Blood Line: What if your family was the last left alive? (The Blood Line Trilogy Book 1)

by Michael Green

  They packed a small quantity of provisions and set off. In a nearby house they found an old school bell and, ringing it periodically, they began a systematic search of the streets of Sevenoaks. As they walked, Mark kept up a running commentary of events from his childhood. Steven was amazed at his father’s memory; it seemed every street told a story.

  It was nine o’clock in the evening and still light when they returned, exhausted, to Lodge Road. They’d found no evidence that anyone was still alive. The ringing of the bell had brought no response.

  ‘Tomorrow’, Mark said as he massaged his sore feet, ‘we’ll search the bottom end of town, and I’ll take you to the house where your uncles and I were born.’

  It was mid-afternoon the next day by the time they’d walked the remainder of the streets, between the point they’d abandoned their search the previous day and Doning Hill Rise. Number 47, the house where Mark and his two brothers had been born, still stood but the overgrown garden and cobwebbed windows told them in advance no one lived there now.

  They forced their way through the shrubs overhanging the path leading to the front door, which they found wide open. Rain had blown into the house and soaked the carpet; there was a musty smell combined with the odour of rotting floorboards. While they walked through the ground floor of the house, Mark recalled vivid fragments of his childhood.

  While Steven lingered in the dining room, admiring the furniture, Mark headed up the stairs to the bedrooms. He had almost reached the landing when he heard Steven shout excitedly, ‘Dad!’

  Mark bounded down the stairs. ‘What?’

  ‘On the mantelpiece.’

  Mark peered into the gloom. The cobwebs and grime on the windows, together with the overhanging bushes in the garden, restricted the light in the room. Then he saw it, behind the clock on the mantelpiece — an envelope with the faded name Mark written on the front. As he picked up the envelope his hand was trembling and his heart was racing. Paul had never been a great writer and he wasn’t sure if the faded handwriting on the envelope was even his brother’s. It could be a note addressed to any Mark.

  He ripped open the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper inside. It read:

  Mark, we are all at Haver House. Take care. Paul.

  P.S. Don’t tell them you found this note.

  Part 3

  25

  ‘They’re alive,’ Mark exclaimed, his face glowing. He handed the note to Steven.

  ‘Well, they were at the time this note was written,’ Steven said, looking up. ‘Judging by the faded ink, this envelope was written a long time ago.’

  Two days earlier he’d been encouraging his father to be more positive. Now he felt it necessary to urge caution. He was not sure how his father would handle another disappointment.

  ‘Let’s get going.’ Mark was already on his way out of the house. Steven hurried after him. ‘We’ll go through the Abbot’s Gate,’ Mark continued, setting his course for the ancient gateway set in the stone wall surrounding Haver Park.

  Steven hurried after him. ‘What do you think Uncle Paul meant by the PS?’

  Mark slackened his pace and looked at it again. ‘Probably nothing,’ he said after a few seconds’ reflection.

  ‘Can I have another look?’ Steven asked.

  Steven trailed behind, reading the words over and over again, trying to make sense of them.

  ‘“Don’t tell them you found the note”,’ he said. ‘Who are the “them” he’s referring to?’

  ‘Probably his children.’

  They turned the corner and walked up Seal Hollow Road towards the park entrance. ‘So why wouldn’t he want you to tell his children you’d found this note?’ Steven persisted.

  ‘Perhaps they were short of food at the time. If they were, his children would hardly have wanted extra mouths to feed.’

  Steven looked at the note again. ‘And he says “take care” — I think we should go back to Lodge Road and get the rifles.’

  But his father was already at the heavy wooden door set in the park’s stone wall. He struggled to force it open, pushing hard against the weeds that had grown up behind it, ignoring the sign above the archway. It read KEEP OUT.

  Steven followed him through. There were dozens of deer grazing along the grassed valley in front of them.

  ‘Plenty of food here,’ grinned Mark. ‘And look, I think there are cattle further along the valley,’ he continued, pointing into the distance. ‘There were never cattle in the park in the old days. Someone has brought them in here. It’s a good sign.’

