Loch of the Dead

by Loch of the Dead (retail) (epub)

  ‘And both inspectors?’

  ‘Just the Scot and the Plantard man.’

  ‘Then you don’t have them all!’ Mrs Koloman barked in a harsh, commanding tone I’d not heard from her before.

  I moved the telescope from left to right, looking for other familiar faces in the multitude of boats. I could see only Miss Fletcher, whose bright blond hair stood up well above the surrounding heads. I searched for McGray’s garish tartan, or my uncle’s square shoulders, but found neither. The boats were in constant motion, making their way swiftly to Rory Island. I did recognize a couple of men from my short stop at nearby Kinlochewe: villagers surely ready to serve the wealthy Kolomans at the snap of a finger.

  ‘Start a fire as soon as you get there,’ Mr Koloman commanded, followed by a female cry I thought was Helena’s. Her shout ended quite abruptly, and I pictured the poor girl being beaten with the butt of a gun.

  I looked back at the Kolomans. Dominik was turning the boat away from me, and I could finally exhale. They were not coming for me after all. However, as they turned I had a perfect view of Natalja’s face gazing directly at my hiding place. Again I held my breath, not daring to move a muscle. She seemed to stare for a moment, but then turned her head away. I cursed inwardly, unable to tell whether she’d seen me or not.

  I saw how the boats gathered at a little bay, beyond a promontory that blocked most of my view. All I could see now was the glimmer of the torches, expanding through the thick woodland as the men spread out across the island.

  What could I possibly do? I looked at my tools: a gun with only eight bullets, a ridiculous derringer and a pathetic boat. I could never face around thirty men on my own, but neither could I go and get help. The nearest settlements had come to aid the very people I was supposed to fight, and there were no more villages or towns for at least thirty miles in any direction.

  I realized that our message had never been sent to the police. The telegrapher had probably just pretended. He would have needed but to unplug the wire and tap the instrument as Uncle Maurice watched. It would not surprise me if they had also accelerated the decay of McEwan’s body, heating the cellar at night, perhaps. They would have wanted to get rid of any forensic evidence, or maybe they wanted me to find those corpses on Rory Island and blame those deaths too on Lazarus or his father.

  None of that mattered now. We had been fooled and there was nothing I could do but sit there and hide. I could only imagine what terrible fate awaited McGray, Uncle and the Nellyses on that island. Would the Kolomans kill them? If so, would they do it swiftly? Would they torture them first? Why did they want a fire? Would they drain their blood like they had McEwan’s?

  I dropped both the telescope and my gun, pressed my back against the base of the tree and covered my face with both hands, ducking like a young child in the dark. The silence of the night had never felt so deadly.

  51

  I heard a growl.

  It made my blood curdle. It was a painful, throaty noise, ebbing and flowing over the water. It reminded me of the unnerving sound that deer sometimes make when shot, only this repeated itself again and again, at intervals as regular as clockwork. Each time it was a little louder.

  I risked peeping around the tree, but I saw only the darkness of the moonless night. I waited for the noise, not even blinking, but it did not come again. I listened out, holding my breath, and just as I thought the sound had gone for good, there it was. It coincided with a faint movement on the water – nothing but a shadow, barely lighter than the surroundings. It did not look much clearer through the telescope, but there was something familiar in those jerking movements, something I soon recognized.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ I whispered. ‘Mr Nellys.’

  And that realization made his growls all the more unnerving. The man was rowing himself, forcing his feeble limbs and bones, each stroke a wave of excruciating pain. My own arms were sore enough from the rowing; I could only imagine what the old man was going through.

  I ran to my boat and pushed it back into the loch. I was tempted to light the little oil lamp, but decided not to. Though the Kolomans were already out of sight, I did not know who else might be watching.

  It took me no time to cover the distance that separated us. The man was so focused on his rowing that he heard me only when I was about ten yards away. I could see his frame more clearly; then the poor man stood up, his knees cracking, and lifted his one oar in the air.

  ‘Leave me alone or kill me!’ he barked, the oar shaking above his head.

  ‘It’s Inspector Frey!’ I shouted back. ‘I’m here to help you.’ Though how, I did not know.

