Another car had now stopped, and a woman had come down to join her.
She was older. Probably in her sixties.
"Do you have a phone?" Alessandra asked. "If so, please call an ambulance."
"I don't have one." She replied, staring at the body of the boy, and the blood pouring from his ripped side.
"Have you?" Alessandra asked the mother, looking up from the boy as she applied pressure to his open wound.
"Yes..." the mother muttered... in my pocket... I think..."
"Then pull it out and call a bloody ambulance!"
The mother started to tap her coat pocket.
"I must have dropped it, up there…" she pointed. "When I came out of the car."
"Then go and find it. NOW!" Alessandra commanded, suddenly aware of what she had to do next, and grateful for the excuse just given to her to get rid of the two women.
Alessandra didn't want them to see what would happen next.
Whilst speaking she had been examining the boy. She was applying pressure to the wound, but it was a mess. Without instruments, without tools, she could really do nothing more to stop the bleeding. And she wasn't a doctor. By any means. She had just had field training in how to do first aid on wounded colleagues. She'd never had to deal with anything as bad as this before.
Looking down at the face of the boy,... such a beautiful innocent face, devoid of all evil or corruption,... just a young boy with his whole life ahead of him, ... she felt a tear come to her eyes. She had to do something. She had to help him.
She had to stop the bleeding and repair any internal damage.
She knew how to do it.
Her every instinct told her she had to do it.
That she could do it.
She must do it.
Looking back over her shoulder and checking to see that the other women were not paying her any attention, she leaned forward over the boy, over Callum, and rested her left hand on the boy's heart, and her right hand across the wound in his side.
The tingling, the sensation of 'electricity' jumping across and between her fingers was at its worst. It wouldn't be long now.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated, clearing her mind and thinking only of the boy.
As she became aware of the hot sticky blood running down, across and through her fingers, she started to recant the words of the monk, but changing them, morphing them, tweaking them to meet her needs: "Bless me, for I am now blessed."
A heat rose within her then, welling forth from her heart, from her very soul, rising up and filling her chest, spilling over her shoulders and running down her arms, filling her wrists, hands and fingers.
Alessandra squeezed her eyelids tighter together. Willing the change. Willing that Callum would once again rise up, and run and play with his friends, laugh and cry with his mother.
She willed it.
Then willed it some more.
The heat within her moved, seeping through her hands, pouring from every pore of her skin, flowing from her into him.
She felt it.
She sensed it.
She knew it.
In her mind's eye she could see the warmth leave her body and be absorbed by his.
And then, in an instant it was gone.
At that same moment, a pain, the like of which she had never experienced before, pierced her side. She almost screamed with the shock of it, but she bit her lip and contained it.
Her eyes were still closed, but already she could feel that the blood was no longer trickling through her fingers. That his life was no longer ebbing away.
She was almost scared to open her eyes. To see what she had done.
She knew it had been done. She KNEW it. But to see it with her own eyes?
Such a thing could not be done. Ever.
But she knew she had.
She heard the boy groan and the sound of his voice brought her senses back.
Alessandra tried to open her eyes, and struggled at first, but eventually, after a moment they flickered open.
"How... how... how did you do that?" she heard the voice of the mother saying.
"What have you just done?" the woman beside her joined in.
"Mummy!" the voice of the boy, his eyes now open. His face turning to his mother.
"Callum!" the mother cried, and then quickly hurried to be by his side, scooping him up into her arms and embracing him. Both dissolving into the tears of the other.
Alessandra shuffled backwards across the grass away from the mother and son, and struggled up onto her feet, grasping at her left side, the pain welling up and becoming almost unbearable.
"I saw that!" the old woman beside her exclaimed, putting her hand on Alessandra's arm. "I saw what you did!"
Alessandra brushed the woman's hand gently away from her, grimacing with the pain. She looked back at the mother, too absorbed to notice anyone else.
"Please..." the old woman beside her said, the tone in her voice now changing. "Please, come home with me. My husband... he's dying. He needs you. Please, come back with me and do for him what you just did for that boy!"
Alessandra stared at the woman. Dimly, she heard the words she was saying, and she understood them all.
They struck fear into her heart.
"I have done nothing..." she began to mumble, the words at first weak and inaudible. She repeated them for a second time. "I have done nothing. It wasn't me... I didn't do anything... I was just there... It wasn't me."
Walking backwards, Alessandra stumbled awkwardly back up the side of the hill.
She climbed back into her car.
And started to drive.
For the first time in years, Alessandra began to cry.
Not for her. Not for the mother.
But for the boy.
He had been given his life back.
He had been given another chance to spend a life with his mother.
A mother who loved him very much.
And who still knew his name.
Chapter 26
The Trossachs
Scotland
Monday
8.01 a.m.
