The Secret of Crickley Hall (3 page)

•

The rest of the house was a disappointment. The girls explored with enthusiasm, but Eve followed distractedly when Gabe gave them the full tour. It was as he had said—the other rooms, apart from the drawing room, which was impressive only because of its length (it was once used as a schoolroom according to the estate manager who had first shown Gabe around)—were functional. Certainly the large kitchen fitted that description, with its old-fashioned electric cooker, deep porcelain sinks next to a scarred wooden worktop, plain but deep cupboards, walk-in larder, linoleum floor covering, and the black iron range (a fire had already been laid and Gabe wasted no time in putting a match to it). Gabe had already bought and installed a cheap washing machine and tumble-dryer on his last visit to Hollow Bay, so that was one less problem for them to contend with.

On the first floor there was, as promised, a choice of bedrooms, and she and the girls went along with Gabe's original thought (oddly, Loren did not complain about having to share with Cally and Eve guessed that she, too, was a little intimidated by the very size of Crickley Hall). Although they had not climbed further on this first exploration, their tour guide informed them that the top floor obviously had once been a dormitory: there were still skeletal frames of cotbeds up there, but from the dust that had gathered and the weather-grime on the row of dormer windows along the sloping section of ceiling, the room had not been used for many, many years.

Most of Crickley Hall's furniture was old but not antique and Eve was quietly relieved: children and pet dogs did not go very well with valuable antiquities, so it was another thing less to worry about

Another area that went unexplored for now was the cellar which, according to Gabe, housed the boiler and generator (apparently the region suffered from frequent power cuts and the generator had been brought in to allow certain circuits, such as those running heating and lighting, to operate independently). Oh, and there was one other thing down there that would surprise them, Gabe had hinted, but that could wait until after they'd settled in.

•

They had quickly unloaded from the Range Rover the items they'd brought down with them that day, dashing to and fro in the rain, which had developed into a steady drizzle, careful not to slip on the treacherously wet boards of the bridge, the girls laughing with excitement and shrieking when they splashed through puddles, nobody stopping until every last article had been brought into the house. Then Loren had made her way upstairs loaded down with pillows and bed-sheets (it took three trips) to make up her own and Cally's beds, while Gabe had first attended to the fire in the big hall before checking out the boiler in the cellar.

Chester slept fitfully on his favourite blanket in a corner of the kitchen, lured there and finally quietened with a bribe of chicken nuggets, while Cally painted watery pictures at the worn and scored table set against a wall opposite the working surfaces and two large windows.

Eve took wrapped crockery and kitchen utensils from cardboard boxes, soaking all in one of the two deep sinks filled with hot (so the boiler seems to be working okay) soapy water. The windows over the sinks and worktops overlooked the front lawn and river. She could see the swing from there, the wooden seat shiny with rain hanging from rusty link chains, the bridge across the busy river just beyond, and as she worked, scrubbing at the plates that were already clean, careless about not wearing the as yet unpacked Marigold gloves (a year ago it would have been impossible even to contemplate dipping her bare hands into hot soapy water), thoughts—the
bad
thoughts—came tumbling in.

It was the image of the swing gently stirring under the weary, almost leafless, oak that pierced the fragile membranes of her emotions. Cameron, just five years old, like Cally now, had loved the brightly coloured swings of their local park.

Her shoulders hunched over the sink, her hands locked beneath the water. Her head was bowed. A single teardrop fell and caused a tiny ripple on the water's surface. Cam, her beautiful little boy with bright straw-coloured hair several shades lighter than his father's but with the same stunningly blue eyes. She stiffened. She must stop. She couldn't let the grief overwhelm her yet again. She hadn't wept in front of her family for two months now and today, on this new beginning, she must not weaken. Only strong sedatives and responsibility towards the rest of her family—she could not let
them
down too—had forestalled a complete collapse, although breakdown had threatened repeatedly. Unconditional love from Gabe, Loren and Cally had pulled her through the worst of her misery—at least outwardly it had. How she wished she could be self-contained like Gabe, could keep the grief deep within. Not once throughout their ordeal had she witnessed him shed a tear, although there were times she knew he was close to it; but then, she also knew that his strength was for her and their daughters, that he had withdrawn into himself so that he could help his family bear the pain. Yes, he was strong; but then, unlike her, he was blameless…

A shadow fell across the light. Something moved in the water's reflection.

