The Vertical Plane

by Ken Webster

  I checked every file on the disk. Next time we’d try with Debbie and the researchers alone in the cottage, sitting quietly in imitation of the previous two successful occasions. I was very tense, very angry. I was almost prepared to accept this intruder theory if it would allow me to relax. Poor Debbie, she sensed my frustration and she caught it up with her own; the atmosphere was terrible. If there was ever a chance I’d sell my soul it was now – for the evidence that what we were experiencing was not of our doing.

  I turned to my work as a way out. There was much to do in school, the examination season was underway. But school bored me. However, there was time, as I walked between the rows of tables in the sports hall, to consider my next move, to dream this and that, about the end of the building work at the cottage, about a new job. Most of all, when the weather was hot and sticky and the fire exit was open at the back of the sports hall I’d dream of just walking out, down the Dell and across the fields beyond. Days passed.

  Ching! The sound of a small piece of metal hitting the wall, then silence. We listened to this silence, to the hum of the refrigerator. The kitchen door was ajar, I edged it open. No one there. Silence … Ching! A two-inch offcut of copper pipe rolled along the concrete floor towards the bathroom. Debbie picked it up. It was slightly warm to the touch. A further three pieces arrived, all but one in the kitchen. Never did we see any in flight: after our ears had heard the ‘ching’ of contact we would see a piece as it came to rest or we’d find it in the corner rocking slightly as it stilled. Nor did the disturbance stop when we had visitors, as Dave Lovell recalled:

  ‘Lots of strange things happened at Ken’s. One of the oddest events that I witnessed one evening with Sian was in connection with these copper pipe offcuts from my recent plumbing work. On this occasion Ken, Deb and I were standing in the living room by the fire, talking, when I heard Sian’s voice from the bathroom. I went in to the kitchen where I saw Sian looking down at the lobby door. It was one of those pipes, the long one of the bunch, which we had previously put outside the back door. Sian had heard something hit the door and wondered what it was. I remember that she was pretty surprised, and shocked even. We were all surprised but not to the same degree because we had many first-hand experiences of this sort of thing. A few days before, one of my tools, a bending spring, got kinked. This was the only time these goings-on stopped my work.’

  9 June

  I did not sit down to write on the computer, I just wanted the machinery to babysit the poltergeist. I hoped it would cut the pipe throwing in some way. Ching! The first one of the evening.

  ‘Try and laugh at it.’

  Deb smiled. I smiled, my reflection in the screen smiled.

  Ching!

  ‘Smile louder …’ We tried.

  Deb gave up and sat with her head in her hands ignoring all around her. I read the paper in the kitchen, hoping to catch a piece in flight. Chank! We both looked up. Something different. It had landed on the hearth – a 2p piece.

  ‘Thanks. A gold sovereign now? … Make it worth our while.’

  That kept it quiet for half an hour. I abandoned the paper and considered going for a walk or for a ride in the car. Then I saw three one-pound coins sitting next to the screen on the mat cream surface of the BBC. ‘We’re rich, Deb, they’ve brought three pounds.’

  ‘You might be but it’s mine, off the mantelpiece.’

  After this, matters improved. Fowlshurst wrote late that night in his usual impenetrable manner, this time wittering on about eating too much white meat and being involved in a scuffle in Handbridge.

  Sultry June. The examinations wore on. The staff came and went on supervision duty or to prepare for internal examinations. In the sports hall the extractor fans continued to whirr noisily but there were fewer pupils to suffer them, as the last week of the month brings the last of the examinations. I continued to look out across the fields and dream. There was an ambience here: of a night club in the early hours of the morning or a high street at 5.30 P.M. on Saturday. Like the night club, like the shops, the school had exhausted its energy for the moment. Everyone knew it. In four weeks it would be the summer holidays.

  Perhaps it may seem odd to mark the passing of twelve days by the hum of extractor fans but the examinations of not just this year but the past six years are stacked haphazardly one on top of the other in my memory and it has all become one moment apart from those fans.

  In the 1540s also, one moment seemed to have stretched across those twelve days. Thomas Fowlshurst had left us with a tale of a corrupt baker, John with threats to Peter and Dave Welch. For my part I had promised that Peter should come the next day but there was many a day between the intention and the action.

  Yet the messages of 21 June betrayed no signs of impatience and, since it did not matter much at ‘their end’, it increased our lack of interest in communicating with Fowlshurst and co.

