by SL Beaumont
“In the summer you can go into the main keep. It was used as soldier accommodation during the war, I believe,” Max said. “Which I guess, explains the glass in the windows.”
“I can never believe that they were able to build such large stone buildings in the Middle Ages, without either the machinery to do the lifting, or the engineering knowledge that we have today,” Marie said.
“There were actually a number of amazingly talented architects and engineers in those days. Take St. Paul’s Cathedral, for example. Sir Christopher Wren was a mathematical genius. The dome is a perfect circle built without any support, resting on itself. Those guys really understood foundations. The cellars under this keep, for example, go down three or four levels. They have tunnels which link up with the outer walls, which were used to supply the knights defending the perimeter,” Max said. “You’ll have to bring Toby in summer next time and we can take him through. He will love it.”
Marie smiled. “We might just have to do that, especially if my baby girl is staying in England.”
Stephanie wandered up to the heavy wooden door of the keep. It was locked by a modern deadbolt lock. A babble of voices getting nearer distracted her and she saw some of the archaeologists enter the courtyard and set up tripods in each corner, attaching data recording and measuring equipment to the top of each.
Since the entire castle site was partly built into the side of the hill, from where they stood they could see over the castle’s inner walls, onto the top of the outer walls and beyond to the water.
“It was no surprise that the castle was never taken by sea. You have to remember that it lapped the outer walls when the castle was built. The lookouts would have been able to spot a sea assault from miles away,” Max explained, as they admired the view.
“Can we walk around those outside walls?” Toby said, pointing down to the castle’s outer wall.
“Yes. The outer walls are really thick, so the parapet or walkway is quite wide on top of it,” Max explained, crouching down beside him.
“It looks like a giant’s teeth,” Toby said, pointing to the crenellations around the top of the wall.
“Those lower sections gave the knights a position to fire their arrows through,” Max said.
“Cool,” Toby said.
“I don’t know about you, but I could use a hot chocolate to warm up,” Marie said as they finished looking around.
Stephanie nodded. She waved goodbye to Kerry as they exited the inner bailey and made their way back towards the gatehouse. Toby was still keen to walk on the parapet, but each entrance was closed with a locked metal gate.
“Probably just as well, sweetie. The snow will make it really slippery up there,” Marie said, sounding relieved.
However, as they approached the gatehouse to exit the castle, a gate in front of a set of stone steps leading to the parapet was wide open.
“Look,” Toby cried, rushing ahead.
“Toby,” Marie called a warning.
“It’s alright. I’ll go with him,” Stephanie said, giving her mother’s arm a squeeze. “Wait for me, mate,” she called after the little boy.
Together they carefully climbed the fifteen stone steps to the parapet, holding the wall with each step. It wasn’t nearly as slippery as Stephanie would have expected, the snow seemed to have melted on this section of the wall. At the top, the parapet opened up. It was around a meter wide and flanked on either side by the crenellations or ‘giant’s teeth’, as Toby had called them. Stephanie held Toby’s hand firmly as they walked along a little way, pausing to wave to Marie and Max, who were looking up somewhat anxiously.
“It’s amazing—you can see for miles up here,” she called down to them.
She gazed out towards the sea, her eyes catching the red and white striped lighthouse perched on a high cliff overlooking the rocky coastline. A little further on, a metal railing enclosed an opening in the parapet floor on three sides. The open side revealed stairs disappearing down into the wall itself. Stephanie peered down but a further padlocked metal gate on the fourth step barred any further exploration.
She finally persuaded Toby to climb back down to where Max and Marie were waiting in the cold. Together they drove back into the village, stopping at The Café for hot drinks to warm up. Andy was busy working the espresso machine.
“Hey, you just caught me—I’m catching the train up to London shortly,” he said.
“You guys are playing at the Roundhouse for the next couple of nights—right?” Stephanie replied, her heart giving a painful squeeze. She should have been going up to London for at least one of those nights.
“Yeah. Now what can I get you? Better still, come around here and show off your skills while I finish getting myself organised,” he suggested. “Your daughter makes a mean coffee. I just wish I could convince her to quit Oxford and work here full time,” he joked with Max and Marie.
Stephanie washed her hands and pulled an apron on. “Sir, madam, young master—what can I get you?” she asked in her best fake English accent.
Andy groaned.
Toby scrambled onto a bar stool and looked into the cake cabinet. Andy raised his eyebrows to Marie, who gave a nod. “Okay, buddy—which one do you fancy?” Andy asked.
“Chocolate, please,” Toby replied.
Andy placed a plate with a large chocolate brownie in front of Toby, while Stephanie steamed the milk and ground the coffee beans for her parents’ drinks.
“Why don’t you guys have a seat and I’ll bring them over?” she said to them.
“How are you doing?” Andy asked once they were out of earshot.
Stephanie sighed. “Y’know.”
“I don’t know what happened that night, Steph. I didn’t see him with that girl, but he was acting odd,” Andy said.
