Chapter Thirty-Three
Jane follows the little blue dot on her Maps app showing her location on the Heath.
She’s currently heading on foot down a narrow, graveled pathway between an imposing mansion block and the Italianate frontage of a stucco villa with a wrought-iron balcony that overlooks the deep dip of Hampstead Heath.
According to the Land Registry map, this path will eventually meet up with a much smaller path that should, if the drawing is accurate, connect her to the very back end of Thornwood.
This corner of the Heath is mysterious and feels strangely uncharted.
There are no dog walkers here and very little sunshine gets through the thick green canopy of leaves overhead.
Jane can see the rooftops of the villas and cottages of the Vale just below her to the right, but the map takes her in the other direction, through narrower paths and denser foliage, down a very steep slope, and there, in front of her, she sees the distinctive tiled roof of Thornwood.
The land is fenced at the back, but the slats are rotten and flapping away from each other.
It’s easy to pull one panel partly open and to squeeze through.
She can see the back of the house from here, through a mess of overgrown rosebushes, bony apple trees, outhouses, neglected vegetable patches, and fallen trellises.
She can only imagine what this garden must have looked like in its prime, when it was being properly tended.
She makes her way down a side path, away from view of the cottage.
At the back of the house is a ramshackle conservatory, old plant shelving rusting on York stone slabs outside.
The interior of the conservatory is messy and unkempt.
To the right of the conservatory is a door that looks as though it leads into a kitchen.
Through the window next to it, Jane can see a cluttered windowsill, old-fashioned curtains, a dark wood dresser against a pale green wall.
She pulls out her phone and takes photographs. Farther along she sees the dimpled opaque glass of what must be a toilet or a bathroom, and to the other side of the house she sees an outhouse attached to the external wall. She heads around the back of the garden again and then toward the outhouse.
It is small, about ten feet square, and has a metal door with a padlock on the outside.
The padlock, as she gets closer to it, appears to be open.
She glances around herself and then upward toward the first-floor windows, but doesn’t sense anyone’s eyes on her, so she pulls the padlock gently open and eases the metal door toward her.
It makes a terrible grinding sound as she does so, and she flinches and squeezes her eyes shut.
She stops and looks around again, but nobody seems to have heard.
When she pulls again, the door makes another small squeak and then opens, revealing a chilling sight.
A solitary chair, metal with a ripped vinyl seat, and there, on the walls on either side of the chair, a pair of metal rings, screwed into the walls.
Jane steps into the outhouse and takes some photos; then, gingerly, she sits on the dirty old chair.
She stretches out her arms, and gasps when she sees that they reach perfectly, on each side, to the metal rings.