Liam pulls a face. ‘So? I’m not scared of them. In fact, I want to find them so I can have a word with them.’
It’s the last thing I want to do, but I have no choice.
‘Come on,’ Liam says, grabbing his phone from the coffee table. ‘Bring yours too, just in case.’
Chapter Eleven
We start walking along the beach, though Liam is practically marching, and I have to hurry to match his pace. The bonfire from last night has left a charred scar on the sand. As we pass it, we glance at the chairs still sitting beside the remains of the fire: reminders of how our evening was ruined.
‘What do you think they want?’ I ask Liam.
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a treasure hunter. It could just be a homeless person. Someone who’s living on the island. Trespassing.’
‘But how would they survive out here year-round?’ I ask. The winters must be brutal – not to mention fresh water and electricity.
‘I don’t know,’ Liam grunts.
When the beach peters out we have to head inland, through the woods and then up and over a scraggy hill. We can see the cliffs in the distance, and I remember the warning in the book, but when I mention it to Liam, he waves the concern away. By the time we reach them, I have to stop to catch my breath for a moment before I can take in the view. When I do, I can see three hundred and sixty degrees – the whole island spread out before us, as well as the loch stretching in all directions. It makes me feel tiny and insignificant, and also emphasises just how far we are from any help. The loch is really a firth, or a fjord: it leads out to sea, and the mainland feels terribly far away. Looking back over the island, I can make out the forest as well as the roof struts of the burned castle poking up among the trees. The cottage is a small dot more than a mile away, and the jetty appears as thin as a twig stretching out into the dark grey water.
Liam pulls out his phone but the expression on his face tells me he’s got no reception. ‘What about you?’ he asks, nodding at the phone in my hand.
I look down at it and shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’
Liam scowls and then trudges off to a slightly higher point nearer to the edge of the cliffs.
‘Don’t go too close,’ I warn.
He ignores me and holds his phone in the air.
I stand well back, leaning into the buffeting wind and scanning the desolate hillside. It’s completely unsheltered, which is probably why it’s so barren, apart from one arthritic tree, bent almost double as its roots dig in like claws to keep from being tipped over by the gale force. I feel like at any point the wind might pick me up and sweep me off the precipice too.
‘It looks like there’s a path over there,’ Liam shouts as he heads back over to me. He points to a barely visible track built into the rock face, which looks like it might lead down, though I don’t dare step close enough to find out where to.
‘It looks dangerous,’ I say. ‘Come on, let’s go home.’
Liam smiles at me, shaking his head as though he’s a child indulging an overly protective parent, but he moves away from the edge and we keep going, walking along the perimeter of the island.
The north side of the island runs down away from the cliffs and delves back down into the woods. It’s sparser than the forest behind the cottage, which is mainly pine; instead it’s filled with ash and rowan and the trees aren’t densely packed together but spread out. It’s beautiful, peaceful even, like a dell, and completely out of the wind. If only there wasn’t this low-level sense of danger thrumming like a discordant note through my body I might actually be able to enjoy it, but I can’t stop looking over my shoulder, half-expecting someone to be following us, and I can’t escape the sensation of being watched either. And neither, it seems, can Liam. I catch him jerking his head left and right, turning full circles as we walk, as though he expects someone to leap out from behind a tree and attack us.
He walks with his phone in his hand, checking it constantly to see if we’ve magically walked into an area with signal, but I barely bother looking at mine, knowing the chances are impossible; we’re so far from any kind of civilization, and reception was spotty even on the mainland.
We continue on through the woodland, clambering down over boulders in a few places and into steep gullies. We cross a stream and then follow it all the way to the water’s edge. On this part of the island, there’s no beach; just large rocks jutting into the loch. We head back inland when they become too difficult to climb over and Liam, who has said very little up until this point, leads us into the clearing where the castle sits.
‘It makes sense,’ Liam says when we come upon it.
‘What does?’ I reply.
He nods at the castle. ‘It’s the only place you could shelter on the whole island.’
‘You’re not thinking of going in there?’ I ask him, but I already know the answer.
Liam starts towards the castle. I trot after him and catch his sleeve. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’ Liam retorts, ignoring my hand on his arm.
‘Because …’ I trail off, gazing up at the charred ruin before us. ‘How would we get in anyway?’ I ask. ‘The downstairs is boarded up.’
‘Let’s find out,’ Liam says, pulling his arm from my grip and striding on.
‘I don’t think we should,’ I mumble to his retreating form. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘I’m not waiting around for this bastard to stop playing games,’ Liam calls over his shoulder.
‘Maybe whoever it is isn’t playing games?’ I offer, catching him up. ‘What if they’re just curious about us? No one’s been here for months. They probably just wanted to find out who was staying. We should just leave them alone. And hopefully they’ll do the same.’
But it’s pointless; Liam’s determined to find the person and confront them. I’d do anything to avoid conflict and never used to assume that people had nefarious intentions, but Liam’s the opposite. He’s like a dog with a bone when he goes after something, and he always assumes the worst in people and situations: another symptom of his police work.
