‘We won’t be able to make it all the way down to fifty feet,’ said the voice behind him.
‘Why not?’
‘Pump won’t hold enough water back. It’ll fill faster than you can get the damn stuff out.’
‘What if we have two pumps?’ suggested Charlie, trying to stay focussed despite the paralysing sense that he was going to die in there.
‘You don’t understand. You can pump the ground water out for a few feet, but if you keep digging below that line you’re back in the ground water again and the whole damn thing’s gonna flood.’
‘So how did they bury that thing all those years ago if they had the same problems?’
‘They didn’t use a tunnelling machine. It’s the wrong tool for the job. This far down the mechanics will soak and drown. Your machine’s designed for horizontal tunnelling. It’s gone beyond its depth and moisture limits.’
Charlie sighed and dropped his torch down into the water.
‘Beam me up,’ he said, preparing to brace his arms to prevent him slipping back down as he was dragged up to the surface. It took two men to pull him clear of the tunnel.
‘So how did they dig a hole deep enough for the time capsule in the first place?’ he asked
‘Not with a tunnelling machine,’ replied his worker. ‘They drilled. You can drill through anything because the engine stays at the surface.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yes. Shit.’
***
‘Where did she get all this chocolate?’ asked Ratty, looking at the faded and fragile Lanvin wrapper in his hands.
‘The Hansel and Gretel analogy seems ever more apt. Your mother has again communicated with you via the medium of chocolate. She had no need of words. The Lanvin wrapper is sufficient evidence of her incarceration here. So now we can be confident that she was present in this room in 1975. With no indication as to where the trail heads from here, we are now in a position where only one course of action will secure the information that we need to progress.’
‘Back to putting our little message in an egg on the roof and smashing it to the ground?’
‘No,’ said the Patient. ‘I have an altogether different plan in mind. First I need that cleaning cloth and the bottle of varnish.’
Ratty handed him the items, and the Patient soaked the rag with the varnish. He then laid the rag flat so that he could slide it under the door, with a small section exposed in their room and the majority sticking out into the hallway. He poured the remainder of the varnish onto the door.
‘That stuff gives off quite a pen and ink,’ said Ratty.
‘The flammability of the fumes is crucial. Pass me that paintbrush.’
The Patient began plucking the hairs from the brush, a slow and challenging task using bare hands. Eventually he was left with a wooden handle and a square steel casing, empty of bristles.
‘Finally, please pass me the sheet of sandpaper.’
The Patient placed the sandpaper on the floor next to the varnish-soaked rag and began scraping the steel of the paintbrush against it, back and forth, trying to get it to spark.
‘It is a plan with two possibilities,’ he explained. ‘When I achieve combustion, the rag and the door will burn. Either the smoke will trigger an alarm and someone will come to free us, or the door will catch fire and burn down, allowing us to escape.’
‘Spiffing plan, Patient chappy. Any sign of a spark, yet?’
‘That is the hardest part of the plan. The materials are not ideal for the purpose.’
‘Would you care to borrow my lighter?’
The Patient looked up, astonished.
‘You’re carrying a lighter? You don’t even smoke.’
‘But I don’t like to be caught out if ever there’s a lady in need of a light.’
The Patient smiled and took the lighter from him. It produced a level flame at the first attempt, and he lit the rag with ease.
‘Let’s throw a few more rags and cotton wool buds onto the flames, but keep everything else clear,’ said the Patient. ‘We don’t want this to spread.’
The fire quickly licked its way up the door, and they could hear it doing likewise on the other side. Ratty listened for a smoke alarm to ring, but there was no sound other than the crackle of the flames. He stood back from the fire, coughing as the smoke started to spread across the room.
‘I wonder if Mother came up with anything as ingenious as this,’ he shouted.
‘Stay low to the floor. The air will be clearer there. If there’s no alarm system up here, I just hope we’re not dealing with a fire door.’
‘What difference does it make?’ Ratty asked.