  Deb’s sleep was disturbed at this time. One dream came back repeatedly to her: she was in a dark, claustrophobic room lit only from above. The light filtered through a heavy, square metal or wooden grille. The air was fetid; she couldn’t breathe very easily. To keep up her spirits she was singing or humming a tune … always the same time. I heard her once or twice in her sleep. It was barely audible at times, like a radio broadcast on medium wave moving periodically off station. She was dreaming of a prison. The song was a plainsong, or lament, but I could never catch the words and Debbie could never remember them.

  Meanwhile there was another message:

  FRYEND

  THOU WANTS LUCAS NAME ME DIDST HIDE YT WHENE HE DIDST LEEVE YT THOU MAYE HAVE YT YF THOU AWAYES THE RAG WYTH BERD FOR HYM BEE A FRAMPOLDE

  Friend

  You want Lukas’s name. I hid it when he left it. You may have it if you dismiss the sour-tempered fool with the beard [refers to Dave Welch].

  From our slumbers we awoke. Lukas’s real name, his ‘trewe calle’, was known and for sale.

  Meantime Fowlshurst wrote to Peter in reply to some questions left on the 9th:

  YE MOST NOBLE

  BETWEENE MEE ANDD YE MEE LERNINGG BEE ABSOLUTLY ABHOMYNABLE ANDD ITT IS EATHLESS TO ACCOYLE MEE WORDES FORR THY UNDERRSTANDYNG SOO I DOO ASKKE MEE GOODLEY FREND TO WRITES FORR MEE BUTT METHINKS ALSOE YE COMMUTER MAYE TAKES EVERIE PLEASUR TO MYNN FINNGERS ANDD CAST EVYLL TO YEIR CAUSES BUTT IFF THYS BEE WITH MEE RETHOR THENE I MAYE ABOLYSSHE THE EVYLL SOO THAT HEE MAYE DIE WITHOUTTS CORRUPT SOUL* to avoyde innsultts further mee shal however write mee owen name at the finn of the scriptt praye telle whatt dost peter want forr soo manye questiouns tis perfitely fare to answer none withoutts anie reasonnes andd knowyngs as to whatt causes hee i hav tolde richard grovenor of ye worthey feedyng itt bee a surr thingg he dost purchasse ye launde forr a costley summ …

  thomas ffuleshurst

  Between you and me my education is absolutely appalling and it is hard to make myself understood so I ask my friend to write for me but I also think the ‘commuter’ may take my fingers and work evil on them if I write to you. But if it is not so rather then I may abolish the evil so he may die without a corrupt soul. To avoid further problems I shall write my own name at the end of the message. Please tell me what does Peter want with so many questions, none of which I have to answer unless a good reason is given. I have told Richard Grosvenor of the good land here and it is certain he will pay a good deal to acquire it …

  thomas ffuleshurst

  Down a screen there was another short message from John:

  fryend

  aske not for lucas nayme forr fowelhurst wilt have hym to die he ys kempt alyve soe that thy leems dost stile shyne i knowe for i have heard hym singe there art few that doe singe yn latin yn the prisun telle not of these words to eny eles me shalt be ragged

  Friend

  Don’t ask for Lukas’s name as Fowlshurst will have him killed.

  He is kept alive so that the ‘leems’ still shines. I know this because I have heard him sing, there are few that sing in Latin in prison.
Don’t repeat these words to anyone or I shall be in great trouble.

  Lukas was alive. The ‘leems’ could not work without him. And when Debbie dreamt of prison she dreamt of Lukas looking up through a dungeon grille, but till this moment she had not associated the dream with him. With hindsight the plainsong she mumbled was his lament.

  23

  25 June

  The whole house brooded silently and darkly. The tape had run to the end in the cassette player. I couldn’t think. Deb was suffering too, she walked to the kitchen, plugged in the kettle and looked around her. I suppose we were waiting for the pipe throwing to begin. It had returned last night with a vengeance. All was quiet now apart from the hum of the motor in the fridge. Two sharp cracks and a dreadfully familiar metallic ring split the silence as the metal rolled off into a corner of the kitchen.

  The door was open, I could see the metal. I got up and tried to see where it had made contact. It wasn’t hard, for the pipe had hit the wall so fiercely that holes had been carved half an inch deep in the plaster near the door jamb.

  The rooms recovered their silence. I went back in the living room with a cup of coffee. Deb collected the metal.

  Another sound: a scream from the kitchen. Deb was bent over as much from shock as from pain. She clutched at her shoulder, a piece of pipe had hit her. I helped her on to the settee and carefully pushed back her blouse from her shoulder. A blue-black bruise was already beginning to fill an area of redness.

