PROLOGUE.
The house is in a quiet street, tree-lined and green, dressed in the smell of old wood and tile and the sound of birdsong. It's not the biggest house, or the richest, or the most extravagantly furnished, but it is good enough for one of simple tastes.
In the herb patch an industrious caterpillar works its way through the parsley. The tap nearby drips into a conscientiously placed bucket. The front door, its once green paint slowly peeling, is open to let in the warm summer breeze.
Follow it through, down a narrow corridor hung with sketches of distant lands in distant times.
A small kitchen off to one side. Dishes in the sink. A kettle on the stove. One of the cupboard doors hangs off its hinges. Beneath, an impressive collection of pillboxes spread across the rust-red tiles.
In the main room candles, their wax still soft, litter every surface: the out-of-tune piano, the yard sale dresser, the square dining table barely big enough for two. The smell of burnt herbs and brimstone clings to the bare wooden rafters.
And, in the centre of the room, the threadbare carpet pulled aside to expose two rough pentacles painted straight onto the floorboards.
Move further. Up the creaking stairs, past the bedroom with its unmade bed and a bathroom littered with damp towels, towards the study.
The muddle and mess here is different, more desperate, more urgent. A bookshelf upended, spilling ancient words across the carpet. The body of a middle aged woman, her grey hair half teased from a loose bun. And beside her, a blackened scorch mark.
Outside the window, the urgent bleat of an emergency siren startles a flock of sparrows.