The Curse of Loch Ness

by Peter Tremayne

  There was something decidedly queer here, he thought.

  It was as he looked back a second time to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him that he let his glance stray along the front of the house towards the group of outbuildings which had, at one time, clearly been the stables.

  A sudden overwhelming impulse came over him; an impulse to check to see if Jeannie’s car was garaged there. Something the police sergeant had said in Inverness was nagging at his mind.

  What was it?

  Something about the barman at Foyers having seen Jeannie two days ago.

  ‘She came in and made a telephone call. Then she asked whether Fergus was around — unfortunately he was out at Bailebeag — and so she asked about the best way of getting into Inverness, whether there was a bus or if she could hire a car, and left.’

  Jeannie had come up in her red Volkswagen. Why, then, should she have to ask about buses or hiring cars? Clearly she had not been able to use her car at that time. Yet the sullen-faced housekeeper had just said that Jeannie had driven off in her car to Mailaig which was on the other side of the country.

  Well, he was not going on a wild goose chase across to Mailaig until he gave in to his impulse to search those outbuildings. Not that it would prove very much. But it would, at least, prove the woman was lying for some reason or other.

  He continued walking until he was well hidden from view of the house within the surrounding woods; then he turned abruptly to the left, pressing into the undergrowth and the closely growing firs and spruces, describing a semicircle. The woods grew close up to the first of the outbuildings and, he noticed, they lay on a blind spot of the house, a wall along which there were few windows and those only at ground level with a limited command of the area.

  Keeping low, Tim made a dash from the wood to the cover of the first building and then, keeping close to the wall, he crept along the side of the outbuilding and dashed across the narrow space which separated it from the next one. By this method he eventually came to the entrance of the cobbled courtyard where once horses were exercised and harnessed ready to take the lairds and their families on their various journeys.

  He tried the first rotting wooden door and found himself in a stable. The smell of corruption was vile and it was fairly obvious that no one had been in the place, nor cleaned it for many a year. The next door was locked but it had some glass panels in the top of its structure, one of which was shattered. He looked round and found a battered metal bucket to give himself a small platform on which to stand and, in this way, he could peer into the building. Inside were a couple of decaying farm carts.

  It was in the fifth stable that he finally found what he was seeking.

  There stood Jeannie’s red Volkswagen.

  Tim, in spite of his initial suspicion and impulse, stood with bated breath.

  Something was wrong!

  He peered in through the windows of the little car and tried the doors. They were locked and everything seemed to have been removed from inside … even driving maps.

  Now Tim began to feel the conviction that Jeannie was still in the huge house. The more he contemplated the prospect, the stronger his conviction became. What should he do? Burst in and demand an explanation? Confront that damned woman — the housekeeper — with the fact that he had found Jeannie’s car? She’d probably have some excuse ready to offer him.

  Then Jeannie’s words came back to him: I think they are trying to kill me!’

  Was the woman one of the ‘they’? Who else was involved? And why?

  He ran his hand through his shock of hair, closing his eyes as he tried to fathom it out and resolve some plan of action.

  If Jeannie was in the house, then he would have to find her and get her out. The police would think he was mentally unbalanced if he went to them with merely his suspicions. Like him, they would ask the obvious question: why would anyone want to kill a London schoolteacher (well, near enough to a college lecturer) on her first visit to Scotland?

  He decided that he would wait until it was dark, later that night, and return to the house. He would find a way in and, if Jeannie was there, and he was sure she was, he would get her out.

  He went to the stable door, looked round and, seeing the way clear, crept into the yard. He was creeping out along the wall of the outbuildings, back to the shelter of the surrounding wood, when he heard a door slam from the house. A man’s voice called something, something indistinguishable. It was answered by the clearer voice of a woman — the harsh tones of the woman who claimed to be the housekeeper.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen his car cross Beinn a’ Bhacaidh yet. You don’t suppose he’s still around the house, nosing about, do you?’

