Sker House (16 page)

“Mmmm... sounds delicious!” replied Lucy in the sarcastic tone she knew Dale detested. Mind spoken, she went back to playing with the dog.

The breakfast was just what she thought it would be. English. Not a sliver of seaweed in sight. Thank God. You'd have to be pretty hungry to chow down on floating plankton, baked or otherwise. During the meal, Lucy and Dale made small talk about the weather and reality shows the way British people are supposed to. It was comforting. However, there was a dark undercurrent running beneath their trivial ramblings that they knew they would have to face eventually. They were just delaying the inevitable, and would work their way around to this mysterious
something
sooner rather than later. So she laughed in all the right places until eventually curiosity got the better of her. During a lull in the conversation she took an extra-long sip of coffee, set the mug back down and said, “Okay Dale, what did you want to discuss with me? Is this the part where you confess your undying love?”

To her mild disappointment, Dale didn't. Instead, he pursed his lips and said,“Did you know you sleepwalk?”

Lucy guffawed so hard a half-chewed piece of bacon flew out of her mouth and landed on the table between them. Belatedly covering her mouth with the back of a hand she said, “I so do not! Where did you get that idea?”

But Dale wasn't laughing. Reading his expression, she saw nothing but concern. He quickly related the events of the night before; his waking up from a bad dream to find her gone, the search, and her eventual discovery on the out-of-bounds fourth floor. The story he told matched the snippets of memories she recollected and had misinterpreted as fragments of dreams. As he talked, Lucy felt a peculiar sinking feeling. “Why the fourth floor?” she asked. “What's up there?”

“Dunno. You were standing outside one of the rooms. Do you know you could have gotten hurt?”

She looked up to see Machen ambling over, dirty cleaning cloth in hand, almost as if he had been watching and waiting for them to finish breakfast. Not wanting to spurn the opportunity to engage the landlord in conversation, Dale said, “Machen... I was wondering, is there any reason why the refurbishments haven't been finished yet? We were talking to Izzy yesterday and she said there were some legal issues?”

The landlord rolled his eyes as he picked up the empty plates and wiped the table with his cloth. “I wish that girl would stop being so bloody over-dramatic. There are no legal issues as such. It was more a case of cowboys passing themselves off as professionals. I have to take them to court to get back the money they owe me. How can it be my fault if a guy falls off a ladder and breaks both his legs? I wasn't even here.”

“So there was an accident? Here at Sker?”

“Yes. Up on the fourth floor. Workmen all walked off the job and refused to come and finish it. Well, the guy with the broken legs didn't walk off, obviously, ha! Bloody foreigners. I didn't want to hire them in the first place, but they were half the price of anybody else. And now I know why. They only did half the bloody job. Can you believe they actually tried to blame the working conditions? Unless something was lost in translation. I mean, what did they expect? The Ritz? If the place was all pucker I wouldn't even have needed them, would I? Workmen are responsible for their own safety, everyone knows that.”

“All because one of them fell off a ladder? Surely, that's par for the course when you're a builder?” Dale said, obviously trying to align himself.

“Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you? Other things happened as well as the ladder episode. They're a superstitious lot, the Polish. And the Romanians are even worse. They were living here, see. Gave me a discount on the work if I let them stay until the job was finished. I'm sure half of them were illegal and had nowhere else to go. Anyway, it was more convenient for them, and no skin off my nose, like. At first they seemed like a decent bunch. Good workers. But then they changed, they did.”

“Why?” asked Dale.

“How the hell should I know? If you ever get the chance, ask them for me, would you?”

“There must be something you can do,” Lucy said.

“Well yeah, the solicitors are working on it. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. But you don't want to hear about that, do you? There's not much of an article in a bunch of cowboy builders.”

“Not really,” Dale said, “Though it certainly helps give us more of an idea about Sker. We'd like to know as much of what goes on here as possible. It all helps build a picture for the reader.”

Machen's tone dropped conspiratorially. “Would you like me to tell you the real story of Sker?”

“Of course, if you feel like sharing,” said Dale, ever the diplomat. He seemed pleasantly surprised that the landlord had suddenly decided to willingly impart some knowledge.

