Carved in Stone: Monochrome Destiny Page 20

  Suddenly, Robyn’s ears were battered with a cracking, splintering noise. It bellowed out into the quiet as the big piece of plywood gave way and swung down, scraping across the front of the next board along.

  Her free hand, the one that had lain flat on the board to give her balance, was whipped aside. She lost her grip at the same time that the sound made her jump. Robyn’s right foot slipped off of the edge of the sarcophagus and almost simultaneously, her left fell from the gravestone. She fell backwards.

  Tensing on the way down, expecting pain, Robyn hit the ground squarely on her back. In a rapid exhalation she lost all her breath, leaving her lungs entirely deflated as her head thumped into the dry soil.

  Panicked, Robyn lay still, trying to entice her lungs to breathe in, but they wouldn’t. Her chest burned as she lay prone, but still the air wouldn’t come. Desperation had tears flowing.

  Finally, her diaphragm recovered from the shock and she sucked in huge lungful. The chilled air hit her lungs, hurting as she sucked it down. It was wonderful.

  Moving slowly, Robyn stretched to assess the damage and was pleased to find only mild aches. Slowly, she rolled over, before standing up. She had managed to fall onto the soft, long grass and had miraculously avoided all the gravestones and debris.

  Taking a deep breath to steady herself she looked up to the window.

  The board now hung at an angle. Held by only one screw, it had stopped swinging and come to rest at an angle over the other board. It looked precarious, but it wasn’t going to fall.

  The opening revealed half of an old leaded window. Plain glass, not stained, the window was made up of three vertical panels. By removing the plywood, Robyn had revealed the right hand panel and half of the middle one. The top half of the glass was perfect, each little diamond held in place by the strips of lead. In the bottom half of the right hand panel was a gaping hole. Glass was missing and the lead had been pushed aside.

  Robyn stared into the cavern beyond the hole and slowly realised that the angle of the lead meant that it had been pushed outwards. She needed to get inside.

  Putting the screwdriver back into her bag, she pulled out a torch, slung the bag over her shoulder and once again climbed the sarcophagus. This time, she crawled onto the windowsill to look inside.

  The torch beam cut through the darkness inside and lit up pews, hymn books and kneeler cushions. Eerily, it looked like the last sermon had finished and the church had been locked up and boarded without anything being removed at all. The floor directly under the window showed no sign of broken glass and neither did the pew beneath the window. The sill was also clean.

  Robyn put her hand through the hole and placed her palm down on the cold stone of the wide sill inside the church. It was wide enough to crawl inside.

  Before dropping down onto the pew below her, Robyn turned. She pulled the hanging board back into place to hide her entrance and entombed herself in the darkness.

  The church interior was just as she had expected. The altar, complete with brass cross, still had a material covering; the hymn choices were still on the wall; religious icons, including the statue of Jesus on his cross were displayed throughout the interior; the walls held memorial plaques and the dark pews faced the front, regimented either side of the aisle. There were even kneeler cushions still placed neatly underneath the seats and at the back of the church stood the font and a large oak door that led into the bell ringing chamber.

  Robyn played her light around and picked out particles of dancing dust in the beam. The church had obviously lain untouched for years and the exposed stone walls had provided a good source of dust; a thick layer covered everything. She could smell the musty scent of the dust mingled with the decaying material of the kneeler cushions and the hymn books, but there was nothing in her path, so she stepped forwards to the centre aisle.

  As she walked, she came to realise that something was missing. Pointing the beam of light to the floor, back the way she had come, and then up and down the aisle, she knew what it was. There was no thick layer of dust on the floor. She played the light over the floor opposite. The other pews were covered: dust on the pews, on the floor, on the books, on the cushions, on everything. From the window to the aisle however, there was only the faintest coating.

  The clean floor was like a path to follow. It took her to the aisle and then towards the front of the church. When the floor ahead was once again dusty, she stopped and looked down.

  Set into the floor, flush with the slabs, was a huge iron grate that had been cast in a lattice of tiny diamonds. Kneeling down, Robyn could see that the crisscross pattern of the grill covered an opening beneath the church. Shining the torch through the mesh, she could see steps: steps that were devoid of dust. Laying the torch on the floor, the beam angled across the grate so that she could see, Robyn hooked her fingers into the fretwork and tugged.

  The weight of the grill was monstrous. Using all of her strength, she couldn’t move it at all. She tried placing her feet squarely on the floor just behind the grate, and crouching down to get better leverage, but although she felt the grate lift the slightest distance, she couldn’t pull it further and had to let it fall back into place.

  Breathing heavily from the exertion, Robyn picked up her torch and looked around.

  Towards the back of the church there were more pews, but little else. Robyn headed to the front, intent on finding something to help her prise the grate open. There were wooden flag poles on the wall and wooden candlesticks on the altar which would do little good, but she did find a tall, cast iron, candelabra and a long handled iron candle snuffer.