  He did not reply but simply let himself drop on to the wooden boards. I rowed until our gunwales hit, and jumped into his boat. The man lay on his back, panting like men do on their death beds.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He coughed horribly and spat into the water before answering. ‘What a stupid question. Do I look all right? No, I look so wrecked they didn’t even bother to carry me. They left me in the cave to die alone. They thought it was jolly good fun. I dragged myself out, found this boat . . .’

  The old man was wrapped in a very thick coat, and as I helped him sit up I heard the rattle of bottles underneath the garment.

  ‘What is it you carry –’

  ‘We told your colleague everything,’ he blurted out. ‘The Kolomans drink blood and –’

  ‘No, they do not,’ I said firmly.

  Mr Nellys seized my collar. ‘Did you believe their lies? How could you –’

  ‘They inject it!’ I snapped. I produced the little glass tube with the purple grains. ‘This is it; they probably dissolve it right before they use it. They have been injecting you. Those marks on your stomach are not bat bites.’

  The poor man stared at me without blinking. He had not yet managed to catch his breath, so I gave him time. He slowly moved his eyes sideways. ‘I knew it . . .’ he whispered. ‘I knew I wasn’t losing my mind . . . But how did they do it without me . . .’ He fell silent.

  ‘You are guessing, just as I am. They must have put something – some narcotic – either in the water of that well, which you drink daily, or in the food they send you. I doubt even Miss Fletcher knew about it.’

  ‘She couldn’t have. She would’ve told us.’ He looked up. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I read about your family’s condition several years ago, when I was studying in Oxford, but I only remembered it when Mrs Koloman told me you were all related. I realized both you and Miss Veronika had suffered terrible abdominal pains, and you both had wounds on your stomachs. They tried to conceal her marks, and then they tried to make me think the girl was addicted to laudanum.’

  Mr Nellys touched his leathery forearm. ‘And you saw our skins . . .’

  ‘Yes. I realized I have never seen the Kolomans outside when the sun is strong. They refused to meet us at the inn the other day, when the sky was bright and clear – they told us they’d gone out on an errand, but I happened across an entry Mr Koloman had made in his weather log at precisely that day and hour, so he had been at home. And just today I tried to persuade Miss Natalja to go out for a walk; I might as well have asked her to walk on fire.’

  There was a gleam of hope in his eyes. ‘So you know of a cure? Have you read about that too?’

  I sighed. ‘No. I am sorry. As far as I know there is no recorded treatment. The Kolomans must have discovered it and have kept it to themselves.’

  The poor man looked down, dejected. I wanted to say something reassuring, but my explanations had already taken far too long.

  I pointed to Rory Island. ‘They’ve taken your family there to –’

  ‘Kill them and milk them dry,’ was his crude reply. ‘Konrad may have put up with us all these years, he even tried to help us, out of consideration to Minerva . . . but not any more. Not after we’ve rebelled against them like this. And they won’t let you or your colleague get away, knowing all you do now. Thei
r puppets from the nearby villages will help them see to that.’

  Again I felt terribly cold, but the old man was not finished.

  ‘I won’t go without a fight. I brought this . . .’ He unbuttoned his coat, and when he showed me what he carried under the inner lining I gasped.

  ‘Is that . . . ?’

  His smile was wicked. ‘Yes. When you spend years breeding bats you learn a thing or two about guano.’

  He handed me one of the many jars. It was full of dark granules, and a wick ran through the lid.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, recalling the ball of fire I’d seen through the telescope. ‘The ancient Chinese harvested guano from bat caves to make gunpowder . . .’

  ‘It’s a nasty recipe, son.’

  I could only smile. ‘I know, but this gives us some hope!’

  52

  McGray could hardly hear a thing. They’d covered his head with a stinking cloth, and tied it so tightly around his neck he could scarcely breathe. Even so, it had taken three pairs of hands to guide him to a boat, where two pairs of boots had pinned him down, a hand ever pressing his head against the coarse wooden boards.

  His only relief had come from hearing Calcraft’s words. They didn’t have Frey. Somehow Percy had managed to discover what they were up to – he’d managed to escape! McGray only hoped the Englishman had the good sense to run away; there was no need for another death.