  Back where the real battle was taking place it was clear that Fowlshurst was rather more cunning and rather more vain than we had imagined. This revelation did not free Lukas. Discussion of the problem had reached a dead end. It was hardly possible to converse with the sheriff, let alone persuade him in all reasonableness that Lukas should be returned.

  At the eastern end of Hawarden school between blocks A and B is a car park. Monica Rowlands-Price crossed it from her parked Cavalier to Deb’s Morris from which I was decanting exercise books wrapped less than reverently in Tesco carrier bags. She had been following with interest the events of recent weeks.

  She has an educated voice with a tuneful Welsh ring to it and she used it to suggest that I threaten the sheriff directly. Since Fowlshurst was scared of the ‘leems’ and obtained John’s support in leaving messages he might well be open to this kind of bluff.

  ‘Threaten him with the loss of his soul,’ she said. It wasn’t cricket, I thought. All of us had tried to be honest and ‘trewe’, but I could see from Monica’s expression that I was being pompous and no help at all. Okay, let’s do it, let’s lie and cheat. I wrote:

  THOU DOST HOPE THAT HEE MAY DIE WITHOUTT CORRUPT SOULE. DOST THOU MEAN LUCAS, AND IS HEE NOT DEAD. FOR WE WERE TOLDE THAT HE HADDE DIED. WE WOULDE REJOYCE TO KNOWE THATT LUCAS LIVES, TREWLY THOU LACKS NOT NOBILITEE BUT WE KNOWE IN OUR TYME THAT NOBILITEE IS FORGIVING AND HAS UNDERSTANDING. CANST THOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT LUCAS IS A GOOD MAN AND SHOLDE NOT DYE. WE ARN NAT DEVYLLS BUT WE HAVE POWR. LUCAS MUST NOT DYE BUT MUST BE SET FREE TO RETURNE TO HYS HOUSE AND TO KATHRYN. THEN WILL WE SPEKE WYTH YOW AS FREENDS AS WE DOE WISH FOR WE TOO ARE FEARFUL FOR THYNE SOULE IF LUCAS DOES DYE AT THY HAND.

  No reply at first. Deb wrote a few lines. Fowlshurst began to falter:

  YE MOSTE NOBLE PETER

  FFURST I MUSTE KNOWE WHOME DID TELLE YE OF LUCAS. IF YE SWERE NOTT TO USE YE POWR THE I SHALL BRING LUCAS WITHIN ONE ROUND OF THE GLASS I DOE BEG YE FORGIVENESS BUTT I MENT TO CAUSE NO HARM TO HIMM I SHALL DOE THYS FOR YE BEE ME FRIENDS THOMAS

  Linking Debbie’s persistent dream and the information from John I wrote back. The aim was to reinforce our position independent of any role that John had played.

  ’TIS NAT THAT WE NEEDS BE TOLDE ON EVERY OCCASCION WHAT HAS COM TO PASS LUCAS SUFFERS IN THY PIT WE HATH SEEN THE PITIFUL LIGHT THAT COMES THROUGH THE GRILLE OF IRON AN FELT THE LACK OF AIR TO BREATHE YET HE SINGETH IN LATIN

  YOW HAVE OWR WORD THAT NONE SHALL FEEL OWR POWER SO LONG AS LUCAS RETURN TO HYS HOUSE. THEN OWR FREENDSHIP SHALT HAVE NO BOUNDS WE AWAIT HYS WORDES AN WE KNOW THEM WELL SOE DO NAT TRY TO DECEIVE US PETER AND KEN AND DEBBIE

  While Deb slept and I was upstairs a short rejoinder appeared on the screen:

  TIS JOHN THAT DIDST TELLE

  I wrote:

  WE HADDE SEENE HYM AFOREHAND JOHN DIDST CONFIRM OUR KNOWINGS WILT THOU DELAY? MAKE HASTE. HARM NAT JOHN

  Fowlshurst soon replied:

  YE BERE WYTH MEE ANOTHER HOURE LUCAS B

  Yes! Thomas wrote this message at 10.00 P.M. but it was interrupted at the letter ‘B’ and never continued. Frustrating, but at least we were getting closer. I responded merely by typing:

  I CAN WAIT FOR A FREEND

  Another hour. In rising excitement I abandoned, as so often, my plans for the evening. I climbed into the car. It was close up to the shed so I backed it down the drive a little way and sat there in the dark with only the light from the cassette player and the music of Paul Hardcastle jagging into the gloom. It was a very long hour. I was restless.