  The man replied but again Tim could not distinguish the words.

  ‘Well, check the stables. We can’t afford … ’

  Sweating, Tim reached the end building and dived into the concealing undergrowth. He paused, breathing heavily and then began a quick ascent through the woods towards the iron gates where he had left his car.

  So the woman had been watching and, what was more, she was watching the mountain track, which must be visible from the house, to see that his car had left along the trackway back towards the main road. Well, at least he had been warned that they were suspicious of him. Not only that. It confirmed that they had something to hide. Whoever they were, he must not underestimate them. When he returned he would have to be careful to arrive unseen. It would be ridiculous to drive back tonight with his lights on; they would be seen for miles coming over the mountain trackway.

  He suddenly found himself coldly relaxed from the growing tensions of his alarm of the previous few days. He was certain that Jeannie was still at Balmacaan Castle. Moreover, she was in some kind of danger. That conviction, coupled with his resolve, stopped the anxieties and fears that had beset him when faced with an unknown quantity. He now knew what he must do and this had a strangely calming effect on him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tim drove into Foyers and booked into a hotel that stood just outside the village; overlooking it, in fact, on a hill that rose with the road to Inverfarigaig along the shores of the loch. He ate a late luncheon in an almost deserted dining room and contemplated how to while away the afternoon and evening before nightfall when he could return to Balmacaan.

  Having finished his meal he wandered out to look at the brooding scenery of the loch.

  His attention was immediately drawn to a group of people further down the hill, clustered on the shores of the loch just by a football field, where the Rivers Foyers ran through the village and spilled into the loch itself.

  Curious, Tim ambled down the hill and cut across the football field to join the group. It consisted mainly of grinning locals with one or two early holiday makers. The centre of their attention was a group of three young men, bending over instruments and equipment that reminded Tim of the sort of instruments building surveyors used. A large rubber dinghy was drawn up on the shore and an elderly man was fitting an outboard motor to it and giving orders to the others in a voice that was slightly high pitched.

  ‘What goes on?’ asked Tim, mildly interested, of the man next to him.

  ‘Och,’ smiled the man, obviously a local, ‘monster hunters.’

  Tim was bemused.

  ‘Monster hunters?’

  ‘Aye, man,’ rejoined the local. ‘Nessie. They are trying to find her.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tim’s mind suddenly made the connection. ‘The Loch Ness monster?’

  He paused.

  ‘Do people really take that sort of thing seriously?’

  The elderly man, who appeared to be in charge of the group, happened to be passing near Tim at that moment, and he turned, frowning, jaw stuck out aggressively.

  ‘Yes, sir. They do,’ he said sharply.

  He had a shock of white hair brushed back in a Lloyd George style and stood peering at Tim through a pair of spectacles which only had lower lenses.

  ‘Winstanley
is my name, sir. Professor Winstanley. I happen to be an anthropologist and this, young man, is a scientific expedition — it is not a pleasure cruise.’

  Tim shrugged, not really wishing to get involved.

  ‘No offence meant, Professor.’

  Winstanley made no effort to move on.

  ‘Scepticism is healthy, young man. But to dismiss things through ignorance is a tragedy of human progress.’

  Tim felt uncomfortable. He had no wish to get into any argument and he made to turn but found himself hemmed in by the grinning crowd who, it seemed, expected him to take up the professor’s verbal challenge.

  ‘I’m sure you have your reasons for looking for this monster and that they are valid. I do not believe in monsters and I’m not particularly interested.’

  Winstanley’s face went a shade crimson and he turned to resume his task muttering audibly about cynics.

  The crowd broke up, seemingly disappointed at the lack of confrontation and returned to watching the professor and his assistants climb into the rubber dinghy and set off across the waters of the loch.

