The Leper House

The Leper House
Andrew Taylor

From the No.1 bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London comes a gothic novella – perfect for fans of The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.One stormy night in Suffolk, a man’s car breaks down following his sister’s funeral. The only source of light comes from a remote cottage by the sea. The mysterious woman who lives there begs him to leave, yet he can’t shake the sense that she somehow needs him. He attempts to return the next day but she is nowhere to be seen. And neither is the cottage.

ANDREW TAYLOR

The Leper House

Copyright (#ud808e75c-e8fe-5c28-803a-3d0729951c1b)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2016

Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2016

Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008171230

Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008179762

Version: 2017-06-19

Table of Contents

Cover (#ue0088344-3641-5a3c-ba1c-8eca53e98e63)

Title Page (#ub295455b-d638-5330-9da0-1fc3a5d8a456)

Copyright (#u525fd8bc-bdcf-52f8-9f01-92d3b2d036ce)

The Leper House (#u251f7a1d-a49e-507c-8d26-255e0f6e502b)

Chapter 1 (#u9019d1e8-8312-5806-8563-3a702f52582c)

Chapter 2 (#ua2861aed-f6bb-5da3-b712-83c2f949de68)

Chapter 3 (#u03b19ddf-72ad-5751-a761-38009d2c8a36)

Chapter 4 (#u42e46067-6a05-5d21-b00b-0b285db3a89e)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep reading … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

THE LEPER HOUSE (#ud808e75c-e8fe-5c28-803a-3d0729951c1b)

1 (#ud808e75c-e8fe-5c28-803a-3d0729951c1b)

Somewhere along the way, Mary mislaid her religion. The funeral was a humanist affair in a chapel, or whatever they call it, attached to a crematorium. There must have been nearly two hundred mourners. She had been only thirty-eight when she died, which is why her death touched so many lives – and why there was a sense of outrage in the air, rather than resignation.

Alan himself acted as master of ceremonies. He was used to public speaking and chairing meetings – he was the headmaster of a school about fifteen miles from Norwich. He kept his emotions as firmly in check as the timing.

‘How brave,’ whispered one of my neighbours.

‘He’s bearing up wonderfully,’ said a friend. ‘Especially when you think—’

‘He has to be brave for the children.’

The friend nodded. ‘At least her poor parents are dead.’

The coffin was at the end of the room. It was one of those environmentally friendly ones, designed to make a posthumous statement of faith in the possibility of a greener world to come, as it slid towards its complete destruction in the furnace. It had nothing to do with the Mary I remembered most vividly: the sideways glances, the grazed knees and the shrill giggles.

Alan took us through Mary’s life at a brisk pace – we had a time slot at the crematorium, and death waits for no one. He described our parents – a nurse and an estate agent, respectively – and the loving upbringing they had given her. He talked about her pet rabbit, Matilda, and our old dog, who recognized her step even when he was old and blind. (Alan did not mention the dog’s incontinence and appallingly bad breath.) He talked about their meeting at university, the rocky road of their romance and the happy years of their marriage. He waxed lyrical about the dedication she had brought to her career as a primary teacher and the devotion her pupils gave her in return. Finally, by way of peroration, he talked of their children, Matthew and Alice, as the crowning joys of her life.