ONE

Monday: 7:00 a.m.

Steam billowed from the hood of Will Thatcher’s silver Ford Focus as it came to a grinding halt in the middle of the narrow, one-way lane near the Carmichael Estate, northwest of Northampton. The car shuddered once, twice, then gave up, leaving him stranded in the countryside. Ancient oak trees loomed on either side of the lane, casting long shadows across the asphalt, which was still wet from the previous day’s deluge. Autumn branches with falling yellow and orange leaves contorted like arthritic fingers against the pewter sky—it was the perfect weather to accompany the disastrous start of his day.
Will punched his steering wheel. ‘Come on, you lazy piece of crap.’
He threw his body back against his seat and admitted defeat. The soft leather exhaled beneath his weight as he ran his fingers through his greying and thinning light-brown hair. Beyond the windscreen, the rolling fields of the Carmichael Estate stretched towards the horizon, and morning mist still clung to the hedgerows like gossamer. As he fumbled around for his phone, his smartwatch struck against the armrest.
‘It’s 7:01, good morning,’ a high-pitched voice said with a giggle from his watch’s mini speaker. Its artificial cheerfulness seemed to taunt his predicament.
The late autumn chill had managed to infiltrate his car’s interior, causing him to shiver. Just perfect. His car was now more fridge than vehicle. Will gave his navy bomber jacket a final pat down before reaching over to the door handle.
‘Shit, I’m going to be late.’ As he spoke, his breath formed small clouds in the cold air.
Will pushed the car door open and winced at the crunch of loose gravel on the bitumen beneath his feet. It was the worst sound on earth. He slammed the door behind him as he made his way towards the front of his car. The scent of damp earth and last night’s rain filled his nostrils. The dry stone wall that ran parallel to the lane marked the boundary of the Carmichael Estate. Its limestone surface was weathered by centuries of Northamptonshire seasons.
After he lifted the hot metal, steam gushed out from the engine, momentarily obscuring his view of the car and the empty road that snaked between the ancient trees and pastoral fields. He jumped back out of the steam’s path, listening as the sound punctuated the vast quietude of the countryside.
A few months earlier, to calm his angry wife, he had agreed to leave his laptop and tablet in the office, and that morning, he had left the house without charging his mobile phone, like an idiot. He felt as if the universe were punishing him—not that he believed in the existence of a deity or any of that New Age nonsense.
But there was one thing he was sure of. He would miss the morning meeting with James Lalonde, chief editor of the Northampton Tribune, and an opportunity to trade his assigned story about the Carmichael Estate opening to the public for a new art exhibit.
A bird trilled somewhere in the distance, its cry piercing the morning stillness, another joyful thing ridiculing his misfortune. In his next life, Will wanted to come back as a bird, squirrel, or another happy creature whose biggest concerns were food and frolicking in the lush green foliage of the English countryside, none of this work nonsense or slaving away for the man.
He pulled his smartphone from his front jeans pocket. A sign flashed up on the screen—less than ten percent battery. After he dismissed the notification, the words ‘no signal’ screamed at him from the top left-hand corner of the screen. Shit.
He glanced around the deserted road. The lane meandered into a thicket of trees, empty in both directions. No one was around, and the only building was the manor house the Carmichael family had owned for the last one hundred years. Its slate roof and second-floor mullioned windows were just visible above the treeline. In residence was Lord Carmichael’s eldest son, Alistair. He was a pompous arse—and Will’s only way of contacting his boss, James Lalonde, and a towing vehicle.
Will breathed in the earthy scent of the countryside, then he turned around and trekked towards the eastern gates of the property. His footsteps crunched on the narrow strip of gravel at the road’s edge. The path ahead stretched before him like a sentence to be served, each step taking him closer to the inevitable encounter with the aristocrat and his infamous condescending personality.