‘A fire door is filled with concrete. It doesn’t burn all the way through. We will find out in due course, I’m sure.’
‘It’s a fine blaze you’ve made there. Looks like the whole surface of the door is alight. The ceiling is turning black. The old man’s going to be ever so cross when he sees the damage.’
The fire raged for a few minutes before dying back, leaving a blackened hulk of a door, steaming across its surface, glowing red hot in places. The Patient took hold of the picture transportation trolley and pushed it as hard as he could against the door. The charred and weakened wood splintered and cracked all the way through. He pulled the trolley back for a second attempt. This time it crashed through to the other side, leaving a hole wide enough for them to squeeze through, covering themselves in hot charcoal as they did so.
‘Straight to the exit this time, dear fellow,’ said Ratty.
‘Follow me.’ The Patient led him the opposite way from the exit.
‘Where does this lead? It’s not the way out.’
‘Do you want to find your mother or not?’
They were outside the old man’s office. The Patient opened the door marked ‘Director’ and stormed in, with Ratty reluctantly following. The old man was seated behind his desk studying a map of South America. He immediately folded it up and sat back in surprise.
‘What have you done with his mother,’ demanded the Patient. He pulled the de-bristled paintbrush from his pocket and held the sharp steel stub against the old man’s throat. The movement was too quick for him to tell that it was not a knife, and the old man held his hands up in supplication.
‘And don’t bring the constable into this,’ added Ratty. ‘There’s something fishy about that fellow.’
‘What do you want to know?’ the old man asked Ratty, wearily.
‘I want to know where she is.’
‘I don’t know the answer to that question.’
‘If you don’t start being more helpful,’ said Ratty in as gruff and deep a voice as he was able to generate, ‘we are going to start being rather ruddy frightful.’
The Patient looked at him, unimpressed with his ability to be threatening, and pushed the stub of the paintbrush with renewed vigour against the old man’s skin.
‘All I can tell you is that she came here in 1975 to investigate her motherin-law’s relationship with Dalí. She remained here for a time. Then she disappeared.’
‘Remained here of her own free will, or kidnapped by you?’ asked Ratty.
‘Does it make any difference after all this time?’ croaked the old man, his skin chafing against steel.
‘I think we can assume the latter,’ said the Patient. ‘And when you said she remained here for a time, what length of time are you implying?’
‘Look, remove that thing from my neck. Please.’
The Patient glanced up. Ratty nodded. The paintbrush was withdrawn.
‘“Kidnapping” is not the appropriate word,’ said the old man. ‘She remained here by choice. Because she felt that she had no real choice. And she stayed for many years.’
‘How many years?’
‘I believe it came to about thirty-eight in total.’
Ratty and the Patient looked at each other.
‘So she is alive?’ asked Ratty.
‘Apparently, in spite of
your best efforts to the contrary, she is still breathing,’ announced the old man.
‘My efforts?’ asked Ratty. ‘What on earth are you implying?’
‘It really doesn’t matter. Your lives are a mistake. Anything you do within those lives is a mistake. You’re both on a wasted trajectory. Your lives are leading nowhere. That’s why you mustn’t concern yourselves with minutiae.’
‘Mother’s fate hardly counts as minutiae, old Rottweiler.’
‘But it is. Because her entire existence is irrelevant. And therefore your entire existence is irrelevant. You are part of the big mistake that has affected so much and any efforts you make to find her, or to punish me, or whatever you instinctively feel you must do, will be a waste of time.’
Ratty was dispirited. The old man’s riddles had thrown his thought processes off-course and dragged a fog of confusion over the situation. His enthusiasm for his quest was receding. He tilted his head towards the door, inviting the Patient to leave with him.
The Patient pushed the stub of the paintbrush firmly against the old man’s throat once more and shook his head.
‘We have come a long way. This man still holds the information we need. I suggest a different line of questioning.’
‘But we’re taking too long, old wotnot. Someone might come and we’ll be right back where we started.’
