Hunter checked the dirt road around him and all the way up to the wooden fence. Except for their own, there were no other tire tracks. The house had no car garage, so Hunter looked for a place where a car could park by the house. In places like this, people tend to always park in the same spot. That would’ve undoubtedly left some sort of lasting impression on the ground, maybe even some oil marks or residues. He saw none. If Lucien Folter really lived here, it didn’t look like he owned a car.
Hunter also checked the postbox by the fence. Empty.
As they both moved toward the house, Hunter paused a second, allowing Taylor to take the lead. As it had been pointed out to him more than once, this wasn’t his investigation.
The single wooden step that led up to the porch creaked liked a warning signal under Taylor’s weight. Hunter, who was right behind her, decided to skip it, stepping straight up onto the porch instead.
They checked the windows on both sides of the front door. They were all locked, with their curtains drawn shut. The heavy door on the right of the house that led to its backyard was also locked. The wall above it was high enough to dissuade anyone who might’ve been thinking about climbing over.
‘OK, let’s try these,’ Taylor said.
Lucien’s keychain could’ve belonged to a building supervisor — a single, thick metal loop, packed with similar-looking keys. There were seventeen in total.
Taylor pulled open the mesh-screen door and tried the first key. It didn’t even go into the lock. The second, third, fourth and fifth keys all slid in easily, but none of them turned. Taylor just kept on calmly going through them.
The smell of damp soil became stronger and the air cooler as the first drops of rain came down. Taylor paused a second and looked up, wondering how many holes would reveal themselves on the porch’s roof once the rain got stronger.
Keys number six and seven were a repeat of the first one — wrong fit. Key number eight, on the other hand, slid into the lock with tremendous ease, and as Taylor turned it, the lock came undone with a muffled clunk.
‘Bingo,’ she said. ‘I wonder what all these other keys are for.’
Hunter said nothing.
Taylor turned the handle and pushed the door open. Surprisingly, there was no creaking or squeaking noise, as if the hinges had been well oiled recently.
Even before stepping into the house, they were both hit by a disinfectant, mothball sort of smell that came from inside. Instinctively, Taylor brought a hand to her nose.
The smell didn’t bother Hunter.
Taylor found a light switch on the inside wall to the right of the door and flicked it on.
The front door led into a very small and completely bare, white-walled anteroom. They quickly moved past it and to the next room along — the living room.
Once again, Taylor found the light switch by the door and flicked it on, activating a single light bulb that hung from the center of the ceiling. The thick red and black shade around it dimmed its already weak strength considerably, throwing the room into a penumbra.
It wasn’t the most spacious of living rooms, but with almost no furniture to speak of, it also didn’t feel cramped. The disinfectant, mothball smell was much stronger in this room, making Taylor cringe and look like she was about to heave.
‘You OK?’ Hunter asked.
Taylor nodded unconvincingly. ‘I hate the smell of mothballs. It messes my stomach up.’
Hunter gave her a few seconds, and allowed his eyes to slowly scan the room. There was nothing to indicate that the house was home to anyone, no pictures, no paintings on the walls, no decorative items anywhere, no personal touches, nothing. It was like Lucien was hiding even from himself.
The open door on the west wall led into a dark kitchen. Across from where they’d entered the living room, a corridor led deeper into the house.
‘Do you want to check the kitchen?’ Hunter asked with a head gesture.
‘Not particularly,’ Taylor said. ‘I just want to find this diary, and go get some fresh air.’
Hunter nodded his agreement.
They crossed the living room and entered the corridor on the other side. The light here was just as weak as the one in the living room.
‘I guess he liked moody lighting,’ Taylor commented.
There were four doors down the hallway — two on the left, one on the right, and one down the far end. The two on the left and the one at the far end were wide open. Even with the lights off, Hunter and Taylor could tell that they led into two bedrooms and a bathroom. The thick and heavy door on the right side of the corridor, on the other hand, was securely locked with a large padlock.
‘This has got to be the door to the basement,’ Taylor said.
Hunter agreed, checking the padlock, which surprised him. It was a military-grade padlock, made by Sargent and Greenleaf — supposedly resistant to every form of attack, including liquid nitrogen. Lucien certainly didn’t want anyone going down into that basement uninvited.
‘And we’re back to the key roulette,’ Taylor said, retrieving Lucien’s keychain once again.
As she started going through the keys, Hunter quickly checked the first room on the left — the bathroom. It was small, tiled all in white, with a heavy musty and wet smell. There was nothing interesting in there.
Click.
Hunter heard the metal noise coming from the corridor and stepped out of the bathroom.
‘Got it,’ Taylor said, letting the padlock drop to the floor. ‘Took me twelve tries this time.’ She twisted the door handle and pushed the door open.
There was a light cord hanging from the ceiling on the inside of the door. Taylor clicked it on. A yellowish fluorescent tube flickered on and off a couple of times before finally engaging, revealing a narrow cement staircase that bent right at the bottom.
‘Do you want to go first?’ Taylor asked, taking a step back.
Hunter shrugged. ‘Sure.’
They both took the steps down slowly and carefully. At the bottom, another two yellowish fluorescent light bulbs lit a space about the same size as the living room upstairs, with a crude cement floor and tired white walls. Furniture wise, it could also be compared to the sparsely decorated living room upstairs. A tall wooden bookcase overflowing with books hugged the north wall. A large rug, together with a flowery sofa, centered the room. Directly in front of it, there was a beech-wood module with an old tube TV on it. To the left of the module was a chest of drawers and a small beer fridge. A few framed drawings adorned the walls. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.
‘The diary must be there,’ Taylor said, nodding at the bookcase.
Hunter was still looking around the room, taking everything in.
Taylor stepped forward toward the bookcase; she paused before it, and let her eyes quickly browse through all the titles. Several of them looked to be on psychology, a few on engineering, a few on cooking, a few on mechanics, several paperback thrillers, and a few on self-motivation and how to overcome adversity. In one corner, a small collection of books looked a little different from all the others. The main difference was — they had no title. They weren’t printed books. They were hardcover notebooks, the kind easily found in any stationery store.
‘It looks like we’ve got more than one diary here,’ Taylor announced, reaching for the first book.
She got no reply from Hunter.
Without looking at him she flipped the book open, and as she started flicking through it, she frowned. There was nothing written on any of the pages. They were all covered by hand drawings and sketches.
‘Robert, come have a look at this.’
Still no reply from Hunter.
‘Robert, can you hear me?’ Taylor finally turned to face him.