A second flight of shorter stairs rose to a broad trapdoor, once used for receiving supplies and the fuel required to maintain a large house. Most significantly, the room was lined with long metal cabinets, each labelled chronologically. It was the SPR archive.
Mark wasted no time and began hauling open drawers, his thick fingers soon flicking through the folders inside. He held the butt of the torch handle between his teeth.
‘Look here,’ Seb said, shining his torch at the floor around two tables. The surfaces immediately struck Seb as too bright.
‘What?’ Mark asked, without even looking over his shoulder.
‘The floor.’ It was tracked with scuffs that hadn’t been recoated in dust. The surfaces of the two tables were definitely cleaner than they should have been too. One was cluttered with stationery, biros and copier paper, some of it reasonably modern and still in place. ‘Someone has been in here, recently.’ More footprints became visible beneath the table. A track had also been worn through the dross, to and from the filing cabinets.
Mark rose from his knees, wincing. ‘Ewan?’
Seb nodded. ‘I think so. That bastard was in here.’
‘But look around,’ Mark said, smiling, and indicating the emptiness and signs of dereliction. ‘There is no SPR any more. Your mate got inside and took some files. And there’s far more than reports in these cabinets, Seb. That first one is full of accounts. Bank statements. Utility bills. Receipts. Masses of them going back decades. Evidence of a fully functioning business and household. It’s a treasure trove. It’s just bloody amazing! The explanation of how the organization was run must be inside this room.’ Mark returned to the cabinets.
The squeal of the drawer runners grated on Seb’s nerves. ‘All undisturbed, Mark, and for so long? How is that possible for a building of this size? No inheritance, will or probate? No further occupancy? I don’t buy it.’
From his rucksack, Seb removed half of the SPR files that Ewan had taken from this very room. He stacked them upon the table. From Mark’s rucksack, he removed the second half and placed them alongside. The action of returning the documents provided some relief, but it also felt pitifully insufficient, a mere gesture.
Beyond the archive room Seb inspected the subterranean alcoves.
Each brick cubicle was filled with shadow or made grey where rays of sunlight struggled to enter through the dirt-encrusted windows near the ceiling. From what he could make out, the storage spaces were filled with paint tins, stacked garden furniture, some rusted tools, hundreds of empty wine bottles, and all of it coated in cobwebs and dust.
He also found a fire poker, unused light bulbs, an old pith helmet, rotting deck chairs, broken tennis racquets, mattresses soaked by water as if there had been a flood, an old iron cot and perambulator, the fabric mildewed and decomposing.
At the end of the concourse he came across a column of cardboard boxes that were sealed and not nearly as old and speckled as most of the surrounding materials in the basement. The boxes bore the stamp of a printer in Crewe.
Seb tore open the first box and pulled away the bubble-wrap. The container was filled with books. At least two dozen copies of the same book. Another two dozen copies were waiting inside the second box that he tore into. And this was a book written by an author that Seb knew fairly well, because that man was currently standing inside the SPR archive and noisily pulling open drawers.
Theophanic Mutations by Mark Fry, and what must have accounted for nigh on the entire print run of the sole edition of a rare and long-out-of-print paperback.
Confusion made Seb’s movements near frantic. ‘Mark?’ Seb held onto the stack of boxes to steady himself. ‘Mark?’
‘Seb. Seb. Seb,’ Mark called back, but in a suppressed, urgent, hissy voice.
Seb stepped out of the storage alcove and into Mark’s torch beam, directed down the corridor to locate Seb. He could see no more than a silhouette of Mark’s head.
‘We got company!’ Mark whispered forcefully.
‘What?’
‘Ssh! Outside.’
Seb moved to where Mark stood. ‘Just seen someone walk past that little window. Up there. Feet.’
‘Turn your bloody torch off, then,’ Seb said, as he killed his own light.
In silence and darkness, they listened to each other’s breathing.
‘A security guard?’ Seb eventually whispered, and from a hope that what Mark had seen was real and not something else.
‘No alarms, though. Nothing. Door wasn’t even locked. Didn’t look like a guard either. I saw a bit of skirt. Must have been a woman.’
‘It’s her! Come on.’
Seb made his way back up the stairs and into the passage behind the kitchen. Mark followed, but he took his time, as if he was more reluctant to leave the SPR hoard than afraid of what waited for them outside.
23
She Beckoned and I Followed