The Bones in the Attic Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lewis.
    â€œIt’s special because yesterday, when I was at Elderholm with the man who’s going to do the place up, we found the child’s skeleton in the attic.”
    â€œOooh!” The children shivered exaggeratedly. Matt waited to let it sink in.
    â€œHad it just died there all alone?” asked Isabella. “Got shut in or something, and nobody knew it was there?”
    â€œWe don’t think so. We think it was probably taken there, laid out there, when it was already dead.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they bury it?” asked Lewis, age eleven.
    â€œEverybody gets buried or cre—cre . . . don’t they?”
    â€œIt’s because it was murdered, isn’t it?” asked Isabella. She was the brightest, as well as the most sensible, of the brood.
    â€œIt’s possible,” said Matt, unwilling to go down the hopeless slope of trying to deceive her. Even Aileen couldn’t tell Isabella what to think. “But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There may be some other reason we haven’t even thought about.”
    â€œWe don’t have to go up into the attic, do we?” asked Stephen, which also struck Matt as sensible.
    â€œNo, of course we don’t. We can just put boxes and cases and things up there, and shut them away.”
    â€œStill, you’d sort of look up and think, wouldn’t you?” said Lewis. Matt could have hit him.
    â€œCan we go round?” asked Isabella. Matt regretfully shook his head.
    â€œNo, we can’t. I wish we could. You could have seen that there’s nothing to be afraid of. But the police have sealed the place off till they’re finished with their work.”
    â€œWho’s afraid, anyway?” said Lewis, offended. “I just meant it was sort of . . . yucky.” An idea occurred to Matt.
    â€œWe can’t go into the house, but we could take Beckham for his evening walk there.”
    â€œFirst tiddle-tour in Bramley,” said Lewis. “Yes!”
    Beckham was notoriously unreliable at night if he didn’t get a properly accompanied evening walk. By now it was eight, and the late-April sky was darkening. They piled into the car, Beckham taking his place between the two boys in the backseat, looking intelligently round him. It was a journey of three miles or so, and Matt noticed that the subject of the dead child was not mentioned the whole way. Were they avoiding it, or did it not mean so much to them as he had imagined it would?
    Matt drew up on his parking space on the other side of the lane, and Beckham jumped out, barking. He had been there before, but just into the house and not often enough to dull the novelty. They put him on the long lead, because they would have been at a loss to look for him if he went off exploring as he liked to do. They all went over to the gate of Elderholm, which was wreathed in police tape, and looked over it to the back door, properly sealed up.
    â€œDo they do that every time there’s a murder?” asked Isabella.
    â€œI don’t know. Whenever there’s an unexplained death, I suppose, or something involving a mystery. When that happens the forensics people need to go over the house carefully to get clues.”
    He kept his tone matter-of-fact, and the children nodded.
    â€œWho are forensics people?” asked Lewis.
    â€œPeople with a scientific training in solving crimes,” answered Matt, thinking that was near enough.
    â€œThank you for telling us like this,” said Stephen, and put his hand into Matt’s.
    And that seemed to be it. Isabella soon turned away, and they all began to walk. Matt drew up the rear, wondering if this really was all, or if they were still mulling over the death, and they would quite soon come to a decision about it and the house. They went along the lane, then turned down toward the road. Beckham was in an ecstasy of sniffing and leg raising, the two things intimately connected. Once