  ‘That’s more than can be said for that sign,’ Steven said, pointing to a crude notice hanging above the gate they’d just walked through. Beneath a threatening skull and crossbones were the words DON’T EVEN THINK OF LEAVING THE PARK. ‘Why would you erect a sign warning people against leaving the park?’

  Mark ignored the question. Instead, with a voice vibrant with excitement, he said, ‘Look, there’s smoke over there, beyond the trees.’

  Steven followed the direction of his father’s outstretched finger. A faint wisp of grey climbed lazily up through the trees above the valley.

  ‘It must be coming from Haver House,’ Mark said. ‘They’re alive!’

  He set off along the gravel track that led along the valley. Following his father, Steven felt uneasy, troubled by the inexplicable message in the note they had found. He was also anxious about the strange sign at the entrance to the park.

  They were already through the valley and beginning to climb the tree-lined hill towards the house when he decided to confront his father. Steven had only ever met his uncle once — when he’d visited England briefly a few years before — and he was keen to meet him again, but not keen enough to take unnecessary risks. He wanted to go back to Lodge Road and get the rifles.

  ‘Dad,’ he said, in a tone that prompted his father to slacken his pace. ‘I think we should …’

  ‘Hold it there!’ a voice called from behind them.

  ‘Put your hands above your head!’ shouted another voice.

  Mark and Steven froze. Mark recognised the voices, but couldn’t place them.

  ‘I said get your hands above your head!’ It was the second voice again. Steven and Mark did as they were told and turned to face their challengers.

  ‘Jasper, Damian, it’s you,’ Mark said, relieved to see Nigel Chatfield’s sons. He relaxed and lowered his arms.

  ‘Get your hands up,’ Damian said.

  Mark raised his hands slightly higher. ‘But I’m your father’s cousin — Mark. We met three years ago in the Halfway House.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ Jasper growled. ‘Who’s the young guy?’

  ‘My son, Steven.’

  ‘Like your gear,’ Steven joked.

  Jasper and Damian were dressed in brightly coloured Tudor-style tunics. While Jasper wore a pair of jeans, Damian also sported colourful tights. Their long blond hair and moustaches added to their period look, and Damian’s was further enhanced by a neat goatee beard.

  ‘Going to a fancy dress ball?’ Steven asked. Damian went red with rage and pulled the trigger of his rifle. A bullet clipped the sleeve of Steven’s shirt. Mark watched incredulously as blood soaked into the fabric. His face pale and shocked, Steven lowered his hands to look at his arm.

  ‘Get your hands up!’

  ‘Be careful,’ Jasper told his brother. ‘Kill him and you’ll be in trouble with His Lordship.’

  ‘I was just trying to teach him some manners.’

  ‘He’s not going to be a lot of use with a gammy arm, is he?’ complained his older brother. ‘Don’t shoot him again.’ He looked at Mark and added menacingly, ‘Unless either of them makes any trouble, in which case put a bullet straight between his eyes.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mark demanded.

  ‘We ask the questions,’ Damian said.

  ‘Take off the rucksack,’ Jasper ordered.

  Steven asked sarcastically. ‘Is it all right if
I lower my hands in order to take the rucksack off?’

  ‘Take it off!’ Jasper insisted.

  Damian lifted his rifle, and Steven quickly dropped the rucksack on the gravel path. Jasper picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. ‘Walk up to the house,’ he ordered.

  ‘What gives with these lunatics?’ Steven whispered as they resumed their walk up the hill. The two Chatfield brothers followed, rifles at the ready.

  ‘Just don’t keep antagonising them,’ Mark warned from between clenched teeth.

  When they reached the top of the hill, the stately home of Haver came into view. The great building looked the same as it had nearly three and a half years earlier when Mark had jogged around the park on the day he’d left England to return to New Zealand. However, the area in front of the house was quite different; the formerly grassed picnic areas had been fenced to keep the deer out, and extensive vegetable gardens had been laid out along the ridge. Mark was relieved to see a group of people working there. There were nearly a dozen of them. They hadn’t even reached the house, yet already he’d observed a larger community than had survived in New Zealand.

