He drew in great draughts of fresh air, but stopped halfway through the next breath. Something had stirred the undergrowth close by. He squinted his eyes as he looked first to the right, then to the left and then behind. Back to the front again. All perfectly still now. Twigg couldn’t have got ahead of him, surely? No, his own muscled legs would carry him faster than a man twice his age. Then again, Twigg knew these woods better than him. For all Eddy knew, he could have been running round in circles, the noise he made as he thrashed through the trees and undergrowth giving his position away; his sobs alone were loud enough to be heard from a distance. Maybe the bald-headed assassin was ahead of him, just waiting for Eddy to run straight into his deadly, if shaky, arms.
But hold up, Eddy chided himself, be logical. Surely he could beat the older man in a fair fight. Then who said it would be fair? Nelson had left his weapons of choice behind – the Stasi cosh, with its flexible tip and telescopic, compressed, rubber stem and plastic grip, or the iron knuckleduster, which could be carried in the side pocket of his jacket, both priceless in close-quarters combat. All had been left in his barracks apartment when he’d gone down to London, airline security not being fond of passengers including weaponry in their hand luggage. Similarly, the neat Walther PPK pistol he favoured and which, ironically, was a firearm that Twigg had trained him to use, was locked away in a grey metal cabinet inside his wardrobe.
As he assembled all these pointless thoughts, something stirred the forest foliage again.
He became aware of his location: surrounded by trees and undergrowth, and the forest floor so shady that it could be dusk. He felt vulnerable; he felt shit-in-his-pants scared.
But it couldn’t be Twigg sneaking up on him because there wasn’t enough cover for a full-grown man. He’d startled an animal. Yep, that’s what it was: all the noise he’d made had startled some kind of animal in the woods. A small deer, maybe? There were a lot of them roaming the estate. It could be anything, the estate was stuffed with them: badgers, foxes, rabbits, mice and rats, not to mention the many species of bird life.
With a long sigh of relief, he told himself that was the answer: he’d frightened some shy creature by blundering across its path. He changed his mind when a peculiar sound came from the bushes in front of him. It was like – no, he didn’t know what it was like. A soft hissing noise at first that soon grew in pitch, only to give way to a snarling of a kind he’d never heard outside a zoo.
Then he saw a pair of yellow-and-black eyes watching him from under a fern.
‘Shoo!’ he hissed sharply, but not too loudly; he didn’t want Twigg to hear him.
The animal, whatever it was, refused to be bullied by Eddy’s voice. Instead, it came further forward, its eyes unblinking and revealing no fear.
The apprentice picked up a small branch and threw it in the general direction of this unknown threat.
The animal was unfazed by the light projectile that had landed inches away from its front paws and slowly, like a stalking predator, it came into the open, unveiling its true nature.
‘A cat!’ Nelson cried out. ‘A bloody mog!’ and here was he on hands and knees, terrified by a bloody cat!
But wait – this was a different kind of cat. This big bugger now thumping the ground with one paw, its haunches high, its head and shoulders low, a brittle kind of tenseness in its manner, was slowly creeping towards him. As it came into full view, striped fur bristling, its bushy tail oddly waving with short, sharp flicks, a new fear took hold of Eddy.
One of the park rangers had told him there were wildcats prowling the woods. Don’t ever think of them as pets, he was warned, because they weren’t dubbed the Tigers of the Highlands for nothing. No one, as yet, could understand why and how they had immigrated from the north to take up residence in the woods of Comraich, but the occasional sightings and the discovery of riven carcasses of smaller animals and birds gave evidence of their presence. What was not known was how many of them were presently living in the woodland.
The ranger had also told him that they were solitary animals, rarely hunting in packs. That was at least some comfort to Eddy as he remained frozen on all fours. Just back away slowly, he advised himself. Very slowly.
He shuffled backwards, horribly frightened by this huge untamed animal that snarled and hissed at him, a fine spray of spit shooting from its fanged mouth.
