Cage of Bones

Начало книги

It was a house of secrets. Dark secrets, old secrets.

Bad secrets.

Cam knew it as soon as he saw it. Felt it, sensed it. Not just derelict but desolate, collapsing under the weight of its own despair. A solid shadow, deeper than black.

The old house was on a patch of ground just by the river, opposite the Old Siege House pub and restaurant at the bottom of East Hill in Colchester. Beside where an old mill had been converted into a set of fancy apartments. It was an area of old buildings, some dating back to Elizabethan times, mostly all sympathetically restored. The area had managed to retain some character and the properties were starting to go for inflated prices. There was a demand for more of the same. Or at least a cheap contemporary copy.

But first the area had to be cleared. And that was where Cam came in.

His back to the morning traffic, walking down a single-track road, he had felt good. His first job after three months claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance. A labourer with a building and demolition company. Seventeen years old, one of the few from his class to actually get a job. Not what he wanted; he loved reading and wished he could have gone to university, studied English. But he was realistic. Kids like him didn’t go to university. Especially not now. Still, he should be grateful to be working, to be busy. Happy to be anywhere except at home watching Jeremy Kyle become Cash in the Attic.

Читать дальше →