Kym stood with her palms resting on top of the timber balustrade. Marko and Fisher followed behind along the corridor. She thought: they’re surprised at what I know. They think that because I am one third of that triangular relationship of Adam’s that I’m some kind of idiot. But they are nice men. I like them. They are unpretentious. Unlike Fabian. He’s a cold fish of a man.
Now she delighted in revealing what she’d found. ‘You have to press that strip on the wall. See, it switches on the lights. They’re on a timer.’ Along the wall ran a narrow strip of metal at waist height. ‘Go on, press it, Fisher. It won’t bite you.’
He was good-natured enough to know that she was teasing in a friendly way. He touched the silvery strip. Immediately light sprang from globes set in the ceiling.
‘Now come see what I’ve found. Be quick. The lights are governed by a timer. They’ll probably go out in a moment.’
They joined her at the balustrade. If anything it resembled a balcony that didn’t look out, but looked in. She enjoyed the surprise on their faces when they stared downward to see a wall of rough stone; it was the colour of sun-bleached bone. Set in the wall were a row of five windows on the second floor. On the first floor was a low oblong doorway that even a child would have to stoop to pass through. At either side of that dwarfish aperture were two more sets of windows. They were framed by slabs of black stone that also formed the lintel to support the wall of roughly hewn stones. Above the front door was the weathered carving of what might have been a bird or dragon. Wings were visible, and a long curving neck that terminated in a head with wide-open jaws.
Fisher said, ‘I take it that’s what they describe as the medieval core of the house.’
‘Oh? It says so in the book?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘It’s called The Good Heart.’
Marko whistled. ‘So why have they built one house inside another house?’
Kym shook her head. ‘No, the other way round. What you’re seeing is the front of the house that was here many centuries ago. It had ancestral importance, yes? You follow? Like a family heirloom? So, rather than demolish the old house when they built The Tower in the eighteenth century, they constructed it so the new structure enveloped the old house. Now you have a building within a building like those Russian dolls that contain yet a smaller figure within the body.’ They were impressed. ‘In fact, within that older house, you might even find the remains of a yet more ancient dwelling.’
At that moment the lights went out plunging them into darkness. With the fire doors shut to the staircase not a glimmer of light penetrated the gloom.
‘You can find that strip on the wall again?’
‘Got it.’ That was Fisher’s voice. A second later the ceiling lamps came on to throw their light onto the pale stone. Simultaneously the hidden clock struck two. The shimmering chimes ghosted through the air. They hung suspended for a moment in sustained hum before dying away.
‘Fabian will be expecting us back to hear his songs.’
‘Ah, Marko, Mr Fabian is cracking his ring-master’s whip?’
‘We’re committed to making this work,’ Fisher told her. ‘That’s why we’ve taken the trouble to come here.’
‘Then I’d best silence the clock, so you can work in peace.’ She held out her hand to Marko. ‘If I can have the book.’ Quickly she fanned through the pages. ‘Surveyors should be professional; therefore, they need to have stated the location of the clock mechanism. Ah, here … I suspected so. The medieval core of the house is situated in its centre. Leading to it is the ornamental walkway known as The Promenade. Therefore, the tower extends directly above The Good Heart, so it becomes the ideal location for the clock mechanism. Yes. The service hatch is located in a buttress just within that doorway down there.’
‘You can’t go down there.’
Kym looked at Marko in surprise. ‘Why ever not?’
‘There’s no power in that part of the house. They shut down everything apart from the power to the ground floor in the wing we’re using.’
Fisher frowned. ‘Well, the lights work up here.’
Kym shrugged. ‘An oversight, or they’re on the same circuit as the emergency lighting.’
‘But they might not work down there.’
‘I know,’ she told them brightly. ‘You two gentlemen remain up here in the gallery. Whenever the lights go out put them on again. I can see switches down there at the end of the façade. Once I’ve switched on those I can find the clock mechanism and make Fabian happy with the quiet we’ll bring. You’re OK with that?’
Fisher said, ‘You’re confident you can take care of the clock?’
‘Take care? Oh, I see. Take care of the clock, meaning killing it. Well, I won’t hurt it. I’ll simply remove the fuse so it doesn’t work. I can replace the fuse when we leave. See, you’re looking at me as if I’ve grown three heads. Yes, the workings of the clock don’t concern me. My university degree is in engineering, for the study of locomotion by electrical means. I wrote dissertations on Volta and the Linear motor. I don’t think an electrical clock should present difficulties, do you?’
The two shook their heads. Fisher asked, ‘And you don’t want us to come down with you?’
‘You’ll have noticed I’m a big girl now, Mr Fisher. Stay here with Marko to work the light, so I can see. I’ll be back here in five minutes.’
