‘I’ll see ye get there safely,’ McGray replied, only too late realizing he’d said too much.
‘Safely?’ Benjamin repeated, and McGray knew he couldn’t keep the truth from him any longer. It might be a lot for him to take in, but he needed to know.
‘Benjamin, laddie . . .’ McGray took a deep breath, ‘we think yer in danger.’
‘More wine, Mr Frey?’
‘Why, thank you, Mr Koloman, but I really do not – oh, you are pouring already; well, perhaps just a drop or – oh, no, there is no need to fill my –’
‘There you are, the best red wine to come out of Moravia this decade. It would be a shame to waste it!’
‘Shame indeed,’ said Uncle Maurice, pushing his own glass forward. Mr Koloman filled it almost to the brim.
The door opened then and I saw Miss Fletcher come in, bringing two light shawls. She looked as pale as a spectre.
‘Will the Miss Kolomans go for their daily walk?’
Natalja stood up almost at once and grabbed a shawl. She also placed a hand on Miss Fletcher’s, perfectly aware of the woman’s agitation. ‘Of course we will. Sister?’
Veronika was giggling with Uncle Maurice. ‘One night without will not kill me.’
Mrs Koloman went for the shawl and put it around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘Discipline, my dear. That has always been your downfall.’
Her tone did not admit objections. Veronika stood up, her mouth twisted, but Uncle rose as well and led her by the hand towards Miss Fletcher. ‘Do listen to your good mother. Discipline and exercise make gorgeous young ladies.’
Veronika smiled. ‘We shan’t be long, shall we?’
‘The usual walk,’ said Miss Fletcher, impassive.
‘Is it not a little late for a walk?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’d never send my girls out under a blazing sun, Inspector,’ said Mrs Koloman. ‘I want them to keep their skins pristine for as long as possible. And there is still enough light out there to walk at leisure.’ She pointed at the window; the sun had set and the stars had come out, but there was a band of cyan sky just above the mountains.
‘That’s why I love these lands in midsummer,’ said Mr Koloman, ‘the drawn-out twilights.’
‘Is it not dangerous?’
‘Not at all, Mr Frey,’ said Natalja. ‘There is not a soul for miles. What danger could we face?’
‘Well, I suppose –’
‘Besides,’ she interrupted, ‘as Mama said, the air and exercise are good for us. We intend to lead very long lives; we had better take good care of our casings.’
She’d directed those last words to her sister, whose hand she was now grasping.
‘I could always join you,’ Uncle offered. ‘I do like a walk.’ But Miss Fletcher was already taking the girls away, for some reason eager to leave at once.
‘Oh, it’s a very dull affair, sir. Very dull indeed.’
And she shut the door on him. He was about to protest at her rudeness, but Dominik spoke then.
‘The inspectors will have to excuse me as well. I need to check on some of my cargo.’
He emptied his glass and left through the door that led to the kitchens. Rather odd for someone as arrogant as him.
Mr Koloman was the last one to rise. ‘Gentlemen, might we leave you on your own for a little while? My wife and I have one or two matters to discuss. We shall join you in the main drawing room in no time.’
Boyde took us there, and then brought us yet more wine and a tray with that goat’s cheese Mr Koloman had mentioned. The fire had already been lit, as if by invisible hands. The fleeting flames projected sharp shadows all across the room, making it look as if the sculptures and the scientific artefacts were dancing to an erratic rhythm.
Uncle went to the window and looked out at the lake. I joined him, and as soon as I saw the darkened landscape I realized how isolated we truly were. There was nothing but an expanse of dark water ahead of us, and beyond barren mountains crowned with thick clouds; the nearest towns were ten miles to the east and ten to the west; and to the south, at our backs, the maps showed a chain of unconquerable peaks.
I followed Uncle’s eyes and caught a last glimpse of the three females, just before they became lost in the woods. The twins were arm in arm, talking to each other, while Miss Fletcher followed at a prudent distance. Her gait was tired, and she distractedly beat the ground with a fir branch.
Maurice sighed and I finally lost my temper.
‘Uncle, that girl is twenty!’