Solitary animals, he remembered. Well, he could deal with one, no matter how big the fucker was. One on one. He wished that he was armed with the cosh at least; he could easily have handled the beast with that. A good hard crack would have sent it staggering senseless back into the undergrowth. But Eddy found it was he who was retreating from the now growling cat. Could cats even growl? This one bloody could.
Another thought came to him as he forced himself to move cautiously away. Who would he prefer to fight: Twigg – who might be sneaking up on him at this very moment – or the wildcat, which only had claws to fight with, and teeth to bite? Yet he never underestimated the bald assassin, whose frame belied his strength. He recalled how Twigg had snapped the neck of a watchman who’d had the nerve to challenge them as they’d primed incendiary devices in a certain French armaments factory.
The big cat continued to creep towards him, its whole body lowered close to the ground in a way that a normal cat might sneak up on an unsuspecting mouse or small bird before pouncing; its powerful-looking jaws were stretched wide and emitting those peculiar hissing-snarls again, its fur erect and spiky, swelling its body to a frightening size, tail suddenly still, its shoulder muscles bunched, haunches quivering as it prepared to launch itself at its human prey.
But to Eddy’s further horror and dismay, other wildcats were emerging from the undergrowth, their movement smooth and fearless. They shouldn’t have been there, the park ranger had said they were solitary creatures that usually hunted alone. This wildcat was mob-handed with at least a dozen others behind it, all slinking around trees, moving through the ferns and bushes, in a smoothly choreographed hunt. And he was the prey! It was as though they had been told he would be here, as though they were expecting him.
The apprentice assassin felt warm liquid trickle down his thigh, soaking his already mud-soiled Hugo Boss trousers with urine he could no longer hold in.
Eddy half rose and faced the advance, his face screwed up in anguish, tears blurring his vision and running down his cheeks as he mumbled words that even he didn’t understand. Maybe words of prayer . . .
As the pack of wildcats surged forward, fangs bared, their movement was so swift that he was unprepared for the claws that rent the back of his hands now hiding his face. Then came the tearing bites and deep scratches that shredded his quality suit, reaching the flesh below and raking it with knife-like claws as he curled his body into a foetal position on the leaf-strewn ground, arms trying to protect the back of his neck and head from the tearing and slashing of vicious lacerating claws that drew blood and pulled strips of flesh from their humbled prey, hungry jaws beginning to eat the very meat of him and gulping down his spilled blood as he shrieked . . .
Those shrieks echoed through the otherwise silent woods, causing birds to take wing and smaller creatures to scurry back to their secret, safe hideaways.
24
Having shaved, and washed his hands and face in the tiny bathroom, Ash wandered back into the pleasingly appointed bedroom-cum-sitting room, once again finding himself looking out of the window. There were more people in the courtyard below, in groups or alone, enjoying the suddenly clement weather. As before, he directed his gaze towards the far side of the courtyard and the ruined arch from where he’d been given his first view of the castle; at present, a single uniformed guard stood beneath it, as if to dissuade any drifters from taking that route.
As he watched, Ash saw the guard turn his head to speak into his wrist radio. The investigator wondered what his message would be: all quiet on the home front? No trespassers and no escapees? Despite the grandeur and the plushness of i
ts interior, Ash couldn’t help thinking of Comraich as a luxurious Colditz, with its extensive electrified and razor-wired fence, patrolling guards and strategically placed CCTV cameras. Sir Victor Haelstrom could almost be the Kommandant. Or . . . his thoughts lingered on this . . . or maybe the thin man with the grim face and the pot-belly, who seemed to have deliberately avoided meeting Ash this morning, was in charge.
He was being over-imaginative, not to say paranoid; although, as Kate was always telling him, he did have an instinct for certain things, certain situations, and certain people.
‘Enough!’ he muttered sharply. He was there to do a job and he would do it to the best of his ability.
The upkeep of Comraich Castle – and he hadn’t as yet even perused the grounds – must be astronomical, and the fee paid to his own Institute was beyond reasonable. In fact it was more than exorbitant. But then, it also bought complete secrecy. They weren’t even allowed to keep copies of the reports they submitted to the Inner Court, let alone disclose their contents to anyone. It was an unusual arrangement, all right.