  He felt the boat hit the shore and men dragging him across what must be dense woodland. He could smell fragrant pines, feel the cushioned bed of needles as he trod over the irregular terrain, and then came a night breeze, fresh and gentle. Despite his fear, McGray tried to take in all those sensations, for he knew he’d soon be dead.

  ‘Got the barrels?’ somebody shouted in the distance, and McGray sighed. So that was what they had in store for him: he would be slaughtered like a pig, to feed a clan of perverse blood-drinkers.

  He saw some light filter through the cloth and heard the crackle of a fire, just as someone kicked the back of his knees and pushed him forward. As soon as he fell on the ground one of the men ripped the cloth from his head.

  There was a pile of logs and dead foliage right in front of him, catching fire. Calcraft was pouring over spurts of oil, the flames bursting upwards with each load of fuel. The bonfire was at the centre of a small clearing, flanked by an almost perfect circle of trees.

  There were human skulls and ribcages dotted all over the ground. So this was Rory Island, and Helena had told the truth. That meant that Frey had surely found those bones, but McGray could only wonder what he had done next.

  Maurice was forced to kneel down right next to him, and then Miss Fletcher and Lazarus. The men were kinder, however, to Helena and Mrs Nelapsi: two rowdy-looking sailors held them by the arms but the frightened women were not thrown to the ground. McGray noticed that Helena was still cradling the wounded bat close to her chest and another two were perched on her shoulders.

  ‘Barrels are ready,’ said Boyde, who’d been piling them at a prudent distance from the fire. They were the size of large beer casks. Dominik was seated on one of them, one of his sleeves rolled up, and Mrs Koloman was injecting him with a silver syringe. The twins were standing by their mother, Natalja shaking a thin vial that contained a dark-purple substance.

  When Lazarus saw that, he tried to stand up, but someone pushed him back down. ‘You don’t drink the blood!’

  Mrs Koloman barked at him, ‘Of course we don’t drink it, you stupid fool!’

  ‘It wouldn’t get past the acid in your stomach,’ said Natalja. ‘You’d know as much if you had deigned to open a book in your life.’

  Dominik looked at McGray. ‘This is the reason I was so desperate to get out of my room. I needed my . . . we call it blood serum. I believe my good sister even begged you to let me out so I could have a little “walk” with her.’

  Mr Koloman appeared from the midst of the forest, limping and supporting himself on a silver and ebony walking stick. His foot was wrapped in bulky bandages.

  ‘My grandfather’s cane,’ he told McGray and Maurice, grinning. ‘I knew it would become handy one day – not so soon, though.’ He sighed deeply. ‘The poor man died at the very young age of forty . . . and he looked even older than your father, Helena. He didn’t know all that we do now, but he made progress. He already knew the problem was in our blood; he told my father so, and my father attempted blood transfusions. You might have seen some books on that subject on our shelves, Mr Nine-Nails?’

  McGray had, but he did not bother answering.

  Mr Koloman went to his daughters. ‘Yes, my good grandfather would cry with joy if he could see my girls.’ He caressed Veronika’s alabaster skin. ‘My dear Vee’s condition is almost as severe as his, yet look at her! A little injection every day and she is one of the two jewels of the county.’ He looked at Helena and could not repress a sneer. ‘It’s been hilarious to watch you breed bats and attempt to drink goats’ blood. Whatever inspired you? The Bible?’

  ‘You blasphemous wretch,’ Mrs Nellys hissed.

  But the woman’s outrage only made Mr Koloman laugh. ‘See, all you need to keep blood from clotting is this.’ He pointed his cane at the barrels. Calcraft servilely took the lid off the nearest one, and a citrusy smell wafted across the clearing. ‘We prepare this solution with lemon juice and caustic soda. It could not be simpler, but we do need an awful lot of lemons throughout the year. We had to make Mrs Plunket’s lemon curd for the villagers so people wouldn’t suspect.’

  Dominik shot Lazarus a look as haughty as his father’s. ‘It was particularly ironic that the inspectors locked you in the pantry; the very room where we keep our sacks of caustic soda. You probably used them as cushions.’