  Dragging her discoveries to the grate, Robyn fished out a claw hammer from her bag. Using the sharp claws to get into the gap between the grate and its stone surround, she began to lever the grate up. She managed to lift it enough to thrust the candle snuffer handle underneath before letting the pressure on the hammer go and sitting back to catch her breath. Once recovered, she used the long handle of the candle snuffer to further lever the grate up. Metal screeched on metal and the handle bent, threatening to break but she persevered. The noise echoed off of the interior walls; like the church was howling at her to desist from this unwelcome intrusion, but she would not stop.

  Eventually, she raised the grill out of its frame by an inch and slid one of the feet from the more substantial candelabra underneath it.

  With the thicker, stronger candelabra, Robyn raised the grate enough to slide it to the side leaving a three inch gap. She then braced her back against a pew and managed to shove the grate aside with her feet. The gap was wide enough for her to access the interior.

  Excited and apprehensive, Robyn grabbed her torch and bag and twisted through the gap to descend into the stygian darkness below.

  The musty smell that had filled the church changed immediately, becoming damper as an essence of mould and mildew hung in the undisturbed air. Robyn checked her footing and let the white beam of the torch light her way as she carefully descended further.

  Above her, the roof arched beautifully, if not a little low and at the end of the tunnel like stairway, the space opened up into a room. Robyn had entered a crypt underneath the church. It was small, square, with smooth walls and a vaulted ceiling. There was an old oak door at one end and a wooden piece of furniture leant against the wall on the left. It looked like an old pulpit. In the centre of the small room, the largest and most prominent feature was a stone coffin.

  Relatively featureless, the top of the coffin had a smooth and slightly rounded, lid. It looked as if it had been built there.

  Circling the coffin, looking for the familiar symbols, Robyn stumbled on something attached to the uneven flagstone floor. Her hands shot out to steady herself, finding the cold stone of the coffin, but she lost her grip on the torch. It clattered against the floor and sent a beam of light dancing around the small confines before it came to a standstill by the wooden door.

  Cursing herself before crouching to pick up the light, R
obyn noticed two things. The first was a noise. With her ear close to the wood of the door, she could hear a familiar sound from the other side, a sound that was out of place. The second was a glinting in the light of the torch. Something was underneath the old wooden podium.

  Spellbound, Robyn crawled forwards. She couldn’t make out what the object was as it lay against the cold stone wall, right underneath the wooden structure and she had no choice but to lie flat on the floor and thrust her arm into the small space to reach it. Curling her fingers over her find, Robyn pulled it out into the light.

  Robyn stared at the highly polished steel in her hand. The object had a shaft about ten centimetres long that was hollow and what appeared to be a handle at one end but the shaft protruded a little and it would be difficult to hold. It was in the shape of a cross, but she was certain that it was not a religious artefact. Aware that time was precious, she put the object in her bag and turned to the door.

  Reaching out tentatively, Robyn twisted the simple iron latch and to her surprise found that the door opened. Pushing it outwards, she shone the torch out into the darkness of a tunnel. The sound that she had heard earlier was now louder and unmistakable. She stepped into the tunnel with its smooth stone walls and arched ceiling. Walking through the passageway, she observed the walls change from smooth stone to ragged rock, and the floor go from flagstone to sand. The noise ahead grew louder and she knew, without a doubt, that it was water. Not just any water, it was the sea. The sound was the waves rolling up the beach.

  Robyn was in the cave that she had first seen the day Andrew had taken her back to his house from the church.

  Retracing her steps, eager to take her find and get out, Robyn came back to the door and noticed that although there had been no sign of any locking mechanism on the inside, there was a large bolt on the outside. Grateful that it had not been locked, she stepped through, closing the door behind her. She must not leave behind any trace of her presence.

  She made quick work of getting back up through the grate and sliding the great thing back into its frame. It made an almighty clanging sound as it dropped. Robyn hoped that there was no-one outside to hear it. Hastily she replaced the candle snuffer and candelabra and scuffed over her footprints in the dust. When she got to the window and stood on the pew to give her enough height to get back onto the windowsill, she carefully eased the board aside and found that she was still alone.

  Slipping out, she replaced the board and screwed the two bottom screws into place. The top one was just too high to replace quickly so she left it.

  Shoving the screwdriver back into her bag, Robyn brushed herself down and headed back into the trees and onto the path home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The drive to the Peninsula Medical School was appalling. The storm had come in late last night and showed no sign of relenting as high winds blew a deluge across the southwest. There was a weather warning out with advice to not drive unless absolutely necessary. Robyn’s journey was necessary.

  She’d spent the previous evening searching the internet in the hope of discovering what the strange object from the church was. Her futile search had gotten her nowhere, except for the suspicion that the machined precision of the item was too similar to medical implements to be disregarded.

  An early phone call to Dr Jenkins, a lecturer at the medical school and a physician, had gotten her an invitation to come straight over. He was marking work today, before heading for warmer climes for the duration of the Easter break. If Robyn wanted his opinion, she needed to get it today or wait for another three weeks.

  The medical school was a relatively new venture, jointly controlled by the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter and by the time she arrived, Robyn had driven for nearly two hours to get there. Dashing out into the rain, she hoped it was worth it.

  Dr Jenkins’ office was easy to find. He had given her precise directions to get through the various buildings on campus and she found herself knocking on his door only moments after running from the car.

