Perhaps not. After all, she had specifically asked for a telephone.
Jeannie turned back to the bar, determined to question Miss Struan further.
It was as she did so that her eyes caught sight of a familiar projection from one corner of the building. She had seen such fitments often enough. It was a holder for a telephone wire. She looked up and saw the black wires stretching away across the hill on a series of irregular wooden poles.
So the bar was on the telephone!
But why … ?
Jeannie felt physically sick with fright for a moment. Instead of returning to the bar she felt a desire to start running; to run anywhere away from this strange deserted village, away from Balmacaan Castle, away from Scotland. Trying to control her trembling emotions, she walked swiftly back across the village, along the pathway in the direction of Balmacaan Castle. The pathway skirted the overgrown churchyard, turning out of sight of the inn to climb across the hillside.
Some cold logic seemed to take over Jeannie’s mind. As soon as she was out of sight of the inn, away from the staring eyes which she had an uncomfortable feeling were following her every move, she slipped over the low stone wall and pushed her way through the tangled weeds of the graveyard towards the church building. From the cover of its decayed walls she stood staring towards the bar, wondering what to do. Logic seemed to dictate that she must attempt to get access to the telephone.
The problem was how?
While she was wondering what course of action she should take, the figure of Miss Struan suddenly appeared. She heard the door slam shut and saw Miss Struan striding out along the pathway to Balmacaan Castle.
Jeannie suppressed a sudden surge of panic as Miss Struan reached the bend in the path to swing round past the church. She pressed back along the wall towards the old iron embossed door. It creaked lightly at her touch and so, holding her breath, she pushed it open the necessary few inches to enable her to squeeze inside.
The smell was putrid. The place had obviously been used as a shelter by sheep and cattle and dung and stale, damp straw were spread throughout the building.
Taking a stance just within the doorway, Jeannie saw, peering through the half open door, Miss Struan swing by the church wall and climb up over the rise towards the castle.
She waited almost ten minutes by her watch and then emerged slowly from her hiding place.
Cold logic now had her fears well within its control. Miss Struan leaving was a fantastic piece of luck. With the woman out of the way, she could find the telephone and make her call to Tim.
She hurried back to the bar and entered.
The room was as cosy as before, with the fire crackling merrily away. But there seemed to be some pervading atmosphere of mystery, something sinister, a chilling feeling of some vague threatening force.
Once more logic stilled her fears.
She made a careful examination of the bar.
There was no telephone; it must be in the private rooms behind the bar. She crossed to the door through which Rhona had entered and found herself in a short corridor.
As she entered this corridor her ears were assailed by the sound of music and laughter. She could hear voices raised in conversation. Loud voices; friendly voices.
Perhaps she was being stupid, after all. Perhaps there was no mystery here? Maybe Miss Struan merely ran the place for tourists, for hikers or campers, who wanted to get away from civilisation?
She swallowed in her relief.
Thank God for company!
She hastened down the corridor and stood for a moment before the door through which the sounds of music, laughter and conversation resounded. It must be some sort of party, she smiled.
She pushed the door open.
The room was empty.
Jeannie staggered back as if she had received a blow in the face. Her eyes searched wildly round what was obviously a bedroom; a dirty ill-kept bedroom at that. Seated in a rocking chair in one corner, rocking to and fro and making strange crooning sounds, was the mute girl Rhona. By her side was a low table on which was an ancient radio set. It was from this that the sounds were issuing …
At that moment the girl looked up and caught sight of Jeannie.
She leapt from her chair, eyes wide in terror, waving her arms in strange futile gestures as if to ward off some sort of attacker. Her mouth was opening and closing in a weird babble of grunts and whines.
Jeannie held up a pacifying hand.
‘Hush, hush. Can you understand me? It’s Rhona, isn’t it? It’s all right, Rhona. Miss Struan is not here. It’s all right. Can you understand me?’
