After their showers, they’d followed the senior nurse to Pritchard’s comfortable and surprisingly unpretentious office, where Ash and Delphine had settled themselves on a cushioned sofa. Curiously, no awards or certificates of achievement decorated the walls. Ash had been forced to reappraise the stylishly attired doctor whose skills were apparent without with the need of framed certificates. He was sure the doctor was genuinely qualified; Kate’s research would have uncovered any deceit in that area. Maybe the absence of diplomas had something to do with Comraich’s secrecy? His greeting was friendly, although he was strictly the professional physician this time.
He took Dr Wyatt into his examination room, closing the door behind him. Krantz, left alone with Ash, had decided her services were no longer required. With a sneer that only worsened the effects of her broken nose, she left the office, glaring back at the investigator before shutting the door completely.
She was one to look out for, thought Ash reflectively. With the dark mood he could clearly sense descending upon the castle, he knew anything could happen in the next few hours. The atmosphere, both inside and out, was growing steadily more oppressive. Before long, he sensed, all hell was going to break loose. He felt no remorse for his assault on Krantz, and that was not like him, whatever the circumstances. He’d yesterday also killed a man. Okay, he’d been defending himself, but even so, something had touched him in this place, something malign and savage; something he had no control over.
Dr Pritchard was soon finished with Delphine and wore a benign smile as they returned from his examination room.
‘All done,’ he announced, ‘with no lasting damage. There will be some discomfort for you to endure, Delphine, but the wounds are superficial.’ He turned to face the investigator. ‘I’ve given her a foil of Triptans that might help if the ergotamine has little effect; with luck, they will ward off a migraine cluster. If not, we’ll try some nerve-block injections. Now, then, it’s your turn, Mr Ash.’ He indicated the open examination room door. ‘After you. I want a good look at those hands and the bruising you took last night.’
The examination was brief but thorough. ‘You’ll live,’ said Pritchard when it was over, grunting his satisfaction. ‘I’ll give you some painkillers with the sedatives.’ He held up a finely manicured hand to block any objection. ‘Just some more clonazepam, which will settle your nerves, and some dihydrocodeine, which is a strong painkiller. They might make you drowsy for a while, but that will soon wear off. Dr Wyatt has agreed to them; usually, getting her to take an aspirin is hard to do. But she trusts me, and I hope you will too.’
Now, relaxing on Delphine’s bed, they’d finally found a little time for each other.
‘Thank you, David,’ she said eventually.
‘For what?’ he asked, running a finger down the long lapel of her bathrobe.
‘For saving me from the wildcats.’
‘When I could’ve fed you to them as a diversion, you mean?’
She smiled and he pulled her lapel open a little further, just enough to expose one breast.
‘But you’re frightened of this place, Comraich, aren’t you?’ Her expression was serious despite the internal glow she felt just being close to him.
At that moment he was more concerned with her soft, even subtle, curvaceousness. Her body was pleasingly rounded, but not voluptuous – Delphine was too slim and small-boned for that.
Incongruously, a thought occurred to him. ‘What will happen to the twins?’
She frowned and looked away from him.
‘Why did you ask me that?’
He hesitated before speaking. ‘Sorry, but I’m just intrigued. They’re too young to stay here for ever.’
She sighed, as if already defeated by the actions of her incorrigible patients. ‘Probably chemical castration for Peter,’ she answered despondently.
‘What?’ Ash was shocked. ‘Surely there’s a better way. A vasectomy, the pill for Petra?’
‘That wouldn’t stop them having sex, and that’s the underlying problem. It isn’t simple lust. Both of them are attractive; they could find any number of partners. No, there’s a reason they behave as they do, and I intend to try my best to find out what it is. The twins’ parents are very wealthy and famous. They could never live with the scandal.’
‘What sort of parents are more worried about their own reputation than their children?’ Ash said scornfully.
‘I can’t name names, you know that, but the public outrage would be immense. Comraich is their children’s last hope. Both Petra and Peter have attempted suicide when they were separated.’