‘In what year were you born?’ asked the Patient.
The old man looked up in surprise at this question, but had no reservations about answering it.
‘I was born in 1940,’ he said.
‘Which country were you born in?’
‘England,’ sighed the man, without any apparent fondness for the place.
‘And where were you conceived?’ the Patient continued.
‘Please, life has been hard enough. Do not make things worse than they already are. My offer still stands; let Constable Stuart escort you home and you will have no more contact from me or my people.’
‘Tell us when Lady Ballashiels departed and where she now is and we will do as you request,’ the Patient said firmly.
‘She left just a week ago. My people found her soon after, but she escaped again. She is now on the run and could be anywhere on the planet. That is why I can’t help you.’
‘Goodness, I’ve had a thought,’ shrieked Ratty. ‘If she’s out there right now, she must be looking for me. All the time I’ve been looking for her, I’ve just made it harder for her. We must return to Stiperstones immediately. Let him go, Patient chappy. Oh, and sorry about the fire.’
‘What fire?’ asked the old man.
‘We instigated a small conflagration,’ explained the Patient. ‘There was damage primarily to the ceiling of the square turret and to its door. But such damage is, according to your world view, an irrelevance.’
‘Get out! Live the rest of your meaningless lives and keep away from me!’
There was a knock at the door. Ratty had feared this. He had no desire to fall back under the control of the constable. As the door began to open, he ran to the opposite wall next to the Patient, his mind completely devoid of any plan that might improve the situation. But when he saw the face of his closest friend from Cambridge University days, the woman for whom he had for so long carried an unrealistic and optimistic romantic flame, he relaxed. He had played a small part in the rescue of this woman, after her discovery of the Sphinx scrolls had resulted in her ending up in something of a predicament last year. She had even stayed as his guest at Stiperstones for the first weeks following the Patient’s arrival there. Her face was a welcome and unexpected sight.
‘Ruby! What a pleasant wotsit!’
Ratty rushed over to her and gave Ruby Towers a hug. She shook him off, coughing at the charcoal dust that now stained her hair and face. The Patient nodded respectfully at her.
‘Don’t tell me he’s got you two signed up to his organisation, too?’ she said, unable to hide the accusatory tone in her voice. ‘I should have guessed you’d be mixed up in this nonsense,’ she went on. ‘Remember Charlie? He’s part of it. Whatever it is. But I suppose you knew that, since you’re already at the heart of the operation.’
‘No, nothing of the sort. We just popped in on an unrelated matter,’ said Ratty.
‘Popped in? You both look like a bomb’s gone off in your faces. You look like Victorian chimney sweeps.’
‘If I may explain, Doctor Towers,’ said the Patient, ‘Ratty has reason to believe his mother came to this place after she disappeared when he was a child. We are trying to trace what became of her.’
‘You are? And that has nothing to do with Charlie?’
‘We have no idea where Charlie is or what he is doing,’ said the Patient. ‘And why this gentleman appears to be hiring people he knows nothing about and who cannot be expected to show much loyalty is yet another mystery.’
‘People, be quiet!’ shouted the old man. ‘None of your trivial conversations are of any significance. I hire people who are disposable. If they betray me, I will dispose of them sooner. If they fail in their tasks and fall foul of the police, I can wash my hands of them. Charlie is disposable and matters not. Lady Ballashiels, even less.’
‘Well, dash it!’ Ratty retorted, offended that his family should be belittled in such a way.
‘I think we should all take a deep breath and calm down,’ said Ruby. ‘We’re not going to get anywhere by shouting.’
‘Frightfully sorry and all that rot,’ whispered Ratty, even though Ruby’s glare was fixed upon the old man.
‘That’s better,’ she continued. ‘Now, I have to admit that I don’t like the way you talk about Charlie,’ she told the museum director. ‘He’s not exactly my friend, but I still care for his wellbeing, and I think it is not unreasonable for me to ask you a few simple questions. What exactly is your organisation?’