  She was promptly answered with a, “Come in.”

  Dr Jenkins’ office was small, square and crammed. He had a wall of filing cabinets, a small desk and two chairs opposite his own. Plants overflowed his desk and on the walls, a record of family his life was proudly displayed alongside academic diplomas. He’d placed his desk to get the best view out, over the city, but today only dreary light flowed in, so his desk lamp blazed over the paperwork pile he sat marking.

  “Hello. You must be Robyn.” The doctor’s hair was greying and the lines on his face were pronounced. He wore small rectangular glasses and looked at Robyn through magnified lenses. He wore a neatly pressed shirt and his suit jacket had been carefully placed on a hook on the wall. Wiry in build, which accentuated the wrinkles in his skin, he looked every bit the experienced professional that he was. He smiled at Robyn earnestly and stood up to offer her his hand across the desk. “Do have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Dr Jenkins.” She took the chair directly opposite him. “It’s very nice of you to give me your time today.”

  “Oh, call me Geoff.” He sat back and relaxed. “What can I do for you? It sounded quite intriguing on the phone and I always like to help fellow educators.”

  On the phone, Robyn had told him that she had discovered the object at school during a clear out. It was a white lie, but she could hardly confess to the truth.

  “As I said on the phone, I found an object that I believe is medical but I cannot find out what it is or what it is for. I hope that you will be able to enlighten me. I cannot resist a puzzle and I wouldn’t like to throw away anything that might be important.” She lifted her handbag onto her lap and pulled out the object. She handed it to him.

  “Ah,” he turned the implement over in his hands. “Quite specialised equipment, where did you say you found it?”

  “At school,” she lied confidently. The story well practised during the drive over. “The technicians and I were having a clear out and I found this at the back of a cupboard.”

  “Odd place to find one, but there you go.” He pondered to himself then looked up at Robyn. “Yes I know what this is.”

  She leaned forwards expectantly, waiting for the eureka moment, her hands tightening on the straps of her bag.

  “It’s part of a harvesting needle,” he said with absolute certainty.

  Robyn had no idea what that meant and it must have showed on her face. Dr Jenkins laughed and continued.

  “It’s part of a hollow needle that is used to harvest bone marrow. There should be a needle that goes in here.” He pointed down the hollow shaft.

  Robyn looked puzzled so he continued.

  “As I am sure you are aware, bone marrow is harvested for transplant. It can be either the patient’s own marrow, harvested and stored before a treatment that is likely to affect their bone marrow in the long term, or it can be harvested from a donor.” Robyn nodded when he looked up. “The most common reason for transplant is cancer of the blood, leukaemia or lymphoma for instance, but there are other illnesses such as sickle cell anaemia, aplastic anaemia and thalassemia that can all benefit from a bone marrow transplant.”

  “They use this to get the marrow out of the bone?” She tried to hide the quiver in her voice. The object was huge. If the object was a needle, then it was the largest she had ever seen and she had a gory vision of it being jabbed into someone’s bones.

  “Not just any bone, the pelvis. There is a good quantity of bone marrow in the pelvis. The donor lies on their front and under anaesthetic this needle is inserted into the iliac crest of the pelvis, which is just about here.” He pointed to the back of his hip as he swivelling in his chair to let her see. “Once this needle is in place, a smaller needle is inserted through the shaft, here, and the bone marrow is drained into a syringe. The bone marrow taken is spongy, full of blood and stem cells and can be drawn out easily once the needle is inserted.”

  “Stem cells? I didn’t know that.” Stem cells wer
e the latest break-through in science. Their ability to turn into any kind of cell gave the scientific community great hope that they could be used to cure all kinds of diseases. From Robyn’s studies, or at least what she could remember of them, she knew that stem cells were found in foetuses, at the beginning of a life, when the ball of cells made from the fertilisation of an egg and sperm could become any of a number of specialised cells within the body. It was this fact that had become the focus of several campaigns against stem cell research. Legislation on ethical use of such materials had been introduced, but there was still concern about the origin of the foetuses used.

  “Yes, bone marrow is full of them.” The doctor stood up now. “The surgeon makes several insertions into the bone from each puncture wound to the skin. The skin is punctured about three times on each hip but there are many more puncture sites on the bone, you see?” He demonstrated by placing the steel apparatus on his hip them changing its angle. By changing the angle you could change the site of entry to the bone without the need to puncture the skin again. “When the harvest is complete they will have extracted about two quarts of bone marrow. The donor’s body will replace that amount in a few weeks. Although the procedure sounds horrifying, the donor only remains in hospital for one or two days and only has a few needle marks to show for it. There will be some discomfort of course, but nothing particularly nasty.”

  “So any needle fits in here?” She pointed over the table to the shaft.

  “No, this would have a specific needle with it. It’s an older version. The newer ones have plastic handles and are a more universal fit for needles. The new ones are disposable but this one could be sterilised and used over. I doubt anyone uses these any more though.” He sat down.

  Robyn stared at the needle in his hand and couldn’t work out why such an object would be where she had found it. He must have had the same thought.