Alessandra's mental map of events and the associated time-sequence during which they should have occurred, had run smoothly all the way up to entering Doune. Then she had lost thirty minutes. She had hoped to have been one of the first people to enter the breakfast room that morning, thus being able to feign that she had been in her hotel room all night. Her alibi for the evening was that one of the hotel staff had seen her enter the hotel room late the night before and being the first down in the morning would have implied, although not correctly, that she had not left the hotel all evening.
Getting back rather later, now took that advantage away. Instead, she waited for the receptionist to be busy with a departing guest, and then hurriedly snuck past and let herself into the breakfast room, having left her coat in the car.
On the way through reception, she grabbed a copy of the Scotsman paper, and after sitting down, casually started to browse the news. After a few minutes a waiter came up to her and she ordered coffee and breakfast, and then lowered the paper onto the table.
This was one time she did want to make eye contact with a few people, at least. Just so that some people, if asked, could recount her being at that hotel first thing in the morning.
Upon closer inspection, conducted in the hands of a proficient investigator, her association with the breakfast serving would never constitute a watertight alibi. However, that presumed a certain expertise and experience of the investigator, and Alessandra was prepared to entertain the possibility that such expertise may be lacking.
The pretence that could help build her an alibi was just a small detail, but Alessandra always sweated the small stuff.
She smiled at an old lady by the window. She smiled back. However, she was sufficiently old for Alessandra to worry that she would never remember anything for long, let alone having seen Alessandra there that morning.
When the waiter came back with he
r coffee, she made a point of smiling at him, and thanking him with the name written on his badge.
The man's eyes lit up. Almost as if by being noticed, it had made his day.
Having made the conscious effort to be seen, she returned to her thoughts.
The fact that she had just made two million pounds in the past few days did not faze her. She thought about it briefly, only because she knew she must not forget to confirm the kill with her sponsor - although she suspected he was so informed that he would probably already knew the exact moment McNunn's brain cells had redecorated the prison walls.
What worried her was firstly that the healing thing was getting out of control. The tingling in her fingers had threatened the accuracy of her kill shot at the most critical of moments. She had managed to contain it this morning, but if it happened again, and it was a more powerful, stronger sensation the next time round - it seemed to be getting worse each time - would she be strong enough to control it?
She hoped so, but she wasn't sure.
Secondly, after helping the boy, Callum, the look of hope and desperation she had seen in the eyes of the old woman who had implored her to accompany her home and heal her husband, had actually scared her.
She didn't know how to deal with anything like that.
What the hell was happening to her?
Who was she becoming?
This thing, or whatever it was, had to stop. And now.
She knew that she couldn't go through with the mission in Edinburgh until it had been dealt with.
"Bless you, for you are now blessed." She recounted the words in her mind.
She thought of the monk and heard his voice.
This was all his fault.
If she hadn't been 'blessed' by him, none of this would be happening.
An hour later, she had checked out of the hotel and was in her rental car driving north.
Against all her expectations and previous intentions, she was heading back to Loch Ness.
--------------------
Leaving Glencoe
Scotland
1.57 p.m.
Alessandra had stopped off at Glencoe to go for a short walk. The pain in her side had lingered for most of the morning, but now it was wearing off, and she wanted to stretch her legs.
The weather was magnificent, and just as she was approaching the tourist look-out point at the base of the Hidden Valley, a car had pulled out and left an inviting spot.
She'd taken it.
Stretching her legs she'd walked away from the usual throng of Japanese, Americans and Germans and found a space for herself down by a little burn - the cute Scottish word for 'tiny river' - where she'd washed her face in the cold, refreshing water and taken a drink.
The water in Scotland was delicious. No chemicals. No fluoride. No rubbish. Just H-2-0. She'd read somewhere that was one of the reasons why Scottish whisky tasted so good. Personally she just thought it was because it was from Scotland. Everything she'd seen so far in this country had impressed her. It was visually stunning, the people were warm and friendly, and the wages... she'd made almost three million pounds and she'd been here less than a month!
For a moment, she thought of the money. It was a lot.
Add that to the money, the stocks and shares she already had, and even accounting for the cost of her mother's care, and the renovation and building project she had planned for her mother's house, then realistically, she knew she could easily retire in comfort.
But what would she retire to?
Killing was all she knew.
She was good at it.
In fact, she excelled at it.
Shaking her head, she looked up at the mountains towering above her. Not massive, peaked mountains like in the Alps or Nepal, but rounded, contoured mountains that invited rather than threatened onlookers.
Another fact that she had picked up from the tourist blurbs she was partial to reading wherever she went, was that the mountains in Scotland were some of the oldest mountains in the world. Once upon a time, apparently, although she found it hard to imagine as she looked up at them now, they had been as high as Everest. As tall and impressive as any of the highest mountains in the world were today, so had they been, once upon a time.
