Gold By Gemini

CHAPTER XXI

Contents - Prev/Next

I SHOULD have spotted it earlier.

His hiding-place'd had to be near Groundle Glen. Had to. Otherwise, why stay here? His diary said '… it's convenient.' There was only the old railway line and the seal pen. I'd walked the length of the tracks several times and seen nothing. There was one place I'd never inspected close to, though. And that was the seal pen. Courage, Lovejoy.

I was out at first light. No signs of life from Algernon's bungalow. Janie slept on. I hurried down towards the bridge and climbed up the path to the diminutive railway.

There wasn't another soul awake among the bungalows. I was clear away. I trotted on.

In the dawn light the seal pen scared me more than ever before. The cleft seemed to run a thousand miles down to where the sea struggled over the stone barrier. Most of the palings on the narrow wall had rusted to jagged points with fallen pieces lying obliquely to trail nastily into the sea. I wondered if any seal had ever managed to escape. Surely they must have wanted to. It was like a bad stage set nicked from Wagner's Teutonic worst.

A concrete platform with a wonky railing was the only sign of civilization where the railway ended. I was frightened. The ledge was pretty dangerous even on a calm sunny day. What it looked like on a stormy night didn't bear thinking of. I edged my way cautiously on to the platform feeling like a figurehead on a ship. I'd never seen so much sky around.

The heather and the grass had created a bulge where the tiny rails ended. There were probably buffers under there, overgrown. A circular rim set in the concrete level looked oddly familiar, reminding me: a gun emplacement, probably anti-aircraft. They'd built the platform wider and stuck an ack-ack weapon on top, for the war. Which miserable gunner battery had snapped up this particular posting? Poor sods. They'd have had to struggle back along the railway in the dark even to fill a kettle from the leaky tap at the ruined brick hut. Well, at least they could have used the little train for hauling shells. To me they were heroes as brave as any fighter pilot. I looked down again. The nightmare cleft had deepened a few miles since my previous glance. Did it go up and down with the sea? Was its water connected underneath all that stone and rusted iron? There was a noise behind me. A sheep rolled its mandible at me over the wire fence.

'Bloody fool,' I said. 'Go away. I'm scared enough as it is.'

It didn't shift. I've never been able to tell people off.

The cage on the other side of the inlet was set on a lower level than the platform where I stood. A dice-tumbler, I suddenly realized. That's what it reminded me of. Another Bexon joke? It had been constructed on a slight prominence, giving it for all the world the appearance of an iron pulpit projecting out over the seal pen. There was no way in except through the top, where the metal staves were curved towards their common centre. You could get in but you'd have a terrible time getting out.

I could see across into it. Some rubble. Double iron doors in the cage, one shut with a grille at eye level, the other ajar. Maybe it was a further wartime addition, which suggested there was another way in from the landward side, probably with steps cut down into a tunnel. That's how they made entrances to dug-outs in the trenches.

Soldiers don't change much.

At one time there had been a catwalk across. I could hardly bear to look. Not that I'm scared of heights, but there's a limit. It had deteriorated over the years to a crumbling bar of weathered concrete, spanning the sixty or so feet across the gorge. Most of the iron struts and handrail were gone. The entire thing was rust-stained, giving it a horrid toothiness I found distinctly unnerving. The inlet must be like one great mouth if you looked from the sea.

The noise again behind me. The sheep hadn't gone.

'Can you see anywhere else it could be?' I asked. It said nothing. You get no help.

Getting round to the other side would be bad enough, let alone climbing down to the iron pulpit.

'Shift,' I said. The sheep stepped away from the fence.

Intrepid ramblers obviously came along this way, along the overgrown railway track. It was only about as wide as a small path anyway. The only safe way round the inlet was to climb up the steep hillside into the sheepfold, walk over and descend from the hillside on to the cliff-top again. I did it, clinging to the barbed wire for all I was worth and not looking down.

I was quite calm and pleased until I glanced back at the old gun platform. Had I just stood on that? And looked down'}

The platform was as thin as a match, a little white scar marking a rising mass of jagged rocks. Below, sea waves, pretty docile until they swept casually round the headland, rose into white claws and scrabbled viciously at the volcanic rock. It made my feet tingle. And Bexon's gang had somehow built a seal pen in this savage place. More annoying still, he'd come back to see it years later.

I found the entrance to the tunnel cut through to the pulpit, and the steps I predicted.

The hillside had slid gently into it, simply folding the passageway in the rock. There was no way through. Worse, clearing it would take a million years. Two million, on my own.

My rope had some iron things on that the man in the ship chandler's yesterday had said would hold on to anything. A likely tale. I latched them mistrustfully to the tunnel upright, a beautiful thick post reinforced with a metal bar for a hinge. It was set solidly into concrete top and bottom, a lovely great piece. 'Stay there,' I told it, 'and don't budge. Please.' For extras I made a couple of knots (well, eight, actually) around the opposite post in case. I'd previously examined every inch of rope a few hundred times, peering for flaws and hidden gaps. Now I did it again, rubbing it through my hands and feeling for any old razor blades or chewing insects I'd overlooked. It seemed all right but suddenly very thin. Had I put on weight? Thoughtlessly, I'd had a glass of milk, which now made me mad. I'd have been just as strong without, at least for a few hours, and I was bound to be heavier. How stupid to eat like a horse. My school science came rushing frantically to my aid. A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter. But it had only taken one bloody light-weight straw to break that biblical camel clean in two, and everybody knows how tough camels are. I tried spitting out to make myself lighter but my mouth was dry. I drew deep breaths to get rid of some water vapour from my soggy fluid-crammed lungs but only made myself so giddy I had to stop. I tried peeing, politely turning towards the vacant sea away from the sheep, but couldn't wring out a drop. I'd dried up. Maybe I was so dehydrated with fright I'd faint and fall, turning over and over, towards the…

'Now, Lovejoy,' I said. 'Be reasonable.'