He took an unhurried sip of wine, his eyes still on the last spot where we’d seen the twins. He looked at me with feigned innocence. ‘Sorry, was that the end of your sentence?’
‘Yes! You are more than twenty years her senior.’
‘Ian, your own father is twenty-three years older than that Catherine woman he married.’
‘Precisely. Do you want to end up like them?’
He cackled. ‘Oh, my, Ian, that could not possibly happen! Your stepmother is a crow from the seventh hell. Do not tell your brother Elgie I ever said that.’
Uncle Maurice was the one person in the world who despised my stepmother more than I did. He still grieved the death of his sister, and Catherine – sour, malicious, self- righteous Catherine – would never be anything other than a usurper. He usually won my sympathy by saying horrible things about her, or at least distracted me enough from the current argument, but not this time.
‘Uncle, there is also the issue of –’
‘Of Miss Natalja having her eyes on you?’
I nearly spat out my wine.’ What?’
‘She plays the unsympathetic part, but she definitely has a soft spot for you. Did you not notice?’
I heard McGray’s unmistakable laughter as he entered the room. ‘Notice? This saintly dandy wouldnae notice if the lassie showed up ‘n’ took off her shimmy.’
Uncle grinned. ‘I know precisely what you mean. That comes from his father’s side of the family. English and German blood there!’ They both shuddered.
I rolled my eyes and forced a deep breath. ‘Where is Benjamin?’
McGray shook his head, pouring himself a good amount of wine. ‘I had to tell him about the death threat.’
‘Did you? Why?’
‘All this secrecy was getting ridiculous, Frey. And he needs to take care o’ himself too. Did ye want him to be caught off guard?’
‘I suppose not. How did he take it?’
‘Nae very well, as expected. He wanted to be on his own.’ I was ready to protest but McGray raised his hand. ‘I made sure he’s safe. His room can be locked from the inside, and it’s on the upper floor, lake side. I’d challenge the best o’ climbers to get to his window.’
I lowered my voice. ‘What if there is another key? What if someone tricks him into coming out? I do not trust these people.’
‘Your presence might deter any attack,’ said Uncle, for once speaking good sense. ‘I think you should stay for the night.’
‘Oh, of course you should!’ said Mr Koloman, apparently in renewed good spirits. We all started; he and his wife had come in so stealthily I could not tell how much of our conversation they might have heard.
‘I shall ask Mrs Glenister to get another chamber ready,’ Mrs Koloman offered.
‘We must have rooms adjacent to Benjamin’s,’ McGray told her before I could protest.
‘Of course, Inspector, I had that in mind already.’ She pulled the rope of a bell and not a minute later a woman in her sixties appeared. She was terribly thin, with skin as wrinkled as a prune, all clad in black and with her grey hair done in a very tall beehive.
‘Glenister, Inspector Frey will be staying with us after all. Give him and Inspector McGray the rooms we had discussed.’
That Glenister woman looked at us with suspicion, her eyes mere slits. She made me think of the unforgiving governesses described in Jane Eyre.
‘As you wish, madam. I’ll set my girl to work on it right away. Should Mr
s Plunket prepare them breakfast as well?’ Her tone was rather insolent, as if scolding her mistress for having unexpected visitors.
‘Yes, Glenister. Leave us now.’
The woman curtsied and left.
I put my glass on one of the little tables. ‘I would like to go to bed as soon as the rooms are ready, if you do not mind.’ In fact I wanted to be near Benjamin’s room as soon as possible, just in case. ‘And I would like to question the members of your staff tomorrow morning.’
‘We shall arrange that, Inspector,’ said Mr Koloman. ‘It should not be long before your chamber is ready. Shall I entertain you with a game of backgammon in the meantime?’
‘Thank you, Mr Koloman, but I do not have the head for board games tonight.’
‘Oh, you do look agitated,’ said Mrs Koloman. ‘Would you like a little more wine?’
‘No, thank you, Ma’am,’ I said at once. I was already feeling the drink creeping to my head. ‘In fact I’d appreciate some water, please.’