  After a while Tim grew bored with the scenery and went for a walk around the village before finally making his way back to the hotel. It was nearly four-thirty and he went into the lounge and ordered a pot of tea and some cakes. They had just arrived when the professor, Winstanley, entered the room. To Tim’s surprise, the man came over, pausing halfway to give an order to a waiter.

  ‘Excuse me, do you mind if I join you?’

  Before Tim could answer the man had seated himself.

  ‘I apologise for sounding short-tempered just a while back,’ he began earnestly. ‘The search for the animal which is in Loch Ness is a subject which is very close to me and I am therefore touchy over any cynicism about its existence, young man. I am first and foremost a scientist, you see, and I went through a period of scepticism as you are going through. But I have since altered my opinion.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ returned Tim, uncomfortably. Tim had dismissed the entire incident. He was not particularly interested in monsters and there were more important matters to be considered.

  But Professor Winstanley was not to be dismissed so easily.

  His tea arrived and he started to attack the cakes.

  ‘There have been enough sightings and photographs taken of the animal to be sure that its existence is a fact, young man,’ he said, through a mouthful of scone. ‘It is merely a question of getting a close shot of the creature and affirming what species the animal is.’

  Reluctantly, Tim tried to concentrate his mind on what the professor was saying. After all, it would help pass the afternoon until it was time to return to Balmacaan.

  ‘I note you call it an animal, professor, rather than a monster,’ observed Tim.

  ‘Indeed, young man, indeed I do. It is not really a monster. A monster implies something grotesque, supernatural … no, the creature is merely an animal species, a species which has been known to inhabit the earth.’

  Tim raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you, professor. Has been known?’

  ‘A species which has been thought to be extinct,’ explained the elderly man, waving his teaspoon to emphasise his point. ‘But we can prove that the species has survived … here, in the waters of this lake, cut off from the dangers that would beset it in the rest of the world.’

  ‘And what species do you think it is? You seem to have some idea?’

  ‘Of course. I believe,’ here the professor’s voice dropped low, but increased in the intensity of his excitement as he continued, ‘I believe it is a long-necked plesiosaurus — a creature thought to have become extinct some seventy million years ago!’

  He sat back with a look of triumph as if he had just produced a rabbit out of thin air.

  ‘Seventy million years? It seems a bit hard to swallow!’ said Tim, incredulously.

  Winstanley waved a hand dismissively.

  ‘The evidence, the sightings, the descriptions, the photographs … they all add up. Yes, in my mind there is no doubt that the creature we are looking for is a plesiosaurus.’

  ‘A plesio … plesiosaurus?’

  Winstanley looked at Tim with a faint expression of pain.

  ‘A marine saurian reptile which has supposedly been extinct since the Cretaceous period.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, Professor. The Cre … Creta … ?’

  ‘Cretaceous period, young man. The period when many of our chalk deposits were laid down, say between one hundred and thirty-five million and seventy million years ago. A period when the seas became shallow and the climate grew warm and flowering trees developed. It was still the period when the Saurians dominated the earth, the biggest of them being the dinosaurs. But, while being the biggest creature, the dinosaur was a plant eater and was the prey of the tyrannosaurus, a lizard creature which was rather vicious and ate flesh. It was also the age of the pterodactyls, that’s a favourite prehistoric creature thanks to the ridiculous films put out by Hollywood … you know, the winged reptile with the long beak containing teeth. Some of them had wing spans of up to twenty feet across.’

  Tim tried to assimilate the information.

  ‘And that’s the period from which the Loch Ness monster dates?’

  ‘No, no, dear boy, not dates. That is the period from which it has descended, perhaps evolved. I believe that somehow a family of these creatures have managed to survive and breed from that time, evolving, but not at the same pace as the rest of the animal species in the world.’

  Tim stared at him incredulously.

  The professor went on, oblivious to the stare.

  ‘Yes. A family of these creatures; perhaps more than one family. They became cut off from the rest of the world, did not become extinct like the other Saurian species. Perhaps they managed to evolve a high degree of intelligence which makes them avoid contact with mankind.’