Even so, Ash had decided he would keep his own handwritten notes for himself. He wondered if he and his luggage would be searched before leaving Comraich when the investigation had been completed. In the distance, in what looked like the densest part of the woodland, his attention was caught by a sudden flurry of birds that rose excitedly into the air and flew off in all directions. He wondered what had disturbed them.
Turning from the window and his private thoughts, he reached round the bathroom door and dropped the damp towel into the small sink, then quickly donned a fresh blue denim shirt and a houndstooth jacket. He imagined lunch at the castle would be a semi-formal affair.
For just one moment, he was undecided whether or not to take another slug of absinthe, but on reflection he decided against it. The pocket-sized chrome-and-leather flask didn’t hold much, although one shot was as effective as two whiskies. Saving it for the three nights of his stay was a more practical alternative.
Ash went to the door and pulled it open; its hinges made barely a squeak. As he was closing it behind him, he heard a noise further down the corridor, and when he looked he saw the psychologist, Delphine Wyatt, just closing her own door. Synchronicity, he thought, with a small smile.
When she glanced up and saw him, Ash was sure a look of alarm shadowed her face for an instant.
‘Mr Ash,’ she acknowledged. ‘Are you on your way to lunch too?’
As she walked towards him, her step unconsciously graceful, he saw that she’d also changed her clothes. She wore a crocheted tie-front jumper, deep aubergine with a V-neck, and a gypsy-type skirt that reached just below her knees, black tights sinking into calf-length high-heeled boots.
Once again, Ash was almost speechless at this vision coming towards him, her black hair let loose from the back so that those dark curls framed her tanned face. If she’d spoken in Portuguese then he wouldn’t have been surprised.
‘Lunch?’ she prompted, confused by his hesitancy.
He briefly wondered if she knew the effect she had on him, the cause of his hesitation.
‘Uh, yeah,’ he said when she was almost within reach. ‘I was just wondering if I was smart enough for the dining room.’ He waved a hand at her apparel.
She gave a short laugh, and her eyes, almost black in the dimness of the corridor, half-mockingly looked him up and down.
‘I think you’ll pass muster, as my father used to say.’ Her full red lips continued to smile.
‘I could eat a horse,’ he said, grinning foolishly.
‘I’m famished too,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s the aftermath of the adrenaline rush we had earlier.’
Yes, he thought to himself, and I seem to get a different kind of adrenaline rush each time I see you. He couldn’t help but wonder if she sensed his feelings, if she was somehow aware of the mixed emotions he tried to conceal. After Grace, he had vowed never to risk such intense passion ever again. Now he felt that once-firm wall of resolve gradually breaking down, brick by brick.
He found himself saying mundanely, ‘Shall we take the lift?’
‘I’d rather take the stairs; I don’t trust that antiquated piece of machinery.’
She began leading the way along the dim corridor, with its patchy carpeting and picture-lined walls.
‘Why don’t they do something about it, then? The lift, I mean,’ he asked as they walked side by side.
‘Oh, there is another one – another two, in fact,’ she replied as they came to the oval colonnaded staircase. ‘One of them is rather grand and used exclusively by Lord Shawcroft-Draker and certain VIPs who visit Comraich from time to time.’
They began to descend the wide red-carpeted stairway, with Delphine allowing her hand to slide down the broad variegated marble balustrade and with Ash on the narrower section of the rounded staircase. Elegant hanging lights brightened the way. The carpet was plush and springy under Ash’s boots.
‘I take it,’ he said to Delphine as they made their way to the first floor, ‘that Lord Shawcroft-Draker is the tall thin man I saw when I arrived, who disappeared before Sir Victor could introduce us. The man with the rather obvious pot-belly.’
‘That sounds like him,’ the psychologist replied. ‘He keeps very much to himself, so we rarely see him, let alone speak to him. He was – is – the actual owner of the castle. I suppose you would describe him as Comraich’s patron, the Big Chief. Lord Edgar is what we usually call him.’
