Kissing the Demons by Kate Ellis Page A

have your work cut out.’ She held the door half open, as if she was anxious to shut it and get rid of them.
    â€˜Do you know the students who live there now? There’s a girl called Petulia Ferribie?’ Joe asked.
    The answer was a shake of the head. ‘I don’t know their names. They don’t communicate much. Are you going to see Uncle Norman then?’
    â€˜Yes. We’ll pay him a visit. Just routine. I don’t suppose there’s anyone else in your house who might have had more contact with the students next door?’ Emily asked hopefully.
    â€˜There’s only me and my husband and we’ve hardly said a word to them. High fences make good neighbours, so they say. And so do thick walls.’ She gave them an insincere smile and made to shut the door.
    â€˜Don’t take too much notice of anything Uncle Norman tells you. He gets confused,’ she said before the door swung shut in their faces.
    â€˜The lady doth protest too much, me thinks,’ Emily muttered as they made their way back to the car.
    â€˜You’ve got a suspicious mind,’ Joe said, flicking the remote control that opened the car doors. ‘Where next?’
    â€˜Let’s go and spoil the landlord’s Sunday lunch.’ She sighed. ‘Ever get the feeling you’re wasting your time, Joe?’
    â€˜Frequently.’ At that moment Joe longed to be in some cosy town centre pub with a Sunday roast and a pint of Black Sheep to wash it down with. ‘Fancy lunch at the Star?’
    Emily looked at her watch. ‘I’m tempted but we’d better see the landlord first.’ She paused. ‘I think those students were worried about something other than the missing girl. There was an odd atmosphere in that house, don’t you think?’
    â€˜And it backs on to the woods where Jade and Nerys were last seen.’
    â€˜You’re right, Joe. That house is the epicentre for something but God only knows what it is.’ Emily gave him an enigmatic smile. ‘So let’s go and see this landlord and then mine’s a roast beef and large Yorkshire pudding.’
    She climbed into the driver’s seat and set off, exceeding the speed limit by ten miles per hour.
    Obediah Shrowton. Matt mouthed the name. It was a name from another era, conjuring a picture of a whiskered patriarch in a starched collar and forbidding black. Stern, humourless and mildly malevolent. He couldn’t leave it alone. But what, if anything, was the connection between Obediah Shrowton and the hectic transient lives they led at Torland Place? If he dug deeper it might start to make sense.
    He sat in his room, overlooking the wood where the skeletal branches of the trees had acquired a green mist of buds. There was something unsettling about those trees. They leaned together as though they were sharing some nasty secret and at night when the wind blew they whispered like conspiring ghosts. He’d always liked trees; they represented the fun of climbing and the beauty of nature. But Dead Man’s Wood was different somehow. And he didn’t know why.
    He’d already discovered the bare facts of the Shrowton case but it was time to find out more. After clicking on a variety of websites eventually he struck gold. Obediah Shrowton’s full biography, laid out neatly and easy to read.
    He balanced his laptop on his knee and stared at the text. Obediah Shrowton had been an upright citizen of Eborby, employed in the City Treasury. He went to work in the Town Hall each day and was respected by the small army of clerks under his command.
    In 1889 at the age of thirty-two he had married a girl called Violet Nicksen. Violet was the daughter of a clergyman from near Sheffield and she had been working as a governess in Eborby when the couple had met at a church event. They settled in the Bearsley district and Violet gave birth to five children, only two of whom survived infancy. The children