Ash

  In less than five months’ time the lease on the building would be up and the rent, plus management fees, ground rent and service charge, were bound to be increased. Where the money would come from Kate had no idea; not until Simon Maseby had contacted her, that is. She’d been about to warn her workforce and consultants (spiritualists, mediums, clairvoyants–evenexor-cists) of the impending problem when Simon had called her from out of the blue.

  Kate was pleased to hear from an old friend after such a long time and, because he’d said the matter was urgent, she’d arranged a meeting for later that afternoon. That had been a few days ago, just before the weekend, and Kate was intrigued by Simon’s story and mystified by his reluctance to divulge details of the people or organization that employed him. Nevertheless, the amount they were prepared to pay for an investigation into this supposedly haunted Scottish castle had blown away all reservations on her part; considering the Institute’s looming financial situation, she would have been foolish not to have accepted his offer.

  One of the contract’s conditions did concern her, though: Simon was adamant that only a single psychic investigator should be assigned to the case. Kate had argued – as had David at the subsequent meeting with Simon – that such a huge building would require a team of investigators – at least three or four people – to cover the area, but Simon remained inflexible. Eventually they had agreed on a compromise: one investigator initially, then a proper team if necessary afterwards. And as far as she was concerned, that one person had to be David Ash. Simon agreed, although he insisted on knowing more about this particular parapsychologist.

  Kate had given a brief summary of Ash’s career so far (although she avoided giving too many details of David’s previous investigations). She’d also sent over a couple of copies of David’s treatise on the supernatural when Maseby had first contacted her.

  The side door of her office opened and her PA poked his head through the opening. ‘Morning, Kate. Coffee?’

  She swung the chair round to face him and pointed at the empty jumbo mug on the desk – dainty crockery was only used when clients were present.

  ‘Had some already, Tom,’ she told him.

  ‘Right. Anything special you want me to get on to?’

  ‘I’ll dictate some letters later. Can you file the stuff I’ve already left on your desk? Oh, and will you spend a little time on your computer for me this morning?’ Tom was a master of Google.

  ‘Sure, no problem. What d’you want me to look for?’

  Kate hesitated. Was it right to involve her young assistant in this affair? After all, she herself was sworn to secrecy. Bringing in another person at this stage might be unwise and a breach of the contract she’d signed. She quickly changed her mind, not prepared to jeopardize the agreement.

  ‘Sorry, Tom. Forget about that last bit.’

  She would search the net herself. It would take her longer, but at least it wouldn’t involve another person from the Institute, just as Simon had stipulated again after they had made unsatisfactory love.

  Today she felt guilty. Not because she’d slept with Simon – regret would have been ridiculous – but because she’d lied to David, and she knew he’d sensed it. His psychic abilities were more than just a focused intuition.

  With a sigh that was almost a groan, Kate logged on and got ready to Google.

  She already knew it would be a difficult search and, possibly, a fruitless one.

  9

  Cedric Twigg had been looking through the Gulfstream’s window, but taking nothing in, when the stewardess’s voice interrupted his reverie. As he peered up at her, he realized his heart was beating like a jackhammer, too fast and too hard. He forced himself to control the palpitations, something he used to do with ease a year or so ago, but not nowadays. Even though the surprise was quickly dealt with, he realized it took a little longer to compose himself each time he was caught day-dreaming.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Twigg, I think I startled you.’

  Balanced skilfully on one arm, she held the daily newspapers, fanned out like a magician’s giant deck of cards.

  He skimmed the titles. ‘Telegraph,’ he said.

  Ginny’s smile was unaltered, but he noticed her eyes had hardened at his rudeness. With her free hand she pulled out the requested broadsheet and handed it to him. He accepted it without thanks.

  Twigg immediately saw the headline he was expecting, and while the story didn’t take up the whole front page, it was prominent enough to satisfy the assassin’s perverse ego. It surprised him that they had already made the connection between yesterday’s killing and the one carried out more than thirty years ago. He remembered with relish.

