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

by Michael Green

  ‘He’s been designated a gardener.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Duncan said, throwing his hands in the air, ‘but if you want to get this clock going and get His Lordship off our backs, I suggest you bend the rules for once.’

  A day later, Steven was summoned from the gardens. It was an event that would have great significance for everybody.

  46

  Greg had been given the task of escorting Steven from the gardens to the clock room in Cromwell’s Tower. When they reached the door to the tower, Greg unclipped the bunch of ancient keys that jangled from his waist, unlocked the door and led the way up the stone steps to the top floor. After trying several of the keys, he eventually unlocked the door to the clock room. The room was dirty and dusty, lit by a small window above the clock. The space doubled as a storeroom and held a collection of old furniture and paintings.

  ‘You can leave me to it,’ Steven said as he peered into the internal workings of the clock.

  ‘My orders are to stay with you at all times.’

  ‘Suit yourself, but I’m warning you, this could take some time.’

  Greg slumped down on an old chair next to a table in a corner of the room and threw down the bunch of keys. Steven didn’t know a great deal about clocks, but he followed the workings through and eventually found the problem — a broken gear-wheel.

  ‘I can see the problem, but I’ll need some tools,’ he said to Greg. ‘I need to go to the workshop.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I was told to stay with you at all times. We don’t trust you.’

  Greg locked the door behind them and then locked the door at the foot of the tower before escorting Steven across to the Steeds’ workshop.

  ‘I’ll be a while,’ Steven warned.

  Greg sat down on a stool, twiddling the few wisps of hair on his chin and staring vacantly out to the courtyard beyond.

  Eventually Steven had collected every tool he needed for the job. In the pocket of his tunic he had also hidden an additional item he required for another purpose.

  They retraced their steps, Greg unlocking the doors as they went. As Steven was dismantling the back of the clock he kept an eye on Greg, who was slumped on the chair and fiddling with the keys, swinging them around and around on their ring.

  Steven made good progress, removing parts of the clock mechanism that led in towards the broken gear-wheel. As each part came away, he laid it carefully on the floor in the sequence in which he’d removed it. Still Greg fiddled with the keys. Steven surrepticiously kicked a red screwdriver away from the clock, then reached up into the deep recesses of the clock case.

  ‘Can you pass me that red screwdriver?’ Steven asked.

  ‘Get it yourself.’

  ‘I can’t let go of this piece.’

  Sullenly, Greg threw the bunch of keys on the table, ambled across, picked up the screwdriver and passed it to Steven.

  ‘Oh no!’ Steven exclaimed, as Greg turned to walk away.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘The gear-wheel’s slipped off the shaft. Can you go and find Fergus and ask him for his little blue Phillips screwdriver?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Well, I can’t move from here. If I let go now the whole lot will come crashing down, and your father can say goodbye to his precious clock.’ Greg hesitated. ‘Look, for heaven’s sake, I can’t hold onto this forever. If you don’t go and get that screwdriver, you can tell your father it’s your fault the clock will never work again.’

  At the second mention of his father, Greg raced out of the room to find Fergus. As soon as the hollow clatter of his footsteps had receded down the stone stairs Steven removed his hand from the clock case, walked across to the table, took a ball of putty from his tunic pocket and pressed it out into a flat sheet on the tabletop. Then he picked up the bunch of keys Greg had thrown on the table and took impressions of every key.

  By the time Greg had returned with the Phillips screwdriver, the sheet of putty was safely hidden inside Steven’s tunic and his left arm was back inside the clock case.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to Greg as he took the screwdriver. ‘You sure as hell saved the day.’ It took a few more minutes to extricate the broken gear-wheel. ‘See,’ he said, holding up the two broken pieces, ‘broken clean in half. I’ll have to make another one. It’ll take a couple of days at least.’

  ‘What! Two days to make a little thing like that?’

  ‘Precision work,’ Steven explained. ‘A lot of filing, and I’ll need to experiment with different types of metal.’

  Once the tower door was locked, Steven was escorted back to the workshop. Again, Greg slumped onto the stool.

  ‘Are you going to sit watching me for the next two or three days?’ Steven asked.

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘You’re going to get pretty bored sitting in here.’

  Steven made slow progress; Greg sat yawning and irritable. Suddenly he left the workshop, wandered across the courtyard and confronted Jasper. Steven took the opportunity to remove the putty from his tunic and hide it on a shelf high up on the workshop wall. As he returned to the workbench, Jasper walked into the workshop with Greg in tow.

  ‘I hear you’ve found the problem.’

  ‘Broken gear-wheel,’ Steven confirmed, holding up the two parts. ‘I’ll need to make a new one — tricky job, it’ll take a couple of days at least, has to be the same size and weight. I’ll need to experiment with different types of metal. Won’t be easy without electricity — a lot of hand work.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get on with it,’ Jasper snapped. ‘Come on,’ he said to Greg, who had successfully petitioned to be relieved of his guard duties, ‘he can’t do any harm in here.’ Jasper turned to Steven and added, ‘During working hours you’re not to leave the workshop. Do you understand?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got more than enough to do in here.’

