Clambering over the tide-dampened rocks and scrunchy shale, occasionally dipping a foot into trapped pools, also took some effort. He guessed those rough steps were kept in deliberate disrepair to discourage older ramblers from the castle making the descent. There were small crabs caught in shallow pools stranded by the outgoing tide, and bedraggled seaweed was everywhere, making the going even trickier as its slick strands endeavoured to trip him.
Ash and the ranger were near to the cave entrance when McKewin stopped again. ‘Time for the hard hats, Mr Ash,’ he said, fixing his own onto his bare head and buckling the safety strap beneath his chin. The investigator followed suit while the ranger regaled him briefly with the cave’s colourful history.
‘This particular cave is infamous for its smuggling and Comraich Castle was perfectly located for hiding contraband from the Revenue men. “The Running Trade”, smuggling used to be called back in the day, and the Ayrshire coast was ideal because of its nearness to the Isle of Man, which legally imported goods for small duties to the Lord of Man. Manx smugglers traded mainly in port, claret, spirits and Congo tea, would you believe? But the game more or less came to an end in the 1760s when the Revenue seriously cracked down on it. The irony was that the laird at that time had switched to the slave trade.’
There was an edge of excitement in Ash’s voice. It seemed that what Delphine had told him the previous day had been more than just hearsay. ‘Wait a minute. You’re telling me smuggled goods could be unloaded inside the cave, then carried up to the castle itself?’
‘Aye. Stored away in the dungeons, most probably. A stepped tunnel was carved out of the rock. That was a long time ago, though.’
‘Have you ever tried to get through it?’
‘No. I think the last time anyone used it was during the Great War. After that it was just allowed to deteriorate. It’s probably all fallen in by now. The ascent would have been too steep for most people, anyway.’
Ash studied the cave’s large entrance with even more interest. ‘Could boats actually navigate inside the cave?’ he asked.
‘Oh, aye. When the tide comes in, the cave is almost fully submerged, so the time has to be exactly right for unloading. Y’know, before the water level trapped the boats themselves. But with that deep underwater shelf just offshore, a large vessel could moor there while the contraband was rowed right into the cavern. There’s even a kind of natural raised dock inside that came in handy for unloading. Tricky business, though, and, as I said, the timing had to be right. The story goes that many rowing boats, filled with smuggled goods, were trapped inside and smashed to smithereens when the sea was stormy. Many a man was found drowned in the cave, others just washed out to deeper waters. It’s a bad place, Mr Ash. It’s only fair to warn you of that.’
‘But we’re okay with the tide right now?’ Interest had developed into concern. Ash had no liking for water.
‘Oh, aye. The tide’s on its way out at the moment. It’s nighttime you have to worry about, although it seems to go out again much more quickly than it comes in, but then there’s no need to be caught inside, is there?’
Ash buckled the strap of his hard hat under his chin as he and McKewin approached the opening to the cave. ‘Now watch your step here. It’s filled with seawater when the tide turns, which makes everything very slippery. Mind your head too – the ceiling isn’t even once you get towards the back; but that’s why you’re wearing a hard hat.’
The investigator took him at his word and slowly and carefully entered the capacious cavern, watching where he trod as well as keeping an eye on the ceiling height. The khaki-clad ranger already had his torch out and was shining it around the hollowed chamber. Ash took his Maglite from his shoulder bag and switched it on. Its powerful beam illuminated the cave considerably more effectively than the ranger’s torch. He noticed the ‘dock’, a wide ledge about five feet above the shingle-and-rock floor, now eroded in several places. Ash aimed the light towards the rear of the landing stage and was excited to see a small opening, its ceiling so low that a person would have to crawl through the gap. As he swept the light across the broken stone walls, he saw that above them, just beyond the entrance, the rock sagged, as if ready to collapse at any moment. The sight made him uneasy.
‘Seems like every year,’ said McKewin, ‘the cave shrinks a little more, the load above gradually becoming too heavy to bear.’
