isn’t it, that you can live in a street as short as this one for twenty-five years, and still you don’t know all your neighbours. No wonder they call him the Hermit.’ She laughed. ‘Maybe he should change the name to “The Hermitage”. More appropriate than “Ailsa View”. You don’t get a glimpse of the Ailsa Craig from here.’
I thanked her and followed her direction. She was right; at first glance I’d taken the gravel driveway as leading into Lindisfarne. It was only when I was close to it that I saw the bifurcation and the curve beyond it.
I followed it, the stones crunching beneath my feet, until Hodgson’s place came into view, facing at ninety degrees to the one in front. It wasn’t much of a house, smaller than any other in the street; it had a garden, or rather a grassy area in front that didn’t come close to resembling a proper lawn. I wondered if the owner of Lindisfarne had cashed in on half of his plot, but the place looked as old as any of its neighbours and in a poorer state of repair. Whoever developed the land had jammed it into maximise profit, I decided.
Its name was on a small plaque, wall mounted, to the right of brown wooden double doors that looked in want of a coat of varnish, and above a white plastic bell stud. I pressed it, leaning hard for five or six seconds, then waited: in vain.
I tried the storm doors, but they were locked. I rattled the letter box, in case the bell wasn’t sounding indoors. I took out my mobile and called Hodgson’s number. From within I could hear it ring out seven times, then go silent as it switched to auto answer.
‘Bugger,’ I muttered.
There was a square bay window to the left of the entrance and a smaller single pane to the right. I peered in each, but they were screened by Venetian blinds, closed tightly enough to deny me any more than the narrowest glimpse of the rooms inside.
Sure as hell, I hadn’t driven all that way to turn around and go home without having a bloody good look around. I walked round to the back of the house, checking the window of each room as I went, but none of them offered any better view than the two in front, other than the kitchen, at the back.
I peered through the dirty glass. There was a milk carton on the work surface and a packet of biscuits, but nothing else in sight other than a few lazy flies.
Jock Hodgson’s garage was at the end of the driveway, in the rear left-hand corner of the plot. It had an up-and-over door that was locked, and another to the side that wasn’t.
I opened it and stepped inside.
I hadn’t seen a Ford Escort in years, not one from the late sixties with what they called the Coke bottle body style, but Jock Hodgson had one, F registration in the old number style. Unlike his house, it was immaculate. The body shell looked as new, and the paint was brilliant white, beneath a coating of dust. The bumpers were shiny without a speck of rust to be seen. I opened the driver’s door and leaned inside; even the blue imitation leather seats were pristine. The only thing about it that wasn’t original was a Samsung mobile phone lying in the footwell on the driver’s side. I knew for sure that if I raised the hood, I’d find that the cylinder head was polished. It was a collector’s car, an engineer’s car, a show car.
And the key was in the ignition. And the side door to the garage was unlocked.
I don’t know much about collectable cars; these days I buy mine new and trade them in before they’re old enough to need an MOT. But looking at that Escort, which was nearly as old as me, I guessed it had to be worth close on ten grand. Clearly, the man Hodgson loved that vehicle, yet anyone could have gone in there, raised the up-and-over from the inside and driven off with it.
That was the point when my instincts told me that something was very wrong. I knew I should have twigged it earlier, that something else should have rung my alarm bell, but I couldn’t pin it down. While I thought about it, I turned the key in the ignition . . . and all I heard was the clunk of a