Sapphire and Steel Read online

  ‘You know when you had this job on a ship?’ Rob began, curious.

  ‘What ship?’ Steel did not seem in the mood for questions as he turned back into the office doorway.

  ‘Sapphire said you had an assignment once, on a ship.’

  Steel halted in the office doorway. He glanced at Sapphire as she eased past him with some books and moved into the kitchen.

  ‘What happened?’ Rob was still anxious to know.

  ‘We sank the ship, for its own good,’ said Steel, indifferently. ‘So consider yourself lucky.’

  ‘Lucky?’ asked Rob.

  ‘Yes.’ Steel turned and walked back into the office, saying ‘It’s not as easy to sink a house.’

  Rob glanced at Sapphire, but Sapphire, with a slight smile on her face, had turned away with the books.

  Deciding that he would not ask any more questions if it meant that Steel might possibly make a fool out of him, Rob picked up the chair and half carried, half dragged it, across the kitchen, out into the hallway and then on to the cellar steps. But, when he returned to the kitchen, he found that he was still curious to know. And why not? He lived here. It affected him.

  ‘What was the trigger?’

  Sapphire looked up as Rob re-entered the kitchen.

  ‘Which trigger?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, when you said that Time had tried to break through, up in Helen’s room, you said there was a trigger, a final ingredient that made it happen.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, what was the trigger, the final ingredient, on that ship?’

  Sapphire was checking the contents of each book. ‘An out-of-date ship’s log,’ she said, without looking up from her work. ‘The captain had a weakness for nautical souvenirs.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rob wandered back to the office doorway. He could hear Steel clattering about inside the office and there were some more bits and pieces stacked in the doorway waiting to be shifted.

  Rob sighed, picked up a desk-lamp and a filing-tray and walked back across the kitchen. A thought occurred to him as he passed the busy-looking Sapphire.

  ‘Not so silly then, are they?’ he said as he walked to the door.

  ‘Who?’ Sapphire was still flicking through the pages of each book, checking the text and each illustration.

  Rob decided he would not make it a question this time. It was an observation. Anyway, he was tired of asking questions and being made to wait for the answers.

  ‘These things that are trying to break through the Time fabric.’ He eased the kitchen door open with his foot. ‘A ship’s log at sea. A nursery-rhyme in a child’s room. No, they’re not so silly.’ He began to ease himself and the objects through the gap of the open door. ‘Sounds to me as if those things know what they’re doing.’

  Sapphire looked up slowly from the books. Out in the hall, the cellar door clattered open as Rob pushed it and began to whistle his way down the cellar steps.

  Without him realising it, Rob’s observation had been dead on target. Steel saw the thoughtful look on Sapphire’s face as he came out through the office lobby.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’m not sure. Just something the boy said. It reminded me of something that you said earlier.’ Sapphire closed the last of the books. ‘When you spoke of methods being used.’

  It had taken almost three hours to clear the office, to free it from the many possible ingredients and triggers that might be hidden in the room. Rob thought that it looked more like a cell as he carried the very last item out into the kitchen. And he wondered what his father would think if he could see his office now.

  Sapphire and Steel were still in the empty office, so Rob tried his usual whistle accompaniment as he made his way down the stone steps and into the darkness of the cellar, where the whistling seemed to echo under the old brick and stone support arches.

  When he had climbed back up the cellar steps, Rob switched the light off and closed the cellar door with a certain amount of relief. Feeling tired after the hard work, he glanced at the nearest clock which, like all the others, was now working again, and saw that it was twenty-five to ten. He began walking back towards the kitchen when he heard the voice.

  ‘Ro-ob!’

  It called out to him, faintly. Rob stopped and turned and listened, not quite sure, at first, whether he had heard his name called or not.

  Then the faint voice called again. ‘Ro-ob!’

  Rob thought that he recognised it this time. It sounded like the voice of his mother. And it was calling from upstairs somewhere. Rob turned his head and looked up with a slight feeling of uncertainty. His first thought was to go and tell Sapphire and Steel. But then it was his own mother’s voice that he heard, if he had heard it. And she didn’t sound at all alarmed or concerned.