‘Let’s hope it holds a while,’ half joked Ash. ‘At least till we’re out of here.’
‘Oh, I think it’ll stay this way for a century or more. Providing the ground underneath isn’t shifted by an earthquake.’
‘Earthquake?’ Ash was surprised.
‘It’s not generally known, but the British Isles are hit by thirty-odd earthquakes annually. Fortunately, most are exceedingly low on the Richter Scale, so unless you’re in a particular region when one occurs, you’ll know nothing about it unless it makes the news.’
Ash wasn’t exactly reassured. ‘Can I take a look back there?’ he asked.
‘Sure. It’s safe enough if you take care. I’ll not be far; they’ve asked me to provide an erosion report while I’m here. Just shout if you need me.’
Treading forward cautiously, shining the Maglite around the irregular sloping walls and vaulted ceiling that somehow seemed to turn the cavern into a miniature cathedral, Ash advanced. He was soon screwing up his face in displeasure. ‘What’s that terrible smell?’ he called back to McKewin, who was busying examining the rock face.
‘Ah,’ the ranger called back, a grin on his red-veined face. ‘You’ve got two kinds of smells the further you go in. One is a bit like an oyster tastes after you’ve swallowed it. Or so I’ve been told,’ he added, his face wrinkled in disgust. ‘Back there you’ll be getting the smell of bat guano, acidic droppings that smell foul. It can be pretty thick the further you go, and you won’t like the slime, either. But the bats themselves won’t be a problem unless you wake them up. It’ll be their hibernation time soon, so they’ll be getting drowsy round about now. Just try not to panic ’em.’
Ash was on one knee, peering into the tunnel in front of him. ‘Okay,’ he yelled back, suddenly realizing there was no need to shout: the widening cave acted like an echo chamber. He lowered his voice. ‘I’m going in now.’
‘Right you are, but don’t take all day,’ came the reply. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
‘I won’t be long,’ he affirmed, before crawling forward on hands and knees, by-passing a crab side-crawling in the opposite direction. It was harmless enough, but Ash carefully avoided it. The whole interior was unpleasantly dank, but Ash was used to disagreeable locations.
The light showed the way clearly enough, although at one point the roof was so low he had to lie flat on his belly and squirm forward, all the while reassuring himself that if the bats could fly down this passage, then he must have room to crawl through it. Soon the smell was becoming overwhelming, but it was coming from ahead, where the cave must open out again. Using what space he had, Ash pulled the muffler up over his nose. He felt like a desperado in a Western B-movie, but the mask did little to filter the smell. He pulled himself along the lower section of the cave, grateful for the hard hat as he bumped his head a couple of times.
The claustrophobic length of the tunnel was mercifully short and, as he had anticipated, soon opened out to a larger chamber, its high ceiling pitch-black and its floor full of bat excrement. Resisting the urge to shine the torch upwards for fear of disturbing the roosting creatures, he moved forward, the gooey slime under his boots feeling like syrup, though at least he’d got used to its chemical smell. As he ran his light over the floor of the rough chamber, which was about fifteen feet square, he was surprised to find pieces of rotted wood, and other debris so mouldy he had no idea what it once had been, all littered around the ground. There were one or two remnants of open boxes, the wood black with rot. More shockingly, he saw human bones among the detritus. The bones of slaves who hadn’t quite reached the e
nd of their forced journey? How long had it been since the remains had been abandoned there, then scattered irreverently when more slave traders passed through over the years?
At last, the torch beam picked out a door-sized opening in the rock, almost opposite the narrow gap from which he’d just crawled. He saw the beginning of old, broken steps that led upwards, and he smiled tightly at the sight. This had to be the way up to the castle dungeons.
Cautiously, he picked his way through the mess in the chamber and reached the reinforced doorway. He shone the light upwards, following the cracked and broken steps. Overhead, the tunnel had been shored up with stout timbers. From where he stood, however, it seemed that the tunnel ended in a solid wall after a dozen or so steps.