Stephanie shrugged.
“He’s hurting though, without you,” Andy added.
“He’s hurting?” Stephanie replied. “How does he think I’m feeling?”
“He thinks you’ve moved on, with that Oxbridge guy,” Andy replied.
Stephanie shook her head.
“‘The course of true love never did run smooth’,” Andy quoted. “You two need to talk.”
“I will once he stops being snarky with me,” she replied, carrying her parents’ drinks over to their table.
Chapter 18
Midnight, Wednesday 28th December
It was nearly midnight when Stephanie finally turned off the TV and climbed the stairs to bed. She was still having trouble sleeping and wasn’t going to bed until she felt really tired. A little while later she yawned and closed her book, finding it hard to concentrate. She was reaching for the switch on her bedside lamp, when her mobile rang.
The caller ID displayed the words ‘unknown’.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Stephanie.” The voice from the past jolted her upright in bed. It oozed false charm and mockery.
“Alex?” she whispered, flashes of her nightmares of being locked in a dark place came rushing back to her.
“I see you’ve found your half of the map,” he stated.
“What map?” she replied.
Alex sighed. “Don’t give me that. I thought if I focused your attention you’d solve it for me. And you didn’t let me down.”
“What do you mean—focus my attention?”
“You were so engrossed with my little brother that you weren’t doing the things that I needed you to, so that had to end,” he said with a cruel laugh.
“I don’t understand,” Stephanie replied
“You know for an intelligent girl, you can really be quite thick sometimes. That groupie cost me two hundred quid. BZP in his drink. A text to you, and then sit in bed waiting for you to arrive. Simple really.”
Stephanie felt sick.
“But you know that whatever smugglers’ contraband there was, is long gone,” she said.
“Oh, I know that,” Alex scoffed. “But the real treasure is still to be
found. My grandfather, you see, used the map to hide a cache of Renaissance jewellery paid to him by some wealthy Europeans in exchange for their safe passage to Canada before the war. Trouble is, the silly old fool has lost his marbles and can’t remember where he left it. And your half of the map had disappeared, or so I thought until I read your Uncle David’s memoir.”
“I don’t see how I can help you,” Stephanie replied.
“David thought he was being clever and changed something on his half of the map. I want those changes,” Alex explained.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Alex sighed again. “Don’t lie to me, Stephanie. Something led you to the cave in the churchyard.”
“So I am supposed to just give the map to you? Tell you what. Why don’t you come by the house and you can pick it up.”
“No, I won’t be walking into that trap. I just want you to tell me what David changed.”
“I have no idea—it all looks old to me.”
“I need that map, Stephanie. One way or another I will get it,” he said. “You know better than to make an enemy of me. There are bigger forces at play here, even I cannot control everything.”
“You’re rambling, Alex. If you want the map, come and get it.”
* * *
“Alex just called me,” Stephanie hissed into her phone, the darkness of her bedroom only broken by the glow from the phone’s screen.
“What?” Michael’s voice was groggy from sleep.
“He wants the map. The poem that David wrote is the key to finding the jewels.”
“Slow down, Steph, what jewels?”
“Old Charles Knox used the map that Edward and David doctored to find a good hiding spot for some jewellery given to him by some wealthy Europeans before the war. But because of his dementia, he can’t remember where he hid it,” she explained.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Michael?”
“Holy shit, Steph.”
“I know, right. And there’s more, he paid that girl to be in James’s room and send a text from his phone telling me to come by to pick him up. He broke us up.”
“Steph. He’s a bastard. Did you get the number he called from?”
“Blocked. There was a slight delay on the line, so I am assuming that it was from offshore.”
“Or maybe rerouted, so that you couldn’t trace it,” Michael suggested. “How did he know you had found your family’s half of the map?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “Hardly anyone knows. I hope James hasn’t been talking to him.”
“I don’t think so, Steph. As you said, Alex has been manipulating him too. I’ll come over in the morning and we can take another look at the poem. If we can solve it, we may be able to use that to catch Alex.”
Chapter 19
Morning, Thursday 29th December
More snow had fallen the next morning. There were several replies to the text messages that Stephanie had sent before she’d finally succumbed to sleep.
Call me when you wake up! Anna
What? Alex called you? Call me ASAP. James
So you finally believe me? That was also from James—Anna had obviously spoken to him.
James answered on the first ring. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Stephanie suddenly felt shy. “Um…, I owe you an apology. You were right, nothing happened with that girl. Alex set it up. Your drink was spiked and she sent the text from your phone asking me to come over in the morning and then waited for me,” she said, the words tumbling out one after the other.
“Did Alex tell you that?” James asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Did he say why?” James’s voice was still cool.
“Apparently I was too focused on you and not on what he wanted me to do, which was decipher David’s half of that treasure map,” she replied. “Somehow he knew that I’d found it.”
“That does sound like Alex’s twisted logic,” James agreed. “Where was he calling from?”