  ‘And then we separate the serum with centrifugal forces,’ said Natalja. She looked at Helena’s puzzled face. ‘You spin it really fast and it settles down. Boyde uses a butter churn for that. Sadly, the serum doesn’t keep well.’ She passed her mother the small vial. ‘Not as a solution, at least. We have to crystallize it – with Papa’s distillation kits – and we dilute it only when we need it, otherwise it becomes very toxic.’

  ‘That’s what killed my poor brother,’ said Mr Koloman. ‘He was never constant; that was his main fault. That and not taking rejection very well.’ Miss Fletcher stirred and Mr Koloman bowed to her. ‘I am very sorry, Millie; I have said it countless times.’

  ‘And it still doesn’t make it all all right,’ Miss Fletcher growled.

  Maurice kept looking around. ‘What did you do to Ian?’

  Mrs Koloman seemed about to burst into tears. She finished injecting her son, wiped her hands and looked at Maurice. ‘I am so sorry it had to come to this. We never intended to treat you this way . . .’

  ‘You have only your nephew to blame,’ said Natalja. ‘We dropped all the hints we could, trying to incriminate the Nellyses – sorry, the Nelapsis. I gave him a couple of books on bats and leeches; we put Lazarus at the scene of the murder; we even made sure Mr Frey had to come here to bury the corpse so that he would see the bones . . . In one swift move we would get rid of the constable, whom we all hated, bring Helena into our family and also make sure all the bodies in this island were not blamed on us. It was a brilliant plan. My father came up with it, of course.’

  ‘I would rather we had killed Lazarus,’ Mr Koloman said, ‘but my poor Minerva persuaded me not to.’ Mrs Koloman looked away, her face flushed with repressed anger. Her husband went to her and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. ‘I understand you, my dear. They’re blood of your blood.’ He sneered at the Nelapsis. ‘To me they’ve only ever been the most uncomfortable in-laws.’

  ‘But we underestimated Mr Frey’s training in medicine,’ Natalja went on. ‘He probably connected Veronika’s symptoms with those of our relatives. He must have read Schultz’s papers.’

  ‘Or the writings of Joseph Stokvis . . .’ Veronika ventured.

  ‘No, they haven’t been translate
d from the Dutch. And Englishmen seldom bother learning any language other than useless Latin.’

  ‘Very true, Sister.’

  ‘But what really gave us away was the light,’ said Natalja. ‘We are very careful not to expose ourselves to the sun.’

  ‘And these have been very unusual days,’ said Mr Koloman, pointing up at the starry sky. ‘I correctly predicted that it would be bloody sunny the afternoon we were supposed to first meet your colleague, so we had to lie and ask him to join us for dinner instead. Today, too, was very bright, which eventually gave my wife and girls away. Mr Frey was very lucky – he might not have ever discovered our secrets had it been raining.’

  McGray nodded. ‘That’s why youse have that soddin’ Shadows Room.’

  ‘It is useful on sunny days,’ Natalja answered, ‘but that is not the main reason. I really am interested in light, and I do want to know why the sun affects us but things like these torches don’t. I was attempting to develop a sort of glass that would protect us from daylight. Something we could put up in our windows, and the windows of our carriages.’

  Veronika held her sister’s hand fondly. ‘My clever Nat! You also thought we might come up with something we could use on our skin – like we use make-up – so that one day we might even be able to go out and enjoy ourselves in the sun, like everybody else. I still wonder what Venice looks like in a searing summer!’

  ‘A little far-fetched, that idea,’ said Natalja, ‘but possible in theory.’

  ‘As you can see, Mr Nine-Nails,’ said Mr Koloman, ‘unlike this sorry lot we didn’t just sit idle, waiting to be saved. Nobody in the land would understand us, so we worked, we studied – we cured ourselves.’

  McGray chuckled. Aye, it’s really fuckin’ praiseworthy to lurk in the shadows harvesting fresh blood . . .’

  ‘Oh, that is my speciality,’ said Dominik. ‘That is why Calcraft and I travel all the time. We never kill more than once a year in the same country.’

  ‘Disgusting,’ said Miss Fletcher.