Triskellion (11 page)

Rachel looked wide-eyed at her drink. “Is this … whisky?”

“Er, yes,” Commodore Wing said, as if noticing the fact for the first time. “What’s up? Don’t you drink the stuff?”

“Um, no … at least I haven’t tried it,” Rachel said.

“Be good for the shock,” the commodore said, taking a large gulp and swilling the whisky around like mouthwash.

Adam suddenly felt quite delighted that he was being
treated in such a grown-up way. He swirled the whisky round in the glass like a man of the world, holding it up to the light, thinking how nice it looked. Then, he tasted it. He took a large swig, just as the commodore had done. His first sensation was the taste of freshly dug earth, followed by the smell of old books. Something musty and old. Then the fire kicked in at the back of his throat and it was like the time he had tried to siphon petrol from a can in his dad’s garage and had swallowed a mouthful. Adam could no longer contain the liquid as the fumes shot up inside his nose and he spluttered, spraying a shower of whisky and spittle over himself and across the commodore’s carpet.

Rachel was mortified. Sensibly, she had only sniffed at her whisky deciding, wisely she now realized, against actually drinking it. “I am so sorry,” she gushed at the commodore.

“Not to worry. Merlin’ll lick it up. How old are you pair, by the way?”

“Fourteen,” Adam rasped, still wiping his lips. “I’m really sorry.”

“No, my fault.” The commodore knocked back the rest of his whisky. “I don’t really know what young people like, these days. Maybe we should find some tea instead. Come with me. The kitchen’s miles away…”

Rachel and Adam trotted after Commodore Wing, who marched off briskly despite his limp, out of the scruffy room and down another long corridor.

“Bit of a guided tour,” Commodore Wing said, betraying
no pleasure in giving Rachel and Adam such a treat. “Drawing room,” he said, as they entered a room far smarter than the one they had been in. The elegant, upright chairs looked to Rachel as if they were covered in silk, and old paintings of landscapes hung on each wall. “That little watercolour of the moor is supposed to be a Turner,” the commodore said, pointing at a little washy picture in the corner.

While Adam was dutifully showing an interest in what the commodore was pointing out, Rachel was drawn to the photographs on top of the piano in the corner of the room.

In a silver frame, a black and white photo showed the head and shoulders of a handsome young man. He looked like an old film star, with slicked-back dark hair and a uniform with a winged badge over the breast pocket. The roman nose and decisive jaw could only have belonged to the man who was in the room with them now. Next to it, another picture in a black frame showed a serious, good-looking young woman with a faraway stare, wearing a similar uniform. There was a colour photo of the commodore taken more recently, talking to a lady who looked like the queen. Rachel looked closer and saw that it
was
the queen.

There was one photo in a red leather frame that had apparently fallen over and lay face down. Rachel picked it up. The colour had faded and the photo looked as though it had been taken some time ago. It had been a sunny day, outside a grand building of some description, with the
commodore standing ramrod straight, hands behind his back, in a checked suit with a waistcoat. Next to him stood an aristocratic-looking young man with long hair and a beard, and a somewhat superior look on his face. He was making a “peace” sign at the camera. On the young man’s head was perched the kind of flat black hat that teachers wore in old pictures, and a cloak hung off his broad shoulders. Rachel thought it made him look like some kind of weird priest. She was captivated by the young man’s arrogant face. It seemed familiar to her, and she was transfixed by the challenge in his piercing stare.

“Who is this?” Rachel asked, waving the picture at the commodore.

“What?” The commodore spun round. “Oh, that. That’s my son, Hilary. Or, rather, was my son…”

Rachel felt as though she had put her foot in it. “Oh, I’m really sorry, is he…?”

“Oh no, he’s not dead. Nothing like that. I just don’t have much to do with him these days.” The commodore glanced down at the photograph. “He changed rather a lot after that.” The old man cleared his throat loudly and Rachel could have sworn that she saw his eyes moisten momentarily. Then he cleared his throat again.

“Tea,” he barked, and marched out of the room.

Rachel and Adam followed him down another passage into a dusty room, with wall to wall bookshelves crammed with leather-backed books. More books were piled on the
floor and a large brass telescope on a stand pointed out of the window. Glass cases held fragments of rock and fossil, and over a large mahogany desk covered in documents and maps, a striking oil portrait of the commodore in Air Force uniform kept watch over the room.

Adam was fascinated. Telescopes, maps, archaeological finds: this was the kind of room he
really
wanted a good look at. However, the commodore seemed to have no intention of letting him delve and continued on through the room, barking “study,” as he closed the door behind them.

The kitchen was down a further set of stairs towards the back of the house: a dark, cavernous room lined with cream tiles and with copper pans hanging from the ceiling. “Tea,” the commodore said again, as if he had run out of anything else to say. “It’s Mrs Vine’s afternoon off, I’m afraid, otherwise she’d make it.” He wandered off into a big pantry, muttering about teabags.

“Shall I put the kettle on?” Rachel called. She felt like she should try to be helpful and didn’t bother waiting for an answer. As water poured into the kettle from a spluttering tap over the sink, Rachel saw a wooden door that appeared to lead out into the back courtyard. She noticed that hanging from a rusty hook screwed deep into the wood was a large steel key.

Rachel put the kettle on the hob. She checked to see that Adam was looking elsewhere, and that the commodore was still busy in the pantry. Then, for reasons she did not
completely understand herself, she walked over, calmly took the key from the hook on the back of the door and dropped it into her pocket.

R
achel’s head throbbed with guilt at what she had just done, as she and Adam wheeled their newly repaired bikes down the long driveway away from Waverley Hall. Her knees felt weak as, over and over again, she examined her own motivation for taking the key and, again and again, drew a blank.