How reasonable is it, I heard myself begin to answer back sharply, to dangle…? I moved quickly to the edge and found the double bush of heather I'd picked out as a marker. With luck I'd be directly over the iron pulpit. I slithered untidily down, clinging to the rope and babbling incoherently with fear. Not that I was really frightened, not too much. It's daft to let yourself get too scared. I shrieked with terror when the rock surface momentarily vanished underneath me. I hung in space staring upwards. The crest was only a few feet away. I seemed to have been going down for hours.

You mustn't look down. That's what they say. Then how the hell can you see where you're going? I had to. I forced my gaze along to my elbow, then made it leap the gap to the wall of rock. It travelled down on its own from there. Down. Down. My belly seemed to leave me and vanish, falling. My legs prickled. The sea was green, so deep and green. Mad white rims poked and swirled. The concrete gums and iron teeth seemed actually to be moving, gnawing erratically at the sea's body and running white blood back into the ocean. But the most fearsome thing of all was the iron pulpit. It was only twenty or so feet from where I swung but its very oddness and its nearness set me moaning. The hole at the top was smaller than I'd imagined. The rest of the cage was disproportionately larger. Funny, that.

A lunatic wind whistled round the rocks from seaward, making me dangle a few degrees from the vertical. I should have looked to see how much rope I'd got. I tried to but couldn't. How long I hung there I don't know. What finally started me moving down again was a sudden spasm of fear. My hands were sweating. They might slip and set me falling, turning over and over, towards the… I edged down under my own weight inch by inch, thinking suddenly, Dear God, does sweat dissolve nylon? I might land down there in the iron pulpit, find the stuff and finish up trapped with half a ton of melted rope.

My moaning was interrupted by a scream. It was me. I looked down. The top curled iron staves of the cage had touched my foot. I found I'd curled up on the rope, my body balled as tight as possible in a spasm of reflex clutching. Stupid sod. I forced my reluctant leg out and crooked my foot around one bar. It seemed staunch enough. I pulled myself nearer. There was enough rope to reach. I could trail the end into the cage with me. Even if it came undone from inside the cage sooner or later it would flail within reach under this huthery wind. Hanging for dear life on to the line with my left hand, I grabbed at the pulpit with my right hand and held on to the lovely strong iron.

It's extraordinary how you want to keep curling up. I tried to bring the rope and my left hand nearer but only succeeded in clinging like a sloth to the cage's ironwork. Sweat poured down my face yet I was grinning with delight at all this success. Even the rope was miraculously behaving, having somehow looped itself over my shoulder. I needn't look any more. The worst part was straightening both legs and dropping into the cage.

I found I'd kept hold of the line, probably not trusting the concrete floor of the cage. It may sound daft but at least it's careful.

I examined the interior, avoiding the ghastly spectacle of the seal pen barriers directly below and trying not to hear the sea sounds sucking and gasping. Everything looked fairly solid. The metal was rusted but mostly intact and hard. I couldn't bend it or shift any of the palings. Cast iron, the old Bessemer process. The concrete only reinforced living rock, I saw, so the chances of the base giving way under my weight were virtually nil. It was exactly five feet wide. That was where my luck ended. The stone, concrete and ironware hadn't been displaced or touched since the whole thing was first made.

Bad news, Lovejoy.

Which left the recess. Presumably the tunnel ran to emerge somewhere back there. I examined the iron wartime doors first. Both were rusted in place. That's modern metal for you. Rubble had fallen from the walls and made it difficult for me to squeeze in. I could hear water trickling and dripping in the dank blackness. Would there be bats?

Peat. It stank of peat. Did peat give off fumes like those that gassed you in coal mines?

I had a pencil torch. But, I worried, are those little bulbs electrically insulated so they can't touch off an itchy explosive gas? Why the hell is all this never written on the bloody things? They always miss essential instructions off everything you buy nowadays. I was so angry I took the risk, cursing and swearing at manufacturers. No bang. The light showed me a brick-lined space about four feet wide. The start of the tunnel. The sea down below gave a louder shuffle which made my heart lurch. A few soldierly graffiti indicated the last time anyone had stood there. Dust covered the floor.

The tunnel's infall began a couple of paces from the iron doors.

It had probably been deserted after the war. Weather, perhaps mostly rain and seeping water, had weakened the tunnel walls. Bexon could never have beer, here. I edged back into the daylight, still pressing the surface with my foot as I went. No sun seemed to strike into the sea-washed cleft. You'd think they would have built the seal pen to catch a lot of sun, if only for yesteryear's holidaying spectators. Lord, what a day out it must have been. I'd have paid not to come. I wasn't unduly perturbed when I didn't see the rope exactly where I'd left it. Ropes hanging free swing about, especially in winds.