  Fergus walked into the workshop shortly after the Chatfield brothers had left. ‘What are you up to, Steven?’ he asked.

  Steven held up the broken gearwheel. ‘I’ve got to make another one of these.’

  ‘No, what are you really up to?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I may be no tradesman, Steven, but even I know you don’t find Phillips screws in a fourteenth-century clock!’

  The laughter reverberated around Stable Court and brought Jasper scurrying back to the workshop.

  ‘You,’ he said to Fergus. ‘Out.’

  ‘But I need …’

  ‘For the next few days the Steeds are to get their tools at the start of the day and keep out of the workshop until Steven’s finished. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Jasper.’

  ‘Now get what you need, and get out of here.’

  His warning delivered, Jasper walked out of the workshop.

  ‘So what are you up to, Steven?’ Fergus asked again as he gathered up the tools he needed.

  ‘I’ll show you in a few days’ time. Now do me a favour and get going. I can do without those clowns coming in here while I’m working.’

  ‘I’ll be working on the guttering on the other side of the courtyard for the next couple of days. Would a signal help if I see the Chatfield brothers approaching?’

  ‘It sure would. Could you belt one of the downpipes three times?’

  ‘Consider it done.’ Co-operation between the families had taken another step forward.

  For the next three days Steven beavered away in the workshop. Six times the clanging of the drainpipe rang out across the courtyard and six times Steven slipped his secret work out of sight and replaced it with the partly completed gear-wheel. Mid-afternoon on the third day he announced the gear-wheel was finished. Escorted by Greg, he carried the beautifully crafted object back to the clock room.

  At four o’clock that afternoon the great clock chimed for the first time in over a week. Everybody was pleased. Th
e substitute for the clock chimes — the vigorous ringing of the bell by the guard at the top of the West Tower — was a lot less friendly than the melodic chimes of the old clock.

  In the process, Steven’s standing in the community had increased considerably, especially with Penny, who took every opportunity to impress upon her sisters how clever ‘her man’ was.

  ‘So,’ Fergus said to Steven as they walked back from dinner together, ‘are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?’

  ‘I’ll not only tell you, I’ll show you. Meet me outside my room when the clock strikes two tomorrow morning.’

  Fergus laughed. ‘Are you sure it’ll still be working?’

  ‘Cheeky so-and-so,’ Steven said.

  At two o’clock Steven met Fergus outside his quarters and handed him a candle and a box of matches. ‘We’re going into Cromwell’s Tower,’ he explained.

  ‘It’s locked.’

  Steven took a bunch of keys from his pocket and jangled them. ‘No problem. I took an impression of Greg’s keys while he was away getting your Phillips screwdriver.’

  ‘So that’s what you’ve been up to!’

  ‘We need to get to the tower without being seen by the guard above the West Gate,’ Steven explained. ‘The Daltons are on the treadmill — I want to get into the tower without being seen by them either.’

  ‘It’s Adam and Robert. They wouldn’t betray us.’

  ‘I don’t want to take any chances. Only three people are to know about these keys — you, my father and me.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘And I mean nobody else. Not your father, or your sisters, or Jessica.’

  They crept around the edge of Lawn Court, keeping to the shadows. There was no challenge from the guard above the West Tower. They could hear dogs barking outside the walls but fortunately no dogs were allowed to roam loose inside the courtyards.

  The door into the Punishment Room was shut against the cold. They could hear the treadmill grinding slowly around. In the pitch blackness Steven took the first key from his pocket and tried it in the lock; it didn’t fit so he tried another. This one worked.

  ‘Light the candle,’ Steven whispered as soon as they were inside and had closed the door behind them. Once the candle was lit, he took a file from his pocket and cut a single groove in the shaft of the key that had fitted the lock. ‘Make sure you shade the candle as we pass the windows.’

  On the second floor of the tower were two doors. Steven found the appropriate keys for each door, and marked them with two and three grooves respectively. Then he relocked the doors.

  They went on up to the third level, which housed the prison cell. After Steven found the key that fitted the lock, they had a quick look inside. There was no sign the room had been visited since Steven and his father’s imprisonment. Steven marked the key with his file and relocked the room.

  They walked through into the corridor that connected the two wings of the tower and continued up the small staircase to the clock room, marking the appropriate key before making their way through to the attic room above the north wing of the tower.

  Steven could hear the grinding of the wheel at the top of the belt and the sloshing of water as he unlocked the door. Candlelight flickered across the room, glinting on the water in the header tank as they walked in.

  ‘Take care,’ Fergus whispered, pointing to the hole in the floorboards where the belt and buckets emerged. They crossed the room carefully and peered down through the gaping hole. Another big hole had been cut in the floor of the room below, through which the belt and buckets laboured on their way up to the attic room. Far below, in the Punishment Room at the base of the tower, they could see the slight figure of Robert Dalton climbing slowly up the treadmill, forcing the drum around, lifting the leather buckets up towards them.

  Steven stood back from the hole in the floor and looked up at the roof frames. He could see the crude shaft at the top of the belt. No wonder it took so much effort to drive the treadmill. As he’d suspected, the tank was full.

  ‘See,’ he said, ‘the water’s just going out on the roof and back into the reservoir.’

