Nyctophobia by Christopher Fowler Read Free Book Online Page A

menu to suit yourself.’
    I picked my way around the plates, pushing the food about without actually eating it. An old trick; I was an expert in hiding the amount I consumed.
    After, we walked through the house taking note of everything. All the rooms were perfectly symmetrical, even down to the arrangement of their furniture, and each had its own broad slice of sunlight, either reflected in from the huge front windows or bounced through the angled glass atrium via the internal panels. It was as if the architect had sought to import happiness by banishing the very idea of gloom.
    When Mateo asked me about it, I explained, ‘The emperor Tiberius was so obsessed with light that he had a greenhouse constructed from sheets of selenite. He used to grow cucumbers that way. They were wheeled around in carts so that they could be kept in full sunlight all day long.’
    ‘I thought your degree was in Edwardian architecture.’
    ‘Yes, but you have to cover the entire history of buildings.’
    ‘So, what does the architect in you make of this place?’
    ‘I’ve only been here a short while. I haven’t seen all of it yet.’
    ‘All right. The part you’ve seen.’
    ‘Well, it looks like it was constructed between 1910 and 1915.’
    ‘Exactly right. 1912, but then you knew that from the report.’
    ‘The building is – unusual.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘It’s brick-built and on a hill, backed by cliffs, south-facing. There aren’t many houses like this in the countryside, and the ones that exist have a specific purpose.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘They’re art studios or museums or designed for growing plants. This one’s different. It seems too urban somehow. Not at all self-sufficient. I expected to find the remains of a mill on the property, something used to grind maize or corn. The land is very barren, but someone was determined to grow a full garden, not a vegetable garden but one for looking at and strolling in, a flower garden. It doesn’t make sense. Come with me.’
    Taking his hand, I led him to the heart of the house, the atrium with its crystalline cupola. The colours were almost painful to the eye. Here grew pink blossoming agaves and palms, flowering succulents of every description, their budded stems flushed and fleshy, glistening with nectar. In the middle sat wide ochre rattan chairs and a long table piled with magazines, arranged on the shining red floor tiles.
    We stood in the centre of the octagonal tiled floor and looked up at passing birds. ‘This is odd. The glass turret was obviously added at a later date. See the welded joins?’
    ‘What do they suggest?’ asked Mateo.
    ‘It was a private house, but I think it also had another purpose. At a guess I’d have said it was an observatory.’
    Mateo grinned broadly. ‘I knew you’d get it. The original architect was an astronomer.’
    ‘What happened to the telescope?’
    ‘What happened was the civil war. This area was Republican. Franco’s Nationalists occupied the house and tore out the telescope, presumably for scrap. Nobody knows what became of it. The building was used as a strategic outpost because of its view. The furniture was placed in storage, and the soldiers who lived here damaged everything else. The couple who took it over bankrupted themselves repairing it.’
    ‘So the telescope was housed where this atrium is now. How did you find that out?’
    ‘My lawyer told me his great-grandfather had a photograph of the observatory. They used to drive past it before the war on their way to the coast. They could see the telescope sticking out.’
    I pointed upwards, to a pair of perpendicular metal shafts that appeared to have no purpose. ‘Those are the remains of the old steel struts that held it in place. The design looks English, a bit like a very small version of the one in Greenwich Park.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘It was a smart move to turn it into a sort of greenhouse, but it sticks out. I haven’t seen everything yet.