  In September 1978, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who used the BBC’s World Service to broadcast damaging diatribes against his mother country’s communist regime, was marked out to be ‘liquidated’. The Bulgarian Secret Service had sought help from Russia’s KGB – nowadays known as the SVR – and they had suggested using a young Englishman who lived in London, and who had carried out three successful ‘closures’ for them already.

  Twigg smiled as he recalled the method chosen to eliminate Markov. A simple umbrella had been fitted with a hidden cylinder of compressed gas that fired a single pellet filled with the biotoxin ricin, the deadly derivative of castor oil. He had followed the dissident onto Waterloo Bridge, and when Markov waited at a bus stop, the young assassin had pushed the umbrella’s tip into the Bulgarian’s calf muscle. An innocent accident that Markov gave little attention to. Three days later he was dead.

  That was many years ago and Twigg almost chuckled to himself, for New Scotland Yard was still investigating the murder. A British counter-terrorism team had even paid a visit to Bulgaria in 2008, and continued to work with the ‘appropriate international authorities’, as they put it, hoping to draw a satisfactory conclusion to the investigation. As yet, nobody had been charged with Markov’s murder.

  Monday’s assassination of the Russian broadcaster Boris Dubchenski, who constantly railed against the influence of certain billionaire oligarchs over his country’s political leaders, was practically a replica of Markov’s murder more than three decades ago. Except this time, Twigg had use of a ‘spotter’, waiting on the other side of Bush House, whereas before he’d worked alone; also, Twigg had used a faster-acting dose of ricin, which had killed even more expeditiously. To this day, Cedric Twigg was uncertain exactly how the Inner Court had discovered he was the original dissident’s assassin (a Russian informer, he guessed), but they were swift to appreciate his skill and just as swift to recruit him for themselves. Their inducements of high financial rewards and ‘lifetime’ security (unusual for a hit man) were enough to win his loyalty, a loyalty he’d always assumed was mutual. But now he was sixty-one years old and there was something not quite right with him physically: occasionally his whole body, especially his hands, gave in to small though, as yet, unremarked tremors.

  He laid the newspaper across his lap and dropped both hands to clutch the edge of his seat. It seemed that just thinking of the slow but merciless onset of illness was enough to incite those tiny tremors again.

  A thin, almost invisible, drool of saliva seeped from one side of his mouth.

  10

  Ash had known that Dr Wyatt would be female, but he’d expected someone older and less – well, less alluring. Ash found it hard not to stare across the plane’s narrow aisle at the stunningly beautiful woman who shared the sofa seat with the young blonde girl.

  Dr Wyatt acknowledged him with a quick smile before returning her attention to the girl in her charge. The psychologist spoke in hushed tones, as if to calm her before the flight, and soon the patient was lolling back, her tousled head resting on the psychologist’s shoulder. When Ginny came by with the daily newspapers, Dr Wyatt gave a small shake of her head accompanied by a sweet smile.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink after take-off?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘I’ll have some tea,’ replied
the psychologist. ‘English breakfast tea?’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  Ash was surprised at her preference: with her Mediterranean looks, he’d expected her to request something more exotic, especially when the aircraft carried such a richly distinctive choice of beverage.

  And then she glanced at him again, but this time – and with no effort on his part – he held her gaze. Her cheeks blushed red even through the natural tan of her skin, and her eyelashes fluttered (not through coyness, he was sure, but involuntarily) before she broke away. Yet in those few seconds, Ash had felt a confusing kind of frisson between them, as if they already knew each other – no, that wasn’t it; it was as if they were both suddenly aware that their futures were tethered together. It was crazy. How could he possibly know what she felt when he was so bewildered by his own reaction? Surely he’d misread the mood. But the feeling had begun to form the moment she’d entered the plane, and just now had asserted itself so profoundly that it left him dazed. With something like despair, he remembered having a similar reaction once before, a time best forgotten. The cause then had been a woman named Grace; a woman he’d loved so very much.