The girl stopped, head to one side, listening. Her eyes stared intently at Jeannie’s face.
Jeannie smiled nervously and held out her hand towards the girl’s cheek.
As her fingers touched the soft flesh the girl closed her eyes and moaned.
She rocked back and forth for a moment and when Jeannie tried to take her hand away she grabbed at it and placed it tightly against her cheek.
‘You poor thing,’ muttered Jeannie. ‘I reckon you have not had much love in your life.’
Jeannie stood and gave the room a cursory examination. It was evident that this was Rhona’s room and that there was certainly no telephone here.
‘Rhona, can you understand me?’ she asked.
The girl stopped rocking and peered at Jeannie curiously.
Jeannie smiled.
‘Do you know where the telephone is? Telephone?’
The girl grunted and closed her eyes again, resuming her rocking motion.
‘No, Rhona … the telephone?’
Jeannie sighed. It was plain that the girl did not understand. She turned away. The girl let out a cry, almost of pain, and grabbed at her hand.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ said Jeannie softly. ‘I’m going to find a telephone.’
Rhona clung more tightly to her.
Jeannie bit her lip and took a firm hold of the girl’s hand.
‘Very well. You come with me then.’
Leading the girl like a little child, Jeannie returned to the corridor and opened a door to a room further down. It was another bedroom, tidy and well furnished. Perhaps this was Miss Struan’s room. Jeannie made a careful examination but could find no telephone. A third room proved to be a kitchen and there was a large storage room but there was still no sign of the instrument. Damn! Perhaps Miss Struan was right; maybe her fertile imagination had led to a wrong conclusion. Perhaps the wires were there but the telephone itself had been disconnected?
What was she going to do?
There was another door. Jeannie tried it and found herself in a sparsely furnished box room. The first thing she saw, perched on a packing case, was the black, antique looking telephone.
With a cry of relief, she hurried across the room and snatched at the instrument.
But with Rhona clinging firmly to her arm, Jeannie succeeded in knocking the receiver to the ground.
She bent to pick it up.
Her eyes suddenly caught sight of something which caused her heart to beat a wild tattoo in her breast.
The packing case lid was not properly closed. Something was preventing it from shutting.
It was a pale, white hand.
Shuddering, Jeannie stood for several long seconds torn between a desire to run and a desire to look inside.
With one hand in the tight clasp of Rhona, who still stood docilely crooning and rocking at her elbow, Jeannie leant forward and raised the lid.
What lay there tore a scream from her mouth.
Lachlan MacVey lay hunched up in the packing case. His dead glazed eyes stared at her, his lips were drawn back in an awful grin of death showing not only the teeth but the gums. His clothes were saturated with congealing blood.
The body looked as if it had been almost torn apart by the fangs of some wild beast.
Jeannie let the packing case lid fall shut on the ghastly sight, turned and promptly vomit
ed into a corner of the room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
How long Jeannie stood there, trying desperately to drag her mind back from the abyss of hysteria, she did not know. A kaleidoscope of images and emotions whirled through her mind with ever increasing speed and she tried to cling to some sane and rational anchor. How long she might have continued standing helpless in the room with the bloody object that had once been Lachlan MacVey and with his poor mute simpleton daughter clinging onto her, rocking and crooning gently to herself, Jeannie could not have guessed.
It was the stentorian voice of Miss Struan which roused her from helplessness.
‘ … can’t understand it. She was on her way along the path to the castle when I last saw her. There is nowhere else she could have gone to. Of course, she might have skirted the castle and gone to Foyers on foot.’
‘On foot?’ a second voice, amused, cynical, interrupted her. ‘I doubt it.’
Jeannie frowned.
It was the same masculine voice, the same vaguely familiar voice, that she had heard in Mrs Murdo’s room the previous night.
‘She could not have doubled back here?’ the masculine voice suddenly asked.
‘It is unlikely,’ replied Miss Struan.
