Second Night (31 page)

‘Okay, I'll leave making the shield to you, but I want to paint it and I want to do the seaxe.'

‘We do one each and try them out. Better still, we'll make three. The Master won't carry a shield and one of these big knives might do him a good turn come Hag Night.' Alan pressed another key. The printer turned on in the hallway. ‘I'll take a couple of copies of this shield stuff home with me. They'll come in handy while I'm sorting it out.'

‘But there's always the same question of how the metal will survive the transition,' Caz reminded him. ‘The old man's sword came back okay, but do you remember what happened to my army knife?'

The congealed lump of steel and plastic was on permanent display in the exhibition room.

‘That knife was just a rough bit of old alloy,' said Alan dismissively. ‘I doubt whether any of our modern stainless steel would come through intact. The Master's old sword was made up of rods of the best quality iron, beaten and folded together time and again until it was as near perfect as those first Guardians could get it. They knew their craft, there's no doubting.'

‘So do you think the spear is some pure kind of iron?'

‘How can we know when we can't test it? What kind of metal is it that can be left roasting in the fire all night and stays stone cold? It gets wet and it never rusts. You're out with it every night throwing it into everything you can target and it never needs sharpening.' Alan scratched his head, perplexed. ‘We can't chip it or grind it, or even get it to take a mark. And how do you explain the weight of the thing? Nothing about that weapon makes any sense by our reckoning.'

Caz gave the last morsel of cake to Blue. He licked the blade of the knife and in a lightning move had thrust it to within an inch of Alan's left eye. The rune inscribed on the blade shone uppermost. He smiled. ‘But there is one thing we do know about the spear that we
could
reproduce. It bears the mark of one of the Runes of the Deathless. We could beat this rune into every fold of hot metal every step of the way when we make the seaxes.' He sheathed the knife.

‘We could,' Alan agreed. ‘We could start by marking it on every bit of iron we're going to use and do the same thing with the tools while we're about it.'

Caz stood up. ‘Let's do it tonight!'

Alan looked doubtful. ‘Some of the old Japanese craftsmen took a full year working a blade. We've got six weeks. It's a lot of work.'

‘Then we've got to get me out of school. Talk to the Bank about getting me a tutor.'

‘And what's your mother going to have to say about that?'

‘It's something else I've got to work on.'

A buzzer sounded and the red light over the door flashed several times. Blue stood up, wagging his tail.

‘Looks like we're wanted up top for supper,' said Alan. He closed the window on the screen and shut down the computer. ‘We might as well put it all to bed down here if you're set on firing up the old forge before we've had time to give it proper thought.'

Caz was adamant. ‘I promise you, we'll think about it better as we work. You do the security and I'll finish packing up.'

An orange warning light was flashing on the console when Alan checked the security room.

‘Now there's an oversight,' he reproached himself. ‘Those lights must have been left on in there these past two days. That's what comes of having too much going on in my head at any one time.' Belatedly he remembered the report he was supposed to have sent to London. ‘That can wait too.'

He motioned Blue to heel and unlocked a small panel, touching a series of numbers on the flat screen behind it.

When Caz looked around the door two minutes later the room was empty. He collected the printouts in the hall and called out, ‘I'll see you up there, Al!'

There was no answer. But the light was on at the top of the stairs to the study.

Something must have come up with the old man,
he thought.

He had cleared his first plate and started on the second when Alan finally sat down to supper. Sara was away in London for her first working stopover with Charles Fordham-Marshall at the house in Kensington. The big chair at the end of the table was empty. Sir Jonas had declined Daisy's invitation to join them.

Jemima came last to the kitchen and took the empty place opposite Caz.

‘Sorry I'm so late,' she said.

‘You've been very quiet all afternoon,' observed Daisy.

Jemima beamed happily. ‘I found loads of pictures of Lady Christina.'

‘Where?'

John and Alan stopped eating. Caz looked up. Jemima reddened under the combined stare coming at her from all sides of the table.

‘They were in the cupboard in the dressing room,' she said hurriedly. ‘There's a whole book of her wearing the dresses she had made in Paris. I'm sure loads of them are still upstairs in the attics. Do you think Sir Jonas will let me bring them back down to her room? It would be wonderful to be able to match them up to the book.'