  As they drew closer, the figures working in the garden became more distinct. The gardeners were working hard, hoeing and bending over the crops. Mark saw them all look up when he was quite a distance away and talk to one another, but they quickly put their heads down again.

  One thing was clear; the gardeners weren’t wearing extravagant costumes like Jasper and Damian. They had simple grey tunics, reminiscent of those worn by the Chinese at the time of the Cultural Revolution. This impression was reinforced by the distinctive pointed straw hats they were wearing to shade themselves from the sun.

  It was only when they drew close to the gardens that Mark recognised the closest worker. He was stooped like an old man, his face thin, his eyes sunken into the hollows of his skull.

  ‘Paul!’ he called.

  His brother looked up briefly but then lowered his head and continued working.

  ‘Paul, it’s me!’ yelled Mark.

  ‘Shut up,’ snapped a voice from behind.

  Steven looked at his father. They’d travelled halfway round the world searching for Paul, and now his uncle had failed to acknowledge them.

  26

  Mark was perplexed; he was also angry and hurt. He couldn’t understand why his brother hadn’t acknowledged him. Relieved, he picked out his nieces Cheryl and Bridget, but he couldn’t see his nephew Mathew. He assumed the smaller figures further away, who were bent double, weeding, were his nieces’ children.

  They walked through the main gateway of the West Tower of Haver House with its huge doors and four corner turrets. Beyond lay Lawn Court, one of the seven courtyards of the great house, named after the lawns laid within it. The lawns were in even better condition than Mark remembered from the times he’d visited Haver, when his mother had been a volunteer guide with the Trust.

  When they walked into the courtyard, Mark almost collided with one of his cousins hurrying along the gravel path that ran around the lawn. ‘Susan!’ he exclaimed.

  The woman was in her mid-fifties and struggling under a huge bundle of washing. She’d lost the youthful smile he remembered; her features seemed sharp and she was looking old and haggard, her appearance not improved by a dull grey tunic similar to that worn by his brother, or the grey scarf that tied back her thinning hair. She opened her mouth to speak, but then glanced at Damian and Jasper and hurried quickly on her way.

  Disappointed by her reaction, Mark led the way along the paved path towards the archway beneath Cromwell’s Tower on the other side of the courtyard.

  ‘You’re not allowed on the centre path,’ Damian said from behind.

  ‘Get lost,’ Mark replied.

  ‘I said, you’re not allowed on the centre path!’ screamed Damian. Mark and Steven stepped off the flagstones onto the grass.

  ‘Greys are not allowed on the greens,’ Jasper’s voice snapped menacingly from behind them. ‘You must walk on the gravel path around the outside of the courtyard.’

  Greys are not allowed on the greens — what does the lunatic mean? Mark thought.

  They retraced their steps and began walking on the gravel path that ran around the perimeter of the courtyard. It was an absurd way to get to the central arch beneath Cromwell’s Tower.

  Before Mark could ponder further the irrationality of the route, the sight of a figure high on a ladder distracted him. Despite the unfamiliar bushy beard, Mark recognised the man repairing the guttering as another of his relatives — his cousin Duncan Steed. Duncan was also dressed in the same drab grey tunic as the gardeners, his mop of red hair poking out from beneath a grey tradesman’s cap. Mark smiled; Duncan was an accountant, and it was odd to see him in tradesman’s garb. The two looked at one another and Mark waved. However, he no longer expected an acknowledgement and he didn’t get one.

  Despite this, Mark was relieved. ‘That’s four of the five families accounted for,’ he whispered excitedly to Steven.

  Mark’s grandparents — Claude and Cora — had produced eleven children, five of whom had survived to adulthood. Their eldest son, Johnnie, had married Lesley Grey and produced three sons — Mark, followed in quick succession by Christopher and Paul.

  Dorothy, the second eldest child, had married Robert Steed, and they’d produced a daughter Jennifer and two sons — Duncan and Cameron. Duncan was the cousin repairing the gutter.

