“Success.” Sara appeared with Farrell in tow. She tossed the key to him and he caught it deftly by its attached piece of string.
Inside, a pile of freesheets and unopened mail greeted them. Dracup picked up the pile and began separating the post from the newspapers. To their left, a staircase led directly up from the tiny hallway. A smell of mothballs permeated the small space.
Sara was flicking the light switch. “Bit gloomy.” The bulb remained unlit. “I’m going up.”
The landing ran the length of the property and two rooms led off it to the front of the house, while at the far end the kitchen opened out to the right. A further staircase apparently led up to another floor. Sara, hands in jeans pockets, found an armchair in the living room and sat down. “It’s very quiet.” She shivered and rubbed her hands together. “And damp.”
“Darn cold, that’s for sure.” Farrell was by the curtains, looking out into the street.
“It may be worth lighting the boiler,” Dracup said tersely. “Come on. Let’s get started. I’ll take a look upstairs. You two can do the lounge and kitchen.” Dracup ascended the small wooden staircase to the top floor. There was a smell of musty linen, mothballs. On the second floor landing stood a grandfather clock, silent and cobwebbed. He quickly checked the two bedrooms, which revealed nothing but a chest of drawers in the first and a solitary iron bedstead in the second.
He took a deep breath, went back down the narrow staircase, retrieved the pile of letters and began to open each in turn. It seemed a futile exercise, but he knew that he daren’t leave anything to chance. The stakes were too high. He rubbed a bead of sweat away from his forehead and, tight-lipped, continued to slit open and discard his aunt’s correspondence.
Sara placed a hand gently on his arm. “I’ll start in this bureau.” She attempted to roll back the lid but it refused to budge. “Blast. Locked.”
“One moment, ma’am.” Farrell stepped forward and produced a set of keys. A moment later the desk was open.
“Thanks.” Sara began sifting through the various pigeonholes of the bureau. Farrell took up his position by the bay window and began a flat, tuneless hum.
Sara drummed on the bureau with her fingers. “You’re making me nervous, Farrell. I can’t concentrate. Sit down, can’t you?”
“I have to keep an eye on things, ma’am.” Farrell raised the corners of his mouth slightly and turned back to the window.
Dracup returned his attention to the letters, but his mind refused to cooperate. What if he had been in England? What if Natasha had been at home? What if Yvonne had answered the phone when he had called from the hotel? What if—
“Hey.” Sara sat on the arm of his chair. “She’ll be all right, Simon. It’ll be okay.” She squeezed his shoulder and withdrew her hand as Dracup gave a gasp of pain. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“It’s just bruising.” Dracup ran his hand through Sara’s hair. She was so beautiful. He wished he could share her optimism. He looked at the pile of letters and rubbed his eyes; a dull, throbbing headache was taking root in his temple. He pushed his chair back and took Sara’s hand in his. “I need to maintain focus. Keep occupied.”
“Well, there’s no shortage of material here. I’ve never seen so much packed into a bureau.” Sara waved a rubber-banded sheaf of papers. “Look at this lot.”
“Anything so far?”
“There’s some old photos — nothing unusual. It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”
“Let’s see.” Dracup took the bundle and quickly flicked through the photographs. “Yes. This is my grandfather — Theodore.” He held the photo up for inspection. The faded image showed a frail-looking man in his early thirties sitting in a chair by a garden pond. A young woman had a hand on his shoulder, smiling bravely for the camera although it was clear that all was not well with the sitting figure. He looked old before his time, hunched and defeated. “That’s my aunt standing next to him,” Dracup said. “This must have been at the old house — my grandfather’s — after he was institutionalized. She used to take him home at weekends. She felt it gave him some dignity. And she was sure that he felt at peace there.”
Sara took a long look at the photograph. “She has a kind face — a family trait, obviously.” She looked at Dracup and the photograph in turn.
“I don’t know about that,” Dracup said. “I can be very unpleasant when push comes to shove.”
“Usually when you’re hungry, I seem to remember,” Sara said. “Shall I slip down to the corner shop? And Farrell, make yourself useful — see if you can get a fire going. There must be a few logs in the garden — some coal in the bunker. Something tells me this is going to be a long haul.”
Farrell nodded. “Sure. I’ll walk you down when you’re ready. Leave the fire to me.” He left the room and they heard his footsteps on the stairs. The front door opened and closed.
“He’s driving me up the wall,” Sara said with a grimace. “Our all-American high school baseball star.”
Dracup raised his eyebrows. “I think he likes you, though… Anyway, I’m happy to have him around. We’re not the only ones interested in Theodore’s legacy.”
They settled around the small table. Dracup studied the American closely. How much did he know? He swallowed a mouthful of egg and opened with a general question. “Tell me, Farrell; are you up to speed with the 1920 expedition?”
“Yes sir. Mr Potzner has briefed me.”
“Surprised that the Ark was found?” Dracup kept his voice conversational and pleasant. Hopefully Farrell would come out with something useful.
Farrell finished his eggs and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. He looked at Dracup and Sara in turn. “Well, you know, sir; I was brought up in the Southern states. I was right there in Sunday school from way back. I remember the stories we used to hear about Noah and all. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, ’cause, you know, when you’re a kid, you kind of believe what the adults are telling you. There’s that trust that they’re telling you the truth. But when you get a little older, you begin to question it, you know what I mean?” He reached over and popped a can of coke.
Dracup nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“And then, I remember one weekend we had this visiting preacher come to our church. He spoke about the Ark and I remember thinking — wow, that’s not how I understood it at all before.”
“What was different?” Sara asked.
“Well, ma’am, he began by explaining the shape and size of this thing. People have kind of a funny notion that it was a little houseboat with giraffe poking their heads up an’ all. But it wasn’t like that. Not anyhow.”
Dracup’s curiosity was aroused, his cutlery idle on the plate.
Sara prodded him with a fork. “Eat. It’ll go cold.”
He resumed the meal automatically, waved his knife at Farrell. “Go on.”
“Yes sir. Well, I used to keep a notebook for all the sermons I heard — we were taught that in Sunday school. I looked it out the other day. The boat wasn’t shaped like a boat we would make today. It was a kind of box. The measurements given in the Old Testament, if interpreted as Egyptian cubits, would make the Ark 129 metres long, 21.5 metres wide and 12.9 metres high. This was pretty likely, the preacher said, because Moses — the author of the flood account — was educated in Egypt.” Farrell paused and grinned when he saw their faces. “I have a pretty good memory. Particularly for numbers.”