Adam was puzzled by Rachel’s mental turmoil, which he could almost feel himself, but had no clue as to its cause.

“Hey, there’s Gabriel,” Adam called out, breaking the mood momentarily. In the distance, half obscured by the railings at the main gate, Rachel could see the figure of Gabriel waiting for them near the entrance.

Rachel and Adam pushed their bikes past the huge iron gates of the hall and back out into the lane. Gabriel stood patiently on the other side of the road, as if not daring to step over the threshold of the estate.

It seemed as though he were not so much coming to meet them, as waiting for them to come to him.

Gabriel’s face betrayed no emotion. He looked neither pleased to see them, nor particularly angry that they had missed their appointment at the circle.

“I’m sorry we didn’t make it,” Rachel said. “We had an accident.”

“It’s OK,” Gabriel replied, turning and walking down the lane. Rachel and Adam followed.

“We were on our way up to the circle and we got knocked off our bikes…” Rachel said, trying to fill in the details. She wasn’t sure whether Gabriel was angry with them or not.

“And the commodore guy took us back to Waverley Hall,” Adam said, as if to endorse Rachel’s story.

Gabriel stopped suddenly in the middle of the lane and turned to look at them. “Did you get the key?” he asked. Rachel’s mouth opened wide as she gasped. A grin spread across Gabriel’s face.

“What key?” Adam said, looking confused. Then he saw the look on Rachel’s face. “What key, Rachel?”

Rachel delved deep in the pocket of her shorts and pulled out the large steel key she had taken half an hour earlier.

“You
stole
a key? From
him
?” Adam asked incredulously. He jerked his thumb back at the hall, imagining the heap of trouble that would be dumped on them should the commodore find out. “You must be…”

Rachel held up her hand to silence her brother, all the time fixing Gabriel with her eyes, remembering how she thought she had heard his voice through the train window.
How she had felt compelled to take the key from the door.

It was suddenly clear to her. “You’re like us,” she said.

Gabriel smiled his agreement.

“What do you mean, he’s like us?” Adam demanded. “He’s not American…”

“No, Adam,” Rachel said calmly. “He’s like you and me … you know how we can sometimes feel what the other one is thinking, influence each other’s thoughts?”

“That’s our secret,” Adam said, looking betrayed.

“No,” Rachel said. “He can do it too. Look at him. Can’t you see?”

Adam turned to Gabriel, his features twisted into an expression of defiance that barely masked the hurt.

“I’m a friend,” Adam heard Gabriel say, before he realized that Gabriel hadn’t said anything at all. That he had spoken to Adam just using his mind.

Adam looked at Rachel and she nodded; she had heard it too.

Gabriel held out his hand to Adam. Looking straight into Gabriel’s eyes, Adam took it, and, by shaking hands, accepted that the three of them shared a very special bond.

“Right,” Gabriel said. “What are you two doing later on?”

Supper seemed to take for ever as Granny Root doled out endless spoonfuls of shepherd’s pie, insisting that the twins detail the events of the afternoon. Adam splashed large dollops of the brown sauce from the bottle that had been put
out on the table on to his plate. The vinegary sauce seemed to make the pie taste much better. Actually made it taste of something.

Rachel patiently explained how Commodore Wing had narrowly missed them. How – Fred, was it? – had fixed their bikes. How the commodore had taken them to the hall in case they needed a doctor.

“Were you looking where you were going?” their grandmother asked.

Celia Root had implied, by her response, that the near collision had been their fault.

Adam immediately became defensive. “He was driving way too fast. He didn’t see us, then he shouted at us.”

“I think he was shocked, Adam,” Rachel said, defending the commodore’s instant reaction. By saying something positive, she had hoped to alleviate her own guilt for stealing the key. It didn’t work.

“Oh yes, dear,” Granny Root agreed. “Gerry Wing’s a sweetie underneath it all. He’s just very used to issuing commands to people. He’s been very good to me over the years. Of course he’s in a lot of pain with his leg…”

Of all the words that Rachel could think of to describe Commodore Wing, “sweetie” was not one of them. And neither was “Gerry”.

“So his leg … is it wooden?” Adam asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

His grandmother laughed out loud. “Wooden? He’s not a
pirate, darling. Of course not. I think it was metal when he first lost it. But now they make them very lifelike. Plastic, I think.”

Now that the subject had been broached, Rachel wanted more. “So how did he lose it, Gran?”

Celia took a deep breath, and for a split second Rachel saw a look pass over her grandmother’s face that could have been admiration, sympathy or something else.

“There was a terrible accident,” she said. “His wife died.”

Rachel suddenly saw the face of the handsome woman in the flyer’s uniform. The
black
frame on top of the piano.

“It was terribly sad,” Granny Root said thickly. She stared into the distance for a few moments before suddenly gathering the empty plates together, signalling the end of supper, and wheeling her chair away from them towards the sink.

Rachel threw a look at Adam, then got up to help.

They washed the dishes in silence and afterwards Granny Root trundled away to watch television. “It’s
Treasure Hunters
,” she called out from the sitting room. “I never miss it…”

Rachel and Adam politely joined their grandmother in front of the television. Rachel listened to the enthusiastic tones of the TV archaeologist as he tramped across a rainy British field: waving his arms about and explaining where the Romans had once been; looking out for ridges and dips in the landscape that gave him clues.

Adam seemed interested enough, listening intently as his
grandmother added her own commentary to the programme, but Rachel was unable to settle, or concentrate on the facts the presenter was outlining.

Butterflies of anticipation fluttered around her stomach as she stared at the screen. She knew, as soon as her grandmother went off to bed, that she would be looking for clues of her own.