TWO

A sharp rip broke the silence of the tree-lined property as Will Thatcher flung his left leg over the top of the pedestrian gate. Shit.
The wrought iron gate, with its elaborate scrollwork and imposing stone pillars on either side, had seemed manageable from the road. It turned out he was half right. Will didn’t just climb the fence. To his embarrassment, he’d spent ten minutes searching for an intercom. But there wasn’t one. So he gave in to his newfound reality of scaling a wall to trespass on private property just to ask for help.
Now, straddling the massive fortress-like gate, holding on like a middle-aged man desperately clinging to his youth. He must’ve looked like an idiot. Thankfully, no one was around to witness it.
The estate’s expansive grounds stretched before him. Its manicured lawns and ancient oaks had witnessed generations of pompous aristocrats strolling beneath their branches. All of it seemed far away from his perch on the gate.
He gazed down at his Ralph Lauren jeans and sighed at the long rip forming along the seam. Three hundred pounds, now sacrificed on century-old ironwork. The aristocracy had won again. Morning dew had already soaked through the fabric at his knee, another irritation to add to his growing list of miseries.
At forty-seven, he was far too old to be doing anything that resembled parkour. That sort of nonsense was the kind of stunt his teenage son, Samuel, would pull while with his mates on a Friday afternoon instead of coming straight home from school.
As he peered towards the ground on the other side of the fence, calculating the safest way to dismount, his watch chimed again. It was fourteen minutes past seven. The morning briefing would start soon.
In his mind, the editorial room materialised: the smell of burnt coffee beans, steam rising from mugs, James shuffling papers at the head of the table. That sound drove Will mad, but he still wanted to be there. If he could just get there, he could offload this mind-numbing art exhibit piece with a casual suggestion. He had the perfect plan. All he had to do was drop a hint in casual conversation. He’d even rehearsed it with his wife the night before: perhaps Valentine would be better suited for this one, James. She hasn’t done enough pieces on her own.
But first, he had to survive the estate of the most insufferable man in Northamptonshire.
A decorative finial caught his jacket as he shifted his weight. Will lost his balance and plummeted to the ground, landing shoulder-first on the gravel. A loud crunch echoed across the grounds. Sharp, never-ending waves of pain poured over his upper body.
Will sat up and clutched his shoulder. A tear rolled down his cheek as the pain radiated outward in pulsing waves. Now he’d have to face Alistair injured and vulnerable. The man would probably relish the opportunity to play the magnanimous lord of the manor. He would enjoy helping the lowly journalist in distress. Will could picture it: Alistair’s condescending smile, affected concern, and the inevitable anecdote about some ancestor who’d been a field medic at Waterloo. It was unavoidable. Will would miss the morning meeting while listening to Alistair Carmichael drone on and on about his ancestors. After that, he would have to return later that day for part two of the lecture and a visit to a pretentiously boring art exhibit.
He slowly rose, swallowing back the first signs of nausea. Within the pocket of his bomber jacket, his smartphone buzzed. It was probably at six percent battery by now.
The limestone façade of the Carmichael Estate towered ahead. Its windows seemed to follow him like the judging eyes of a village gossip. Somewhere inside was a phone—his saving grace for his disastrous morning—and Alistair Carmichael. Will could picture Alistair sitting on an antique-style sofa, sipping Earl Grey from this family’s priceless china collection while reading a financial periodical, like a posh wanker.
He limped along the edge of the gravel driveway towards the house. Every step on the gravel felt like a personal affront to his dignity. As a bonus, with each step, a new wave of pain surged through his body, and another tear trickled down his cheek. But the most painful part of this ordeal was the indignity of it all—having to beg for help from Alistair, all to avoid writing about Alistair. If there were any gods, they had a particularly cruel sense of humour this morning.

