AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Michael Heathcote had apparently actually been a child. It was not something Aleksey had ever considered before.
Happier with the security of their egress in case they got overwhelmed by lepers, they went back to the house, bringing some more things from the boat that they’d not retrieved the previous day.
A quick look around the rest of the rooms revealed a scullery, a study or library, and a dinning room all on the ground floor and all empty bar a few dust motes. It was all in good repair, although were a few signs of damp in the scullery where the window frame was swollen and apparently unable to be fastened. Aleksey wondered idly if anyone in the previous family that had owned this house had ever visited a scullery, or even knew what one was for. It amused him to think of former owners, and made another mental note to tell Phillipa just how superb this house and island were.
Apparently thinking he had just found a larder or butler’s pantry off the scullery, Ben opened a painted wooden door with a bored expression but then gave a small grunt of surprise. There was a flight of stairs leading into a cellar. Aleksey and Squeezy followed him down into the gloom. It wasn’t big, certainly not stretching under the whole house, but seemed more to have a purpose related to the work rooms above. There was another door on the back wall, but this was locked and didn’t budge when given a few experimental kicks. Squeezy bent and picked something up. ‘Coal.’
The cellar was explained.
It was even clearer when they found a trap in the ceiling to one side, which when Ben jumped up and pushed they could see opened to the outside. This, presumably, was where the household fuel had been delivered.
Squeezy suddenly commented from one dark corner, ‘This is…interesting.’
He was toeing a bag. When Aleksey went over, he saw that there were two bags of quick-drying cement leaning against the wall with some tools, a couple of tin buckets and a folded tarpaulin. Squeezy was eyeing the floor. ‘Why did you say your wife’s family had to sell this place again?’
‘Ex.’
Aleksey experimentally tapped the floor with one boot. He glanced at Ben. Ben shook his head. ‘Looks old to me.’
‘And there speaks the expert on all things bodies-in-cellars related?’
Ben gave him an unconcerned look. ‘I’ve told you: my reading tastes will one day save us all. Trust me, this is not newly poured cement.’
There wasn’t much more to see, so leaving the puzzle of why there were bags of concrete in the cellar and why that material had needed to be quick-drying, they returned back up the stairs to find Tim wandering around alone, and extremely annoyed at suddenly discovering they’d all justdisappeared off the face of the earth. He was actually looking a little pale, so this was an excellent source for mockery, and Squeezy took full advantage of it by putting him in an immediate headlock and repeating this gesture on and off for the rest of the day.
At the top of the house there was a large attic full of more junk, but Aleksey knew he’d have risked his life to delay Ben’s exploration of the island further by rummaging through it then.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Two
Over-stimulated by the wind, and perhaps just the general atmosphere, the dogs went wild soon as they were let out of the house. They tore across the sunken lawn and down to the beach and back, then into the woods, and then just around and around the lawns with no apparent sense to any of it.
The gusts were getting stronger. Spray was falling on them as they stood on the grass. Aleksey suddenly grinned. ‘So, anyone for a lighthouse?’
Ben was already off, Squeezy not far behind. Tim hesitated, more anxious, casting nervous glances up, as if he could actually see the wind, but Aleksey ignored him and followed the path Ben had taken. This route led directly away from the house and dock towards the centre of the island and then to the promontory. About half a mile along, they discovered a small building. It was surrounded by trees on three sides, but to the south had only an endless vista over the sea. It was entirely shuttered, much to Ben’s disappointment. He and Squeezy were trying to peer in, and Ben waved him over when he saw him emerge from the trees. ‘Pavilion? Try the key.’
The building, about the size of a bandstand, was made of the same stone as the house, but had a wooden roof and wooden shutters. It was completely pitch black inside once they’d shut the door, the shutters utterly blocking even a crack of light from entering. Although the roof was domed on the outside, inside the ceiling was low. It wasn’t exactly oppressive, but it was puzzlingly cramped. ‘Why put it here but have it all shuttered like this?’ Aleksey was standing staring at the view he could not actually see. All he faced was a latched panel.
‘Maybe it’s particularly windy here, so they put boards in to protect it?’ Tim was examining some shelves idly, running his finger through dust.
Ben had apparently decided it was boring now, so wanted to carry on. Aleksey left last, casting a thoughtful look over his shoulder. Perhaps the professor had been right for once. It was certainly an exposed spot. He winced as a particularly hard gust caught him and made him put his weight on his aching leg. PB went racing excitedly after a branch which tore from one of the overhead trees. He clicked his fingers to Radulf, and the old dog shuffled over to walk closer.
If Aleksey had thought the wind was alarming in the woods, its strength had been as nothing to its power when they came out onto the low point of the saddle. As they had seen from the boat, this was a sandy area of dunes and rocks, but it was beautiful in its own way. The spiky marram grass was filled with intensely sweet-smelling flowering yellow lupines, which were bending double and dancing as sand-filled blasts tore across the land.
PB was going wild in the wind. He seemed to have thrown off a wary watchfulness that had overtaken him since the events on Dartmoor six months before. He’d reverted back to puppyhood, and he bounced through the grassy tussocks, only appearing every so often as a head popping up before being swallowed once more.
Radulf huffed and got closer to Aleksey’s legs.
He bent and clipped on his lead, and they both felt this was a very sensible precaution. As he leaned over the old dog, Aleksey heard a trickle of water and walked a little way towards the northern shore and found a spring bubbling out of the ground. He scooped some of the gritty soil away and the little hollow he made immediately filled with crystal-bright liquid. Radulf could apparently smell it, for he snuffled into it eagerly, lapping and slurping. Aleksey called the others over to this find.
Tim toed the boggy area where the water was seeping out. ‘I wondered whether they used a desalination plant or something, but this explains it.’
Aleksey nodded. ‘An aquifer deep below the sea bed.’
Ben was chewing a stalk of grass and glanced back towards the house. ‘There must be a well then somewhere, or a borehole.’
‘I suspect when the house was first built they actually used that pump in the kitchen for all their water, extracting it by hand. Now I suppose there’s an electrical pump somewhere, and what we are using in the bathroom is the last bit that’s left in a header tank somewhere in the attic.’
