Dead Silent by Neil White

it made it, and once I’d switched it off, the only thing I could hear was the ticking of the engine as it cooled down. There was no one else around, and as I looked over my shoulder, I realised that Blackley had disappeared behind the high walls and the trees.
    I looked over at Claude Gilbert’s house. The walls were taller than me, with ivy creeping along the top and only the tips of conifers visible from where I had parked. I took a few pictures and then I walked towards the gates, but I was surprised when I got there. I had expected some closed-off shell of a house, the centre of national notoriety, but from the sign on the gate I saw that time had moved on and the house had a new life: Blackley View Residential Care. I looked around again, and I noticed signs on other gates or fixed between trees. Accountants. Surveyors. A housing association. It seemed like no one lived on the street any more, all the grand old houses of Blackley given up for businessuse. The good money must have moved out of town, to the rolling fields and old stone hamlets of the Ribble Valley.
    I gave the gate a push and it swung open slowly, screeching on its hinges and coming to a halt as it brushed against the gravel on the drive. The Gilbert house was different to the others on the street. Rather than blackened millstone, it was painted in a sandstone colour, the corners picked out in white, just like in the photographs I had seen whenever the story had been reported. The paint looked jaded though, the windows flaky and worn out.
    As I got closer to the house, I saw the alterations. There was a ramp to the modern front doors, which swished open as I approached them. As I stepped inside, I saw that a grand old hallway had been transformed into an entrance lobby, laid out with plain chairs and low tables on a thick flower-patterned carpet. Stairs swept imposingly up to the next floor, the balustrade thick and strong with twisted spines, but the elegance was undermined by the stair-lift that ran along the wall and disappeared around the bend at the top.
    I heard movement, and when I looked, I saw a woman walking briskly towards me, middle aged, her hair dyed dark brown and her figure trim in a tight white tunic. She smiled and asked if she could help. I checked out her name badge, and I saw that she was the assistant manager.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Kydd. My name is Jack Garrett. I’m a reporter.’
    Her smile faded. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Garrett?’
    ‘I’m doing a piece on Claude Gilbert,’ I said, and gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I know you’ll get this a lot, but the story starts here.’
    ‘We do get this a lot,’ she said, her tone brusque. ‘We can’t just keep on giving up our time to show reporters around.’
    ‘I know that,’ I replied, trying to be conciliatory, ‘but Ipromise I’ll include a picture of the sign. Call it free advertising.’
    ‘They all say that too,’ she said, and then she shook her head in resignation. ‘C’mon on then. I’m on a break, so let’s get rid of you.’ She set off towards a room just off the hallway. As I followed her in, I saw that the edges were crowded with high-backed chairs, all centred around a large television against one wall. There were a few old people in them, wrapped up in cardigans despite the stifling heat generated by large radiators. A couple of them watched the television, the volume almost deafening, but the others just looked down at their laps.
    I smiled a greeting, and one old lady glanced at me, a twinkle in her eyes, but no one else seemed to notice I was there. Or perhaps they didn’t care.
    Mrs Kydd led me to a corner of the room that overlooked the garden, visible through a large conservatory that ran the full width of the house. I could see two long lawns outside, a wide path between, and a glass and steel summer house in the corner of the garden.
    ‘This is where Mrs Gilbert was attacked,’ Mrs Kydd said, pointing to a spot by an old cast-iron