‘So, unless you can cure the twins, a more drastic approach will have to be taken? Is that legal?’
‘The letter of the law isn’t always followed at Comraich. Peter will be told the tablets and injections are to relieve some other condition.’
‘I’m sorry, Delphine, but that just can’t be right.’
‘You don’t understand the full power of the Inner Court. But that’s why I want to get to the root of the twins’ problem before such a drastic step is taken.’
‘And if you fail – what then? A lifetime of chemically enforced celibacy in Comraich?’
‘God, I hope not! They’re too young for that. I’ll try to change them by redrawing their moral boundaries. Try to make them forget what’s made them feel this way.’
‘Brainwash them, you mean?’ Ash was aghast.
‘It’s complicated. Comraich’s medical unit has treatments that can bring about precise but benign memory loss. They’ve discovered that particular proteins can be removed from certain sections of the brain where memories are stored. The Americans, who first introduced the theory, call it “targeted memory erasure”. The technique uses drugs to wipe out specific memories permanently. Of course, I’ve simplified the explanation, but that’s the basic principle. Counselling and other methods are used to locate the problematic memories so that the drugs can be used to eradicate them. Although it’s a relatively new procedure, the results here have proved positive. If they used that on the twins they would completely forget their time here and perhaps, eventually, even the loss of their birth mother – or at least their devotion to her – which I believe is the root of their problems. But, frankly, I don’t want that to happen, David. I want to cure them purely psychologically, no matter how long it takes.’
His attitude softened: he could see she only wanted the best for Petra and Peter, for all her patients. She was the good side of the IC.
‘Delphine,’ he asked with real concern, ‘I realize that we spoke about it before, but could I ever persuade you to leave Comraich?’
She caught her breath. ‘There are reasons I have to stay. For a start, I have a binding contract with Simon Maseby Associates.’
‘No such contract would be valid in the eyes of the law. They are doing things here which I’m sure are illegal.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Whether the contract is valid or not, if I were to break it, the punishment would be harsh. And I do mean harsh. I’d be treated as some kind of pariah – no, worse: a traitor – by the Inner Court. I’d never work as a psychologist again. Also, I promised my father. I had to. He was dying and wanted me to be under the protection of the Inner Court. He made me promise to stay at Comraich because of the security it would give me.’
She looked so contrite, so close to him on the bed, that he wanted to enfold her in his arms and take her anxiety away. Instead, he said, ‘I still can’t understand why you would make yourself a prisoner for life to the Inner Court.’
‘Oh, but I’m not. I can travel to wherever the mood takes me. I could explore the world with no financial limitations. All Comraich asks of me is that I’ll always return, and never speak of the castle or the Inner Court to the outside world.’
He realized now with certainty that, when she’d spoken previously of all the admirable and innovative work the hospital unit was involved in, she’d been partly justifying her actions to herself. The t
hought made him uneasy.
‘David, please, I’m not a prisoner,’ she insisted. ‘But if I did decide to leave, they’d use that same targeted memory erasure to make me forget I was ever here.’
‘That’s what you’ve agreed?’ he asked, even more concerned for her. ‘Surely such precision can’t be possible.’
‘You’d be surprised how advanced our medical techniques are.’
‘And you’d let them do that to you?’ he asked incredulously.
‘If necessary, yes. I’d wait until the treatment is more advanced, even routine, but as I said, it’s already been shown to work.’
A single thought occurred to him, but he left it unsaid. Instead he said, ‘You mentioned before that you could never leave Lewis.’
She looked down and played with the cloth belt of her bathrobe. ‘I’m the only one who really cares for him. And he depends on me for so much. I couldn’t leave him here alone.’
‘But he has carers, surely?’
‘I’m the only one he trusts. From the moment I arrived there was an affinity between us. And, of course, I have other patients who need my help.’
Ash winced as he moved on the bed.