  It was 11.20 P.M. by the time Deb was driven to the bathroom, as it were; she could not help but glance at the screen. There was a largish paragraph on it but an hour is an hour and she did not disturb the kitchen again for another ten minutes. She then appeared from around the back of Miss C’s Anderson shelter garage and gestured frantically to me to come in. It was now 11.30 P.M.

  MYNE III TREWE FREENDS

  WO I DO WEEPE SO THAT ME MAYE BE WYTH MYNE FREENDS AGAYNE ATTE LEEST FOR A SHORTE TYME TIS BARFUL THAT ME SHOLDE NAT HOLDE YOW TO MYNE BREESTE BUT HATH TO ENDYTE SYCHE LOVE FOR MYNE FREENDS ON THY LEEMS ME KNOWETH YOW TA ART LYK MYNE OWEN KYN SYTH YOWR TYME WERT UNCLASPD TO MYNESELVE ER THAT I KNEWE NOE FREENDSHYP SO TREWE THO TBE OVER MANY YEERES O CHAUNGES AN WE ARN CONFUSD SOE …

  … BUT ME NEEDES YOWR WORDES SOE THAT ME MAYE HATH YOWR COMFORT I MUSTE TAKES RESTE SOE THAT ME MAYE SPAKE WYTH YOW AMORROWE ELES ME WILT MAKE NON SENSE OF ME WORDES TO MYNE GOODLEY FREENDS I NEED TYME TO WEEP LUKAS

  My three true friends,

  I do weep so; that I am again free to be with my friends again at least for a short time. It is wrong that I cannot hold you close but am only to show such love for my friends on the ‘leems’. I know you as well as my own family since your time was opened to me, before that I never knew friendship so true though it is over many years of change and we are so often confused … But I need your words so that I may take comfort from them. I must rest so that I may speak with you tomorrow or else I will make no sense of my words to my good friends. I need time to weep.

  Lukas

  He was utterly fatigued but he wanted to have our words straightaway. To have Lukas’s lyrical words again and some sanity returned to the communication was welcome enough but to know his affection for us was undiminished despite his incarceration was overwhelming. With more than usual care I saved the message to disk. The file was then recalled: I wrote briefly to him of our affection for him and our happiness.

  In celebration we cruised into Chester to be reassured by the still-beating heart of the city at midnight and to join the queue at a fast food outlet in Boughton – not far, we supposed, from the site of the stinking pit where Lukas was, until a little while ago, imprisoned. Ah, the obscurity of it all!

  24

  5 July

  In the middle of the sports field a tent with awning stood newly erected. The morning chill had hardly retreated as the pupils arrived, kitted out in a motley of white, near-white, or not-at-all-white athletics costumes. The tent was the equipment base and for an easy life I had gravitated there or, in truth, been detailed there, for it was sports day and I was not enthusiastic. The air of machismo and a kind of naïve ‘jolly hockey sticks’ enthusiasm mixed rather sourly with the massed indifference emanating from a significant section of the school population. Frank Davies came by, and he too was looking for an oasis. There was a breeze and the tent sighed and sagged at its bidding. We discussed the events of recent months. It was a good time to reflect. School had wa
sted itself of purpose: exams finished, fifth and upper-sixth years gone, some kids on holiday or just sloping away for a day here, a day there. Most of us teachers aching for summer.

  ‘Do you know what time of year it is for Lukas?’

  ‘No, Ken, I don’t,’ he said.

  A tannoy burst into life. ‘Will the competitors … race …’

  ‘We asked him.’ I picked out a scrap of paper from my wallet. ‘He wrote: “This daye which be yere o myn lorde in reigne o king henry viii thy …’”

  ‘… report to Mr Jones at the start’

  ‘“… eigthe monthe 1546”’

  ‘He’s about a month ahead then?’

  ‘I’d say he’s about 430 years behind!’

  ‘The winner of the under-14 girls’ shot was …’

  A pause. Frank looked up at the clouds and the showers disappearing beyond Drury. ‘Did you ask him about the weather?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘What are the SPR doing, the psychobillies?’

  ‘Annoying me, not so much Peter, me though … John Bucknall came down to try and get a result but the machine went out of EDWORD. He said it was probably just a power surge. Apart from that failure something strange happened to the file on Wednesday last, it’s happened before. There were only five items on the index, and then after a “ghostbust” a whole lot more appeared, all empty.’

  ‘Did Lukas do it, do you think? SPR will think it’s the “hoaxer”.’

  ‘How can you ask him? I can’t explain so much as a car to him without getting utterly bogged down. How can I explain word processor file names?’ I paused for a second, wondering why I must defend Lukas but then did so. ‘No, not Lukas.’