Startled, she looked up, mouth open in surprise.

Something dark in the rain outside. A hooded shape. Eyes hidden in shadow, but watching her through the window.

With a small frightened cry, Eve took a step backwards.

3: GABE CALEIGH

Gabe shone the flashlight at the generator, checking the fuel dial. Quarter-full, it told him. He pressed the autostart switch but only received a wheezy retch from the engine.

The damp smell of dust and must almost clogged his nostrils as he studied the machine before him, which was lit by the dim lightbulb overhead and the beam of his own flashlight. He was only giving the generator a preliminary once-over to ascertain what work would be necessary to have it running smoothly. The battery was a little flat, but Gabe didn't think that was the main problem. Maybe the juice had gone stale if the gen had been standing idle over a long period of time; the agent had told him that Gabe and his family would be the first tenants of Crickley Hall for ten years or so. Power cuts were frequent in these parts, the estate manager had informed him, and the generator was supposed to kick in when the main electricity failed. Probably the spark plugs need cleaning also, Gabe mused as he squatted there in the darkness of the basement room, which was next door to much larger main cellar. Have to check the fuel filter too—probably full of gunge if it hadn't been cleaned for a while. The machine had a thick layer of dust all over, unlike the boiler that fired up happily beside it, which meant the gen had been neglected for some time.

By profession, Gabriel Virgil Caleigh—Gabe to his wife, colleagues and friends—was a mechanical engineer who had been shipped over to England sixteen years ago, when he was twenty-one, by the American company that employed him, APCU Engineering Corp, because it had a policy of staff exchange with its British subsidiary company. The corporation felt a change of environment and learning experience would be good for him. His reckless insubordination had played a tall part in the decision for, although merely a junior engineer, Gabe could be full of his own ideas and often difficult to handle; he seemed to have an aggressive resentment towards authority. However, he possessed a superb and natural talent for most areas of engineering (although chemical engineering was a discipline that didn't suit him at all) and his potential was clearly recognized. APCU was loath to lose someone of his ability.

In truth, the idea of sending Gabe abroad to a place where civility and mannerly traditions might temper the young employee's fiery disposition came from the corporation's CEO, who not only saw the British through rose-tinted spectacles, but also saw something of his younger self in Gabe and was aware of his background (it was fortunate for Gabe that he had one of those chief executives who took a genuine interest in all the people under him, especially the younger members who showed flair; any other kind of boss might well have fired such a peppery junior after their third warning). And he had been right. It worked.

Initially, Gabe had been almost overwhelmed by his new surroundings and the friendly welcome of his colleagues: he soon warmed to them both and began to lose much of his abrasiveness.

He attended college one day a week and quickly achieved higher-level exams in engineering, after which he applied for and gained membership of the Institute of Structural Engineering. Through this he attained more qualifications, eventually becoming a chartered member, attending interviews and writing papers on various aspects of his profession, such as the latest technology, improved processes and new materials. And as he climbed the ladder of success he met and quickly married Eve Lockley. Their family started with Loren only six months into the marriage.

Gabe glanced around the rough-bricked chamber as he straightened up, taking in the long black cobwebs that hung between the wooden beams, the coal heaped in one corner and a log pile close by. The boiler abruptly stopped its surge and the distant sound of running water came to his ears.