‘Of course,’ and she went to a small but well-stocked drinks cabinet.
‘A little story then?’ Mr Koloman asked, and he glanced up at the thick clouds that now blocked half the western sky. ‘The evening certainly suits itself for some gore around the fire. Just as I predicted.’
‘As ye predicted?’ McGray wondered.
‘Indeed. I have an interest in meteorology. You might have noticed my barometer and thermometers.’ He pointed at the instruments on the wall. I had not noticed the thermometers until then. ‘And I am particularly proud of that.’ He signalled the strange clock-like artefact over the mantelpiece.
Indeed,’ I said, just as Mrs Koloman handed me a pewter glass. ‘Thank you, Ma’am. I was wondering what that might be.’
‘A little contraption I designed. Did you notice the Hermes statue at the centre of our façade?’
Uncle and McGray shook their heads.
‘The weathervane?’ I asked.
‘Indeed. You are very observant, Mr Frey. I designed a cog mechanism that connects my Hermes with this compass here. As you can see, the wind now comes from the west-south-west. And given the air pressure, I can tell you tomorrow will be a dull day.’
Uncle was lounging on the red sofa and yawning. ‘Mr Koloman, you did promise us a story.’
‘Oh, but of course!’
Mrs Koloman was refilling glasses with wine. I looked down at my own. ‘Mrs Koloman, this water is brown!’
‘Oh, I am so sorry, Inspector. We get it from our own well; it is pure enough.’
‘Well, I think –’
‘But here, have some more wine instead.’ And she put a full glass in my hand before I had any say in the matter. I sat back in one of the armchairs, next to McGray, as Mr Koloman passed around a box of Cubans.
‘Once upon a time,’ he was saying, ‘in a land far, far away, there was a very powerful lord living in a brooding castle. The lord was so rich and powerful he fancied himself in command of the universe. He was a tyrant, ruling his peasants with an iron hand, having his every whim fulfilled and punishing anyone who dared challenge him.
‘When the time came for him to choose a wife, he snatched the most beautiful girl from the neighbouring nobility. The maiden’s mother knew the lord well; she was aware of the ghastly future that lay before her daughter, so she opposed the marriage – only to die soon afterwards in very mysterious circumstances.’
‘It is already becoming spooky,’ Uncle said, puffing on his cigar quite merrily.
‘The marriage thus took place,’ Mr Koloman continued. ‘The lord’s wife was a healthy, fertile creature, but she gave him only daughters. Girl after girl after girl. All fair, all beautiful, all accomplished – but still all girls.
‘One day the angry lord stepped into his lady’s chamber and found her crying, desolate. He asked her what was wrong, though in his heart he already knew.’ Mr Koloman lowered his voice, pacing amongst the shadows. ‘The lady was no longer fertile. Her womb had given all it was meant to give. There would be no heir.’
He paused for a sip of wine.
‘The lord was shocked. He struck his wife again and again until he killed her, and then he went on to rape all his daughters, one by one. The screams that night were heard all across the country. “I shall have a son!” he roared again and again. He knew no mercy; he had become a fiend.
‘One of the girls was cursed with a pregnancy. She tried to keep it secret; she even tried to be rid of the baby, but the lord found out just in time and prevented it. He tied her to her bed and made the servants watch her day and night until the child was born.’
My eyelids felt heavy. The wine I’d not been able to resist was working its wonders.
Konrad refilled my glass, though it was still three-quarters full. ‘To the lord’s delight she gave him – a boy. The boy he’d yearned for. The lord had apparently lost his wits by then; he was blinded by eerie happiness, so much so he didn’t notice the boy was terribly deformed.’
McGray leaned forward, enthralled.
‘The poor girl, at once the child’s mother and his sister, could stand it no more. She freed herself in the middle of the night and went to the child’s room. She picked up her baby from the cradle, wrapped him in her arms and took him out of the castle. It was a dark, stormy night and nobody saw her take the child to the nearby brook – or they pretended not to see. She said goodbye to the sleeping creature, kissed his ugly forehead . . . and then plunged him into the water. She wept and wept as she held the little body against the bottom of the stream. She could not behold her own doing. She simply looked up, at the thunderous sky, while she waited for the life to desert her deformed baby.’