Ash digested the information, then said, ‘You said there were two more lifts. What’s the third one for? A service lift?’
‘You could say that,’ Delphine replied. ‘But it’s regularly scrubbed clean and takes patients down to the operating theatre. There are two general surgeons, and specialist surgeons are brought in as required. Our personal senior doctor oversees everything medical.’
‘Presumably these specialists are sworn to secrecy, and paid a hefty fee for their silence.’ He glanced at her and, in some way, was pleased to see her anxious expression; maybe she was uneasy about some of the ‘rules’ of this place too.
‘It’s for their own good, David,’ she said after a beat or two. ‘Some of the guests would be unacceptable beyond the boundaries of Comraich.’
‘You do realize that sounds sinister, Delphine.’
She managed – but only just – to smile back at him. ‘What is sinister, David, is the strange things that have been going on here lately.’
They passed a niche in the wall containing the bronze bust of some nobleman or other, who obviously had relevance to the castle’s history. Ash had no interest in it whatsoever; his concern was for the beautiful woman at his side. The sense that she, herself, had misgivings about Comraich grew stronger.
They had reached the first-floor landing and she stopped to face him squarely. But once again her eyes failed to meet his.
‘David,’ she said almost passionately, ‘if you knew the fine medical work carried out here, you wouldn’t be so suspicious. Nor so critical.’
Was she trying to convince herself? he wondered. The way her eyes avoided his suggested it might be so.
‘Maybe you can show me where you work later,’ he said.
‘I’d need to get permission first, but I’m happy to do just that.’ Her gaze had returned to him.
As one, they continued to the next flight of stairs, a silence hanging between them.
Ash was even more impressed with the castle when he and Delphine entered the imposing circular dining room, which was busy with people. There was a hush when heads turned in their direction as Ash and his companion stood in the wide double-doored entrance. Either they seldom had new arrivals at Comraich, Ash reflected, or they already knew a ghost hunter had come into their midst. He felt uneasy. He casually looked around and could almost smell the affluence in the room.
The guests were seated at round tables, the tablecloths immaculately white, fresh flowers in the centre of each, bright, cr
ystal-like chandeliers high above their heads. Even the gleaming cutlery appeared to be silver. Ash was hungry: he hadn’t had time for breakfast and had been offered only tea, coffee or alcohol since. Alcohol, on the plane, at that time of the morning? On an empty stomach? Once more, suspicion vexed him. Had they wanted him to arrive at Comraich half-cut?
Next to him, Delphine was scanning the dining room as if looking for something. She said a quiet ‘ah’ of satisfaction and pointed.
‘Over there,’ she said her voice all but a whisper. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
She led the way through the diners, heading towards one of the smaller tables in a comparatively empty part of the dining room. A man sat there alone, reading a magazine propped up against the flower vase while he ate.
Eyes followed Ash’s progress through the room until the chatter of voices resumed, the guests’ curiosity evidently waning. He caught sight of Haelstrom at a centre table, the ever-anxious Derriman sitting next to him, two other people that Ash hadn’t yet met filling the other two seats. The big man noticed the parapsychologist and gave a brief wave of his hand, which Ash acknowledged with a casual nod of his head.
He took in the two unrecognized diners at Haelstrom’s table. The one closest to Comraich’s CEO was a female in hospital whites: a spotless tunic, which was in contrast to her drawn back lustrous auburn-red hair. As she stared his way, he noticed a particular glint in her hazel eyes and wondered why she appeared so interested in him, for she made no attempt to look away. Although not pretty, her face had attained that rare handsomeness of features that few women in early middle age managed to achieve. Her attractiveness was spoilt only by the hostility in those eyes.
The fourth member at the table had his back to Ash and he peered round to see what had captured his fellow diners’ attention.
Ash glimpsed only a hard face with buzz-cut hair and broad shoulders. It was difficult to judge when the man was sitting, but the psychic investigator guessed he was short but stocky; he certainly had the features of a bruiser. It was no more than a glance, but the man’s small, calculating eyes seemed to assess Ash in an instant.