Dismayed, he collected himself and began to climb the uneven, crumbling staircase. What he had taken for the end of the tunnel was, in fact, the wall of a small landing, from which another set of worn steps led up, zig-zag fashion, in the same manner as the external staircase he and the ranger had just descended. Although the treads had been hewn from the rock, it looked to Ash as though the tunnel were a natural fissure, one that headed up, he hoped, into the sub-basement of Comraich Castle.
He began to climb again, using a hand against a crumbling wall when the going became less easy. As he pressed onwards, Ash felt his thigh muscles protest at the difficult climb. But soon he reached something that turned his stomach and the wide beam of the Maglite began to shake because of the trembling of his own hand.
52
The unpleasantness in Comraich the previous evening had suited Twigg, because the guests had been advised to keep to their suites while the matter was investigated in the clear light of day. As he made his way through the castle he passed only the occasional armed guard, who barely gave him a glance.
He wasn’t in the mood to be civil to anyone, for the symptoms of his illness were even more evident this morning. He tried to control the tremors in his hands by carrying the package in both of them, pressing it against his midriff.
His expression had always been rather blank, something he’d developed to a fine art over the years, but today he could feel the muscles in his face stiffening unbidden. His limbs were leaden and he tried to avoid shuffling by consciously taking longer strides. But soon it wouldn’t matter anyway, because this was the day when everything was going to change.
This was his time for glorious revenge.
Comraich and the Inner Court were not going to rid themselves of him so easily. He only wished Eddy Nelson were still around so that he, Cedric Twigg, could show his apprentice how to exact punishment against not just one individual, but a whole organization. Twigg planned to bring down that organization single-handed, or, at the very least, damage it beyond repair.
Had the muscles in his face been able to fashion a grin, then the assassin might have flashed it to the old guard at the foot of the reception area’s broad, curving stairway who watched his approach with yellowing eyes. Placid Pat, as the amiable old watchman was known by all at Comraich, kept a concealed weapon about him at all times but was no hindrance at all. The venerable retainer had been part of Comraich’s security for as long as Twigg could remember. He knew that the old man had once, many years ago, been the Reverend Father Patrick O’Connor in a little town near Sligo, close to the west coast of Ireland, where he was afforded much respect from his parishioners. Now in his dotage, he never seemed to leave his seat.
Twigg went by without responding to Pat’s feeble wave of greeting. Instead, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, doing his very best to walk in a straight line, hands tight against the package he was carrying. His purpose this morning was to examine the hole the crashed elevator had created, which he understood from gossip among the guards had breached the castle’s very foundations. He reached the damaged ground-floor door to the lift shaft, which was now wedged half open.
As he poked his head through the gap he could smell dust and something far more unpleasant rising up the shaft. It was difficult to see clearly, for the shaft was deep, but the glimmer of light he could make out at the bottom probably meant that the car had distorted on impact, creating a space through which light from the containment area was filtering.
Twigg wriggled further into the opening, trying not to breathe in too deeply, but all there was to see were some dangling cables. He’d heard that one of the two passengers had escaped unscathed, while the other had been killed. It reaffirmed what he already knew: death was indiscriminate.
Twigg was sadly aware that he could once have shimmied down those cables to the sub-basement, then right up again once his purpose had been achieved. Not these days, though; his co-ordination was shot to pieces. Anyway, there was a different route he could follow that was so much easier, and he possessed one of the tough titanium cards that would open the necessary door for him.
Twigg planned to situate his device near the bottom of the lift shaft, so it would funnel the blast up to the castle’s every floor. Since his illness had been diagnosed, he’d been stockpiling explosives at his woodland hideaway. The package he was about to place was the last of his cache. The rest had been sited throughout the castle in locations chosen to inflict maximum damage. All he’d have to do then would be to set the timers and wait for night to fall.