Mr Koloman went to the mantelpiece and stared into the flames. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but even with blurred vision I could see the intensity in his face.
‘When the child stirred no more she rose and shrieked, appalled at what she had done. Her hands were so cold they’d turned blue and purple. She did not dare look down, look at the face of her son, which by now must be the colour of her hands.
‘Nobody knows exactly what happened then, only that the girl and the lord were found in the morning, both hanged by the neck, not far from the brook. Some say they hanged themselves; some say it was the other daughters; some say it was the villagers, sick of the terror and the depravity that reigned in the castle.’
He gave a wry smirk. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? The land had finally seen justice . . . of a sort. The lord had been punished, his poor daughter was finally at peace.’
‘Not really at peace,’ Mrs Koloman added, looking grim. ‘Her soul could not have found peace.’
‘That is precisely what some people think, my dear. Some say the shrieks of the poor mother and the roars of the dark lord could be heard in the castle every night henceforth, until the place was abandoned and became derelict, and that the country folk, to this day, are still afraid to meander through the ruins. I agree, Minerva. There are wounds that even death cannot assuage.’
‘What a ghastly end,’ Uncle mumbled.
‘Oh, but that’s not the end,’ said Mr Koloman. ‘Some say that the child did not perish. That his little body survived the icy water and drifted away until a merciful hand picked him up and raised him. Others say that his body did die – how could a frail, deformed little creature withstand such an ordeal? – but that his soul endured. In his short life the baby had known only pain and hatred, his tiny heart a well of dark, vicious feelings. That hatred kept his soul in the land of men, lingering for all time in those woods, envious of the joy and the love he never had. Abhorring happy children, above anything else.
‘Some say he still haunts that brook, that only little children can see him. That he ensnares them, invites them to play in the water. “Come and play,” he tells them. “Come and see these little pebbles!” And when the children bend to pick them up he drowns them, like his own mother drowned him. And then the parents hear his sharp, wicked la
ughter echoing across the woods, and they don’t need to see their children’s bodies to know what has just happened.’
The silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire. I was barely managing to keep myself awake, feeling a pleasant sway, as if sitting in a boat on that gentle loch outside.
McGray picked up his glass, but then halted. He stirred in his seat and then rose like a spring.
‘What is it?’ asked Mrs Koloman as McGray strode to the window.
Mr Koloman and Uncle Maurice followed. I joined them clumsily, my four limbs slightly numb, but I too saw plainly what was happening out there.
It was Natalja, dragging half her shawl as she ran desperately across the lawn.
She was screaming.
14
We all ran to the entrance hall. Boyde had also heard the screaming and was already opening the back door under the stairs.
Natalja came stumbling across the gardens, her face distorted and covered in tears. Her father went to her, embracing her tightly as soon as she set foot on the granite steps.
We hurried outside and the chill of the evening awoke my senses a little more.
‘What happened?’ asked Mr Koloman, grasping the girl’s arms. ‘Where is your sister?’
Her mother came closer and placed a gentle hand on the back of Natalja’s neck. The girl instantly exhaled and, though still crying, managed to speak.
‘Veronika . . . She’s having . . . some sort of fit. She fell after we saw –’ The girl shuddered.
‘Tell Glenister to fetch my case,’ Mrs Koloman barked at Boyde.
‘Is Fletcher with her?’ Konrad asked, and Natalja nodded.
McGray approached them. ‘What did ye see?’
Natalja buried her face in her father’s shoulder and we barely understood her muffled voice. ‘A dead man.’
We all seemed to take a step back, as though she’d pushed us away with invisible hands.
‘In the woods?’ McGray pressed. She nodded, unable to face us. ‘Who?’
All she could utter was: ‘Horrid!’
‘We’ll need some lanterns,’ McGray said, pulling out a gun. I drew mine too, glad of having brought it. Mr and Mrs Koloman were clearly not expecting that, for they both started at the sight.
Loch of the Dead Page 11