Chapter 8: Butlers Surprising Revelation

Friday afternoon Lewis and Joey met up at afternoon break. Lewis ran through everything with him once more. Joey told him he was nervous but delighted at knowing it was all about to end.

After school, Gregg and Lewis met at the front gate. Lewis was carrying two holdalls, so Gregg took one off him. They arrived at Greggs and went in through the side gate which Gregg had left unlocked that morning.

Going down the garden, they went through the gate and along the path that Gregg had cut out. When he saw the pond for the first time Lewis was amazed.

‘It’s surprising that no one else has cut their way through to it,’ he said. ‘I agree with you, it does look far too even a shape to be a natural pond.’ Gregg uncovered his raft and Lewis opened one holdall showing a lot of six-millimetre blue rope.

‘The man from the cabin is away until seven pm today,’ Lewis told him. ‘Do you mind if I fit some large screw eyes into your raft?’ ‘No, go ahead.’ Gregg told him.

Lewis drilled a small pilot hole in the back end with his re-chargeable drill, screwed in a large strong eye, then took a coil of rope out of his bag. Fastening one end to the eye he put the coil of rope on the ground.

Then he drilled three holes across the front end, one in the middle and one as near to each side as he could. He screwed in three eyes. Then he attached another rope to the eye in the middle and put that coil of rope into the raft.

‘What I want you to do,’ he said, ‘Is to paddle over to the left-hand end of the balcony. Get out onto the balcony and then as I pull the raft back with this rope, he pointed to the one attached to the back, you pay out the rope at the front.’

‘Then when I get onto the raft, you pull me over.’ Gregg got onto the raft and pushed off. As he started paddling across the pond, Lewis paid out his rope. By the time Gregg reached the balcony, Lewis still had some rope left. He cut two six-foot lengths off it before he paid it out back up the path and tied the end to a tree.

Once Gregg waved to say he was ready, Lewis started pulling the raft back with his rope, coiling it carefully on the ground as he went. When the raft returned, he pulled it into the side. He tied the two six-foot lengths of rope to the two outside eyes at the front and left them lying on the raft. Then he sat down on the raft, picked up his other bag and sat still.

He waved to Gregg who pulled him over. When he reached the balcony, he passed his bag up to Gregg. Then he passed him the two six-foot ropes. ‘Tie these to the handrail about four feet apart,’ he instructed, ‘So that they are taught.’

Once Gregg had done so, he was able to stand up without the raft tipping over. He climbed up on the balcony with Gregg. ‘Those two ropes are in case we have to move anyone who isn’t as agile as us two,’ he told him.

They went to the patio doors and opened them. ‘Take your shoes off so we don’t leave any traces.’ Lewis said as he took his off. Once inside he opened his bag and took out a screwdriver.

Standing on the dining chair he switched off the fuse box main switch then unscrewed the cover. He was able to see clearly the main cable coming in which would still be live.

Well away from that he drilled a ten-millimetre hole in the back of the box where it was well clear of cables. He told Gregg to look out of the door. Then he kept drilling until the drill went through the box and the timber wall. ‘It’s through.’ Gregg called out.

They put their shoes back on and went out on the balcony. Lewis reached round the side of the cabin and knocked a nail in the wall. Then he hung the box out of his bag on it.

Taking the lead from it he gave the end to Gregg and told him to feed it in through the hole he had just drilled. Taking his shoes off and going back inside, he got up on the chair. As Gregg pushed the cable through, he guided it past the electric cables and pulled a few feet through.

‘Ok,’ he called, ‘You can come in now.’ Lewis stripped the end of the cable and bared the wires. Then taking a mini camera out of his bag which only had a five-millimetre diameter lens, he studied the exposed fuse box and its lid.

Picking a suitable spot, he drilled a five-millimetre hole in the cover. Mounting the camera in it, he stood up on the chair and connected the camera leads to the cable through the wall with a simple cable connector strip.

Wrapping all of his join up in insulation tape to be safe, he pushed the spare cable back out through the wall until he could refit the fuse box cover. Once in place he switched the power back on.

Replacing the chair where he had found it, Lewis switched the lights on and off to check the power was back on. After checking all was how they had found it, they stepped outside and closed the patio doors.

After putting their shoes back on, Lewis lifted the cable up as high as he could and secured it with a couple of nail-in cable clips, so it looked part of the construction. Once it was round the corner into the bag he had hung up, neatness didn’t matter. He felt it was safe enough to rely on no one coming out on the balcony. Even if they did, they were unlikely to go looking around the corner.

He switched the phone on in the bag, then signed in on his own phone. He showed Gregg the perfect picture of the bed and all around it on his phone. ‘We can leave it on now,’ he told him, ‘The extra battery in the box will keep the phone and the camera going for weeks.’

Before they left, Lewis tied the end of the rope at the front of the raft to one of the balcony legs just above the water. ‘I don’t anticipate any problem paddling over on Sunday,’ he told Gregg, ‘But just in case we need to be silent, we can now pull on the rope.’

Lewis returned first by pulling on the rear rope, then Gregg pulled the raft back with the front rope, hopped on and Lewis pulled him back.

They pulled it ashore and covered it with branches. The front rope over to the balcony was left just slack enough to sink below the surface of the water out of sight.

The time was half past six. ‘That was good going,’ Lewis said. ‘Thanks for your help.’ They sat down on the grass and Lewis said, ‘It’s possible that tomorrow I might need to send the boy over to you to look after for a few hours.’

‘If that happens, he will obviously see your raft. So, I suggest that you tell him you were sailing on the pond four Sundays ago. As you sailed past the cabin, you heard sounds of a boy crying out in pain.’

‘Because you weren’t sure if you were trespassing or not, you didn’t know what to do. So, you returned, concealed your raft and kept watch. When you saw the curtains drawn, you saw a boy with an older man talking to each other, so you assumed everything was ok.’

‘But then it started to worry you, and you kept wondering if you should have done more, so you came to see me. As a result of that he has now been saved. After all, if you hadn’t come to see me, no one would have known anything about it, and he’d be still suffering.’

‘If I need to send him over, I’ll text you,’ Lewis told him. ‘Otherwise, we’ll be going out the other way. If we do that, I’ll let you know later what happened.’

‘Thank you,’ Gregg told him. ‘I’m so glad it’s getting sorted.’ ‘We’ll arrange to meet up again soon.’ Lewis told him as they walked back up the garden. Gregg went in and Lewis cycled over to the police station.

As he came out of school earlier, heading for the front gate, Lewis had checked his phone. There was a message from the Super. ‘Hi Lewis, no rush but when you’re in the area ask the desk sergeant for the envelope that I’ve left for you.’ It was signed with a thumbs up.

Intrigued Lewis cycled over as soon as he left Greggs. Derek wasn’t on duty, but the sergeant was one who he had met once previously. ‘Hi, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I believe the Super has left an envelope for me.’ ‘Yes,’ he said reaching under his desk, ‘Are you Lewis or Danny?’ ‘I’m Lewis,’ he said smiling, ‘Danny’s away at university.’

As the Sergeant handed him his envelope he told him, ‘Theres’ one here for Danny too next time he’s home.’ Lewis thanked him and left. He cycled away, then on a quiet bit of road, pulled over and opened his envelope.