When we reach the castle, I notice just how impenetrable the stone walls are; though weathered and pocked, each slab is at least a foot and a half thick, and there are two towers still left standing among the ruins. I stare up at the pointed arches and buttresses. It reminds me a little of pictures that I’ve seen of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris: several leering gargoyles carved into the stonework above the door stick their tongues out at us. It’s ugly and imposing, even more so in its decay, and I really want to turn tail and run.
The downstairs windows are all solidly boarded up, with no way of gaining entry unless we had a sledgehammer or a saw, but Liam walks around the entire circumference of the building, looking to see if any boards have been pried loose, and I follow a few steps behind. When we reach the front doors, we see that they’ve been covered with two heavy steel panels, the bolts drilled into the stonework on either side. I feel quite relieved that we won’t be going inside.
I stand on the scarred stone steps leading up to the entrance, my mind flashing back to the photograph in the book. I’m standing in the exact place where the McKay family stood. I remember the look on Nancy’s face, her hand resting on her son Elliot’s shoulder, and I shudder as if someone just walked over my grave.
I look around then and notice that Liam has vanished. Panicked, I run around the corner but there’s still no sign of him. ‘Liam?’ I call out, suddenly afraid.
There’s no answer. I shout his name again.
‘Over here!’ I hear him yell back, and then I spot his head emerge from what looks like a hole. As I get closer, I realise he’s actually just down some steep stone steps that lead to what was probably once a servants’ entrance or maybe even a coal scullery door, judging by the small size of it.
‘It’s been forced open,’ Liam says, pointing at the boarded-up doorway. ‘Look.’ He yanks on the p
lywood covering the entrance and it comes away easily. It was merely there as a prop cover. Liam pulls out his phone and turns the torch on. He shines it into the dark, cave-like interior, then takes a step inside.
I hesitate. ‘I don’t know if this a good idea,’ I say.
‘You can wait outside if you like,’ Liam answers without even a glance in my direction.
There’s no way I’m waiting outside by myself, so I follow him, feeling my way like a deep-sea diver into the murky depths. There’s two of us, I tell myself, trying to feel brave, and probably only one of him. Nothing bad can happen. Can it?
Chapter Twelve
Liam holds the phone up high, though the flashlight does little beyond illuminating a circle of a few feet in front of us. We’re in what appears to be a cellar; it’s damp and smells of rot or mildew. I cough in the stale air and Liam holds his hand out for me to take as we pick our way across the uneven ground.
I grip it tightly, not wanting to fall or twist my ankle; in places the roof beams have collapsed, and piles of rubble and masonry clog up the space. I worry about the roof caving in completely and trapping us down here. How long would it take before we were found? Too long, that’s for sure.
Finally, we reach the far wall and Liam locates a door, but there’s a rock wedged in front of it. Did someone place it there? It seems somehow deliberate. He hefts it out the way and pulls the door open; it leads into a stone-walled passage, windowless and airless, which we pick our way along. There are several rooms off the corridor and by the looks of things they were once used as storage or perhaps were even servants’ quarters.
There’s furniture in some; one looks like a tack room, and another has shelves and several hooks embedded into the ceiling – maybe it was used to hang game. A third has cracked stone sinks and rusting plumbing, and I assume it was once a laundry room. Finally, we find our way into what clearly used to be a kitchen. There’s a flagstone floor and an oven so old it looks like an antique. On the shelves of a wooden dresser we see grimy crockery and dishes, and on the old, dusty oak table sits a rolling pin beside an enamel bowl, as though awaiting pastry to roll out. It’s as though the clock has struck midnight in a fairytale and everything has been frozen in time. I want to turn back. There’s something terrible about the place; haunted or cursed, just like the men in the pub warned. But Liam seems immune to the dark atmosphere; he either doesn’t feel it, or he isn’t afraid of it like me. Probably the latter.
Off the kitchen we find another stairwell, this one leading up, and Liam starts to climb. Reluctantly I follow behind, almost bumping into him when he pauses halfway up, noting a footprint in the dust.
‘He’s been here,’ Liam whispers. ‘I bet this is where he’s staying.’
Now I want to turn back even more, and I wonder why we’re continuing on.
‘I think we should leave,’ I hiss to Liam. ‘I don’t like this. Let’s just go.’
He turns and sees the worry on my face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, keeping his voice low. ‘It’ll be fine. I just want to have a word, that’s all. Tell him to leave us alone.’
‘What if he’s dangerous?’
Liam answers by pulling out a switchblade from his pocket. My eyes widen even more in alarm. ‘What are you doing with that?’ I ask in alarm.
‘Protection,’ he explains. ‘In case we need it.’
I swallow hard. ‘This is crazy. We should go back. We shouldn’t be here.’
‘He shouldn’t be here,’ Liam retorts, tugging his hand from mine. ‘He’s trespassing.’
He continues up the stairs toward a small wooden door. I watch him push it open and realise that I am faced with a choice; I can follow him, or I can stay here on my own. I don’t want to do either, but I figure it’s better to stick together and that there’s safety in numbers, so I run up the stairs behind him.
We enter a large hallway – what was once probably a grand entrance hall – with a sweeping staircase leading up to a viewing gallery on the first floor above us. Doors lead off the hall, as well as a long corridor running in both directions the length of the house.
