Dark Places

The House on the Moor

When I first heard about the house on the moor (which was a good while before I actually saw it), I had an idea. I had a mental picture of what the house looked like - a large, rambling, run down, moody building with ivy covering one side like a comfort blanket, surrounded by a rusty iron fence which was set in a low, cracked brick wall and large wrought-iron gates that creaked with non-existent movement in a non-existent wind.

There was an old, leafless tree by the side of the property that, over the decades, had assumed a suitably demonic pose; a predatory semi-crouch with clawed branches ready to grasp at any that might be foolish enough to trespass on its territory. A grey, perpetual autumn settled (or unsettled) over the house to complete its infernal disposition.

The image was clear and acute, but then worlds and people and dreams can be born, lived, and ended in a thought, or a breath. As it turned out, I could'nt have been more wrong about the house's appearance. When I finally laid eyes on the building, I was surprised at how mistaken I had been, only about the look of the place though, only the look. The air was exactly as I had imagined. The sun could have been out and I would have shivered.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near. It simply wasn't my job to trawl around the country investigating houses. I could do almost everything I needed from my office. A telephone and a computer were my only tools. I didn't even have a company car. All that was required was for me to trace the owners of a certain cottage in the middle of nowhere and try to persuade said owners to sell. I had done so many times before and was sure I'd do so many times again. Usually the property had an address though... Normally I had complete autonomy when it came to the final selling price - the companies I worked for had budgets with more Zeroes than I had fingers. Their projects were vast developments that simultaneously dragged big money into an area and pissed off the locals. They wanted it both ways, the residents. They would smile as estate agents valued their homes at a couple more grand than before the shopping precinct opened or the leisure complex (complete with multi-screen cinema) began to draw in crowds. Then they would scowl at the hordes of people invading their territory and at the noise and the mess and the increased traffic.

Never happy.

But that didn't concern me. I was the residents' friend. I was doing them a favour. Maybe they didn't really want to sell, but add a couple of grand on the estate agent's couple of grand and they began to agree. Add ten and they were practically naming their children after me. After all, I'd tell them, the Company never did me any favours, did it?

To be honest, that was more the truth than anything was. They didn't do me any favours, but they paid my wages.

So. They wanted to build somewhere, and a house, or a street (once or twice even an estate) happened to be in the way. How inconsiderate. But I was good at my job, and I got results. I'm a nice guy, essentially. Perhaps my job had me doing things that, if I thought about them, I might find disquieting, but I didn't think about it. I'm a nice guy, and I could, it was felt, be trusted. The Company liked that, so they used it.

This particular project was something of a new direction for them. I didn't know the details, but I rarely did. All I knew was that they needed to acquire some land on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors and aerial photographs had revealed that someone had plonked a house right in the middle.