Actually I couldn't remember knotting it carefully on an iron upright but I'd worked it out. I'd soon catch it as it flicked past.

I looked about from the cage. The sea had risen somewhat but could never reach the pulpit. There was no sign of a tidal mark this high. Safe as houses. The trouble was I couldn't see the rope at all, flicking about or otherwise.

Oddly it didn't concern me much at first. It was probably caught up somewhere, maybe on a clump of heather or on a small scag of rock face. It had to get blown free sooner or later, hadn't it? Hadn't it?

'Lovejoy,' Rink was waving from across the crevasse.

I didn't answer immediately. All I could think of was rope.

'Yoo-hoo,' he called. Not a smile. That's the sort of character you get in antiques nowadays. No soul. He'd won hands down and not even the glimmer of a grin. He was alone.

'What?' It took me two goes to croak it out. It suddenly seemed a long way over there.

And back up the cliff. And down. It was a hell of a long way to everywhere. Bleeding hell.

'Find it?'

'No.'

'Then good luck, Lovejoy. That's all I can say. Good luck.'

'What do you mean?'

'You'll need it.'

He sat on the platform. The swine had a hamper. He took out some sandwiches and a flask. He seemed prepared for a long siege. It all seemed so exasperatingly strange at that moment. There was Rink, in his smart suit, noshing an elegant picnic breakfast.

And there was me, stuck in an iron pulpit like a caged fly in a gruesome grotto. His very appearance of normality was grotesque.

'I can climb out, Rink,' I managed to squeak after swallowing a few times.

'No, Lovejoy.' He was maddeningly calm. 'No. Look at the cliff.'

I'd already done that. I didn't need to do it again.

'Where's the rope?' I called lamely.

'Quite safe.' He poured a hot drink for himself. 'Don't try.'

In a panic I jumped and caught on the incomplete roof of the pulpit. Better to try climbing out now while I was fresh than after being trapped a whole day - week?

Something cracked sharply. The rocks nearby my left side spattered with ugly suddenness. My cheek ran warm. I dropped back. Rink was smiling now. He had a double-barrelled shot-gun.

'I won't run out of cartridges, Lovejoy,' he assured me.

'Bastard.'

'I'm only anxious to preserve your life.'

'Why?' I asked. Maybe Algernon had heard the gun and would come searching. But there were a lot of hunters after pigeons knocking about. I'd seen them about the middle of the island. One more shot wouldn't be noticed. Anyway I couldn't encourage Rink to keep on using that thing. It was a modern hammerless cartridge ejector, I saw with scorn, when you can still find brilliantly engraved antique hammer-locks of the early percussion period. They're even cheaper than good modern guns, the burke. He could have used a luscious Forsyth scent-bottle fulminate percussion weapon, damascus-barrelled and silver-engraved. What a slob. Honestly, some people, I thought. It really shows a typical low mentality.

'You'd better start, Lovejoy.'

'Start what?'

'Guessing.' He waved a sandwich at me. 'I can wait. Every guess you give will be painstakingly investigated, Lovejoy. If the box is where you say it is I'll return and drop your rope over.'

'And if not?'

Oh, you'll be allowed as many guesses as you like. Take your time.'

'How do I know you'll come back?'

He smiled again then. What worried me was that he wasn't sincere. It should have tipped me off but I suppose I was too scared right then. Oh, I know he'd been painstaking and finding me had cost him a quid or two. And he'd risked a hell of a lot, killing Dandy Jack like he did. But that spark was missing. I should have known. Every single genuine collector I've known is always on heat. Mention the Sutton Hoo gold-and-garnet Suffolk cape-clasps to a collector and his eyes glaze. He pants like a bulldog on bait. He quivers. There's music in his ears and stars glitter in his bloodshot eyes.

Your actual collector's a hot-blooded animal. Not Rink. I'll bet he did pure mathematics at school. I ought to have realized. Unfortunately I wasn't in a thinking mood.

I’ll shout for help,' I threatened. Some threat.

'I dare you. Ever seen lead shot ricochet?' He was right. One blast directly into my pulpit would mash me like a spud in a grinder.

'Don't talk with your mouth full,' I said. He took no notice, just sat noshing and gazing at the scenery. 'What if I don't guess at all?' I shouted over.

'I can wait. Day after day, Lovejoy. You'll die there.'

'And the knowledge dies with me, Rink.'

'Don't be illogical, Lovejoy. If you know,' he said reasonably, 'it's a consequence of your visit to where you are now. style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Or else, it stems from what's in the copy of Bexon's little books which you carry on your person. As soon as you're dead I shall come down and have access to both sources of information.'

'I don't have them any more.' Lying on principle.

'They're not at your bungalow,' he called. 'So you must have.'

'My bloke'll come searching soon.' Get that, actually threatening a maniac with Algernon. The cavalry.

'I've taken care of that.' He sounded as if he had, too.

'Er, you have?'

'I left them a note saying you'd gone home. Told them both to follow you as soon as possible, urgently.'

I’ll do a deal,' I called. He said nothing. 'Rink?'

'You're in no position to do any dealing, Lovejoy.'

'All right,' I said at last. 'I know where the stuff is.'

'Tell me.'