THREE

The caretaker’s cottage was a squat stone thing with a grey-hagged roof that had given up the fight years ago. Its windows had the watchful air of someone determined to keep score. He approached a small set of stone stairs leading towards the side lawn. As he ascended, each step sent fresh daggers of pain through his injured shoulder.
A white unmarked panel van with a thin layer of country dust pulled up outside the manor house’s front door. The vehicle seemed out of place against the ancient stonework and manicured grounds, like a modern intrusion into a period film.
Will sat down on the stairs, clutching his shoulder, out of breath. The pain was officially unbearable. In just a few mere minutes, it had transformed into a deep, throbbing ache that made his vision blur at the edges. As he slumped against the stone wall that separated the caretaker’s cottage from the side lawn, sweat beaded on his forehead despite the morning chill.
Through pain-narrowed eyes, he squinted at two tall men dressed all in black. With their hands encased in thin white cotton gloves, the ones used by professional art handlers, they carried what appeared to be a medium-sized painting with a white linen cloth draped over both sides. Their movements seemed efficient and practised.
Something was unsettling about it.
They were almost too smooth, too silent, for country manor house staff. The men slid the artwork into the van with the careful precision of those accustomed to handling valuable objects, then turned around and disappeared into the house. Not a single word was exchanged between them. Now, that was odd. What two people don’t even have a bit of banter between them as they work?
The scene nagged at Will, momentarily pushing the pain to the periphery of his consciousness. Within the next few weeks, the Carmichael art exhibit was scheduled to open to the public. New acquisitions should be arriving, not departing. Even if a piece needed a minor repair, it wouldn’t be leaving, not today, because Alistair was expecting a journalist from the Northampton Tribune to interview him. It was a pivotal piece in his PR machine, gearing up for the estate’s grand reopening to the public.
Will winced as he pulled his phone from his jeans pocket, the movement sending another hot spike of pain through his shoulder. He clicked the home button—less than five percent battery. The screen’s glow illuminated his ashen face. Sweat trickled down his brow. His finger hovered over the sleep button, but there was still no signal—just his luck.
Despite the overwhelming feeling of pain, he couldn’t just sit there, like a lump. There was a part of him that had to know what was in that van. Old reporter instincts—old being the operative word. He dragged his weary frame off the stairs towards the white van.
Will glanced around the immaculate grounds. The place was deserted. There were no gardeners tending the exquisite hedges and shrubs or security patrolling the perimeter. Absent was Alistair’s infamous groundskeeper, who was known to chase away trespassers with colourful language and the occasional brandishing of a trowel.
He crept towards the front of the truck. Quite surprisingly, the driver’s seat was empty. Keys dangled in the ignition. It was as if the owner didn’t have a care in the world and had no notion of the possibility of vehicle theft. Perhaps the lack of people on the estate gave the driver a false sense of security. But they were transporting art. Another wave of pain rushed over his body as he leaned against the van’s cool metal surface for support. A soft groan escaped his lips.
Everything within him wanted to drag himself towards the house and call for help. His rational mind screamed at him to seek assistance for his injury, to find a phone, and stop this foolish investigation. But another part of him, that more curious part, the part that had once kept him up for seventy-two hours straight to break a story on local government corruption, needed to look under that white linen cloth. Besides, his boss, James Lalonde, would approve. He was the poster child for looking for trouble.
What’s the worst that could happen?
The van’s back doors were open, beckoning like an open house invitation, drawing in nosy neighbours. Will shuffled along the vehicle’s length towards the open back door. His injured shoulder brushed against the metal panelling, sending jolts of pain that made his teeth clench. The van’s interior was dim. It smelt of new carpet and something else—oil paint and old canvas.
With his good arm, Will lifted the white sheet to reveal the edge of the painting. In front of him was a small section of a vibrant yellow canvas, with that unmistakable brushwork that any art lover would recognise. His heart quickened.
This was no ordinary artwork.
As he threw back the entire blanket to unveil the masterpiece, he gasped. It was breathtaking. The swirling brushstrokes of blue added a sense of depression to the piece, which outshone the yellow in the corner. This was a work he’d only seen replicated in art history books or in a museum. Never up close. Not even in his wildest dreams.
Will loved art and had always been drawn to it like a moth to a flame. As an aspiring artist in his younger days, when he’d lived in a small studio flat in Covent Garden, with paint-stained fingers and boundless ambition, before journalism claimed him, he’d spent his free time wandering the many art galleries in London. He could still recall the hushed reverence of those spaces, the way certain paintings seemed to speak to him across centuries.
Once again, his curiosity got the better of him. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and slid his index finger along the screen to access the camera app.
‘Wait—’ The rest of his sentence died in his throat as something smooth and strong wrapped around it from behind.
A thick rope tightened with shocking speed, cutting off his words and breath in one efficient movement. His phone clattered from his grip. It struck the van’s edge, and the screen cracked as it continued its journey towards the gravel, landing face up at his feet.
As he started to choke, his good hand flung up to claw at the garrote, he caught a glimpse of his attacker. In the darkened, shattered screen of his fallen smartphone, like a modern Medusa’s mirror, Will stared into the eyes of his attacker. He kicked it with his feet and listened as it slid across the gravel. A nearby shrub rustled its leaves as his phone found its final resting place.
The world around him blackened. This was the end. No one was around to rescue him.