“No. I don’t.” He frowned, rubbing his forehead. “Look, if you’re sick of me and need a break, take one, for God’s sake. But don’t think for one moment I don’t want you here.”
I studied him, not quite sure if he was saying that because he felt guilty or if he really meant it.
He reached up and touched my cheek lightly, the softest of caresses. “Seriously—something quick and easy out of the freezer, a bit of crap telly, and some snogging on the sofa.”
I still wasn’t sure, but I said, “You do know how to woo a man.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he smiled. “Mr Romance, that’s me.”
I laughed and mostly meant it.
A little later, as he slumped against the kitchen counter and watched me chop salad, he said, “You can yell at me if you need to, you know.”
“I don’t like yelling.”
He snorted. “I’ve heard you shout.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it.”
He hummed softly but didn’t say anything more.
We did our best to have the lazy evening he’d described, but both of us were still tense, and the storm was still rumbling away in the distance. It seemed to be moving back and forth, sometimes closer and sometimes very distant, but the sound of horses was mixed into it, sometimes louder than the thunder and sometimes drowned out entirely.
It wasn’t dark yet, not truly, but it was gloomy enough that it felt like dusk had extended back into the afternoon. The wind was picking up, wuthering around the corners of the lodge.
Niall started flicking through channels. Neither of us was really watching, not until he landed on a local news programme.
“Hopes are fading for missing American holidaymaker Mac Elliot after poor weather conditions forced the police to call off the search again. Eleven-year-old Mac has been missing from his guesthouse for—”
Niall switched it off.
In the sudden silence, all we could hear was the thrumming of the rain and, laced through it, the sound of running horses.
Neither of us said anything, but Niall got up and went to the fridge. He returned with a can in each hand. He tossed one to me and cracked the other one open. I almost took him up on his unspoken offer to call him out, but I understood how he felt. I bloody well needed a drink too.
We sat for a long time in silence as the evening turned slowly into darkness, the rain thinning as the storm crept closer, and I found my mind coming back to Jeannie Duffy’s story and her bizarre expectation that I would take up the burden she and her fellow survivors had carried for so long. I didn’t know for sure what Niall was thinking about, but I could guess, especially when he went back to the fridge for another drink.
Lightning flashed out, and the picture on the telly stuttered. Then the thunder came, rolling on and on above us. When it finally faded, the horses were back, passing so close to the lodge that I should have been able to pull back the curtains and see them go by.
But, of course, I knew there would be nothing there.
Niall surged to his feet, more than a little unsteadily, and snarled, “Fuck this!”
“What?” I asked, but he was already heading for the door. He flung it open before I could intercept him and bellowed, “Hey! You invisible bastards! How about you do something useful for once and hunt that fucker down!”
“Niall!”
But outside the horses were slowing, the sound of their hooves circling back. Then all was quiet.
Niall yelled, “You listen to me, whoever you are—Armstrongs or Forsters or Elliots! There’s too many dead kids in this village, and you’ve done nothing to save them! Six hundred years on the hot trod and the bairns are still dying. So what are you going to do about it now? What are you going to do?”
The lightning broke across the sky again, thunder a mere breath behind it, and by its brief light, I saw them.
They sat astride shaggy little horses, dressed in leather jerkins and breeches as dull and dun as their horses’ hides. Even their helmets, simple metal bowls, had dirt rubbed into the steel to dull the shine. Long lances rose up at their backs, and they all had multiple knives and short swords strapped to their waists. They were small—smaller than I had imagined, and lean, their faces worn and wary. They looked hungry, but there was a cruelness to their expression too. If I’d crossed paths with one of them in the streets of any modern city, I would have made sure not to meet his gaze, maybe even swerved out of his path.
The lightning faded, but there was still light coming from the house behind us, and I could still see them, shadowy figures in the rainy night. One of the horses shifted, and I realised I could smell them too—horse and a dank, mossy stench of unwashed clothes and flesh.
One of them nudged his horse forward and spoke to Niall. I didn’t understand a word of it—I recognised the rise and fall of his accent and a few syllables, but it was like hearing modern Scots washed through a sieve.
“Forster,” Niall said. “Niall of Blacklynefoot.”
The rider said something in return, but the only word I caught was, “Elliot.”
The hairs rose on the back of my neck. The ghostly Elliot asked something else, and Niall folded his arms, looking unimpressed. I could see the resemblance between them, a sheer bloody-mindedness that had come intact down the centuries, but I was still afraid for him. My lover looked soft and wealthy next to these riders, and I remembered every story I had read about their casual violence and suspicion of both strangers and any fool who challenged them.
But Niall was also clearly understanding more than I did, because he said, his accent growing thicker and closer to theirs with every word, “I want the bairns back, and if I cannae have that, I want yon Robin put down.”
The other riders were all silent, so still they could have been drawn against the night, but I could feel the threat of violence in the air. I didn’t dare move in case I drew their attention, and I’d never felt so conscious of the colour of my skin and the hostility it might so easily provoke. I had no illusions these hard bastards would give the benefit of the doubt to someone they saw as foreign.
