The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Sixteen - The Lighthouse

I felt I was getting on pretty well with the whole team leader thing at work. The only real problem was a girl called Bianca. Whenever I asked her to do anything, she explained that she had some work to do for Angus... and I suppose it would have been pretty convincing except that she couldn't hide a slight smirk when she said it. And, for some reason, Angus seemed to be playing along with her... as if he was taking pleasure in deliberately undermining my authority or something.

I mean... this was obviously all part of the much more complicated game that was going on between Angus and Daniel. And, luckily, through my lessons with Helen, I knew I had to pretend to ignore the way they were messing me about,

And, anyway, I was sure that Daniel had noticed what was going on.

"You need a change," he announced at dinner on a Thursday evening, a couple of weeks later. "We're going to spend the weekend in my holiday home."

"You've got a holiday home?"

He gave me a bit of a frown. "Yes, self-evidently!" He really did not approve of questions like that.

"I mean... please would you tell me something about it."

"It's on a small island, just off the coast of Pembrokeshire in South Wales and consists of a disused lighthouse and some associated cottages and other buildings.

"But won't it take ages to get there?"

"It depends on how you choose to travel. My record is one hour and thirty-seven minutes, door to door but, on that occasion, everything worked like clockwork."

He left me to suffer for a couple of seconds before he gave me the clue I needed: "Private jet and then helicopter!"

"Oh yeah!" I kept forgetting how stupidly rich he was.

So, on the Friday afternoon, we finished work slightly early. I noticed a couple of the glamour girls noticing as we left together but, by now, we had more or less given up trying to hide the fact that there was something going on between us. And one fortunate side effect of the slightly strained relationship I had with them was that they couldn't just come out and ask me, "What's going on between the two of you?"

I really wouldn't have had a clue how to answer that one!

George drove us to the airport - it was conveniently close - and a short time later, we were on the plane - a private jet with just the two of us on board. A couple of minutes later, we were taking off.

But I didn't really have enough time to enjoy the flight - London disappeared underneath us and then it seemed like only a couple of minutes and we were coming in to land again. Mind you, it was fairly obvious that we weren't in London anymore - looking down, everything was just so beautifully green with hardly any roads or houses or anything.

We had to walk a couple of hundred yards across the runway to the waiting helicopter and then we were back in the air, whizzing over the fields and woods and then out, across a dramatic coastline until we were over the sea.

And, again, it was no time before the island came into view. It was a couple of miles long and maybe a mile across at its widest point.

The lighthouse was easy to spot - it was painted a shiny white colour with yellow flashes and the top of it was made entirely of glass... I guess that was where the light was supposed to be. It stood out really clearly against the blue of the sea and the green of the land. I guess it was supposed to!

So you own the Lighthouse and all those little white buildings?" I asked.

"I own the entire island... plus the leases on a couple of farms on the mainland. They came as a job lot."