  The stewardess’s voice penetrated the awful memory. ‘Would you like today’s paper, Mr Ash?’

  ‘Sorry . . . ?’

  She lifted the fan of newspapers slightly to bring them to her passenger’s attention.

  ‘Oh. Er, no. I’m fine, thank you.’ He rested his head back against the top of his seat and closed his eyes.

  ‘It’s only a short flight, sir. Just outside an hour.’ She’d misunderstood his reaction, thinking him nervous of flying. ‘We’ll be in Scotland in no time at all.’

  He opened his eyes again, if only to reassure Ginny. ‘It’s a nice way to travel,’ was all he could think of to say.

  ‘Yes, the interior designs of private planes can be made to suit the client’s specifications. Corporations like to see their insignia inside and outside the aircraft. Some very wealthy individuals like works of art on the cabin walls, or even chandeliers, would you believe? Not made of glass though – that would be foolish.’ She giggled at that.

  Ginny reached for his now-empty coffee cup. ‘I’ll clear this away for you. Perhaps you’d like something stronger when we’re in the air?’

  Again that irrational notion. Was he being tested over alcohol? No. Paranoia, he told himself again.

  Looking up into her clear blue eyes, he asked, ‘Who actually owns this jet? Is it chartered?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s Sir Victor’s. Sir Victor Haelstrom? That’s who you’re going up to see, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, of course I am. I’m looking forward to it.’

  So it wasn’t a company plane, nor chartered, but privately owned. He decided that when he had a chance, he’d use his laptop to do a bit more detailed research on Sir Victor Haelstrom.

  Once again he glanced across the aisle to see Dr Wyatt tying her deep-black shoulder-length hair into a bunch at the back of her neck. She suddenly looked more serious and a little older. Instead of late twenties, Ash now thought she was probably in her very early thirties. She reached into her shoulder bag and donned a pair of dark-framed glasses. When she took out a notebook and pen from the bag, she caught his appreciative eyes on her.

  Ash felt as though he was blushing, although he knew from experience that his face remained pale. Pale and worn, he told himself. And probably older than his thirty-eight years.

  This time the psychologist didn’t smile back at him, but consulted her wristwatch, then flipped open the notebook and jotted down a note. From the way she quickly checked the sleepy-eyed girl at her side, Ash guessed it was about her patient’s medication and the reaction to it.

  ‘You can lie down once we’re in the air, Petra,’ he heard her say in a soft but clear voice.

  The blonde girl merely yawned and rested her head on the psychologist’s shoulder again. She was bleary-eyed and sluggish, and Ash thought it seemed due to sedation rather than early-morning tiredness. Possibly Dr Wyatt had given her something to calm her nerves before flying. He was still pondering his own reaction to the psychologist when the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.

  ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Despite our late arrivals, we’re still on for our scheduled slot.’

  His manner was relaxed yet authoritative, a perfect pilot’s voice.

  ‘For those of you who haven’t had the good fortune to fly with us before, my name is Mike Roberts and I’m your captain for this flight. My first officer, and sitting by my side as copilot, is Marty “Chuckles” Collins. We call him “Chuckles” because he seldom laughs. He’s the spirit of gloom, but don’t let that put you off.’

  A muffled groan came over the intercom and Ash guessed that Collins was growing weary of his captain’s obviously frequent put-downs.

  ‘Fortunately,’ the captain continued, ‘it’s only a short hop to Scotland, so I won’t have to put up with his lugubrious presence for too long.’

  It occurred to Ash that while the plane was still on the tarmac warming up, the pilot could have just as easily opened the cockpit door which had been closed, unnoticed by Ash, and made his pre-flight patter even more personal.

  Captain Roberts finished the rest of his spiel in the same breezy manner. Ash rested back in his seat again, letting his eyelids droop; he’d never been afraid of flying, but found the pilot’s easy, laid-back style reassuring all the same.

