Page 89 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
Before Mia could say anything else, her phone began to ring. ‘Oh, sorry!’ She glanced at the screen. ‘It’s the office. They’re probably drowning in rescheduling viewings with the causeway still shut.’
She gave them both an apologetic smile. ‘Feel free to explore. I’ll just take this quickly.’ She walked to the far end of the room, near the sofa, lifting her voice slightly as she answered the call.
The moment she stepped away, Pippa slid her hand over the carved numbers again.
‘This,’ she whispered, ‘is incredible.’
Theo nodded, eyes shining. ‘I agree. It’s honestly the closest thing to a time capsule we’ll ever find. Everything is still here. Their notes. Their mistakes. Their measurements.’
‘And look…’ Pippa pointed to another engraving, a tiny gear outline someone had carved as a quick sketch. ‘That’s definitely Walter’s style. You can tell from the shaping.’
Theo leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘They all worked here together. Side by side. You’ve got excitement written all over your face. Are you actually considering buying it?’
‘You know me so well. I mean… this would be the perfect space to restore clocks. The light, the quiet… the history. I’d get so much done down here, and there’s something so special about this island.’
‘What about your father? What about leaving him behind?’
That thought had already crossed Pippa’s mind. ‘Rob’s flat was an hour away from my dad, so it’s not as though he’s just around the corner from me even now, and I think he would love to spend his summers here… when it’s not raining!’ she declared.
Theo turned to her, smiling. ‘This place would suit you.’
‘It really would,’ she said, feeling a little dreamy. ‘I have enough for the deposit and I could secure this place before anyone else gets a chance to view it.’ She looked around and walked to the end of the desk. She felt strangely at home here.
Together they leaned over the carved wood again, quietly buzzing with the thrill of discovery, while Mia’s voice drifted faintly from the far side of the room. ‘He wants it removed? How is it possible he wasn’t aware the slab of wood had been saved?’
Pippa raised her eyebrows at Theo, but Theo wasn’t looking in her direction. ‘Pippa,’ he whispered. ‘Look at this.’
He was staring at the very end of the old workbench-desk.
She stepped beside him. At the edge of the wood, almost hidden in a dip worn smooth over decades, something was scratched into the surface. Rough. Uneven. Done in a hurry.
NOT ME. H.V. 29/07
‘H.V.… Horace Vale? Is that a date?’
Theo didn’t answer straightaway. He leaned closer, running the tip of his finger gently along the letters, as if feeling the angle of each cut. ‘Looks like it.’ Then he nodded slowly, taking a sideward glance towards Mia, who was wrapping up the call.
‘That’s Wetherby’s hand.’
She blinked. ‘How can you tell?’
‘The cuts,’ he said quietly. ‘Wetherby carved his practice plates with the same slanted diagonal strokes. Grandad kept some of them in a workshop box. The angle and the pressure… it’s the same. I’d recognise it anywhere. I was fascinated by them.’
Pippa’s stomach flipped. ‘So you think Andrew Wetherby carved this?’
Theo nodded. ‘It seems like he was trying to tell us something, but what?’
‘Sorry about that,’ Mia interrupted their conversation. ‘That took longer than I thought.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes, we’ve got an influx of people trying to arrange viewings for this place as soon as that causeway opens, and…’ She looked towards the table. ‘Horace Vale apparently wants a section of this table, so if we agree a sale we need to take that into account.’
‘A section of this table? Why would Horace want to cut up this piece of history?’
‘Sentimental value, I suppose. Shall we go through to the bedrooms?’
Pippa nodded, though her brain had skidded off in a completely different direction. Sentimental value? Or an attempt to hide the truth? Maybe it meant nothing, but the thought kept nudging her. Because if Horace and Agatha were wrapped up in whatever Sebastian was suggesting, then Andrew Wetherby hadn’t just been unlucky; he’d been framed on purpose, and that sat uneasily in her stomach.