Wind, rain, ice, and bloody millions of sheep and tourists had slowly worn them down, until today, you could walk up them in a couple of hours.
She would have stayed there for hours, just absorbing it all, had it not been for the rumbling in her belly, and one other thing.
Looking up at the vastness of the mountain before her, and surrounded by the valley, she suddenly felt rather alone.
It was a curious thought. An odd one for Alessandra, who always considered herself more of a loner than anything else.
Yet it was real. For a moment, she thought how nice it would be to share that moment with someone else, and conversely, having had that thought, she realised how empty it was without them.
Then she thought of Gavin.
And she headed back to her car.
"Hello? What part of the world are you in now?" he asked, after answering the call.
"I'm just leaving Glencoe. What did you say your last name was?"
"MacDonald."
"Then you have my condolences."
"For what?"
"Your clansmen who were murdered by the Campbells. I know the whole story. "The Massacre of Glencoe." And to cheer you up and take your mind of what must obviously have been a terrible and bloody affair, I wish to offer to buy you dinner. Tomorrow night, if you wish?"
"I do so certainly wish. I'm suffering terribly and I need you to take away the suffering."
Alessandra winced slightly, but let it pass. The choice of words was just a coincidence.
"I can do that."
"Actually, why don't I cook?" Alessandra suddenly asked, wondering what on earth was coming over her. She hadn't cooked for anyone else in years.
"That would be lovely. I'll bring wine. I've haven't dined at the Hilton for ages. I'll look forward to it. Eight o'clock?"
"Yes, that sounds perfect." she replied, then continued by asking, "What time does the monastery close?"
"I think it's six. Why?"
"I wanted to buy some tourist trash, for friends back home. I didn't have time before."
"By the way, where did you say 'home' was? I don't think you've ever told me."
"Chicago."
"Aha... the..."
"Windy city? Yep, that's the place. Anyway, see you at eight, and don't be late..."
Why she'd said the last three words in a childish voice, making it so obviously rhyme with the phrase before, she didn't know. After hanging up she felt rather stupid. But she also had to admit that she was looking forward to seeing him.
After picking up a sandwich at the Glencoe visitor centre at the bottom of the Pass, she arrived in Fort Augustus just after three thirty.
Deciding it best not to go to the caravan first, she headed straight to the monastery.
Apart from the brief interlude at Glencoe and the conversation with Gavin, she'd spent most of the rest of the trip thinking about what she'd say to the monk when she met him.
She knew he knew what this was all about.
And she hoped, almost even prayed, that he would make it stop.
That he would take it back.
Un-bless her.
Even damn her if he had to. She was not religious. It made no difference to her what he said or did, so long as he made it stop.
He had started this. He was responsible. And enough was enough.
--------------------
St. Benedict's Abbey
Fort Augustus
3.45 p.m.
Arriving at the Monastery, after having taken her car twice through a car wash in Fort Augustus where she also hosed down the underside of the car, Alessandra went straight to the grand front door and pulled on the large metal chain that hung down outside.
She heard a bell ring inside, and several
minutes later one of the two large oak doors swung partially open.
Alessandra introduced herself and explained that it was vitally important that she be allowed to speak with the small friendly monk with the stutter. The one who escorted tourists on guided tours around the monastery. "You want to see Brother Mathew?"
"Yes, if that's his name."
"May I ask what it is with regard to?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
The monk chuckled.
"Madam, believing is our speciality. Try me."
"When I was on the tour, he blessed me. Ever since then he seems to have imparted to me the gift of healing..."
"You'd better come in."
The monk issued the words even before she had finished explaining and immediately stepped aside to let her enter.
As she passed him, she was conscious of the monk quickly glancing outside to see if anyone was observing her entrance.
"Please, step this way," the monk invited.
She followed him into an ante-room with simple wooden chairs lining the walls. In the middle of the room, a simple table stood with a couple of glasses and a jug of water.
The monk waved for her to be seated, closed the door and left.
The first thing that Alessandra did was to try the door handle to make sure it had not been locked. It wasn't.
She was tempted to open the door and peer outside, but thought better of it.
Patience was a virtue. This was probably a time to exercise it.
She was about to ask herself, 'Besides, what harm can come to me in a monastery?' when she realised that was exactly why she was there. Brother Matthew had already changed her life once. Who knew what could happen next?
She heard footsteps.
Two people.
When the door opened, Alessandra was standing behind the table, appearing relaxed, but nevertheless primed and ready to react. Out of force of habit more than anything else.
What 'physical' threat could or would they ever offer her?
Two monks entered the room: the one she had met previously, plus a new one, older, rounder, and distinctly kinder in appearance.
Alessandra relaxed.
The Assassin's Gift Page 26