Pulling up an empty chair from a nearby table, setting it down and sitting on it, he said, “I'll tell you what I know, and you can pick the bones out of it yourselves.” The landlord's voice dropped a few more octaves. “Well, you know Sker House used to belong to a man called Isaac Williams?”

“Yes, you said yesterday. The Maid of Sker's father, right?”

“Yes, that's right. Forced his daughter to marry someone else and all that. Well, by all accounts that wasn't the only bad thing he did in his life.”

“Yeah, I remember. He used his connections to fit people up, too,” Dale said.

“He did. But I'm not talking about that.”

“Then what else did he do?” asked Lucy and Dale in unison.

Machen ran a hand through his thinning hair, then continued on what seemed like a different tangent. “You know in every country's history there are parts that modern people would rather forget? Sometimes when you look back on things, they look bad. People have a habit of modifying history to suit themselves, dressing it up, like.”

“Selective teaching is the government's way of instilling national pride. You know, make people less likely to start a revolution or something,” Lucy said.

“That's as may be,” Machen continued, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Anyway, point is... For the most part Wales is working class, always has been and always will be.” The landlord gave Lucy a look that suggested she might not know what 'working class' meant. She wanted to set him straight, but was reluctant to interrupt his train of thought for fear that he may never get it back on course again.

“Have you ever heard of something called wrecking?” Lucy looked at Dale and thought she saw a flicker of recognition on his face. She thought the word sounded familiar, but in that ambiguous way that words often did. It definitely
sounded
like a real word, but she didn't want to guess at its meaning. Instead, she shook her head.

“Wrecking is part of Wales' secret history,” Machen said. “Imagine how heartbreaking it must have been in the olden days for poor locals to watch ships packed with bounty and precious cargo sail around the coast. Never stopping here, never bringing anything to Wales, just passing by on the way to somewhere else. All the ships were sailing between England and the continent, see. Some folk 'round here barely had enough food to feed their children, yet watched the wildest riches pass within a mile or two. Eventually, the underclasses decided to strike back.”

“How?” asked Lucy.

“They started hanging banks of lanterns and lighting fires on the beach at night. Sometimes, they would tie lights to grazing cattle. In the dark the passing ships, most of which came from Europe and were unfamiliar with the area, would mistake the lanterns and fires for the lights of ships safely anchored in the harbour. Thinking it was a safe passage, they would be lured onto rocks.”

“That's awful!”

Machen pulled back a little. “No more awful than some of the things your ancestors did, miss. Like I said, every country has a secret history. And when your belly's empty, there's no limit to the things you would do to fill it. It was law in them days that landowners could claim Right of the Wreck, meaning they could keep anything that washed up on their land.”

“What about the sailors, the crew? Didn't they just tell the authorities what the local people did?”

“Most of the sailors drowned when their ships went down. The few that were left, well, they also met a sticky end. The locals didn't want any witnesses, see.”

“You mean, they killed them?”

“This was the eighteenth century, miss. Seafaring was a dangerous business. Ships went down all the time, so when they did nobody asked too many questions.”

“But what does all this have to do with Sker House?” asked Dale.

“Isaac Williams was a notorious wrecker. And a very powerful man. Story goes that when he lived in this house, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He owned lots of land, but his farms were failing. He also owned Sker beach, and realized he could claim Right of the Wreck on anything that ended up there, so he would send his workers down whenever they saw a passing ship. They were usually too late, either that or the captains on those ships weren't stupid. But sometimes, especially in bad weather, they would succeed in luring ships on to the Black Rocks where they were smashed to pieces.”

“Oh God.” Lucy said.

“You haven't heard the half of it yet, miss.” Machen said with a knowing wink. “Isaac Williams had a son called James,” he continued. “His first-born. The apple of his eye, he was. Isaac was a well-to-to landowner and local magistrate, so he could afford to send his son to Italy to study. James would make the journey home at the beginning of each summer. One year he decided to come over for Christmas, but didn't tell his family. He wanted to surprise them, you see. In those days, before airplanes and Eurostar, the only way to travel to the continent was by sea. It wasn't uncommon for the captains of merchant ships to take the odd passenger for a cash fee, their names and details never recorded.”