‘The unlikely often happens. You should take care, especially with … ’
The two people must have passed into the house because the voices died to a mumble.
Jeannie suddenly felt her adrenalin surging. Another minute or two and Miss Struan and her companion might enter the room. Even Rhona had ceased her crooning and was staring wild-eyed, whimpering softly as if she realised the imminence of danger.
Jeannie suddenly felt the power of resolution.
Miss Struan and her companion, whoever it was, meant her harm. She felt it instinctively. There was some mystery here at which she was the centre. Lachlan MacVey, in his poor drunken way, had tried to warn her, for which effort he had paid with his poor, worthless life.
Jeannie leant forward and placed a finger to her lips then led the mute girl to the window.
She must get to Foyers and a telephone, not only to contact Tim but the police as well. If Miss Struan and Mrs Murdo and their companion were capable of killing Lachlan MacVey then they were capable of killing her and this poor simpleton.
Jeannie quietly opened the window. It was an easy matter to clamber over the ledge and then help Rhona to follow her example. Then, pushing the window closed behind them, Jeannie took Rhona by the arm and started to climb up the heather strewn hill which rose directly behind the cottage.
Her mind raced.
It was no good using the trackway back to Balmacaan Castle. Miss Struan and her companion would surely keep a watch along the path, especially when they saw Rhona was gone. They would probably put two and two together and realise that Jeannie had returned to the bar and discovered Lachlan MacVey’s body. Neither was it any use to return to Balmacaan Castle to get her car … Mrs Murdo would be waiting for her and she was obviously in the conspiracy … but what was the conspiracy? What was it that was worth the life of an old drunk like MacVey? Could she get to Colonel Maitland’s house? Perhaps, but then perhaps he was part of the mystery. Could she trust him? What of John Telstan, the cherubfaced minister? After all, Mrs Murdo disliked the man. But where was the manse and the kirk in Balmacaan that he had talked about?
Again, as often happens among the mountains and hills of Scotland, the weather had changed, changed rapidly. There was now a fairly thick mist creeping back across the hill tops and it was towards its protective cover that Jeannie dragged her bewildered companion, scrambling straight up the steep slope whose heather and gorse caught and scratched at them, causing Jeannie to curse and the girl to whimper.
It took them ten minutes before Jeannie paused, satisfied that they were hidden from any prying eyes, being completely shrouded in the cold swirling mist.
She turned and smiled at her companion.
‘Listen to me, Rhona,’ she tried to sound reassuring, ‘everything is going to be all right. Do you understand me? It is going to be all right. I’m looking after you. But we have to get away from those nasty people. They mean us harm. Do you understand that?’
The girl stood looking at her blankly.
Then she twisted her lips in a smile and made a gurgling sound not altogether unlike a baby.
Jeannie sighed, attempted a smile, then set off again, the girl clinging fiercely to her hand.
Walking across unknown territory in a thick mist is a frightening experience. The girls stumbled over the rough ground, sometimes caught in brambles and furze, sometimes falling on their knees as their feet caught in roots or on tufts of tall grass.
Jeannie had only a vague idea of direction. She had decided to try to head for the main A862 road and perhaps find a telephone box along the way; perhaps even get a lift into Foyers.
She knew by the slope of the ground beneath her feet that they had reached the brow of the hill and were starting to go down the other side. She decided to turn along the brow for a while before heading downwards out of the mist which still clung with its clammy fingers in icy cold thickness.
Then abruptly a gust of wind made a clearing in the mist, causing Jeannie to cry out and come to a sudden halt.
A few feet from her was a sudden chasm, a drop of several hundred feet down a sheer rock face where the hill abruptly ended in a granite brow.
If she had walked on a few more steps …
Sick and faint, Jeannie collapsed on a nearby boulder and sat with heaving shoulders. Rhona stood looking on, not understanding and crying softly.
Then came the sound that Jeannie knew only too well.
