her brother Ben had warned her about. Tess was whining to come but if she let her run loose and Tess got injured she’d be in big trouble or, in Jake’s words, ‘well and truly busted’.

      She locked up then walked along the tiny overgrown path that skirted the outside of Ben’s farmhouse and led through the woods to the mansion, which was a couple of minutes away. Soon the tall chimneys were visible, peeking above the tops of the oak trees. She pushed through a small gap in the bushes, fighting with the brambles, to find herself standing in front of the mansion.

      It was magnificent; the walls were built from the same deep red sandstone as the Abbey ruins just below the entrance to the woods. It was remarkable to think that someone could actually afford to build such a stunning home and then abandon it. It had lain empty with no one to care for it for decades. The current owner was an elderly woman who lived in New York. As far as Annie was aware the woman had never even been to look at the house, which had been left to her by the last owner, a distant relative. Maybe if she had she would have done something with it; the potential was endless. Then again, if it had been developed her brother wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy the farmhouse, which had a clause in the contract that whoever owned the farm had to be the caretaker of СКАЧАТЬ