  He listened, but the voice had stopped. Rob glanced towards the kitchen, then turned and walked slowly along to the bottom of the dark stair. He placed his foot on the first step, then looked up at the stairs and listened.

  A moment or two passed. Nothing. Rob was about to turn back down the hallway.

  ‘Ro-ob!’

  He turned around again quickly. The voice had been faint but much clearer this time, As if it had been calling out to him quietly. But he was sure of one thing now. It was definitely his mother’s voice.

  Rob began to climb the stairs.

  Up at the top of the house, on the attic landing, the light remained switched off. But the darkness was lit, just slightly, by a faint glow that shimmered and danced around the edges of the closed attic bedroom door. Fine, thin pencil beams that flickered and reflected upon the strong wood that crisscrossed the sealed-up door.

  There was a creaking of the stairs from below as Rob climbed them, and at that, the glow went out from behind the attic room door, leaving the small landing in complete darkness.

  Rob was climbing the second flight of stairs which was lit by small, ornate wall-lamps. He reached the landing, and stopped. ‘Mum!’ he called, quietly. He listened but there was no reply. He tried again. ‘Mum!’

  ‘Up here, Rob.’

  Rob turned his head quickly to look. The quiet voice had come from the attic floor somewhere. His first thought, an impulsive one, was that she could be in danger. So he didn’t stop to think of Sapphire’s warning as he moved across to the cupboard-stair door and opened it.

  The attic stairs were in total darkness. So, too, was the landing above. Rob tried the light switch. It did not work. He opened the stair door wide and then saw that the staircase bulb had been taken. Probably by Steel.

  ‘Where are you, Mum?’ he called out to the dark landing above him. A moment or two passed, and then...

  ‘Up here, of course.’ The voice sounded much closer now. And Rob felt the choked glad tears in his throat. He ignored the darkness as he scrambled up the attic stairs.

  When he reached the top he peered around him in the darkness. There was no-one on the landing. And the only door was the one to the attic bedroom. Rob groped his way across the landing and reached out for the door. His hands touched the firm coarse slats of wood. The attic room was still securely boarded-up.

  It made no sense, Rob’s mind told him, and a sudden feeling of fear surged through him. ‘Mum?’ he called out, nervously.

  His mother’s voice came from behind the door of the sealed room. The voice sounded irritated, puzzled and exasperated. In fact, the right temperament for a home-loving parent who had found herself locked in a room.

  ‘Just what on earth is going on, Rob?’ the voice said.

  And Rob breathed out as the fear and tension lifted. It was right, it was normal, it was his mother. No-one else could say it like that. ‘Mum!’ he cried out. ‘Oh, Mum!’

  ‘Will you open this door at once, please?’ The voice demanded, impatiently.

  ‘Of course.’ And then Rob realised. ‘Oh, I forgot — it’s nailed up.’

  ‘Nailed up? What do you mean, nailed up? Just what have you been do
ing, Rob?’

  ‘Mum, look, let me explain...’

  ‘You can explain when I’m out of this room.’ Rob’s mother’s voice was angry now. ‘So just open the door, will you? Right now.’

  ‘I will, Mum. Honest.’ He decided that it was the wrong time to try to explain. ‘Just wait,’ he said, turning from the door. ‘I’ll fetch Steel and Sapphire.’

  ‘There’s no need to fetch them.’

  Rob was making his way back to the staircase when he realised just what had been said. It reached him like a kind of afterthought, causing the fear and uncertainty to flood back. He could not really understand it or explain it, even to himself. It was just that something seemed not quite right, seemed slightly off-centre.

  He turned slowly to face the door and asked, ‘How do you know them?’

  ‘Know who?’ the voice asked, innocently.

  ‘Sapphire and Steel. How can you possibly know them?’

  There was no answer for a moment or two, as if beyond the door, this problem was being worked out.