  Just a couple of feet or so from Ash, Dr Wyatt had persuaded the girl called Petra to sit up while her seatbelt was adjusted round her waist, and he couldn’t resist another sneaky look at the psychologist as she then fastened herself in. She met his gaze, although again she didn’t return his smile.

  Instead she frowned, as though something about Ash concerned her.

  He quickly looked away and clicked in his own belt.

  11

  Ash had almost drifted off to sleep when he sensed movement in front of him. Opening his eyes, he found Dr Wyatt settling into the opposite seat.

  ‘So sorry. Did I disturb you?’ She placed her soft leather satchel behind her ankles. Her black-rimmed glasses had been put away, but her raven-black hair was still tied at the back.

  ‘No,’ he assured her, ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ He smiled at her warmly.

  ‘Good. I’ve left our new guest, Petra, to rest on the couch.’

  Across the aisle, the young blonde girl was stretched out on the three-seater. Her knees were bent and her head rested on a plush charcoal-grey cushion; a blanket of the same colour had been placed over her. She seemed to be out for the count, a thumb resting against her lips; a fraction more and she would have been sucking her thumb like a baby.

  ‘You’re the investigator, aren’t you?’ Dr Wyatt had leaned forward, clasped hands resting on her knees, as if she wanted to talk to him in confidence.

  She spoke softly, but as the genial Mike Roberts had told them, the acoustical insulation was excellent, so every word was clear. Because of the light-coffee colour of Dr Wyatt’s skin, and the deepest ebony of her hair, he’d half expected her to speak with an accent – Spanish; or South American, maybe? – but her words had no foreign inflection whatsoever.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he replied, unconsciously straightening himself in the seat. ‘Psychic investigator, that is. Or, if I’m being pompous, parapsychologist.’

  ‘A ghost hunter,’ she responded.

  ‘Well, that’s the popular name for it. And you’re Dr Wyatt, I presume.’

  She put forward a hand and he only had to lean forward slightly to shake it. It was a one-shake, but for some reason, neither let go. They stared at each other, and Ash could plainly see the confusion in her wonderfully seductive deep brown eyes.

  He felt a similar confusion himself, although he tried to conceal it. The moment passed and then, as if by mutual consent, they let their hands drop.

  It took her a little while to compose herself and he looked away to give her time. Through the small
window the white tops of the clouds stretched into the distance like a huge rumpled white duvet, and the brightness as they flew above the weather cheered him. He turned back to the psychologist.

  ‘Are you permanently based in Scotland, or are you some kind of flying consultant?’ he enquired, anxious to prolong their conversation.

  ‘I’m based at Comraich Castle, but I take frequent trips away. Sometimes it helps if I can accompany new guests to the castle just to reassure them. It’s a big step for a client to take.’

  Her voice was pleasant but subdued, as if she were a touch nervous of him. At least, that was how he read it, and he was good at picking up on the mindset of others. Years of determining honesty and dishonesty, bravura or restraint, fear or courage, had honed him sharply to the nuances of those his profession had compelled him to interview. Or was Dr Wyatt merely chary of what she might unconsciously reveal about the Inner Court?

  ‘So, the girl . . .’ he indicated the sleeping blonde across the aisle ‘. . . is obviously in your charge.’

  The psychologist nodded but said no more.

  ‘You implied she was a guest,’ Ash insisted politely. ‘Isn’t she really a patient?’

  ‘Yes, but at Comraich we prefer to regard patients as guests, otherwise it might suggest they had mental health problems, or some contagious illness, which isn’t necessarily the case.’

  ‘Yesterday I met Simon Maseby, who called Comraich a retreat.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Dr Wyatt replied. ‘I think retreat is an ideal way of describing the castle, even though we’re licensed to carry out medical procedures there.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She wasn’t fazed by his blunt question. The psychologist smiled at him. ‘Like major and minor operations, counselling, and the use of new, superior medication for those who need it. We use the most up-to-date treatments for all kinds of ailments, including mental instability.’