Daisy's eyes were beady bright behind her spectacles. ‘I dare say he will. Did you find anything else?'

‘No.' Jemima helped herself to vegetables desperate to change the subject. ‘Can we ride tomorrow afternoon, Caz?'

‘Okay.'

‘Can I take Rúna?'

‘If you want.' He reached for more potatoes. ‘There're about six messages on the answer machine in the tack room, some eventer woman going on about wanting the colt. She must have got the number from the agency.'

Daisy's head came up. ‘The cheek of it! They're not supposed to give that number to anyone!'

Caz shrugged. ‘Well, she's got it and it's up to Jem to fob her off tomorrow morning before the old man gets wind of it.'

‘Too right, I will!' said Jemima fiercely. ‘I'll sort her out first thing!'

CHAPTER 52

The week of being blissfully spoiled by Daisy and Sir Jonas was soon over. Jemima moved herself and the cats back to the lodge, trying not to do it with a bad grace before Maddie and Jasper returned mid-afternoon. Caz joined her soon after.

Jasper came in first, dumping a pile of bags in the middle of the kitchen floor. Without a word he grabbed Sara, dragged her into the pantry and shut the door.

‘He's back,' said Jemima forlornly.

‘Looks like it,' agreed Caz.

Maddie appeared, similarly laden. ‘How wonderful to be home,' she said cheerfully.

Jasper and Sara emerged from the pantry dishevelled and rather red.

‘Hello, boys and girls,' he said grandly. ‘Where's the champers?'

‘We don't drink champagne in the middle of the afternoon,' said Jemima.

‘Which implies a serious deficiency in the spirit of celebration on your part, Fats.'

‘What is there to celebrate?'

‘Shall we tell them, Jas?' asked Maddie.

Jasper sniffed. ‘They don't deserve it.'

‘Deserve what?' asked Caz.

Jemima clapped her hands. ‘I know! Grandpa left us some money! That's it, isn't it? He left us a load of cash in a secret account that no one knew about until he was dead.'

Jasper was impressed. ‘Not bad, Fats.'

Sara nudged him hard in the ribs with her elbow, bending him temporarily sideways.

‘What was that for?' he spluttered.

‘You know very well. Apologise!'

Jemima stuck out her chin, grinning. ‘I'm waiting.'

Jasper rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry, Fats, for calling you Fats and hopefully I will remember not to say Fats again, or at least not within a whisper of a dragon woman with razor-sharp arm angles should the mere mention of the word Fats slip unguarded from my lips, Fats.' He sighed. ‘There, hopefully I've got it out of my system once and for all.'

Sara was sceptical. ‘The word or the apology?'

‘Both. I'll try not to be nostalgic for the word and I'll do my best not to regret the apology.'

Sara nudged him again, less forcefully.

‘Enough!' he growled. ‘Don't abuse me!'

‘Then don't abuse your sister!'

‘What else is she any good for?'

‘A lot more than you can ever begin to imagine!' retorted Jemima. ‘So are we rich, Ma?'

Maddie shook her head and laughed. ‘Not rich.'

‘But there's enough to put a little twinkle in your eye,' said Jasper.

‘How big is a little twinkle?'

‘Enough to take me and Stat to Oz for New Year with our share,' he said smugly.

Sara's eyes widened.

‘And how much is that?' asked Caz.

‘Would five thousand quid do?'

Caz gaped. ‘Each?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Wow! I can have a new laptop!' cheered Jemima. ‘And a decent phone! And a camera!' She threw her arms around her mother's neck. ‘Please, please, Ma, let us have the rest of this week off school as well. I've missed you so much, I'm traumatised and I need at least a couple more days to get over it. I can easily catch up.'

‘That's a complete load of crap and the worst excuse I've ever heard,' commented Jasper. ‘We'd all have to go around with bags on our heads until Friday afternoon in case someone reported us, and I'm not doing that.'

‘Grandpa
was
my dad's last living relative,' she said primly, looking at him under her lashes.