  Rob’s mother’s voice eventually spoke again. ‘Well, whoever they are — I don’t know — friends of yours, I suppose. I don’t exactly know them.’ Then, sharper, ‘Now please open this door.’

  Rob would never know why he walked slowly back to the dark doorway. It was not just the strict voice of his mother that made him. It was something else. Like the feeling of alarm and uncertainty, it was something that he could not quite understand and never would. It was as if he was drawn towards the door. As if the door and the room beyond it and whatever was in that room were his only concern. Nothing else mattered. And, strangely enough, not even his mother seemed to really matter. Only the door, this nailed and boarded door was important. That was his main objective.

  ‘But I can’t open the door without help,’ he found himself saying, as his body was willed towards the door.

  ‘Of course you can. It’s very simple.’ His mother’s voice had changed its approach. Now it was good-humoured and coaxing. ‘Just kneel down by the door, Rob. Just outside the door.’

  Rob knelt slowly down.

  ‘Close to the door,’ the voice insisted, as if it could see him through the wood-work. ‘Put your face close to the door.’

  Rob shuffled forward on his knees.

  ‘I mean, it’s easy enough to open the door,’ the voice continued to cajole him. ‘Easy enough to let us out.’

  Rob reached the door on his knees. He now found that he was pressing his face against the rough bars of wood. There was the smell of pine and his mind raced. It saw the wind-blown fencing and the piece that flew and cartwheeled along the road, and his father walking, dressed in heavy coat and boots, head-down against the wind.

  ‘That’s it, Rob. That’s it,’ the voice sounded pleased. ‘Now all you have to do is say a rhyme. A nursery-rhyme. Any one, it doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s old. Can you remember one?’

  Still confused, still kneeling at the door, Rob nodded his head. His face rubbed against the surface of the wood.

  ‘Then say it, Rob.’

  But, in Rob’s mixed-up mind there were not rhymes, only a few random words and fragmented pictures.

  The voice continued, coaxing, almost wheedling. ‘Because most nursery-rhymes are a part of history, Rob.’ The voice rambled on. ‘And I’ve always taught you that, haven’t I, Rob?’ Then, before Rob could answer. ‘So say the one that’s in your head. The one that’s in there now.’

  And, through the haziness of Rob’s mind, a rhyme appeared. It was crystal-clear and could well have been printed there in his head.

  ‘Think of the soldiers,’ chattered the voice. ‘Climbing stairs, swords in their hands. Searching for people.’ Then loud, like a shrill command. ‘Say it!’

  ‘Goosey, goosey gander...’ Rob began.

  ‘That’s the one,’ whispered the voice and the glow flickered faintly around the edge of the door.

  ‘Where shall I...?’

  ‘Whither shall I?’

  ‘Whither shall I wander...?’

  ‘That’s it,’ the voice whispered encouragingly.

  ‘Upstairs and downstairs...’ Rob stopped. He could hear the low, familiar rumbling sound. There were also other sounds. Heavy footsteps climbing the attic stairs. The jingle of metal.

  ‘All of it, Rob,’ pleaded the voice. ‘Say all of it.’

  Perhaps the room had gone too far. Or perhaps it had simply underestimated Rob. But something, some tiny scrap of spirit remained of his senses.

  Two cloaked and helmeted figures were climbing the stairs. Each one had a drawn sword in his hand. The glow pulsated around the edges of the door, highlighting the metal of the swords, breastplates, helmets and buckles.

  ‘All of it, Rob,’ begged the voice from the room. ‘Say it. Say the rest of the rhyme.’

  But that tiny fragment of spirit made Rob turn to look. The figures had reached the landing. They loomed high above him. They were dressed in the uniforms of Ironside troopers but, to Rob, they were hardly human. In the semi-darkness their figures were thin and gaunt, and their faces were skull-like under the visors of the helmets.

  The troopers strode across the floor towards Rob and the attic room door. They appeared to pass not just through him, but above him, as a train might pass over a camera that is set between railway lines. And, as they passed him, without once looking at him, Rob could smell oldness, the smell of another time.