'No. I want… a guarantee.' That's a laugh, I thought, an antique dealer asking for a guarantee. A record. It'd make a good headline. Antique Dealer Demands Guarantee As Typhoon Grips Ocean…

'You're inventing, Lovejoy.' He was looking intently at me.

'I'm not. I do know. It's true.'

And all of a sudden it was.

I yelped aloud as if I'd been kicked, actually screamed and brought Rink to his feet. I knew exactly where Bexon had put the gold. I could take anybody there. Now. A place I'd never seen, but the precise spot there and I knew it almost down to the bloody inch.

I could see it in my mind's eye. The wheel. The water. The Roman coffin. Splashing water and the pompous lady of the sketch in her daft one-wheeled carriage. I was smiling, even, then chuckling, then laughing. What a lovely mind the old man must have had. How sad I'd never met him.

'I know!' I was laughing and applauding, actually clapping like a lunatic as if a great orchestra played. I laughed and cheered and jigged, banging my palms and taking bows. I bounced and shook my bars. 'The old bastard!' I bawled out ecstatically, laughing and letting the tears run down my face. I practically floated on air with joy. If I'd tried I could have flown up and landed running. 'The beautiful old bastard!' I roared louder still with delighted laughter. 'The old bugger's had us on all along!' And I was on the selfsame island, the very ground where the Roman Suetonius had landed, pouring his Gemini Legion on the Douglas strand. History was wrong. Bexon was right. The clever old sod.

'Where is it? Where?' Rink was on his feet, puce with rage.

'Get stuffed, Rink!' I screamed merrily, capering. 'It deserves me, not a frigging cold lizard like you, you -'

I’ll - ' He was raising the gun in a rage when he seemed to jerk his legs backwards.

Perhaps he slipped. He gave a rather surprised but muted call, not even a shout, and tumbled forwards. The shotgun clattered on the platform. I watched frozen as he moved out into the free air above the yawning seal pen and started to turn downwards.

It was a kind of formal progression. I can see him yet, gravely progressing in a curve, arms out and legs splayed as if to catch a wind. Only the scream told it wasn't as casual as all that. It began an instant before the body dropped tidily on to the iron stakes on the crumbling stone barrier. Rink seemed to move silently once or twice as if wanting to settle the iron more comfortably through his impaled trunk. An incoming wave began its whooshing rush at the inlet's horrible mouth. His limbs jerked once before the sea rushed over him. An arm moved slowly as if reaching into the trapped lagoon of the seal pen. The wave sighed back, stained dark. Oddly, it only became a deeper green from his blood. There was no red. I was staring at him some time. He must have been dead on impact, I guessed. What a terrible, horrendous word that is. Impact. There's nothing left once you've said a word like that is there? Impact. I was shivering from head to foot. Impact. I was violently sick inside the cage.

The worst of it was the sea kept moving him. It seemed as if he was alive still, trying to rearrange matters so as to make a slight improvement in the circumstances in which his corpse now unfortunately found itself. The start of a demented housekeeping in his new resting-place. I turned away and retched and retched. Lighter now, I thought wryly, maybe an easier climb.

'Lovejoy,' a pale shaky voice called. I could see nobody.

'Who is it?'

'It's Nichole. Are you safe?'

'Is there a rope up there?' A pause. Please don't let her have fainted or anything.

'Nichole?'

'Yes.' Her voice carried distantly down the cliff. I strained to see her. 'It's fastened to the wood.'

'Don't pull it off!' I howled in panic. 'Don't touch the fastening. Just chuck the free end over. And keep back from the edge.' I repeated the instructions time after time in a demented yell until I saw the rope come. I tugged it, swinging on it as a test. 'Does it look firm to you?' I shouted.

'Yes.' She didn't sound so sure. I swarmed up, holding the free rope between my feet like I'd seen circus climbers do to lessen the strain on my hands. It seemed an age but, knowing me, couldn't have been longer than a couple of millisecs.

I sprawled gasping on the rock at Nichole's feet. Why hadn't I noticed it had started raining? The poor lass was weeping but quite honestly my sympathy for others was a bit used up. I crawled away from the edge and rose shakily. We embraced, Nichole trembling and heartbroken and me quivering from relief and eagerness. It wasn't far to Bexon's hoard.

'I was so afraid,' Nichole said. 'You were so calm and brave. Edward was like a mad thing. He kept making me help.'

'Thanks for the rescue, love,' I said. I moved us further inland. Neither of us wanted to see the inlet and its seal pen ever again.

'Is… is Edward…?'

'Let's go straight home.' I comforted her as we walked towards the sheep. A group was watching. They looked so absolutely bloody calm. What right had they to be so unconcerned while I'd nearly snuffed it? I was furious and made them scatter with a sudden shout to teach them a lesson, the smug bastards. It was all right for them. They were safe in a field of their own.

'Don't we have to tell the authorities?' Nichole asked. 'Poor Edward.'

'In a minute,' I said. I’ll show you my bungalow first. It's in Groundle Glen. Not far. You can rest there. I've got something to do. I'll only be a few minutes.'

Janie and Algernon would be gone, Rink had said.

We got through the wire into the fold. The sheep had assembled on the landward side.

I avoided their accusing eyes as we made our way over the humped field and clambered down to the overgrown railway. Well, I thought defensively, they could at least have looked just a little bit anxious on my behalf. People are far too bloody complacent these days. Just let a sheep get into trouble and it expects shepherds, collie dogs, a wholesale search, the lot. Sheep have even got a parable to themselves, selfish swine.