‘It is the Dalí museum,’ the old man replied.
‘Thank you for your answer,’ she said, forcing a tone of civility that didn’t come naturally to her in moments of stress, ‘but I don’t mean that one, and you know I don’t mean that one. The Dalí stuff is something that you are using as a cover. So would you mind telling us what you are really trying to do?’
Suddenly the old man’s character shifted despite Ruby’s palliative tones. He stood up, stuck out his straight nose, bellowed at full volume and waved his hand maniacally as he shouted,
‘You fools are mired in a reality that will change. Soon no one will remember any of you. No one will even remember me. Seventy years of pain will be undone. The great mistake will be corrected and the course of history will run smoothly.’
‘Proper little Hitler, aren’t you?’ mocked Ruby, unimpressed by his passionate rant.
‘Get out!’
After they had shuffled out of his office, the old man grabbed the telephone on his desk and pressed a stored number.
‘Grant? They are all exiting my room now. I want you and Stuart to follow them off the premises and see to it that they all are kept permanently away from me. I have an inroad to Keo and I think the day is closer than we expected, so I don’t want them interfering any more. Make it look like an accident if you can.’
***
In an inconspicuous café on the other side of town from the museum, they felt secure. Figueres was bustling with local people going about their business and life seemed, once again, normal. Ratty, Ruby and the Patient sat in a corner table with a clear view of the street from where Constable Stuart’s surveillance of them continued unnoticed. Ruby ordered coffees and croissants for everyone.
‘Crikey, what a to-do,’ said Ratty. ‘First this, then that, and now the other.’
‘I think it’s all bluster,’ whispered Ruby. ‘We should just keep away from that awful man and forget all about this. No one is really going to hurt us.’
‘So why are you whispering?’ asked the Patient.
She thought about it for a moment. Clearly there was more apprehension in her system than she had app
reciated. She had been shouted at by museum officials in the past, but never quite like that. The tone of the old man’s voice had shaken her to the core and she had to remind herself that he was just an old man who worked in a museum and who seemed to be running some kind of private research project on the side. The chances of there being a sinister conspiracy were so small as to be laughable. She would move on, get on with her life, and not get sucked in any more. Charlie would be fine. Rocco likewise.
‘Tonight I shall be sticking to my original plans,’ she stated at normal volume. ‘I’m taking my students to the wind tunnel to have some fun. They’ve worked hard in the trenches at Empúries. They need to let off steam, and so do I.’
‘Wind tunnel?’ asked the Patient.
‘It’s a training tool for sky divers, over at Empuriabrava,’ she explained. ‘The tunnel is vertical, and you float on the jet of air. Sounds like a laugh.’
‘And I’ll bash off back to Blighty,’ decided Ratty. ‘The old man said Mother’s still alive. She left Figueres just a few days ago.’
‘That’s wonderful, Ratty. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘Thank you, old chum. Mother must be looking for me. I have to go home where she can find me.’
‘Then you definitely don’t want to stay for the wind tunnel flying!’
‘Doesn’t sound entirely like my cup of tea,’ admitted Ratty. ‘Prefer to read a book, generally. Probably a tad awkward so to do whilst floating in a tube in hurricane-force winds.’
‘Typical Ratty,’ giggled Ruby. ‘Hides behind a book at the first sign of danger.’
‘Precisely,’ he agreed. ‘Sounds a somewhat unnecessarily risk-filled venture to me. What if there’s a power cut whilst you’re up at the ceiling? What if you burst through the roof and into the sky?’
‘Oh, Ratty,’ she laughed. ‘Always the silliest notions. They have multiple generators for power. They won’t all fail at once. And you can’t go through the roof.’
‘Nevertheless, I must go straight home. Not sure if Mother has the key to the place, and don’t want her having to camp in the stables until I get back.’
The Dali Diaries (The Ballashiels Mysteries Book 2) Page 18