  Tim suppressed a smile that was twitching the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Intelligence?’

  There must have been an amused sneer in his voice for Winstanley looked at him sharply.

  ‘Oh yes. We must not think that intelligence is merely confined to the human species, my friend, though we do tend to be egocentric in that direction. Remember this, and perhaps it will make you humble: the ground ape, the remote ancestor of man, which we have dubbed Australopithecus, appeared two million years ago on the face of the earth and began to use the first primitive tools. But it was only thirty thousand years ago that a species which was recognisable as homo sapiens began to evolve and only ten thousand years ago that man began to settle in one area and farm the land. Just let that time scale sink into your mind for a moment.’

  He paused.

  ‘Now consider: the Saurian species began to evolve during the Triassic Period, some two hundred and twenty five million years ago and they did not become extinct until the Tertiary Period, between seventy and two million years ago. Now think, puny little homo sapiens has dominated the earth for a mere few thousand years … the Saurian species dominated it for nearly two hundred million years. Who are we so readily to dismiss them and their intellectual capabilities? Who are we to say what is possible for them and not possible?’

  Tim conceded that theoretically the professor had a point. ‘And I shall prove my theory, young man. I shall prove it by finding the creature in Loch Ness.’

  There was a vehemence in the professor’s voice.

  ‘But surely,’ insisted Tim, ‘if there was such a creature in Loch Ness someone would have discovered it long before now? After all, as far as I recall, the tales of the monster have been going on for some years now.’

  ‘Some years?’ The professor raised his eyebrows. ‘My dear boy, do you know when the first recorded sighting of the creature was made?’

  ‘I suppose it must have been in the 1950s. I seem to recall it becoming popular about then.’

  Winstanley leant across from his chair and prodded T
im in the chest with a bony forefinger.

  ‘Read St Adamnan’s Life of St Columba , my boy. St Columba, or Colm Cille as he is known locally, was the founder of the monastery at Iona which became the centre of the Celtic Church. It was he who brought Christianity to pagan Scotland from his native Ireland. Adamnan was abbot of Iona after Columba and he wrote Columba’s life in Latin, in which he recounts how the saint encountered a sea monster on the very shores of Loch Ness … and that was about 565 AD. That is the first recorded sighting.’

  The professor sat back and watched Tim’s face for a reaction, smiling as he saw Tim’s surprise.

  ‘Yes, my boy,’ he continued happily, ‘the so-called “monster sightings” have been going on since then. In 1527 a man named Duncan Campbell saw the creature kill three men and was hard pressed to save himself. The modern sightings really began in the 1930s when a Mr and Mrs Spicer were driving along this very road,’ he pointed to the road which ran by the hotel, ‘somewhere between Inverfarigaig and Dores, when they saw the creature actually crossing the road in front of them. Since then sightings have become too numerous to mention. By the late 1950s an author was able to collect and publish statements from no less than eighty individual witnesses. And the significant thing is that all the descriptions tally … people are seeing the same sort of creature and that creature, in my estimation, is a species of long necked plesiosaurus.’

  ‘Well, professor,’ said Tim, suddenly wearying of the man’s enthusiasm, ‘I can only wish you luck in your endeavours and I apologise for my seeming boorishness earlier. Thanks for taking the time to explain things to me.’

  Winstanley nodded absently as Tim stood up.

  ‘Any time, my boy, any time. Scepticism is the right of young men. Attempts at understanding and proving points are the prerogative of the older generation. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you.’

  Tim left the lounge, deciding to go up to his room to try to sleep for a few hours in preparation for the exertions of the coming evening.

  For a long time he lay on his bed merely staring at the ceiling of his room. His head ached with the thoughts that swam through his mind, thoughts about Jeannie, the behaviour of the woman at Balmacaan Castle and the mystery that surrounded Jeannie’s disappearance. He shook his head, unable to come to any reasonable or rational solution to the problem.