‘Who you hated!'

She laughed. ‘That's why I'm traumatised!'

‘You should have been back to school last week,' Maddie reminded her, trying to look stern and failing entirely.

Caz grinned. ‘It's an allowable family crisis, Ma. They can't argue with that, and Al could do with a couple more pairs of hands up in the coppices for a few days.'

‘That's a very good point, bro,' said Jasper.

‘But will
you
bother to catch up with your schoolwork, Caz?' asked Maddie.

‘I'm doing okay.'

‘Shouldn't we put the money in the university fund, Jas?' queried Sara.

He thumped the table, shouting, ‘Woman, we are slaves to the university fund! For once, let's give the slaves a break. I say Oz. What say you?'

Sara giggled. ‘Oz it is!'

‘We'll play the old boss's winter fest gig and then we'll head straight for the plane and three weeks of glory on the booze, the beach and the barbie.'

Caz looked at his mother. ‘How did you get the money? Grandpa hardly ever worked. I know they had the house and the boat but I thought he was always broke?'

‘There was still some left from when the house was sold, but we spent all of it covering his outstanding debts. Some of them went back years. That's why we were away for so long, quite apart from waiting for the cremation.'

Jasper grinned triumphantly. ‘And then, boys and girls, we discovered an account Grandma Em had opened years ago that he had obviously forgotten.'

‘Or never knew about,' said Maddie. ‘His grandmother, Abigail Wylde, was the one with the money and she must have laid some aside and given it to Grandma Em.'

‘Were we rich once?' asked Jemima.

‘No, not rich, but not completely poor either. I don't think we were ever workhouse material, not then at any rate.' Maddie opened a smart leather handbag and handed Caz and Jemima each a cheque. ‘And not now either.'

Jemima screamed with delight. ‘Yes! I'm going to look at it and feel rich for a few days before I put it in the bank.'

‘What about you, Ma?' asked Caz. ‘Have you got the same share?'

‘Identical,' she assured him. She pointed to the bags. ‘Actually I've already started spending mine. I decided it was time to brighten myself up a bit.'

‘Can we see?' begged Sara.

‘Oh please, lets!' echoed Jemima.

‘Help me get the bags upstairs and you can tell me what you think.'

CHAPTER 53

Jasper opened a new briefcase and put his laptop on the table saying, ‘I've been whiling away boring evenings with an update on the band site. Take a look at that!'

A central window flashed action shots against a wallpaper of selected pictures from the Hallowe'en gig. One of Tristan's latest compositions blared out of the speakers. Caz recognised the white face snarling at the top left hand corner of the screen.

‘It's good,' he said. ‘The music's good too.'

Jasper touched the keyboard. The white face filled the centre screen.

‘You look like a total spook, bro,' he said smugly, ‘but it all adds to the flavour.'

Nothing like a real one though,
thought Caz. ‘Can I have a look at that software?'

Jasper tossed a package across the table. ‘Be my guest. Have it for a late birthday pressie.' He sniffed the air. ‘Do I detect fresh, or stewed coffee in the making?'

Caz nodded. ‘Fresh for once.' He filled two mugs. ‘Was Ma okay about having to do all that stuff in Plymouth?'

‘She was pretty good,' answered Jasper. ‘Finding the money was the bonus. There's nothing like a timely bit of retail therapy to raise the company profile.' He lifted his head, listening for the muted voices in the rooms above. ‘Do you think they've got the door shut up there?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘I don't want the women hearing this.' He hunched over the table, gesturing to Caz to come closer to listen. ‘A weird thing happened when we were getting ready to tip Grandpa's old dust into the drink. I haven't told Ma, I didn't want to spook her out.'

‘So?'

‘Have you ever wondered why our family's always been buried at sea? I mean, it saves on graves, but haven't you ever thought it's a bit weird?'

‘What are you getting at?'

‘Well, it appears that at some point an unknown benefactor forked out a small fortune to have one of our forebears tossed into the deep. The same benefactor made a sizeable donation to Rame church a couple of years later to make sure something similar could be done for the old chap's widow, who turned out to be our rich Great-Grandma Abigail.'