The materials had been winched to the roof and then humped downstairs to the laboratory floor, and there they had lain for two years, undisturbed by the drunken local caretaker until Conor arrived to find a key waiting for him in the talons of the pillar’s stone eagle.
Conor was not worried about the ghosts, indeed he was thankful for the legend as it kept the superstitious locals away. Once in a while a lad would bring his girl as far as the tower wall, so they could touch the clammy stones then run away squealing, but besides those minor intrusions he was left alone.
He was civil in the village, but did not invite friendship. He bought his supplies, paid with coin and went on his way. The locals were not sure what to make of the pale, blond young man living at Forlorn Point.
He walks like a fighter, some said. Always ready to draw that sabre of his.
Handsome but fierce, concluded the women.
One girl disagreed. Not fierce, she said. Haunted.
The innkeeper had chuckled. Well, if it’s haunted Mister Handsome-But-Fierce wants, he’s in the right place.
Conor’s living quarters were underneath the laboratory at ground level, but he did not spend much time down there, as the gloomy enclosure reminded him of his cell on Little Saltee. Victor had equipped it luxuriously with four-poster bed, bureau and chaise longue. There was even a toilet plumbed down to the ocean, but when the lights went out and the walls juddered with every wave crash, Conor was transported back to Little Saltee. Each morning he was woken by the booming cannon shot from the prison and one night he found himself almost unconsciously scratching some calculations into the wall with a sharp stone. It was difficult enough living in such proximity to home, he decided, without recreating his prison cell here on the mainland.
And so he slept on the roof, or, rather, what had been the roof, but was now an extra leveclass="underline" Victor’s pièce de résistance. Martello towers were constructed with completely flat roofs that could bear the weight of two cannon and the men to operate them. Victor had used this strength and flatness as a base for a powerful wind tunnel, driven by four steam-powered fans. For years, they had been forced to study the effects of wind over wing surfaces using a whirling arm device, but now lift, drag and relative air velocity could be accurately measured using the most powerful wind tunnel in the world. The device was unsophisticated, but effective. Twenty feet long and twenty-five feet square powered by a steam injection system that was capable of producing a flow velocity of sixty miles per hour.
With this tunnel, Conor had learned that many of his prison designs were flawed, and that many more showed promise. Four of his gliders made it past the model stage, and he was convinced that his engine-powered aeroplane would fly too, when he put it together.
There was another use for the wind tunnel. Conor used it to augment his launch from the tower roof. He would hitch himself up, spread his wings then duck obliquely into the wind stream, to be propelled into the sky as though shot from a cannon.
You are taking risks, Victor would have undoubtedly said. Leapfrogging over several steps in the scientific process. And your records are vague and often coded. What manner of scientist are you?
I am no more a scientist, Conor would have replied. I am an airborne thief.
That morning he sat on the roof, back resting against the wind tunnel’s planking, swaddled in a woollen blanket and eating from a can of beef. The rising sun cast a golden glow over the distant Saltee Islands, as though they were some kind of magical place. Mystical islands.
He thought of his parents and of Isabella, then in a fit of irritation sent his fork sparking across the stone roof and tramped down the stairs to the lower level.
I will sleep below and be reminded of my cell. I need strength of purpose.
Two days later, Conor had finished repairing the wind-tunnel planks and made the trip to Kilmore. He fancied a cooked meal, and to hear the voices of others even if they were not addressing him. It had come as something of a shock to him when he realized that his loneliness had intensified since escaping from prison. It was necessary for him to seek out the company of men for the sake of his own sanity.
It was market day in Kilmore and so the quay was lined with stalls, and for every stall a dozen beggars. There was great excitement over a humongous steam engine, painted green and red, which rumbled on metal wheels along the seafront, belching out great puffs of acrid smoke. A penny a ride.
Conor had a quick look at the engine, but quickly saw that there was nothing for him to learn here. This engine was twenty years old, a fairground workhorse, not at all the scientific marvel its owner claimed it to be.
He stepped inside the Wooden House, found himself a corner table and called for a bowl of stew.
Life was being lived in front of his eyes. He could see it and hear it and smell it. The scratch of elbows on tables, the knocking of wonky chairs. Sunlight through the pipe smoke. Yet there was a distance between him and the world. All he could feel was an intense irritation towards people in general. Everything upset him: the sound of chewing, the slurp of porter, the nasal whine of a drunkard’s breathing. He could make allowances for nothing.
I have forgotten how to be human. I am a beast.
Then Conor’s mood was lightened by music drifting through the tavern window, a gentle violin that rolled itself out like a fine carpet, playing overhead, riding the stale air and pipe smoke. It seemed to cut through the fog surrounding Conor’s heart, warming it with its melody.
I know that music, thought Conor. I have heard it before somewhere. But where?
The landlord arrived with his stew, a rich soup of beef and pork with vegetable chunks floating on the surface.
‘Generally I move the beggars on, young man,’ he remarked. ‘But this blind fella, the way he plays, reminds me of my childhood in the stables. Wonderful years.’ He wiped a tear away with a tattooed knuckle. ‘Onions in the stew,’ he blubbered, then moved on.
Conor worked on the stew, savouring its flavours and textures, enjoying the strangely familiar music.
I will throw a shilling to the musician as I leave, he decided. What is that tune?
The more Conor listened, the more the puzzle vexed him, and then suddenly everything became clear.
I have heard this music and I have read it. ‘This blind fella,’ the landlord said.
Conor dropped a brimming spoon halfway to his open mouth, rose from his chair as though in a daze, and barged his way through the fair-day crowd. Outside the sudden sunlight blinded him after the tavern’s smoky gloom.
Follow the music.
He ran on like a rat in thrall to the piper of Hamelin. To the side of the Wooden House, a small throng had gathered, swaying as one to a gentle adagio. A tall black-garbed figure at the crowd’s centre led the sway with the tip of his violin bow, lulling the listeners.
Conor stopped in his tracks, completely flabbergasted. He could not decide whether to laugh aloud or weep, eventually settling on a hybrid of the two.
The musician was, of course, Linus Wynter.
‘So, Billtoe did not lie. You actually were released?’
They sat at Conor’s table in the tavern, enjoying a glass of porter after their stew. Linus Wynter’s gangly limbs were too long for the furniture and he was forced to straighten his legs to fit them under the table. His crossed feet poked out the other end.
‘Released I was,’ he said, fiddling with pipe and tobacco pouch. ‘Though I fully expected to be released, if you see what I mean. Nicholas had signed the order before he died and it took a few days to reach the island. And as Marshall Bonvilain had not expressly forbidden it, out I slipped. Free as a bird.’ He rasped a match along the tabletop and played the flame over the pipe. ‘I doubt you slipped out so easily.’