Chapter 2

A little later on my friend John turned up. John and I are not mates, in the sense that we socialise together, but he has been maintaining my vehicles for many years and I am always happy to take his advice about these things. Over the years we had become friends. I took him out to the garage and unveiled the collection of cars.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"I think you are a very lucky sod," he replied. "I've never seen a collection like this, and all original too. What are you going to do with them? How come they are here?"

"Well, they are here because whenever a family member died their possessions were just put into limbo. Just as well they didn't keep the ones that went before or I hate to think what we'd have. A collection of Crossley's and Clynos I should think, nothing very nice. Anyway, for a start I'd like to get them all running, if that is possible. As far as I know they were driven in here, but what condition they are in, batteries, tyres and so on, I've no idea."

"Have you got all the paperwork, logbooks and that kind of thing?" he asked.

"Oh yes," I replied. "Everything is completely in order. Do whatever is necessary, servicing and replacement bits as you think fit. Basically they stand in at no cost, and they've got to be worth more than the cost of tyres and whatever."

"Do you have any more space?" He asked.

I showed him the rest of the garage complex, which was rather more extensive than I had previously described. He was quite excited when he saw the inspection pit and a fair range of tools.

"I could do the work here, get me away from the boys," he said.

"Yes, that would be good," I replied. And we nattered for a while, me telling him about the whole thing, not for general circulation I reminded him, knowing that not a lot would remain secret.

"Tell you what," I said, "I'll arrange lunch while you have a look at them."

Sarah said that that would be fine and I decided to go down into the cellar and get John a bottle of 'house' wine to take home. I selected a bottle and then decided that I would use the secret passage to get back to the garage because it was quicker. Now, I don't know whether it is me, or whether everyone can trip over something that isn't there, but I opened the door to the passage, and then decided that since he still had the boys at home two bottles would be a good idea. So I went and picked up a second bottle, and as I returned to the opening I tripped over my own feet. I mean, clumsy or what? I cannoned into the back wall of the passage, determined not to drop the bottles, and lay slightly stunned for a second. I remember thinking that it was a good job that the wall was wood panelling and not brick or stone. And then I thought 'Why?'

Why had I not noticed before? Well, fairly obvious really, I had found a passage going in each direction and surely that was enough. I picked myself up, but there was, as ever, insufficient light to see anything. So I decided to carry on and have a look later.

I had a surreptitious tap around the kitchen floor as we wandered around waiting for lunch, getting in Sarah and Chrissie's way, but it all seemed very solid and I couldn't work out if there was anything underneath.

After lunch John left saying that he would be back in a day or two with batteries and whatever to get things underway with the cars. He had some old Haynes guides which would be helpful, and I suggested that we might get more from secondhand bookstores. I had purchased a much better portable work light as opposed to a torch after my first forays into the secret system, and I went off to the cellar with this. I wasn't at all sure whether I would find anything, or what it might be. First I carefully examined the back wall. If you recall, when I first found this entrance it looked like a cupboard, with two sides and a back, and it wasn't until you stood in it and closed the door that the cupboard sides swung away to reveal the passage to the garage and the one to the upstairs. When I thought about the cellar, which hadn't appeared on the plans, I realised that it was 'L' shaped and that this entrance was on the inside of the 'L'. There was a ninety degree bend in the passage to the garage and the steps to the ground floor were in a straight line. The passage formed the inside of the 'L'.That meant that if the cellar were really square, as the house above was, then beyond this panelling could be a very large room. It took me all of ten minutes to find the catch, and the panelling slid to either side in two halves. And I was confronted by a heavy iron door. I stared at it. What on earth could be behind it? And how was I going to open it? The second question was the easiest. By turning the handle. But in order to do that I had to unlock it. I knew, because the handle was the first thing I tried to turn, and it didn't. When the answer came it was so simple I almost couldn't believe it. The handle was strongly spring loaded, or possibly a bit rusty, but whatever, when you pushed it in, it turned, the bolts withdrew, and the door could be pushed inwards. It creaked and groaned as it opened.

I picked up the work light and shone it inside. The most obvious thing that could be revealed, was precisely what was revealed.

