SURVEILLANCE LOG You're Late

Nights 1–6. No approach, no vehicle, no light. The 02:13 transmission continues nightly. The tower stands dark the whole time it is speaking. There is something not quite tolerable about that.

Night 7. On instruction from DDO (minute of 8 May, reversing the no-entry order), watch entered the lamp room at 03:40. Found:

— Transmitter, home-built, competent, no maker’s marks.
— Marine battery, topped up; a spare, still in grease.
— Clockwork timer, set to 02:13.
— A modified reel-to-reel machine carrying a spliced loop.

The reel is old. Faded ink on the box: “CAPE VANE COASTAL SURVEY, 1961 — grid references read by Miss R. Vane, keeper’s daughter.” The voice the net has been hearing for months is a young woman reading survey coordinates in 1961, cut apart figure by figure and re-spliced into thirteen groups. The splices number in the thousands. Whoever built this loop did it with a razor blade and years of his life.

Also found, chalked on the inside of the lamp-room glass, facing the sea:

YOU’RE LATE

Equipment photographed and left running, per instruction. Lock re-secured. Watch continues.

Working note (E.M.): The chalk faces out. Whoever it is for is expected to come from the water. We keep watching the road.