There it came, starting like the whispering of wind in the trees, rising in its pitch; rising, rising and then, instead of ceasing abruptly as before, this time the sound continued to rise so that it echoed and re-echoed through the swirling mist. It seemed to hem in on Jeannie from every direction.
Jeannie raised her hands to her ears and shut her eyes against the terrible keening.
Then it began to fall away; falling softly, softly down the scale. But even before it had died it was rising again; rising and falling like the sound of a sea shell pressed against the ear, rising and falling in soft cascades, reaching high notes that hurt the eardrums.
The noise seemed to come now from far below them … out on the waters of the loch itself.
A movement caused Jeannie to look up.
Her jaw dropped as she saw Rhona standing before her, but standing straight with her habitual stoop gone. Her face seemed more beautiful than ever, the eyes shone with bright intelligence, the imbecilic quality had vanished altogether. It was as if some strange metamorphosis had taken place. A smile had widened her mouth and her eyes half closed, like a sunbather’s first relaxing greeting to the warm rays of the sun.
Jeannie was torn between horror and fascination.
Rhona’s mouth suddenly began to twist itself, as if it were trying to frame words to which it was not used.
A few inarticulate sounds issued forth and then, then came words — words which Jeannie could not understand.
‘Is esan … is esan a tha a’ feitkeamh.’
Jeannie looked at the girl aghast.
'Feumaidh sibh a’ tighinn. Thigibh! Thigibh!’
‘Rhona?’ whispered Jeannie, a feeling of terror gripping her throat, causing the words to come out as a gasp. ‘What is it Rhona?’
The words were repeated.
Jeannie realised that they must be Gaelic.
‘Rhona! I don’t understand! What is it? How can you speak? What are you saying?’
Rhona seemed to hesitate.
The mouth worked again. New sounds were framed through her twisting lips.
‘Is esan a tha a’ feitheamh … he is waiting. Feumaidh sibh a’ tighinn … you must come.’
Like a zombie Rhona raised her hands, opening and closing her palms spasmodically, reaching towards Jeannie. Jeannie drew back with a c
ry.
‘God, Rhona! You’re frightening me! How can you speak; how?’
The girl she had thought to be a mute-simpleton, arms outstretched, moved forward like a sleepwalker.
‘Jeannie Millbuie … Millbuie … He is waiting. You must come. Come! Thigibh!’
The words were said in a voice which bore no trace of speech deformity nor of an accent. They were soft, almost sibilant. They were frightening. As if some alien presence had taken possession of Rhona MacVey’s poor body.
Jeannie backed away in terror.
A warning bell clamoured in her mind. She gave a startled look behind her. The rock face, the granite cliff, was a few yards away. Desperately Jeannie tried to dodge the encompassing arms of the girl. But one claw-like hand gripped her arm in a painful and powerful grasp. Jeannie cried out as the girl swung her round.
Rhona’s eyes were still half closed and her movements were slow and deliberate like those of a somnambulist.
Jeannie, Jeannie Millbuie … he is waiting … is esan a tha a’ feitkeamh!’
All the while Rhona kept coming towards her, the girl kept mouthing the same phrases, over and over again, repeating the words like some catechism.
Sobbing in her fear, Jeannie tried to twist and free herself from the grasping hands whose strength was phenomenal. She was held fast and she began to realise that to struggle against such strength was futile.
She made one last desperate effort and, in so doing, she fell backwards over a small boulder.
The impetus of her fall drew Rhona suddenly forward and with such a jerk that the girl’s hold loosened for a split second and she went tottering past Jeannie. There was a sound of scuffling against rock, of something slipping and then a pause of several seconds before the faraway thump of something soft hitting against hard rock. Abruptly the keening sound from the loch, which had continued all the while, rising and falling in its cadences, rose like a single scream and ceased.
Breathing heavily, Jeannie rolled over and knelt by the rock.
The Curse of Loch Ness Page 11