Human Remains

of them, in here. The kitchen widened at the far end into a conservatory that went in an L shape around the corner, opening out on to the main living area. It had its own door on to the hallway, I noticed, thinking that someone must have knocked a wall down and at the same moment wondering what on earth I was doing creeping around this house thinking about home improvement.
    Then I saw the body.
    Lying on the sofa this time rather than sitting in a chair, as Shelley Burton had been: what remained of the person was black, hollow-looking, still wearing clothes that were stained and slack against what remained. Patches of greying hair clung to what was left of the head, skull-like but still with shreds of skin clinging to the bone. Around the sofa, apart from the flies, everything was normal – but, on the sofa, what had once been a human being, with emotions and intelligence and a sense of humour, had effectively liquefied and melted into a reeking mess of decay.
    I looked at the body for a long moment, without moving closer, my hand over my nose and mouth as though that would stop the smell, as though it would keep my scream and my sobs of fear and horror tight inside me. I didn’t want to do this any more. I didn’t want to be here, in this mad place, where people were dead and nobody noticed.
    Enough. Stop it, Annabel. Get a grip.
    I walked carefully, my back to the bright windows which gave out on to the tangled foliage beyond, to another door at the far side of the room. Some kind of utility room by the look of it, and another smell in here – not death this time, but something even worse. There were Wellington boots lined up under a coat rack, a long work surface with Tupperware on it, a tennis racket, cleaning materials in a bucket, a tray containing small pots for cuttings, twine, a watering can, wasp spray, a pair of gardening gloves, a broken drawer, a pile of old net curtains. I could see the back door, bolted at the top and bottom. I undid the bolts, easing them jerkily back and forth until they gave. The key wasn’t in the lock and I already knew the door would be locked. But, when I pushed it, it moved a little. I looked around for the key, thinking that they would leave it somewhere close by, whoever it was who had lived here, and there it was – on a hook, hanging on a rusty nail amidst cobwebs on the window frame.
    I seized it and tried it in the lock. It was stiff, but this time the door opened and I pushed against the wood, warped from the rain and lack of use. Outside, the weeds were monstrous and once the door was open I could not close it again. But the fresh air, sudden after so long without it, was delicious.
    Having secured my escape route, I went back into the utility room. There was another door, and when I opened it what I found behind it was, as I’d expected, a pantry: food tins lined up on shelves, jars of pasta sauce, and, on the wider shelves below, catering-sized pots and pans, wide serving platters, packs of paper napkins. Perhaps because the doors had remained shut, there was no dust in here – just a wafting smell of something bad, rotten, like the smell of the sewage outlet I’d found on a lonely beach as a young girl. A sudden assault on the senses.
    There was a noise again, this time much closer, as though she was inside this space with me.
    ‘Audrey?’ I said. ‘Hello? Is there someone there?’
    To my left, between two shelves, was a light switch. I had been expecting the electricity to be disconnected, but to my surprise when I flicked the switch a single bulb overhead came on, and illuminated a long, narrow space lined with shelves. And at the back – right at the back – another door.
    It was locked, of course. And although I fumbled on all the shelves, my hands shaking, there was no sign of a key.
    I went back out into the utility room and started searching in all the drawers, pulling them out quickly and slamming them shut again, and then the cupboards underneath. In the very last one I tried, there it was: an old metal toolbox, of the type that opened like a concertina at the top. I pulled it out of the cupboard, clattering it on to the terracotta tiles, tugging the creaking hinges to open it. The tools were old, rusted, but here was exactly what I needed – a big, flat-headed screwdriver. I went back to the pantry and the door at the end, inserted the screwdriver into the space beside the lock and levered it. I was expecting the door to pop open, but of