'Look, love,' I said. 'About poor Edward.'

'He was obsessed with these fanciful stories,' she sniffed. 'He made me -'

'Yes, darling.' I explained how we'd better just go. People would assume it was some ghastly hunting accident. Nothing could be done for him now anyway. She took it really well. I said she was a brave lass.

Neither Nichole nor I looked back at the inlet, nor down into the water. We left the platform with Rink's gun and its open hamper. The seagulls would handle what was left.

I was still smouldering when we came within sight of the ruined terminus. I pointed out the bungalows across the valley from among the trees.

'See that one with the smoking chimney?' I said.

'Near the blue Lagonda?'

'Eh? Oh, er, yes.' Well, well. Janie was supposed to have gone chasing to the ferry.

'Anyhow, three roofs to your right. That's it.' I gave her the key. 'Wait there for me. I'll be back smartish.'

'Edward's car's there too,' she sniffed. 'We had the bungalow next to the shop place.'

Cunning old Edward.

'I'll not be long.' I saw her off where the footpath wound down from the railway. She kissed me. Twice she turned to wave. I watched her go. I didn't move until I saw her slight figure appear on the valley floor below. She walked out upon the wooden bridge and turned to wave again, shading her eyes at me. I waved and stayed put. She stepped on to the metalled road, heading up to the cluster of bungalows.

I ducked behind foliage and raced along the railway track.

You can't blame me, really. The law of treasure trove says firmly that the person finding precious archaeological stuff is entitled to the treasure's value. No messing about. So if you find another priceless miraculous dump of 'old pewter', as it was called, like that pop singer did at Water Newton - incidentally now the brilliant centrepiece of early Christian silver exhibitions the world over - you claim its market value. The coroner fixes the money for you with independent assessors. Naturally, you can't keep the actual trove itself. That usually gets stuck in the British Museum or somewhere. But you get the market value. Fair's fair. The trouble is that two equal finders are made to share equally by the nasty old coroner, who cruelly wouldn't trust Lovejoy to be reasonable.

After what I'd been through I deserved at least sixty per cent, I told myself as I hurtled through the undergrowth along the steep hillside. If not seventy. In fact, I was reasoning as I ran breathlessly by the ruined terminus and started down the steep stepped path towards the waterlogged forest floor and the clumps of palm trees, I really deserved it all.

There must have been torrential rain somewhere on the uplands. The river was in hectic spate. Even the lagoon water was swirling. I noticed that several of the small overgrown weed islands were partly submerged. The run was taking it out of me, probably the after effects of the climb and Edward Rink. I was astonished to realize blood was running down my face. My own blood. Then I remembered, just before fainting with fright, that he'd taken a shot at me. A rock chip had caught my face. It really had been a hard day.

I slowed to a jog along the narrow river path, then a walk. Finally I reached where the tributary beck trickled beneath its elegant bridge. I had to sit on a wayside stone for breath. Only now it was no trickle. It was a tumbling spouting cascade which had dropped an octave from an innocent lightweight chuckle to a deep threatening lusty boom. Spray watered ferns high above and the ornate bridge was quivering with the sustained impact of the falling water. God help fishes. I rested longer than I meant to.

I pushed on. It wouldn't be far. The steep valley narrowed sharply at the next bridge.

Despite the full daylight, now the water noise and the steep forested rock sides made the scene claustrophobic.

It was a real hiding-place for Druids on the run. Opposite the ruined wooden shelter that Betty Springer had said people used for parties I had to rest again. I panted and gazed at the vegetation. Algernon said the glen was famous for its celandines, bluebells and wind anemones, but like all flowers they're just basically different sorts of eccentric dandelions. Two days before he'd tried to show me a monstrosity called a bladderwort that ate insects, the maniac. I edged away from some long-stemmed red flowers and pressed on upstream. They looked full of appetite. The brick uprights of the causeway showed among the trees ahead. I crossed at the last bridge to keep to the main path.

The viaduct was gloomier and darker than ever. Janie and I had never gone all the way beneath. Now, the rush of the swollen river caused the path to be flooded by a nasty swark. The three races, parted for the giant columns of the overhead road, emitted as they ran a sustained bellow which echoed and intensified between the brick pillars.

Thoughtful Victorians had cobbled the path but forgotten a handrail. People were made of sterner stuff in those days, probably. I pushed sideways along the path on to the cobbles and stepped into the flooded bit. It was only a few inches deep this high above the river but still rushed with disquieting force against my ankles.

Beyond, the glen couldn't really be called a glen any more. There was very little space from wall to wall. It was more of a dark crevasse whose walls were encrusted with polished tubers of igneous rock mortared by ferns and lichen. Trees soared upwards, practically meeting in a great knitted entombing arch two hundred feet high. The path stayed beside the hoarse river, now demented by the addition of grey-black honed rocks. I plodded on, occasionally having to take hold of a tree branch for my weight where the path was either too overgrown or vanished completely. Algernon had told me they were beech, fir, birch, alder, willow. Their names sound all garden and tea-on-the-terrace, don't they, but down in Groundle Glen they were having a hell of a time of it.

