The sight that greeted Jackson was not what he expected.

  Unlike the floor below, this floor appeared to have been abandoned for decades. The walls and ceiling along the passage had peeling paint, there was no carpet on the floor, just bare dusty floorboards. He slowly checked each of the rooms. There were four bedrooms and a bathroom, no furniture of any sort in any of them. There was no water in the toilet, he tried the taps over the bathtub and basin but no water came out.

  None of the light switches worked either, although most of the lights had no bulbs anyway, and there was a strong musty smell, obviously caused by the floor locked up and sealed for so long.

  He pulled the door closed at the top of the stairs and returned to the ground floor, glad to be breathing fresh air again. He puzzled over the reasons for previous owners of the house abandoning the entire top floor like that and letting it deteriorate to such an extent.

  The repairs to the exterior of the house, and the restoration of the gardens would probably use up all the money his uncle had left him. To renovate and restore the top floor of the house would cost many thousands of pounds which he didn’t have. Maybe he could get a loan from his bank and pay it off over a few years, but that would mean staying here in the house a lot longer than he had planned in order to supervise the renovation. What to do? He would have to think it over.

  But in the meantime the exterior repairs to the house would take priority. He sat down at his new computer desk, turned on his computer and searched for builders and gardening services who could take on the job.

  It was three months since he had moved into Oakhaven and the repair work was now finished. Jackson watched the scaffolding being taken down and the trucks driving away. He stood out at the front of the house and took several photos with his phone. The house looked so much better than that day he had first seen it. The gardening service had mowed the laws, trimmed the shrubs and cleaned out the fish pond. He could probably sell the house now, but the price would be considerably reduced by the condition of the second floor. The exterior work on the house had taken all the money his uncle had left him. Should he get a loan to have the work done? The builders had given him a quote for the renovation of the second floor. The price was a lot more than he had expected because it also included plumbing and electrical work.

  He had tried to find out about the history of the house by going to the local library. There were several books about the history of the town, but Oakhaven had only been given a brief mention. It was built in 1804 and the owners had changed hands several times in the intervening 220 years.

  Then the day after the builders left something interesting happened. He was driving home in the late afternoon after buying groceries at the town supermarket, back home to the lonely house where his only company was the goldfish in a bowl he had bought a few weeks earlier. He missed Sandra so much, but the last time he called her she had told him she had moved on with her life and now had a new boyfriend.

  “I wish you all the best, Jackson,” she had told him, “But please don’t call me again. I have someone else in my life now. You should move on and do the same.”

  Easy enough for her to say. Alford was a small town and there didn’t seem to be many girls his age who weren’t already married.

  But as he was driving home in the early evening twilight something caught his eye as he approached the gate. An early evening mist had developed and as he drove closer to his gate a woman in a white dress appeared. She was standing by the gate looking up the driveway towards the house, but as his car came closer she turned and hurried off into the trees bordering the road. He stopped the car and peered in the direction she had gone, but it was getting dark and he couldn’t see her. Puzzled by her appearance, and sudden disappearance, Jackson continued along the driveway to his front door.

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  As he unloaded the bags of groceries he happened to glance back down to the driveway to the gate which he rarely bothered closing. There she was again, the mysterious woman in white. As he stood there watching her she turned and walked back down the road. A few seconds later she disappeared into the thickening mist.

  He finished unloading the groceries, then poured himself a drink as he sat on the couch. He wondered about the woman, and he sort of wished she had come up the driveway so he could meet her. After living at Oakhaven by himself for three months he was missing female company, he was lonely. He hoped he would see her again.

  That night he dreamed about the woman in white. She came to him in the garden, a beautiful girl in her mid twenties with long light brown hair. She smiled a dazzling smile and told him she used to live at Oakhaven before his uncle had moved in. She had lost something in the house a long time ago and wanted to know if Jackson had found it. She told him what she had lost, then he asked her name. She was just about to say it when the alarm woke him.

  Over the next couple of weeks he imagined he saw her on several occasions. Sometimes in the driveway, sometimes in the garden, but whenever he approached her she quickly hurried off.

  Finally he shook off his vivid imagination and concentrated on his job.

  The next strange thing happened a couple of weeks later. He was returning from a trip to London, it was eight o’clock in the evening, and as he drove up his driveway he was surprised to see one of the windows on the top floor illuminated through the curtains. A light was on in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Someone was in the house! Or it could be something simple like an electrical fault. But none of the lights had worked upstairs when he tried them a few weeks earlier.

  He stopped the car halfway up the driveway and made his way quietly to the front door, half expecting to find it had been forced open, but it was locked just as he had left it. He quietly opened it and stepped into the dark house. He stood just inside the door listening for any sounds coming from above, but there was only silence.

  Jackson quietly went to the kitchen and selected his biggest carving knife, then picked up a torch which he always kept on the kitchen bench in case of a power failure. Armed with weapon and torch he slowly and quietly made his way up the stairs. Upon reaching the top he stopped at the door and wondered if he should just call the police. If someone was up here they could be dangerous. He stood and listened again. No sounds came from the other side of the door.

  Jackson slowly pushed the door open. He knew from the window which room it was, the second bedroom on the left. He turned on his torch and pointed it down the passage. The door to the second bedroom was closed. Hadn’t he left all the bedroom doors open last time he was up here? He wasn’t sure.

  He turned the torch off. There was nothing but blackness. Even with the door closed if the light was on in the room there should have been a faint outline of light around the door. If there was someone in there they may have heard him coming and turned the light off. They could be waiting for him on the other side of the door with a knife or a gun ready to attack him if he entered the room.

  Jackson knew he should go back downstairs and call the police, but instead he decided to wait. He stood silently where he was near the top of the stairs so he could at least make a quick dash down the stairs if someone came at him. But once again there was nothing to hear but a deafening silence.

  After silently waiting for fifteen minutes he finally decided he had to know. He crept up to the closed bedroom door and listened for another minute. Nothing to hear. With his heart pounding Jackson turned his torch back on, and with the knife ready, he turned the handle quickly and flung the door open.