He started off along the walkway. It swayed slightly underfoot. This, and a rope strung between timbers which provided the only handhold, reinforced the feeling of being aboard a ship. It grew darker as Tom got closer to the end of the roof of the nave and he had to stoop slightly to enter a short passage where the walkway finished. This time he emerged into a large white-walled chamber which, he realized, formed one of the floors of the tower. A loud click startled him until he saw its source was an arrangement of wheels and cogs and cords that stretched through holes in the ceiling to the next storey. Above him must be the bells of the cathedral clock.
Tom was about to give up his quest, wondering whether Fawkes and Eaves had eluded him and taken an altogether different path through or out of the building, when he heard a distinctly human sound from the staircase which led to the floor above. It was a shout of alarm or a loud curse — he could not decide which — muffled but also magnified by the twists and turns of the stone spiral. Not the sound of an elderly verger or a discreet keeper of the bells. Tom approached the staircase, which was contained within one of the four great columns that ran up the corners of the tower.
He wished he had some object with him which might be used as a weapon. Even an umbrella would have given him confidence. But he had nothing. He could have gone off to get assistance or at least waited for it to arrive: Helen must have reached the police house by now. He might have delayed at the bottom of the spiral stairs, to intercept whoever emerged. But suppose there was some other route down from the tower?
Tom, torn between retreating and advancing, couldn’t recall a time in his life when he’d so consciously put himself in danger. There was a killer up the tower, there was another man (with God knows what driving him) on his tail, and Tom behind them both.
He took the next set of stairs, passing an entrance to a second white-walled chamber which, a brief glance was enough to tell him, contained nothing except a set of bells, and so continued up an even narrower stone flight. He must nearing the top of the tower. He slowed, partly because his breath was running short, partly because he could hear voices.
He rounded a final twist in the spiral and his head came level with a floor which was of wood not stone. This was the topmost point of the tower and the base of the cathedral spire. If Tom had looked up he would have seen a central wooden column from which sprang a branch-like jumble of scaffolding and small platforms, used for repairs to the inside or access to the outside of the spire. The column soared up straight as a tent-pole and as thick as the main-mast of a ship. Near it was a great treadmill-like wheel which must have once been used for hauling blocks of stone.
But Tom did not look up to where the inside of the spire disappeared into dizzying darkness. Instead his eyes were fixed on the two men who stood facing each other a few strides away from the place at which his head protruded above floor level. It was Eaves the gardener and Fawkes the coachman. They were panting, both of them, and glaring at one another. Luckily for Tom, they were so busy breathing and glaring that they were quite unaware of him.
Fawkes was holding something in his hand. It might have been a knife. Tom could not tell since the light was poor up here. But, as if conscious that he was playing to an audience, Eaves said when he’d recovered his breath, ‘You won’t do much harm with that, Seth. It’s only a trowel.’
‘I grabbed it from your store,’ said Fawkes. ‘It’s got a pointy tip. You come near and try it, Adam.’
‘It’s not the pointy tip, Seth, it’s the mind behind it that counts. The mind and the will. Have you killed a man before? Have you?’
The silence from the other was answer enough.
I have,’ said Adam Eaves. ‘
‘I know. You killed my master Percy Slater. I was there.’
‘Poor old Percy Slater. Well, he shouldn’t have come out the house at that inconvenient moment.’
‘And you did for his brother too, didn’t you, Adam?’
‘We’ve been through that already, Seth. You know it doesn’t mean much to me, this killing lark.’
This was a shocking confirmation to Tom Ansell as he stood below the topmost steps. He remained very still.
‘So I say to you, Seth, that if I can deal with the two Slater brothers just like that — ’ and here the gardener snapped his fingers — ‘then I can deal with my own brother.’
Brothers? Eaves and Fawkes, brothers? Tom remembered that there been something faintly familiar about Fawkes the first time he’d seen him. A likeness to Eaves?
‘I’ll keep you here, Adam,’ said Fawkes. ‘I’ll keep you here until justice comes. I will prevent your escape.’
‘Oh, bugger justice,’ said Eaves. ‘You mind what I said to you earlier. If I swing so will you.’
‘I’ll take my chance on that. I’ve had enough of you and your tricks.’
There was a pause as if this was an answer that Eaves wasn’t prepared for. Tom heard the wind whistling through gaps in the fabric of the spire. Then Eaves said to his brother, ‘I suppose you think there’s no way out of here ’cept down the stairs.’
‘There is not,’ said Fawkes, but he did not sound altogether confident.
‘Have you heard that tale, matey, of a sailor who was so glad when old King Charles came back to rule this happy isle and called in on Salisbury town, that he went and capered up the spire and did a handstand on the very top? Have you heard that tale of a sailor?’
‘You go capering up the spire then, Adam,’ said Fawkes, ‘and I’ll say goodbye to you when you’re on the way down.’
‘Or p’raps I’ll just caper in your direction instead.’
And at that, Adam Eaves did a queer kind of dance towards Seth Fawkes, who continued to hold out the implement — was it really a trowel? — in front of him. Tom involuntarily started up the steps until he was almost out in the open. And down below he heard, yes, the the thud of boots and the sounds of voices. Voices calling out — calling his name. ‘Tom!’ or ‘Mr Ansell!’
Eaves seemed to halt in midspring, at the sight of someone emerging from the staircase, perhaps at the sounds coming from below.
‘Up here!’ Tom yelled. ‘Here!’
The gardener changed direction and darted beyond the massive wheel that stood like some treadmill in a prison of nightmares. He fumbled at a door on that side of the spire, the southern aspect. But the door was locked or it stuck fast and he abandoned the attempt after a couple of seconds and scrabbled towards the western wall, on the opposite side to where Tom had appeared.
Meanwhile Seth Fawkes, who was slower than the other man and had started back in shock at Tom’s presence, now resumed his pursuit. There was a clanging sound and a sudden gust of air and a blaze of red light from the setting sun as Eaves managed to wrench open the west-facing door which, once released, slammed back on its hinges under the force of the wind. Tom scrambled and ducked his way through the jumble of beams and struts which occupied the central area of the base of the spire, ignoring bruised shins and a knock to his head. As he neared the door, the rectangle was darkened for an instant by a shape. It must be Fawkes, reaching the entrance before Tom, following his brother out into the open.
The sun was directly in Tom’s eyes. Standing on the threshold of the door, he was aware — without being able to see anything clearly — of a mighty stone spire and infinite acres of space above his head, of the cathedral roof and the grassy close and the fringes of the town below. Of the glint of the river beyond. Of a great orangered ball blurring a distant line of hills. No noises that he could hear, apart from the rushing of the wind. Then he took a deep breath, and stepped out on to the ledge which fronted this angle of the spire.