They were twisted and scrabbling for toe-holds up the soaring valley walls. One had fallen here and there, slamming down into the river or lodging across the boulders. I was struggling breathlessly over a slain skinned trunk and thinking that some lunatics do this for fun and call it rambling, when I saw it, a few yards up ahead. I yelled out for joy, clawing up through the undergrowth towards the wheel.

If everything was twinned in Bexon's trail, what else for Big Izzie but a Little Izzie? And where else but long the very glen where he'd stayed? An old sick man just can't get far, especially with a digging job to do. I'm stupid, really slow.

Judging from the state of the old path nobody had been this far along for years at least.

The river rose to a natural series of bouldered waterfalls. And that exact point was where years ago Bexon had sited his little ornamental water-wheel, a beautiful simple copy of the original Lady Isabella. Her twin. If I'd had any sense I should have guessed: two identical diaries, two sketches, two nieces, but the carriage in the picture he'd chosen to copy had only one wheel. Find the missing thing and you're there. Stupid Lovejoy. I'd stayed in the same glen and never worked it out.

A decorative wooden millhouse stood amid engulfing greenery, maybe thirty feet tall. It was painted a crumbling black and white, typical Tudor in style, to offset the faded yellow of the wheel itself. Trust old Bexon to get the colours right this time. Guessing now where the path probably went, I hauled myself towards the millhouse breathless with excitement. My chest was suddenly tightly constricted, clamouring and clanging.

Warm and getting hotter. I stubbed my foot on a stone. Steps ran - lurched - upwards.

A rusty old handrail showed in the foliage, curving along the rock wall towards the millhouse. Of course. In those days the people were families on a day out. For safety there would be no way to the actual waterwheel except maybe for a man to work it. I clambered up the steps. The handrail looked pretty precarious so I kept away and tried pushing myself along the rock face among the honeysuckle and brambles. I smelled sweet but was gradually being shredded. The steps curved narrowly up between the incised valley wall and the millhouse planking, very similar to one bend of fairground helter-skelter, with the millhouse representing the tower and the steps the slide. It was about as steep. Twenty steps and I was almost on level with the roof.

The path was rimmed by railing from there and ran level but higher, perhaps to climb steadily along the glen to emerge eventually on the main sea road, but I couldn't see beyond a few feet because of the day-dusk of the overhanging rocks and the dense vegetation. The river was three feet below me where it started its torrential dash to the boulders. A wooden lock gate had once diverted the flow from the millwheel's blades.

Now the wood was rotten. The river split on a big pile, spraying a race against the wheel in a high bow wave. The wheel showed a gear on its millhouse side, maybe half the full wheel's diameter.

Where else but in the millhouse?

The walls seemed fairly substantial. I tested by pushing the planking carefully. Stable. I guessed the wheel to be about ten feet tall. If that gearing was still in working order the turning force of a millrace in this sort of spate would be colossal. Decorative, but dangerous. I'd have to be careful. There were no windows on this side but a diminutive platform projected over the waterfalls. Entrance therefore from below. I clambered down and peered up at the mill-house.

It's surprising how big things look when you're feeling vulnerable. The millhouse seemed supernaturally tall and thin. I could have sworn the wheel, clapped so firmly to its side and spurting the rushing water aside into an aerial jet to join the rest of the torrent, was no more than ten feet in diameter. From below it had grown. I was standing level with its lowermost blades. Only the merest trickle crept out from beneath, a testimony to the builders' skills. Stray trickles are wasted power, energy just chucked away. Even in decoration craftsmanship tells. I splashed the few yards through the muddied undergrowth. A wooden platform, crumbling, about chest height.

The millhouse's downstream aspect showed four turreted windows, two and two, not large enough to enter. I hauled myself on to the planking, making two give away instantly. I tumbled through on to the fetid mud beneath the platform. I was in a hell of a state and cursing worse than usual. But if the platform was fixed and I was the first to plunge through, then nothing could have been hidden beneath, correct? I was grinning like an ape, sweating in the dank air and almost bemused by the percussions of the booming river. This close, the falls were indescribably ugly. I've heard people go over in coracles for fun. They're welcome.

The platform creaked and spat splinters as I crept over it on hands and knees to spread my weight. A hinge, smugly veiled by its grime, was a foot from my face. Part of the wooden wall was crosscut, just as you see in stable half-doors. I found the finger hole after groping, and pulled. Naturally I fell beneath it as it tumbled out, but that's what comes of slow mental processes. Doors open, rotten doors fall outwards. The interior was a revolting mess of bird droppings and feathers. A set of wooden steps and a platform on the riverward side seemed more trustworthy than the outside planks, perhaps because they were protected from weathering. I crept up, jogging cautiously and waiting for the creaks to subside before trying the next step. The wheel was visible through a slit. I pulled at the edges. Rotten pieces came away in my hands. The whole structure was dicey. Only the gears were intact and they were practically perfect.

The wheel was a working model, connected through its gear to an internal cogwheel about four feet across. Every single depression had been packed by grease, lovely thick grease, and the cogs were as clean as the day the gears had been cast. A solid locking lever held the teeth. Carelessly I unslipped the chain peg to see what happened. The wheel gave a great scream as its gears clanked round. I yelped and almost went through the crumbling floor. The outside rushing noise lessened instantly as the water pushed the wheel blades.