Or maybe not. Maybe they had been riding these hills long enough to tolerate incomers. I hoped so, but I didn’t dare risk it. Fiercely, I wished Niall would step back and get in here where there was light and warmth and safety. Instead, he was listening intently, nodding from time to time as the Elliot leader rose in his stirrups and gestured towards the hills. I had never felt so far away from him.
At last, Niall turned to me, grinning savagely, and said, “Did you hear that?”
“I can’t understand anything they’re saying.” I could feel all their attention focused on me now—not quite hostile but assessing, and not in a kind way.
“It’s Scots, but old and bit off. I didn’t get it all, but from what I understood, they know the old moss routes, but the forest confuses them. He’s gone to ground in the woods, and they can’t hunt him down because—I’m not sure.”
“Because the forest wasn’t there when they were alive,” I said. “Niall, please. Come away.”
One of the riders laughed, low and derisive.
“They want us to ride with them—show them the new paths.”
“No!” I snapped. “Are you mad? They’re dead. You can’t go running away with ghosts.”
The Elliot said, “An thow feir to cum ridand, hid thisell as ane cowart at hame ande grete inta thi hand cowrche lik ane muling maede.”
That, I got the gist of, especially when they all laughed, low and mocking.
I lifted my chin, trying to hide my fear. “I won’t come riding with you. Tell us where he’s hiding, and we’ll go and get the boy ourselves.”
He scowled down at me, and I wondered if he found me as hard to understand as I did him. Then he snorted and made a gesture to the other riders before turning back to Niall, dismissing me. The other riders shifted, making space, and something began to take shape there, fading out of the darkness into something real and solid.
&
nbsp; A horse, wiry and tough like the ones they all rode. Niall reached out to it at once, stroking its nose with a fond look, and I suddenly recalled he was drunk enough to be stupid.
“Niall,” I said, in my firmest voice. “I need you to come away from there now.”
Instead, he kept murmuring to the horse.
“Niall, that horse is dead. Step away from it, please.”
“She’s not dead,” Niall said. “She’s a beauty, aren’t you, lovely? Proper old Border hobbler, this—they’ve been nigh bred out of existence now, but she’s the prettiest example of the type I’ve even seen. There’s my sweet lady, eh. Such a pretty maid. Will you let me ride you, aye?”
I opened my mouth to try reason again and saw the Elliot’s mouth curve up in a smirk. Niall swung up into the horse’s saddle, lithe and easy, and held out his hand. “Come up now. I won’t let you fall.”
“No. I’m not—are you out of your mind?”
He glowered at me, as if impatient with my nonsense. “Set a thief to catch a thief and a ghost to catch a ghost. Nothing else has worked.”
“What makes you think this will work?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sick of doing nothing while children suffer! So, you come along with me or not, but I’m riding out, Leon, and if that boy’s alive, I’ll bring him back!” He leaned over, reaching out to me. “So you coming?”
I said, “No, no, and you shouldn’t either.”
But the riders were already turning and moving out along the drive, disappearing into the night as they left the circle of light from the lodge door.
Niall said, “Now or never, Leon.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. I wasn’t doing this—wasn’t taking life and limb into my hands for something so unknown.
When I opened my eyes, Niall was still looking at me. It suddenly struck me that I’d never seen him on horseback before, but he looked like he belonged in the saddle, sitting there with a new mood settling over his face—something both confident and implacable, as if he had finally found some purpose, something to make sense of his life without Katie. He dipped his head to me once, said, “I’ll see you when this is done, lover,” and he turned his horse into the line.
For a moment, I froze, but then I launched myself after them. “Niall!”
But they were all moving now, and I couldn’t reach him. Every time I got close, one of them would kick or slap me away, laughing as I stumbled and came flailing back at them. I kept running, even as blows landed on my face, my shoulder, my arms where I lifted them up to protect myself, and all the while they were laughing and jeering even as the pace of the horses’ hooves grew quicker, out along the lane and through the dark village.
Even the last of them was past me now, and I couldn’t see them—only hear them, as I had heard them night after night.
“Niall!” I shouted, and my voice cracked, but he didn’t look back.
Lightning flared across the sky again, and for a moment I saw them, riding at full pace down towards the bridge that crossed the border.
Then, even before the lightning faded, so did they, vanishing as easily as they had appeared out of the darkness, until only the echo of their passing still hung in the air.
And Niall was gone too.
Chapter Thirty-Two
MOMENTS LATER, the rain came down again, but I didn’t move. On every side the wind ripped through the trees, shaking the whole world around me. If something—some car or lorry or thundering riders—had swept around the corner then, they would have run me down where I stood.
But nothing came, and the rain too passed, and I was left alone with the wind and the empty road and the pale glimmer of a crescent moon casting thin light through the rags of the clouds.
And from the side of the road, a small, shaky voice whispered, “Mr Kwarteng?”
I jumped and turned, peering into the shadows. I couldn’t see much, but I caught a sense of movement and a boy came scrambling out towards me. I’d recognised the accent, but it wasn’t until he got close that I registered his height and knew which boy this was.
“Doug? What are you doing here?”