“He didn't...” began Lucy, then stopped before she could articulate what she was thinking.

“Nobody is really certain,” Machen said, guessing what Lucy had been about to ask. “James Williams was never seen again, alive nor dead. In December 1753 a French vessel
called Le Vainqueur
went down in a storm off Sker Point with the loss of all hands. It was rumoured James had hitched a ride on that very ship, unbeknownst to his father, who sank it out of greed. Of course, there were other variations on the story. Other folk said that Isaac murdered James during a family row after he arrived.”

“Doing it accidentally is one thing, but why would he murder his own son?” asked Dale, engrossed in the story.

“Because of pride. He was a wealthy, powerful man, but his influence was waning. Some said he could no longer afford to keep James in school but didn't want to lose face by pulling him out. Even worse, at the time relations between France and Britain were pretty tense, and the sinking of Le Vainqueur
caused an almighty stink. Almost started a war, it did.”

“What happened next?” Lucy urged.

“Well, the authorities had to be seen to be doing something. Too many ships were being lost in the area, see. So, they had an investigation. They questioned Isaac Williams and his workers, who of course all denied having anything to do with the wrecking. But when they searched Sker House they found some of the ship's cargo hidden in the cellar. Isaac Williams was arrested and charged with sixteen others. Faced the hangman's noose, he did. But like I said, he was a very powerful man.”

It was easy to see where this one was going. “He got away with it, right?” said Lucy.

“Bloody right.” Machen confirmed. “He got away with it. Another of the sixteen wasn't so lucky and got himself executed. Afterwards, the Right of the Wreck law was changed, pretty much ending the reign of the wreckers.”

“And what happened to Isaac Williams?” asked Lucy scornfully.

“Well, he may have escaped the noose but it is said that the episode ruined him, and he died not long after of natural causes. Right here at Sker House, as it happens.”

“Oh great,” said Lucy.

“Chill out,” piped up Dale. “This is an old house, of course people are going to snuff it here. It's the same with the big hotels, people die in them all the time. Afterwards they just clean the room, and the next day its business as usual. Actually there's a place not too far from here called Skirrid Inn. It used to be a courthouse and place of execution, now its a pub. They say hundreds were executed there, some for just petty crimes that wouldn't even get you a slap on the wrist these days.”

“Is that place haunted?”

“Obviously.”

“What is it with you two and ghosts, anyway?” asked Machen.

Lucy felt herself instinctively pull away. She didn't want to explain to the landlord about her unhealthy interest in the paranormal and how it all began. He would only laugh. So instead, she said, “This is just a great story. It has everything people like. History, tragedy, love, controversy. The supernatural element adds another layer.”

That seemed enough to placate the landlord, who raised his eyebrows slightly and regarded Lucy for a few seconds before saying, “So do you... believe in all that stuff?”

“In the supernatural?” Lucy asked. “Of course. Its a bit naïve of people to think that this is all there is, don't you think? Same as it's ridiculous, and a bit arrogant, to think that all the intelligent life in the universe lives on one planet.”

“P'raps.” the landlord conceded. From his position at the table he gazed at a spot on the floor. His eyes looked haunted, pained, and full of secrets. In that moment, it wasn't too difficult for Lucy to imagine that she was staring into the eyes of Isaac Williams himself.

Chapter 16:

Watching

The one they called Old Rolly watched Machen talking to the two young ones from his usual place across the room. Not having slept very well, he was feeling even more unsociable than usual this morning. He didn't like to interact with people too much at the best of times. Talking was overrated. The world was full of people who talked when they had nothing to say. It just made more noise. Even so, there wasn't much that went on around Sker that escaped his notice. It was his business to know. He studied the staff, the guests, everyone who came and went. He listened to conversations, assessed body language and facial expressions, and right now he could make a fairly accurate guess as to what the group was talking about. The kids were reporters writing some kind of article. He didn't know what it would be about exactly, but if it involved Sker it could only end badly. The last thing anyone needed, except Machen, was lots of people crawling around asking questions and digging up the past. That would just be inviting trouble. Some things should stay buried.