I looked out. The great bow wave had gone from the waterfalls. Instead the millrace was busily turning the waterwheel, but nobody could get near the thing to examine it while it was heaving round. The great thing sounded alive, whining and groaning and sighing like that. It unnerved me. I leaned back. More wood came away. I judged the turning cogs exactly right and hauled the lever into place. The distressing human noises stopped and outside the bow wave spurted again. I'd rather have that going all the time than the horrid shrill whines from the wheel. I locked the lever firmly with its peg.

It was rigid enough without it, but accidents happen. One kick and the wheel'd be off again, so careful. I'd had enough risks to last the day out.

The bird droppings below showed no disturbance for years. Every sign in the whole narrow millhouse indicated somnolence with nothing moved or replaced. I glanced upwards into the roof beams. You could see the entire recess, even to the odd feather stuck to the ties. Take away roof and walls and floor, and that leaves what? I couldn't reach any of the windows but they too looked as untouched as the rest. There was no real door. I stayed where I was for a minute to work it out.

Yet somebody, a devoted old engineer weary with years and illness, had carried a heavy tin of grease - not to mention a Roman lead coffin - along the glen and restored the simple machinery to pristine state. He'd greased axles, levers, every cog. That alone was a labour of love, because the wheel must have required stopping and starting a few dozen times. It had been a nervy business for me. For him less so but at least as exhausting. I pulled at the platform. A piece of wood came away near the gear wheel's axle. Nothing hung there. And a Roman casket's no matchbox. It's not the sort of thing you can tuck in a spare corner. No ledges, no shelves. A hollow millhouse. The gears themselves?

I felt in my pockets. A comb, a pencil, a few coins. I scraped at the inner gear with a milled edge. Whatever the metal, it was solid and not gold. That only left the outside. I stuck my head out through the slit. Seen from out there, the whole world seemed full of surging waterfalls. The waterwheel was inches from my face. Despite the wind and spray I could see the millrace's surface where the wheel blades deflected the torrent. I noticed the water-run for the wheel. How clean the stone slabs were down there. How very, very clean.

Now, why leave the wheel stopped? Engineers say machines are always better used.

But it was locked. So the millrace channel obviously needed to be kept dry. Perhaps while somebody went down and removed a slab - one of those clean slabs - below? Or perhaps to show the way? If you risked a climb down the millrace while the wheel was turning you'd be squashed like a strawberry between two stones. Thoughtful old Bexon.

I pulled back in, ecstatic. My bell was clanging delightedly. That old chest feeling was still there even when I heard her shout.

'Lovejoy! She was below, but very close. 'Are you in there?'

'Yes. Stay there. I'm coming down.'

I’ll come in.'

'No need, love. The platform's unsafe.'

She came crawling in anyway. I reached the top of the wooden stair.

'Did you find them?' Nichole's eyes were shining unnaturally bright. She looked lovely.

'Why did you bring that bloody gun?' She must have been scared by the gloomy woods.

She was smiling impishly. One good thing, she was as out of breath as me. 'I came after you, Lovejoy. To help, in case you got hurt. Did you find them?'

'I've guessed. It's here. The millrace, behind the slabs.' I'd been first. The coroner would have to acknowledge that.

'Show me, darling.'

She hurried creaking up towards me. I yelped and tiptoed back. The struts couldn't take both our weights.

'For Gawd's sake style='font-style:normal; mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>!' I told her to go easy.

'Show me!'

'Not here, darling.' I smiled and reached a hand to her. She smiled up at me and pointed the twelve-bore.

'Yes. Here, darling.' There was something funny about her smile. Her eyes were brighter still.

'Eh?'

'Show me, Lovejoy.' It was her eyes. She wasn't making a polite request. I was being told.

'It isn't up here,' I said lamely. 'It's down in the millrace.'

'Where?'

'Have you loaded that?' I asked.

Her smile became a little less diseased. A trace of humour showed. 'Certainly.'

'Look, Nichole, love.' I'd have to treat her gently, if only for the wonky platform's sake.

'All this has upset you. Let's get outside. This place isn't safe.' I edged towards her.

'I ran over Dandy Jack,' she said brightly, all confidence. 'So don't think I'm chicken, Lovejoy. I'll pull this.'

'That sod Rink.' I quite understood. He was one of those sick cold people who impelled more normal people into lunacy. 'He forced you to do it. Never mind, love. He's gone.

We - you and me - can manage without the others now.' I pointed. 'It's hidden behind the pale slabs below the waterwheel.'

'Is it really there?' She peered timidly out. So help me, I actually steadied her by holding her elbow.

'For certain,' I told her, smiling. 'Can't you hear the lovely radiance?'

'Why!' she exclaimed delightedly. 'So I can!'

She suddenly came back inside, staggering slightly as a board cracked and gave way, straightened up and shot me. What with the water noise, the sudden apocalyptic crack of the gun, the bewildering realization what had happened and being spun round by the force of the blow in my side, I was disorientated. I heard somebody screaming, not me for once, a high steady insane call. I was on the ground among the bird droppings and bleeding like a pig. I wondered why it didn't hurt. The rotten planking had given under the weight of us both. We'd been tilted different ways, me inside and Nichole out into the millrace. God Almighty, the millrace. My arm was stiff and bloody as well. Most of the shot had missed but I'd collected a hell of a lot of blast. She'd fallen through the rotten boardwalk. My arm was stinging. That smell was powder. Nichole. That was her screaming somewhere.