Liam puts his phone away. He doesn’t need the torch any more: sunlight is streaming in through holes in the broken roof above us. I gaze around. Once upon a time there were probably antlers and portraits of ancestors stuck to the wall, and maybe even swords or coats of arms. I imagine it probably looked like a hunting lodge – but now it’s desolate and bare, the stone walls streaked with soot, scorched and blackened from where the flames must have licked it clean. I spot bird nests on the window ledges and droppings all over the pitted flagstone floor. Puddles of water have collected here and there and turned stagnant, giving off a musty odour.
The grand, sweeping staircase that curves around the hallway to the upper level is interrupted in several places, the stones having caved in and formed an avalanche of rubble at the back of the room. There’s no way of getting to the upper storeys now, which is something of a relief.
‘Come on,’ Liam says, walking further into the hall.
Anxiety crawls up my spine and clutches me around the neck like one of those gargoyles outside clinging to the stonework, strangling me and making it hard to breathe.
Liam makes for a room to the right of the stairwell. We enter into what might once have been a drawing room or living room: there’s a huge fireplace, filled in now with dirt and stones, and the room is bare of furniture and scarred by soot. Off this room we enter what seems to be a library, judging by the shelves, though all the books have been destroyed. It’s dark in here and Liam has to use his phone again to light our way through an open doorway into yet another room. It’s hard to tell what this one was used for as there’s no furniture and nothing on the walls, just more piles of rubble and a caved-in fireplace, and no signs of life other than streaks of white bird guano and rat droppings.
We find that the doorways going onwards are all blocked up and have to backtrack our way to the hallway. This time, we head in the other direction, heading first into what was once a study to the left of the front doors. For whatever reason, this part of the castle obviously didn’t burn at quite the same rate and pieces of furniture remain in place. In front of the window is a regal-looking desk, though the weather has chewed away at the leather top. A broken chair sits in a corner of the room and beside the fireplace there’s a metal bucket filled with tools including tongs, a shovel and a poker.
Liam heads through another door, and another, and I follow in his wake, tiptoeing delicately – careful with my step. Some rooms look barely touched at all. We come across a dining table with twelve chairs and it almost looks ready to receive guests, apart from the fact that the dresser is covered in fragments of broken china and glass, as if a giant has crushed his fist down on top of it all. By contrast, in one we find the roof completely caved in and there’s so much rubble we can’t get across to the far door. We’re forced back on ourselves once more, but in the dining room Liam pauses. He points at the wood panelling that covers the walls, which has buckled in places, and crosses towards one panel that has come loose. He pulls it open to reveal a passageway behind.
‘Must have been for the servants,’ he remarks.
I’m intrigued enough to follow him over to peer inside, but Liam is already headed into the passageway, fumbling his way along, shining his torch. It’s a narrow stone corridor with blown-out lightbulbs running down the middle of the ceiling. I can imagine servants scurrying down here, carrying trays of food.
We make our way along the passage, turning several corners. It’s labyrinthine and far too dark and who knows if we’ll find our way back out again. I start to panic at the thought of being trapped in here, but Liam thankfully doesn’t go too far before he finds another doorway. He leans on it and we burst back out into the study. I gasp with relief.
‘Let’s go,’ I whisper, fighting back tears. ‘He’s not here.’
‘He must be here,’ Liam answers, through gritted teeth. ‘Let’s try ups
tairs.’
‘How?’ I plead. ‘The stairs are broken. There’s no way anyone could …’ But Liam is already striding back into the great hall towards the staircase. ‘You can’t go up there.’ I scurry after him. ‘What if you fall? What if …?’ I trail off, knowing he won’t listen and, indeed, he’s already started up them.
He stops at the first gap; a large hole stretches out in front of him and he would need to jump several feet to make it to the other side. But before I can say anything, he makes the leap. My hands fly to my mouth as a piece of masonry crumbles away and joins the pile of rubble at the bottom.
I’m torn between staying where I am at the foot of the stairs and following Liam, but there’s no way I’m jumping that distance, so all I can do is watch on tenterhooks. Liam keeps going, gingerly creeping to the edge of the stairs until he reaches the next gap. This one is bigger. I watch him contemplate it. The drop is substantial, some thirty feet to the ground below. He eyes the four feet of empty space that he’d need to clear and then prepares to jump, crouching low and putting his weight on his front foot.
A sudden banging makes him pause just as he’s about to go. ‘What was that?’ he asks, turning to me.
I shake my head in confusion, looking around.
‘Where was it coming from?’
I point toward the back of the great hall. ‘I think from over there.’
Liam turns and hurries back down the stairs, launching himself over the gap at a pace in his haste to get to me.
‘Where?’ he asks when he reaches my side.
I gesture towards the pile of debris at the back of the hall. ‘Over there, somewhere, I think.’
He frowns and for a moment there’s silence. But then we both hear a scuffling sound, followed by a loud thud. It sounds like someone trying to break their way out of a room or knock down a door. Liam puts his finger to his lips to tell me to stay silent – not that I need the reminder – and then he tiptoes towards the noise.
The Stalker Page 7