Afterwards, he would celebrate the destruction of Comraich with a nice cup of tea back in his cottage. Or he might finally open that special bottle of wine, a Château Margaux 1978 he’d been gifted a few years earlier as a bonus for a particularly important and tricky hit. And he would cheer every time he heard another, then another, and then another explosion, whooshing and rustling, ripping the castle apart, while the flames inside would gut it completely.
And he would watch it all from a safe distance, hidden inside the edge of the woods.
53
The sight that had stopped Ash in his tracks was nauseating. Completely filling the long straight stretch of tunnel ahead was the biggest mass of black cobwebs he had ever seen. There was no way round it, nor any way to gauge its depth, but the prospect of entering the sticky black mess was formidable. Horrific.
More horrific still was the thought of the number of spiders it must have taken to weave this dust-clogged, tangled monstrosity. What size must they have been, and for how many years had they worked to construct this black furry barricade, strong and thick enough to deter any explorer from venturing further. How could one get through it? he asked himself. Would it burn . . . could it burn? How do you burn dust? Petrol. That would do it; but how effectively, he had no idea.
He took a swift step backwards as the huge cobweb stirred. Almost slipping on the slick, sloping tunnel floor, he realized that a breeze must have blown through the mass, causing it to billow slightly, giving the alarming impression it was rolling towards him. Again he shone the Maglite directly into the curled and drooping web, only this time he narrowed the beam, intensifying and lengthening it.
The light still failed to penetrate far, but he thought he detected movement inside the matted coils that had nothing to do with the air currents blowing through the zig-zag tunnel. No, there were things inside that dark, dusty mesh, some bigger than others – some static, others slowly crawling.
Steeling himself, although his instinct was telling him frantically to back off, to get away, Ash took a cautious step forward, and then another, keeping the narrowed beam of light on one of the larger black creatures he’d glimpsed sitting, waiting, in the tangled web. It still wasn’t clear enough to see properly, and he debated with himself whether he really wanted to see. But Ash was no coward, and inquisitive by nature, so he advanced even closer across the greasy floor.
He came to a stop less than two feet away from the tunnel-blocking mass. He raised the Maglite to shoulder height, pointing into the jumbled skeins, all joined by the dust and undulating gently in the soft wind that blew in from the sea, and put his face even closer to the giant cobweb.
By squinting and looking strai
ght along the fiercely concentrated beam of light, he could see more clearly the dark form he’d glimpsed earlier; it was twitching under the glare of the torch. Ash realized it was not a spider but a bat, still moving feebly, ensnared in the web. From the depths of the web, creatures were creeping towards it.
Ash was aware that spiders rarely hunted in packs, nor – and this was the really frightening bit – were they usually prepared to take on a creature much bigger than themselves. Ash shuddered. Though it was almost blind, the bat was obviously aware of what was happening around it and could sense the movement of the dusty silky strands. Ash, though he had no love for bats, felt pity for this one, which must have been trapped since the night before, or even longer. At least it wouldn’t be long before it died, of either exhaustion or fright.
If he was to continue his progress, Ash had to find out how long and how tough the giant web was. Did it fill the rest of the tunnel, or could a well-protected person walk right through it? He rummaged through his bag and brought out a bundle of glow sticks. These were usually used when no other light source was available, or for testing the depth of wells or deep pits.
Ash picked out one pellucid plastic tube, a stick-like container in which two chemicals, hydrogen peroxide and phenol, were isolated from each other. A green fluorescent dye was also in the tube and this would glow brightly when the chemicals mixed. Ash bent the stick, breaking the vial inside, and shook it vigorously, then, stretching his arm back, he flung it as hard as he could into the maze of dirt-draped cobwebs.
It was so dense that the tube of fluorescent green light didn’t travel far, so gave no indication of the length of the blockage, but it revealed more dark shapes inside the massed web. Many, many more dark shapes.
The nearer spiders froze under the muted glow, but others started to appear from their lairs in the darker parts of their tangled realm, attracted by the vibrations made when the stick had landed.