'Nichole!' I yelled, coming to. She screamed again. 'Hang on. I'm coming, love,' I shouted, coughing from the acrid fumes of the gun's explosion.

I hauled myself back up the steps. She wasn't there, but a great torn hole let the crazy view in, the still wheel, the hurling water and the tumbling drenched rocks rising abruptly above the falls.

'Please, Lovejoy!' she was screaming. 'Darling!'

'Hold on!' I called. 'Hold on!' The force of the gun and the rotten platform giving under us had thrust her back against the wall and it had simply fallen away. I spread myself on the platform as quickly as I could and slid towards the gap. She was lodged between the wheel and the stone slabs, head mercifully out of the onrush.

I'd have to risk my arm and shoulder under the wheel. I examined the locking lever, in case. It looked exactly as I'd replaced it. One careless nudge against the peg could edge the cogs into place and the entire bloody waterwheel would turn, sweeping Nichole down and crushing her against the sliprace stone slabs. And I'd go too.

'Please, Lovejoy!' She was moving, becoming frantic now, in worse danger of slipping further under the wheel.

'Hold on!' I screeched. 'Hold on!'

'I can't!' she gasped. Water was pushing against her head.

'You must! One second!' I yelled into the roar. 'Drop the bloody gun!' She was holding mechanically on to the gun, for God's sake. As if it was any use. I turned aside to see if there was anything for me to hang on to. Not a bloody thing. Nichole must have feared I was going away because she screamed.

'Lovejoy!'

'I'm still here, darling.' I turned back to reach into the flood for her arm. I couldn't lose her now, not when I'd everything in my grasp. As long as I kept my legs clear of style='mso-spacerun:yes'> the gears and that huge ominous lever. 'Lift yourself,' I bawled, getting a mouthful of the water. 'Now.'

'I - I didn't mean to.' She was babbling incoherently as our hands met. I pulled. Nichole started to come free of the water. I gasped at the exertion. My side was hurting now, but we were clinging firmer. I began to wriggle slowly back along the wooden platform.

'I didn't want to kill your birds, Lovejoy darling,' she gasped.

'What?' I yelled. Her relieved smiling face was an inch from mine. We were both practically submerged, me dangling upside down, hanging on, and her draped on the wheel in the funnelled mountain water. She still clutched the shotgun. As if I hadn't enough to lift.

'I knew you'd forgive me, darling,' she said breathlessly. I still held her in an embrace.

'And the bike was a silly joke.'

'You?' I shrieked.

'And I just had to push Edward…'

I was still pulling her up but now I stared in horror. She must have seen my eyes change. Her lips stripped back off her teeth. Even in that position she struggled to lift the gun at me, screeching hatred. Hatred at me, who practically loved her. And honest to God it was an accident but my hands slipped. Her fingers unlatched or slipped or something, I don't really know any more. I couldn't help it. Everything happened in a split-second blur. I swear it was beyond my control. My side suddenly gave out and my hand jerked away. It just happened. She slid back down screaming, wedging with a burbled shrill squeal into the millrace. She was howling dementedly with outrage. Her eyes glared up with pure hatred as she dragged the shotgun up against the force of the water. I removed my arm and edged frantically away from the wheel on to the crumbling platform. I swear my hand just slipped. Honest to God. And in the suddenness of her weight vanishing my flailing foot clanked the lever. Before I knew what was going on I heard the gears engage. It was a pure accident. Maybe I was trying to scrabble away from the coming blast of the shotgun. She gave one screech and the wheel lurched round. I heard it. Then there was only the moaning and whining sound of the big wheel's slow turning and turning. I lay there, gasping. The paddles had blood on, but only the first time round.

I'd had to roll over. She'd been lifting the gun at me again. You can see that. If she hadn't been trying to pull the trigger I'd have reached for her again. Accidents always happen when you're in a hurry. Everybody knows that.

I don't know how long it was before I dared look out. She was crushed beneath the wheel, her corpse deformed and mangled on the rocks and washed quite free of blood.

The recesses between the boulders were covered with dark brown discs. I edged along the planking. The turning wheel had used Nichole to scrape the slab covering off the bed of the millrace. There were hundreds down on the river bed. I'd been right. Bexon had walled the lead coffin, now lying crumpled and exposed in the water, behind the millrace.

I could see Nichole's waxen head in the clear water. It took me an age to work up courage to lock the wheel again. Honestly, hand on my heart, it was accidental.

But as I climbed painfully down pity was alien to me. At that instant it was utterly unknowable. Her arm swayed like the limb of some obscene reptile as I splashed into the water below the waterfall. My side oozed blood.

I stood knee-deep in the millrace, the onrush thrusting against my legs. Looking around it became obvious most of the fortune was in copper and the occasional silver coins. I didn't blame Bexon, picking out the golds like he had and putting them in the Castle for bait. It was exactly the sort of thing I would have done. Anyway, the Romans considered copper the mediocre twin of gold itself. There was a small crusted bronze statue, a she-wolf suckling two infants.

I caught a glimpse of one dulled yellow. Her palm was tilted in the water, exposing a Roman gold between two fingers. I took it carefully from her.

'Hold them by the edge,' I said. I keep telling people this but they take no notice.

I thought of saying something else to her submerged face through the rippling water layer, but finally didn't speak.