  And the attic room door appeared to change in that fraction of a second that the troopers passed him. It was like an old-fashioned door in a cottage. One trooper flanked the door, the other raised his sword and began to break the door open.

  ‘No!’ shouted Rob loudly, as his mind cleared and his senses streamed back. He scrambled quickly to his feet and clambered down the attic stairs, as fast as the steep steps would allow.

  The moment Rob shouted, the troopers vanished and the boarded-up attic room door reappeared. But Rob, in his flight, had no time to see these things.

  Neither did he see the dancing glow of light as it moved downwards and became a solitary pool of light at the bottom of the door. The glow appeared to flare up, just briefly. It then died out, leaving only darkness behind the door. But a small patch of light seemed to have separated itself. It eased out from under the door and moved on to the landing. It then stopped.

  The patch of light was not very bright. Neither was it very large. About eight inches in diameter, it resembled the sun’s reflection from something like a small hand mirror. But this was more than a reflection. It stayed still on the landing for a moment, as Rob hurried down the stairs below. The patch of light then began to move, almost leisurely, across the landing. As it moved, it made a faint, rumbling, fabric sound. It reached the top of the attic stairs and proceeded to slide, like mercury might, over the ridge of the landing and on to the first step. It paused for a moment, as if listening, and its sound ceased.

  Then the very faint, almost imperceptible sound started up again as the patch of light began to descend the attic stairs.

  Chapter Eight

  Some of the clocks had stopped again. Those from the second landing upwards.

  The patch of light had found its way as far as the second landing. Once there, it had heard the voices from below and then hidden itself. It had moved to a corner of the landing, then slid beneath the drugget rug, which hid its pale luminous glow.

  By the time Steel, Sapphire and Rob had reached the second landing, all that seemed wrong were the clocks that had stopped on that particular floor.

  Steel crossed the landing, opened the cupboard-stair door and looked up into the darkness.

  ‘And it called to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob. ‘It called my name. Called me by my first name.’

  Steel moved back from the cupboard-stair. He had carried with him one of the small clocks from the kitchen. He glanced at the clock face. It was the correct time and the clock still worked even though those on the
landing were still.

  ‘I thought it was my mother at first.’ Rob told the businesslike Steel. ‘It was her voice. I mean, I wouldn’t have gone up there if it wasn’t her voice, now would I?’

  ‘Did you see her?’ asked Sapphire.

  Rob shook his head.

  ‘And these soldiers,’ Steel moved about the landing, studying the ceiling and the walls. ‘Did they come out from the attic room?’

  ‘No,’ said Rob. ‘They came up the stairs. Came from down here somewhere.’

  Steel looked at Sapphire. She moved to the cupboard-stair, looked at it, then began making what seemed like mental measurements of the landing area. ‘A visual refraction could have been let loose during that first breakthrough,’ was her first suggestion.

  Rob stared at her. ‘Visual refraction?’

  ‘You’d probably call them ghosts.’

  Before Rob could react, Steel had turned to him. ‘Did anything come out from the room?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure.’

  Steel walked to the cupboard-stair door and began to climb the stairs.

  ‘Anyway, it became a different door,’ he called after Steel. ‘So something could have got out. Those soldiers smashed the door.’

  Sapphire moved past him and followed Steel up the attic stairs. She stopped suddenly about three steps up.

  ‘There’s something,’ said Sapphire. ‘I’m not sure what. Just something here somewhere.’

  Steel moved back down the stairs. He held out the clock. Rob watched him as he moved it around in the air like some kind of geigercounter.

  Sapphire waited until Steel had made a careful study of the clock’s face. ‘It’s still working?’

  Steel nodded. ‘Yes. Except that it’s lost ten minutes.’

  ‘Since we came up these stairs?’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ Sapphire looked at the stairs. ‘If the images of the soldiers appeared about here...’

  ‘They did,’ Rob broke in, pointing to a spot two thirds of the way up the stairs. ‘That’s where I first saw them.’

  Moving up to the point on the stairs, Sapphire looked back at Steel. ‘Then that could account for it,’ she said, indicating the clock.