"Fuck-in-Hell! A bloody dungeon."

It was in fact more of a torture chamber, well not more off, that's exactly what it was. I stood by the door, because I just had this horrid feeling that the door might swing to and that would be the end of me, I have read Bram Stoker, and I am sure that's what would happen to one of his characters.

So, first things first, I recalled seeing a couple of fifty six pound weights in one of the outbuildings, heaven knows what they were doing there, but they were now going to come in handy. It's a funny old thing I mused on my way to the outbuildings, but I once knew a chap who saved all sorts of things. 'Might come in handy' he'd say. So we always called him the 'Might come in Handyman'. Ah well. I picked up the weights and staggered back. These were old industrial scale weights so they had handles, but by the time I got back my arms felt like they had grown so that I looked like a gorilla. Hopefully they'd go back. I put one weight to hold the door open, and the other so that it couldn't shut. Now I could look round.

The work light was pretty good, but I couldn't see that well. What I could see was amazing. The room was about thirty feet square and had originally been lit by oil lamps, which were still present on the walls. There was a large open fire place opposite the door, and I realized that this would be under the old flue from the kitchen. The most surprising thing was that the ceiling, and thus the kitchen floor, was reinforced concrete. This accounted for why I couldn't find any hollow sounds when tapping on the kitchen floor. I suppose that with Sway tower built around 1880 concrete would have been an avante garde material at the time, and very sound absorbing. Well, for whip cracks and screams anyway. There were four iron columns, rather like old gas street lamps giving support to the ceiling, which was nine or ten feet high, and these were set so that they effectively divided the room into nine squares.

So much for the room. The contents of the room, perhaps I should refer to it as a chamber as in torture chamber, were just amazing. There were shackles and restraints, chains, pulleys, ropes - they wouldn't be much good now - and a cage, and there was also something that looked rather like a cross of Lorraine, but with the large horizontal near the top and the smaller near the bottom. Clearly it was intended to have a body attached to it. All the equipment was hung on the walls or stored neatly.

I pulled the weights outside the door and closed it, and the wood panel doors. Went along the passages and up to the tower room. After this bizarre discovery I needed some time to think. But first, a careful examination of all the passages, because I really wasn't satisfied with what I had seen of the plans. To a certain extent they, the plans, represented what was 'on the ground' but I reckoned that it was very likely that things had been altered as the construction had proceeded. What I found as I tapped my way around the passages was that any branches had doors on them, rather like the access stairs to the first floor had a door. This meant that most of the rooms on the ground floor could be entered from the system, but I couldn't find any access to the first floor rooms. This meant that I could get into my study. Better and better. I decided that I would go and relax out of the way in the tower, and contemplate these discoveries.

Now, it may seem ridiculous, but we had found that the best way to communicate around the estate, and even in the house was by mobile phone. This, I realised, was how the ladies spread their news so fast. Unusually for this area there was a phone mast quite handy so we always had a good signal. So I was not surprised when my phone rang. It was Emma.

"Hi, how are you?" She asked. I moved to the telescope and trained it on her bedroom window.

"I'm good, where are you?"

"I'm in my bedroom, want to join me?" I could now see her.

"I'm already with you. You're wearing the lacy basque and stockings. Hah! But no knickers."

"You're guessing," she said, but sounded uncertain. "What am I doing now?"

"You're stroking that little pussy of yours." I said. And she was.

"I'm watching you, don't poke your tongue out, it's rude."

"You're up in the tower, aren't you? I've never been up there. Have you got binoculars?"

"Better, a telescope. Do you want to come here or do you want to come there."

She giggled. "I'd rather you came here."

And so Emma took my mind off things until it was time to go back for dinner.

That made up a pretty full Monday.

The next couple of days were hectic with many business things to attend to. I had to go to London, a place I hate with a passion, and so it was tired and a bit grumpy when I got back on Thursday evening in time for a late supper. HL filled me in on everything that had happened, or as much as she was going to divulge. Or perhaps there were things she hadn't caught up on, but I doubted that. Still, it was good to be home with good food, a comfy bed and a very sexually active gorgeous redhead.