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Just on the edge of town, far enough away from the suburbs to be in the country was an old farmhouse. It had once been at the centre of a busy farm but that had long since gone out of business. The surrounding fields had been sold to neighbouring farmers, but the old house still survived and stood looking harsh and gaunt and desolate. This had been a working house, necessary to provide shelter but nothing more and now it stood silent and alone, apart from a couple of ruinous barns towards the rear of the courtyard. It stood next to and was overshadowed by a long barrow-shaped hill called Deadman's Hirst. The inherited memories of the local people who had grown up nearby knew this to be an uninviting place where people did not go, but no one remembered why. The reason had long been forgotten leaving only the name behind. There was an unnatural feeling to the place and even the wild animals quickened their pace when traveling through the copse which covered its rounded slopes.

The farm had passed down through generations of one family. They were known in the surrounding area, but were silent, grim people who did not mix with the community and kept to themselves, not encouraging conversation. This in itself was not unfamiliar among farmers who spent much of their time working alone and were therefore not given to idle chatter, but even so the people living in this farm had an air about them which made others glad to keep their distance. Men breathed a sigh of relief when their business with that family was done; they were as strange as the place they came from and uneasy rumours spread about them. However, time moved on and the reputation of the house and the surrounding area receded as the town grew. New people moved in and the ancestral memories moved out.

The wood surrounding the window in the old house was rotten and came away easily under the force from the knife in the boy's hand. He had grown up in the large housing scheme that had sprung up near the town. It was filled with people not inclined to work and existing without hope. He needed money, he had got into debt with one of the money lenders preying on the covetous inhabitants of the scheme and he had been out since dawn trying to keep out of their way, too afraid of being caught to go back to his flat.

The window eased upwards, yet the boy still stood on the greasy wet cobble stones outside. He felt uneasy, as if something was warning him not to continue. It wasn't guilt he was feeling. He had broken

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