He grabbed my arm, his hand shaking in my sleeve. “That was them, wasn’t it? The riders? I heard them this time.”
He was clearly terrified, and I closed my eyes for a moment before forcing all my own fears aside. Here was a child who needed my help, and I wouldn’t have to face my own feelings until I had dealt with him. “It was, yes. Did you hear them go by?”
“I hid in the ditch.”
Wise lad. “What on earth are you doing out here? Let’s get you back to the guesthouse.”
Even in the dim light, I saw his shoulders hunch up. “No. You said—you said I had to tell you before I went looking for Mac. This is me telling you.”
Dear God. Struggling to think past my own more immediate fears, I clung to the shreds of my authority desperately. “Doug, it’s the middle of the night. Have you found something out, or is this just a guess?”
He waved something at me. “It’s in the book—I read it. I made myself read it!”
Given how he’d struggled with the sign up at the stone circle, that couldn’t have been easy. “The ghost story collection?”
“It said that old demon takes them to the castle. That’s where he’ll be.” His voice rang out with something closer to desperation than certainty.
I crouched down a little, getting myself on his level, and considered what to say. How to tell him that the sort of book Mac had picked up in a souvenir shop somewhere was going to be more conjecture and sensation than anything else? “Doug. They’ve searched there already. You know they checked out everywhere Mac might have been interested in.”
“But they haven’t checked knowing what we know! And they haven’t checked in the dark!”
I said slowly, barely holding back a shudder, “No, they haven’t done that.”
“So we can go, then? Go and check?”
“Now?” I had absolutely no desire to drive to Hermitage in the dark, and I still wasn’t sure why he was out here alone. “Do you parents know you’re out here?”
Another silent jerk of his shoulders.
“Doug.”
“Mom’s sleeping, and Dad’s gone to Hawick to yell at the police again.”
“Oh, no, we don’t,” I said firmly and turned him round to face back down the road. “Your poor mother. What if she wakes up and finds you’re missing too?”
“I left a note, obviously.”
I said, “Nope. No way. Not in a million years, mate. We are not going anywhere without waking your mum up and taking her too.”
“She took a pill.” I could hear the stubbornness in his voice. “She won’t wake up until morning, and then it won’t be dark anymore. And I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’ll walk if I have to.”
In my memory, Jeannie’s frail voice said, “Robin likes easy prey, you see.” There was no way I was going to let Doug wander around the night-time countryside to become the next victim. I was going to have to march him back to the guesthouse and sit up on watch until I was sure he wasn’t sneaking out.
And all the while, Niall was out there somewhere, lost in the company of the dead.
Doug pulled away from me, saying, “You can’t make—whoa!”
He was staring over my shoulder. I spun round and immediately saw what had distracted him. From here, we could see up to Vainguard on the ridge above us.
The lights were on, although I had left it in darkness. Then, in one quick flicker, the windows went dark again. Then, one by one, from the top of the tower to the ground floor, they came back on, as if someone was running through the building at full pelt from switch to switch.
Then, so clearly it was unmistakable, a figure showed at the tower window—the silhouette of a child.
“Mac!” Doug yelped and took off up the road at a run.
I swore and went after him. He was fresher and younger than I was, but my stride was longer, and
I caught up with him halfway up the slope. “Stop! There’s no reason to think that’s Mac!”
“Who else is it going to be?”
I said sharply, “The thing that took him?”
Doug stopped. Then he looked up at me. I couldn’t see his expression, but I heard the determination in his voice. “I want to know for sure.”
“Let me take you back to the guesthouse. Then I’ll go and check.”
“No!” He grabbed my sleeve. “I won’t run off. I’ll stick with you. Let me come with you!”
Above us, the lights went off.
“Please!” Doug begged.
I closed my eyes. An hour ago, I’d been curled up on the sofa with Niall. I wished fiercely that I could open my eyes and find myself back there, bad moods and all, but it was no good. I was still on the road with Doug, surrounded by the racket of the trees heaving in the wind, and above us, Vainguard was dark and quiet, a mere shadow against the tattered clouds.
I said to Doug, “Fine, but if I say it’s too risky, we leave without argument.”
“Yessir,” he said, so promptly I wondered who he thought he was fooling.
We walked round by the road, our footsteps muffled by the roar of the wind. We seemed to be the only living things in the world—no owls hooted or foxes barked or deer trod softly across the road. The lights were still on in the lodge, and the door hung open where I had left it, but I knew as soon as I stepped inside that it was empty. Niall was still gone. I took the heavy torch from its hook in the porch, stuffed the spare key in my pocket, and pulled the door closed behind us.
The storm had rolled into the distance now, and the clouds were thinning. As we made our way up the drive, the moon came out from behind the clouds—only a sliver, but bright enough to cast faint moon shadows before us. Here, away from the edge of the wood, our footsteps were audible again, heavy on the gravelly ground. I was suddenly very aware that I was leading Doug straight to his brother’s last known location and opened my mouth to try persuading him again.
Then I looked down at him, his set shoulders and bowed head, and thought better of it. I know when a kid’s in a state where they won’t change their mind. If I didn’t go with him, he’d be back here alone later.
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