‘Are you still in pain, David? I can prescribe a stronger painkiller for you.’
He didn’t bother to tell her he’d taken only two of the eight dihydrocodeine tablets that Dr Pritchard had pressed on him, the other six still in the silver-foil pack tucked into his bathrobe pocket. The two tablets had blunted the edge of the stinging, but he would take more only if absolutely necessary.
Delphine raised her hand tenderly to his cheek, studying the scores across his face. ‘Poor David,’ she said quietly. ‘The cuts will soon heal, though, and your bruises will fade with time.’ Her gentle touch stopped roving, her fingertips lingering at an old scar on his left cheek. ‘How did this happen?’
Maybe the pills had loosened his tongue, for he found himself telling Delphine something that he’d only ever explained to Kate when the wounds had been fresh. Now something made him want to relate the story to Delphine, a woman he’d come to love so swiftly that his emotions were in turmoil.
He told her about Juliet, how his father hadn’t been able to save his older sister from drowning and how her ghost had returned to haunt him, blaming him for pushing her into the water. How that had led him to become a parapsychologist in an attempt to prove that there were no such things as ghosts, and how all he’d proved was that spirits of the dead did exist, and that some had evil intent. A woman – another ghost with stronger powers of manifestation – had given him the short scar on his cheek when he’d thought the haunting was over.
Delphine didn’t question him, and he wondered whether his confession had been wise. Would she now think he was crazy? Was the compassion in her eyes merely a psychologist’s acceptance of a patient’s self-delusion?
Nevertheless, he went on to tell her of Edbrook. How he’d been lured to that old manor house eventually to discover its inhabitants were ghosts – ghosts in league with his dead sister who’d joined them to torment him further. And how, despite charlatans who exploited those who truly believed in the realm of the spirits and the paranormal, he had discovered more evidence that the spirits of the dead were real.
Ash decided not to tell Delphine of the ghosts that roamed the village of Sleath in the Chilterns, where he’d lost one he’d come to love through unearthly powers that some might call malign spirits. It was too soon. He needed her to believe in him totally, before he could expect her to believe everything he might say
‘There’s genuine danger here, Delphine,’ he said sombrely, still toying with the lapel of her robe. ‘This is why I want to get out of Comraich now. And why I want to take you with me. Lewis as well, if that’s what you want.’
She was stunned. ‘You know I can’t do that. Besides, the entrance is too well guarded.’
‘I saw a loading bay on the bank of monitors in Babbage’s office,’ he said. ‘Delivery vehicles must be coming and going all the time. We could probably slip out that way unnoticed.’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘The goods entrance is the best-guarded section on the estate, although you’d never know it just on sight. The guards are dressed in normal working overalls, but their weapons are always near to hand. Didn’t you notice how many cameras there are? The tradesmen’s entrance is the most monitored area of all.’
‘Then what about the shoreline? We could follow it round until we found safe ground, a coastal village, or somewhere with a telephone.’
‘No, David.’ She was adamant. ‘You were down on the shore this morning. You must have seen how difficult it is to walk along it. The further you go, no matter in which direction, the rocks and pools get worse and eventually you reach cliffs that rise straight from the sea. On top of that, there’s a watch-tower at each end of the beach.’
The psychologist gave a tiny, hopeless sigh. ‘It’s just impossible, David. Don’t even think about it.’
He took a new tack, ignoring her pleas. ‘Comraich is bad, Delphine. I’ve never felt so definite about somewhere in my life. I believe the castle is an epicentre for something evil . . .’
‘Oh, David!’
‘I’m not joking, Delphine; this is real. Sometimes where ley lines cross, occult powers can gather and create all kinds of havoc. You’ve seen for yourself what’s happened here. The poltergeist mayhem in the ground-floor office before I came, the lift suddenly crashing, the bizarre killing of Douglas Hoyle, my God, the maggots and the flies just last night. And all the things that brought me here in the first place.’