  Robert and his father would be labouring on the treadmill all night for nothing. For once, Robert’s scowl was justified.

  ‘What’s that?’ Fergus whispered suddenly, pointing to the shaft at the top of the belt. On the far end of the shaft was a pulley wheel running another belt.

  ‘I take it you didn’t put it there?’

  ‘Never seen it before.’

  They walked gingerly round the gaping hole in the floorboards. Bolted to the floor behind the water tank was a small machine. A continuous belt ran from the pulley wheel on the shaft to a pulley on the machine.

  ‘What is it?’ Fergus asked.

  ‘It’s an old-fashioned dynamo. The bastards! Look, there’s a wire leading further along the attic. I bet it’s rigged to some form of alarm; that’ll be how they know when the treadmill has stopped. I wonder who rigged it up?’

  ‘Damian. He’s the computer geek. It has to be him. Just wait until I tell everyone what’s been happening.’

  ‘No! I told you, this is between you, my father and me. If we bust this open now, we won’t achieve anything.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘They’ll probably insist on the treadmill being kept running anyway. What we have to do is find some way to keep that dynamo running without having to drive the treadmill.’

  Fergus and Steven locked the room and checked the final door in the tower. It led to the room on the second floor of the north wing immediately above the Punishment Room. Steven had a full set of keys to Cromwell’s Tower.

  They returned to the tower the next night with fresh candles and made their way along through the roof space following the wire from the dynamo. They had to be careful not to make any noise, and to stay on the beams to prevent crashing through the ceiling into the staterooms below. They carried an old Haver Trust visitor pamphlet that included a plan of the house, enabling them to plot their route as they followed the wire.

  Eventually, it led them to the loft above the Turner Gallery, where a junction box split the wire into two leads. One disappeared down a hole into the gallery below; the two young men followed the second wire, which led them above the Ballroom ceiling and into the roof recess above the Crimson Gallery.

  ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Steven whispered.

  ‘What doesn’t make sense?’

  ‘My guess is the alarm is running off the wire that split from the junction box halfway down the Turner Gallery. Someone’s gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to lead the second wire this far back. There’s got to be something a lot more interesting than an alarm at the end of it.’

  Covered in cobwebs, they reached the point where the second wire disappeared through the ceiling. The Haver Trust guide indicated they were above Lady Beatrice Grenville’s Dressing Room — the locked room that belonged to Damian.

  They tried to look down the hole through which the wire disappeared, but it was hard up against a beam. Try as they might, all they could see was a tiny circle of carpet immediately beneath the hole. They blew out their candle, confirming that the room below was lit with flickering light. They could hear weird music and strange grunting sounds.

  They made their way silently and carefully back through the roof recesses before descending through Cromwell’s Tower, locking the doors after them.

  ‘I’d sure like to know what’s in Lady Beatrice’s Dressing Room,’ Fergus said once they were back in their quarters.

  ‘Me too. I need to use your workshop again. Okay with you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Fergus laughed. ‘You usually help yourself anyway.’

  Three nights later, Steven and Fergus crawled through the roof recesses again, making their way silently to the ceiling above the dressing room. From his pocket, Steven took a tiny cylindrical periscope he’d built in Fergus’s workshop and lowered it carefully through the hole in the ceiling.
Slowly he revolved it, scanning the room below.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he whispered, indicating to Fergus that it was his turn to look.

  The walls of the dressing room had been stripped of their artworks and were covered with an array of glossy photographs. They had a common, sickening theme. Various contraptions and strange, apparently purpose-built furniture stood around the room. In the centre was an array of what looked like state-of-the-art computer equipment, including a video camera, sound systems and a huge plasma screen.

  ‘Jesus,’ breathed Fergus as he scanned the room.

  ‘Did you see the screen-saver?’ Steven asked.

  Fergus manoeuvred the periscope around to look at the computer, which was connected to the wire leading down from the ceiling. He trained the periscope on the plasma screen and watched the moving image displayed as the screen-saver.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ he said. ‘No wonder Mathew ran away.’

  ‘I think we should keep what we’ve seen to ourselves.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can.’

  ‘We don’t know who the spy is. If we tell, somehow it’s going to get back to Damian. Who knows how he’ll react.’

  ‘But some people are at considerable risk,’ Fergus persisted.

  ‘We can keep our eyes open.’

  Fergus hesitated. ‘Well, if there’s any sign at all he’s trying this again, we have to speak up.’

  Steven nodded. He didn’t want to cause his Uncle Paul any further distress, but Fergus was right — if other members of the community were at risk, they would have to speak up.

  On the way back they lowered the periscope through the hole in the Turner Gallery ceiling, confirming the existence of an alarm.

  The problem of the treadmill and the dynamo occupied Steven’s mind for several days. Eventually, with Fergus’s help, the problem was solved, though it took nearly a month to complete the engineering work required.

  Steven and Fergus ensured that either the Steed family or the Grey family were on treadmill duty for most of the month. While their respective families were annoyed that the young men’s apparent carelessness had cost both families more than their fair share of punishment duty, they were at least grateful that the culprits had volunteered to do the night shifts themselves.