The lights went out. She heard the tap of a hand on the light switch that ran the full length of the corridor. A second later radiance flooded them to spill over the balustrade. It illuminated the front of the ancient farmhouse that until 200 years ago stood four-square to the brutal elements of this northern land.
Fisher waited by the balustrade while Marko hung back near the corridor wall where the strip switch ran along its length. Kym would have to walk downstairs then enter the walkway beneath him through a door in the entrance hall. The light switches were set in the wall right at the end of the preserved shell. He’d never seen anything quite like this before. Years ago he’d visited a hotel that had been built on the site of a monastery. The first floor of the monastery had over the years sunk underground. The hotel utilized this ancient subterranean level as its wine cellar. This, however, had been lovingly – obsessively? – preserved. The bone-grey walls stretched up perhaps two full storeys in front of him, a height of perhaps twenty-five feet. He looked directly into the glazed windows that were so small and deep-set that they were nothing like modern windows. They radiated an aura of something alien rather than antique. The little panes supported by an intricate web of lead strips glinted with a dark violet hue, as if that house within a house had filled itself with liquid shadow to conceal whatever might reside there. Just to look at the structure with its bowed walls and misshapen windows invited notions that the entire structure had at various times become soft as warm plastic that resulted in its dimensions losing their symmetry. Its appearance also reinforced the notion that this house didn’t obey the normal rules of the universe. Only too pungently he recalled the way his room had imploded last night, until it felt as if his body was being crushed by the jaws of a monster. Without being fully conscious of the action, his hand rubbed the sore bruise on his chest. Then there was the reflection in the glass this morning; it didn’t behave as a reflection should. Strange times, Fisher, he told himself. Strange, strange times.
‘Can you see her yet, Fisher?’ Marko leaned forward over the balustrade to look down into The Promenade, which formed a chasm some twenty feet wide and thirty feet high in the centre of the building.
‘Marko, you’re supposed to stay near the switch in case the … there, it’s proved my point.’
The sixty-second timer killed the lights again. Darkness was instantaneous.
‘No sweat, Fisher, I’ll find it.’
It took Marko seconds to cross the corridor. Fisher imagined him feeling his way across the wall until …
‘Got it.’ A second later the lights burned again.
‘Gentlemen. I thought you’d left me alone here in the dark.’
Fisher looked down to see Kym standing there in her patent leather boots. She returned his gaze from a stone flagged walkway a good fifteen feet below him. Kym smiled up at him and he found a reciprocating smile come to his face. Oh, why, does she have to be tied up with Adam Ambrose? Even the way she calls Marko and me ‘gentlemen’ is erotic. OK, OK, concentrate on the job in hand.
‘I thought you were going to use those lights.’ He nodded at the switches just paces from her.
‘Marko’s right,’ she responded. ‘The power supply has been cut down here.’
‘Wait there until I can find a flashlight.’
‘No need. Keep the lights burning up there. I should be able to see. It’s only a question of removing the fuse.’
She stepped forward with that swaying walk of hers. Her boots clicked against the stone floor.
‘Be careful,’ he told her. She smiled back. Was that gratitude for his concern or a ‘Oh, I can take care of myself, little boy’ smile? Hell. She’s beautiful. I could watch her walk all day.
At the doorway she stopped. It formed a roughly squared opening. Its black slab of a lintel bore the weight of the stonework above it. She would have to dip that lovely head of glossy black hair to enter the medieval core of The Tower. Kym paused to glance back at Fisher, her brown eyes met his unflinchingly.
The lights went out. Darkness rushed in.
When she spoke, her Eastern European accents were beautifully modulated. At that moment there wasn’t even a hint of panic. ‘Switch them back on again, gentlemen. No fooling about, do you hear?’
‘Marko,’ Fisher hissed. ‘The light switch.’
‘I can’t find it. It’s crazy, I put my hand straight on it the last couple of times now I can’t … hell, Fisher. What can have happened to it?’
‘Guys? Did you hear me? I can’t see a thing down here.’
Fisher called out into the darkness. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have them back on for you in a minute.’ Then to Marko. ‘Hurry up.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘Gentlemen. This is not funny anymore.’
‘Marko?’
‘Shit! Wait … wait … got it. There!’
‘So why aren’t the light’s coming on, Marko?’
‘I don’t know. I pressed the strip. I know I did.’
For seconds the darkness weighed on them as if a gargantuan invisible foot ground them down. Fisher even found it hard to breathe, as if that weight settled on his ribs.
‘Bingo,’ Marko exclaimed.
The lights burned as brightly as before.
‘Just a glitch,’ Marko said. ‘I told you I’d pressed the switch.’
Fisher leant over the balustrade to reassure Kym. When his eyes scanned left and right for a second time he had to admit to himself: She’s no longer there. He looked down at the empty walkway. Stone slabs gleamed dully.
‘Kym. Where are you?’ The dead stones, in the face of that house within a house, drained the sound of his voice from the air.