“No idea. I’m gonna get Detective Marks to try and trace it,” she replied.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Ah, I have to go. We are due at the studio shortly. Thanks for letting me know about that girl,” James said. He sounded like he couldn’t wait to hang up.
“Sure, sorry I didn’t believe you,” Stephanie apologised again. A cold feeling spread around her heart. Despite her apologies, he was brushing her off.
“Yeah, me too. I guess it was good for us to find out that we didn’t trust each other before this went too far,” he said.
Stephanie winced. “That sounds very final.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said.
“Oh come on, James. Even you have to admit, it looked really bad,” she said.
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to rush off into that bloody professor’s arms,” he replied bitterly.
“I didn’t. He just happened to be there and I was crying and well, you saw the rest. Honestly, there is nothing going on with him,” she explained.
There were voices in the background.
“Hey, I really do have to go,” James said.
“See ya,” she said to an empty line. She threw her phone onto the bed in frustration and sank back into her pillows as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Chapter 20
Afternoon, Thursday 29th December
“It’s a site of historical significance because it’s essentially been inhabited since the Romans, maybe earlier, although we have no evidence of that,” Kerry said, stamping her feet. “God, it’s cold.”
They were standing in the car park of Carlswick Castle holding onto chipped mugs of hot coffee. Kerry’s platinum hair was once again covered by a knitted beanie and she wore a thick jumper underneath denim overalls. She had heavy work boots on her small feet and black woollen fingerless gloves on her hands.
Stephanie shivered in agreement. “I still can’t get used to it. This is my first English winter,” she explained.
“There is just so much to look at here, but we are primarily focused on the defence aspect. This site was used by the Romans as a defensive fort and then again during the time of the Spanish Armada and whenever the French threatened. But at some point, even before the sea retreated, it ceased to be strategic defensively and was abandoned and fell into disrepair,” Kerry explained.
“But wasn’t it used again during World War II?” Stephanie asked.
“Yes, but by then warfare had changed with the use of aircraft, so the fact that the castle was no longer on the coast was unimportant. In fact, it was an advantage. From the air, it continued to look like an abandoned ruin, but the elaborate network of tunnels meant that the majority of the work was carried out underground and out of sight,” Kerry replied.
“What sort of work were they doing here?” Stephanie asked, putting her empty cup down on a tray in the back of the Land Rover before following Kerry up the path to the castle entrance.
Kerry looked back over her shoulder and grinned. “They were spies,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “If some of the previously secret documents that have recently been made public are to be believed, the men working here had direct communications into Europe as early as November 1942. We think that this may possibly have been an English base for European resistance operations.”
“Wow.” Stephanie’s eyes widened. “Why is this not known? I mean, this could be a tourist boon for a village like Carlswick.”
“I know, right?” Kerry said. “I think the fact that some of this information has only been made public in recent years due to the Official Secrets Act is probably part of the reason. Remember, we didn’t even know about Bletchley Park and Alan Turing until a few years ago. Now, follow me. I can show you some of the site that’s not currently open to the public.”
They passed under the gatehouse entrance and Stephanie once again felt in awe at the massive complex of towers and turrets built into the outer wall of the castle. Ker
ry nodded to two men standing either side of the entrance. Stephanie glanced up into the face of one of the men as she passed and caught her breath. He looked a little like the man from outside Knox Antiques in London, although that guy had been wearing sunglasses, so she couldn’t be sure.
“Excuse me. Who’s this? I don’t see the names of any visitors listed today,” he asked Kerry, all the while keeping a watchful eye on Stephanie.
“I think you’ll find I have a visitor’s permission slip noted next to my name—there,” Kerry leaned over and pointed to her name on the clipboard the man had produced. “I’m just showing my friend around the site.”
The man nodded, but Stephanie could feel his eyes drilling into her back as she walked beside Kerry into the castle.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Security guards,” Kerry said with a frown. “Apparently the money man insisted on providing them. Not sure what he thinks we’re going to find.”
“Who’s financing your project?” Stephanie asked.
“Dunno,” Kerry replied.
Stephanie shivered involuntarily and glanced over her shoulder. The two security guards were back at their posts. Stephanie followed Kerry into the inner courtyard and together they stood and gazed out over the farmland and mudflats towards the coast.
“Fantastic view,” Stephanie murmured.
“Yeah,” Kerry agreed. “But also great defensively. You can see more than a hundred and eighty degrees from this point and further if you were up on the wall. We think this meant that during World War II the soldiers working here could operate in the open during the day, as they would have had plenty of advance warning of any daytime aerial movements over the English Channel.”
Kerry waved to two of her colleagues standing on the wall with iPads in their hands. “Now, I’ve got the key so I can show you in the keep,” she said, leading Stephanie to a low wooden door at the base of the central stone tower. Kerry turned the key in a modern deadbolt lock and the door swung inward. With a backward glance, Stephanie followed her through.