It came from the cavernous cellar next door at whose centre was a circular well, around ten feet in diameter, the shaft driven down to the subterranean river that coursed beneath the house itself. The lip of the old stone wall round it stood no more than a foot and a half high. When, earlier, he had brought his family down to see the well for themselves—his promised 'surprise'—he had repeated to Cally that she was not to come down here alone. Continuing to look around, he flexed his shoulders, then rubbed the back of his neck with a hand, twisting his head as he did so, loosening muscles made stiff by the long drive from the city. Old lumps of metal, broken chairs and discarded machinery parts lay about in the gloom as if the basement room was the repository for anything busted or no longer useable. In a far corner he could just make out an old blade-sharpener with a stone wheel and foot pedal. The air was not only dank, but it was chilled too, much of the coldness creeping in from the well cellar. When showing Gabe over the property months before, Grainger, the estate manager, had said that the underground river—imaginatively called the Low River—ran from the nearby moors down to the sea at Hollow Bay, paralleling and eventually joining with the upper Bay River near the estuary. No wonder the whole house felt so chilled, he thought.

He double-tapped the side of the dormant gen with the flat of his hand.

'Later,' he promised, wiping dust from his fingers on his jeans as he made his way through the sundry litter to the doorless opening that led into the main cellar.

Gabe loved machinery of any kind. He loved tinkering with anything from car engines to broken clocks. Years before, until Eve had made him give it up for his family's sake, he had enjoyed stripping down the old motorbike he had owned, putting it back together perfectly each time. It was something he did for fun rather than repair. Back at their London home, in the spare room he used as a office, there were shelves full of venerable mechanical tin toys—marching soldiers, brightly coloured train engines, tiny vintage motorcars and trucks—and clocks bought mainly from junk shops as well as car boot sales, all of which he'd taken apart, then reassembled. Most of them, broken before, were now in working order. He even enjoyed the smell of heavy machinery—the grease, the oil, the aroma of metal itself. He enjoyed the sound of engines at high and low throttle, the purr of a machine idling, the
clunk
of turning cogs or
clicks
of ratchets. In the past he had liked nothing better than on a Saturday morning dragging his children, as young as they were, along to South Kensington's Science Museum to see the giant steam-train engines housed there, climbing up into the cabs with them to explain every wheel and lever it took to get the great machines moving. To his credit, because of his enthusiasm, only Loren had been bored by the fourth visit. Cally, held in her father's arms, was much too young to be impressed, but Cam went rigid with excitement and awe every time he saw the great iron mammoths.

Gabe quickly sidelined the memory: today had to be an 'up' day, a keep-busy day, for Eve's sake as well as his own. It was the first time they'd left their real home, with all its associations since—

He cursed himself, forcing the lachrymose thoughts away. Eve needed his full support, particularly now that the anniversary of Cam's disappearance was so close. She was afraid the police would be unable to contact them with any news of their missing son, any clues to his whereabouts—and, hopefully, word that he was still alive, that his abductors were merciful and merely keeping their little boy for themselves—but Gabe had assured her that the police had their new temporary address and phone and cell numbers. He and Eve could be back in the city within a few hours if necessary. But when she had argued that Cam might just turn up on the doorstep on his own to find the house empty, Gabe had been at a loss for comforting words because a small part of him—a small hopelessly desperate part of him—held out for the same thing.

Before passing through the opening into the main basement area, he paused to examine an unusual contraption standing in the shadows left of the doorway, his thoughts at least distracted for a moment. He peered closer, squinting in the shadowy gloom.

The object had two solid-looking wooden rollers, one on top of the other, the smallest of gaps between, and on one side there was an iron wheel with a handle, presumably for turning them. Gabe smiled in quiet awe as he recognized the device for what it was: it was an old-fashioned mangle, used for wringing out water from freshly laundered clothes, the wet material passed through the tight rollers so that the water was squeezed from them. He'd seen one in a book once, but never in the flesh as it were. In the olden days it seemed every home had to have one standing out in the yard or garden. The modern tumble-dryer had taken its place.