He paused to draw breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was low, steady. ‘Remember how the jet that brought us here suddenly lost all power, how it was nearly dragged down just as it passed over Comraich? Surely you can see what’s happening here? Even the wildcats, drawn south from the Highlands. And,’ he finished, ‘I’m sure you can feel the oppressive atmosphere outside. It’s as if the air itself is filled with a kind of static.’ To illustrate the point, he placed a flat hand about an inch above her head; strings of her hair suddenly stood erect as if she’d received an electric shock.
She was silent. He was right. But to leave – even if they could – was impossible.
‘If you feel so strongly about it,’ she said with such a sad face that Ash already knew he’d lost the argument, ‘you should go alone, David. By yourself you might just have a chance.’
Doing his best to remain patient, he said, ‘Delphine, weird things are happening at Comraich, and they’re going to get weirder. I’ve never felt so sure about anything in my life. This . . . this wickedness is becoming prevalent among the people here. It’s like an infection passed by one to another, and then another. Why did that man, Lukovic, try to kill me last night? I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me. And why would I react with such uncharacteristic violence? Look at what I did to Nurse Krantz. Gradually, we’re all becoming infected, Delphine. Soon we’ll be unable to trust anyone. D’you want to be here for that?’
He was staring hard into her face, and now she crumpled. ‘David,’ she pleaded, ‘I can’t leave Lewis to whatever may happen. Please, you go. Don’t worry about me – or Lewis; I’ll take care of him – but you must go. You’ll have more chance on your own.’
As the tears formed in her eyes, he pulled her to him, and slid his hand into her open robe to feel the arch of her back.
Delphine said, ‘Please, David,’ and he knew it wasn’t a rebuttal; it was the opposite and said in earnest. He could see that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
After their lovemaking was over, he recalled something Delphine had said that had been nagging at him ever since. If the IC wouldn’t let Delphine leave without erasing her memory, then surely they would never allow him to leave either, with all the knowledge he now possessed.
Or had the intention always been that he would never leave Comraich Castle at all?
PART FOUR: THE CURSE
&nbs
p; 60
She had no idea how long she’d been in this dungeon. She was aware this dim, shadowy room was beneath a castle called Comraich – she’d been told that at some point long ago and it had stayed in her memory, a rare light in a rolling sea of blackness. But most of her memories of growing up, of becoming a woman, were murky and obscure. When she had first bled she had thought she was dying. She was aware she was different from the women, the nurses, who had come over the years to hose her down as she cowered in a corner of her room, her only home, laughing at her shrieks of protest – they never used warm water, just that cold, cold, heart-stopping jet of freezing, germ-killing liquid.
She shivered at the thought, the white powder that had been thrown over her by the handful, being told between angry laughter that it was for her own good, it would ‘kill off the lice’ that weaved their way through the sparse hair on her head as well as through her matted pubic hair and the thick bushiness of her armpits. Somehow she was always aware when the time was approaching for the forced disinfection, although she did not know how, for time was a meaningless concept to her, and she would busily search her own body for the tiny things that inhabited her, feeling the small creatures, her only companions, grubbing for them, then popping each one into her almost toothless mouth, cracking their tough little bodies with her gums before swallowing. By now, she found them tasty, as well as a diversion during her long, friendless internment.
She knew she was abnormal, both of body and of mind, for she had been cruelly mocked, chided, tormented, by her so-called carers – although never by the doctors in their white coats and skin-brushed clean hands – and she could compare their untarnished and perfectly shaped forms with her own.
She vaguely remembered also so many, oh so many years ago, when time did have some relevance, for she had been taken from her room – a spotlessly clean room furnished with a comfortable bed and chairs – and the doctors and nurses had worked experiments on her body and mind. They’d always seemed disappointed at the end of them, though still rewarding her with something sweet and lovely to eat. Neither the experiments nor the sweet rewards happened any more. After a while – how long, she did not know – she had been taken to a horrible, cold room below the towering castle, and there she’d stayed, ignored and alone from that day on.