  Claude and Cora’s second eldest daughter, Muriel, had married Albert Morgan and there were two daughters, Susan and Diana. Susan was the cousin who’d been carrying the washing across the courtyard.

  Claude and Cora’s youngest daughter, Margaret, was Mark’s Aunt Margaret, who’d married Les Dalton and had two sons, Adam and Warren, and a daughter, Allison. So far Mark had seen no one from the Dalton branch of the family.

  Finally, there had been Margaret’s twin brother Ernie, who’d married Ethel Pratt. Ethel had died while bringing her only child, Nigel, into the world. Two at least of Nigel Chatfield’s four sons, Jasper and Damian, were definitely very much alive and currently keeping Mark and Steven under armed guard.

  Or were they? Mark realised he could hear only his own and Steven’s footsteps crunching on the gravel path. He glanced behind, hoping their tormentors had broken away, but Jasper and Damian were just a few steps behind. Evidently, the two Chatfield brothers were allowed to walk on the grass and were making a point of doing so. Jasper motioned to Mark to keep moving.

  ‘None of your cousins seem exactly pleased to see us,’ Steven remarked to his father.

  ‘Who said you could talk?’ yelled the excitable Damian, bringing their conversation to an abrupt end.

  ‘Turn right,’ Jasper snapped once Mark and Steven were adjacent to the arch beneath Cromwell’s Tower. They turned under the arch and looked through into a second courtyard beyond. Flag Court was named after the stone flagstones laid there. Beneath the flagstones lay reservoirs providing the water supply to the house, fed by rainwater collected from the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

  Before they could walk through they were ordered to halt. Jasper unlocked a door on the left-hand side of the tower and indicated that Steven and Mark should follow him. As they climbed the narrow, circular stone staircase, Mark considered tackling Jasper from behind. With the unpredictable Damian trailing them, however, and pointing a gun at his son’s back, he thought better of it.

  When they reached the third floor, Jasper unlocked another door and stood aside. ‘In there,’ he ordered.

  Mark and Steven walked through the door. It was immediately slammed shut behind them. They heard the key turn in the lock; they were imprisoned.

  ‘Why have you locked us in here?’ Mark demanded. There was no reply. Damian and Jasper’s footsteps clattered down the stone staircase.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Steven asked.

  ‘Search me,’ muttered Mark as he checked Steven’s injured arm. He was angry wit
h himself for not having returned to Lodge Road for the rifles. ‘Nothing serious,’ he advised, ‘but it needs to be dressed.’

  Steven nodded. ‘And the first-aid kit’s in the rucksack, which Jasper’s got.’

  They took stock of their surroundings. The room stretched the whole width of the tower and had small windows on each of the three exterior walls. All the windows had bars on the inside and shutters had been fitted to the lower portions, preventing Mark and Steven looking directly out onto the courtyards below. The door was constructed of solid, ancient timbers with gigantic metal fastenings. Set in the upper half of the door, and bolted from the outside, was a crude iron flap. The workmanship was poor. It looked a promising escape, given time and tools. But they had no tools. There was nothing in the room except an empty bucket, which Mark was already putting to good use. Steven gripped the bars on the inside of one of the windows with his good arm and hauled himself up high enough to peer out through the gap above the shutter.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said after a couple of seconds. ‘Some fat guy wearing fancy dress has just ridden through the tower gates on a white horse. He looks like Henry the Eighth!’

  They changed places. Mark was as astonished as his son. The figure on the white horse was dressed in an extravagant Tudor costume. The horse stopped and a short grey-clad figure limped from a side door to take the horse’s reins.

  ‘Every branch of the family is here,’ Mark said, recognising Aunt Margaret’s son, Adam, whose leg had been badly damaged in a motorbike accident years ago. The fifth family of the Chatfield dynasty — the Daltons — was represented.

  While Mark continued to watch, Damian and Jasper, still carrying their rifles, scuttled down the flagstone path. Mark had to agree with Steven — the rider, with his huge plumed hat and Tudor tunic, did look remarkably like Henry VIII.