The sound pole-axed him again.
The soft keening rise, the tonal increase until it hurt the ears and then the abrupt ending.
My God! thought Tim, what could it be? It seemed to spread through the house from the very foundations, as if it were coming from the cellar itself. It was like the cry of some animal in pain.
Tim drew himself together with a jerk.
The sooner he found his way to the nearest police station then the sooner he could get back here and have Jeannie freed.
He went to the main door. A quick inspection showed him that there were too many locks and bolts to make his exit quietly. But there was a side window with a simple catch. He lifted the catch, pushed the window open and found no trouble in squeezing through into the front porchway. He pushed the window back in place, realising that he had no way of securing the catch again. If they noticed it, they would almost certainly know that someone had examined the house. But it was such a small thing; perhaps they would not notice.
He moved off quickly across the front lawns towards the woods. Once in the safe shelter of the trees he began to breathe a little more freely.
It did not take him long to push his way up the slope, through the trees to the main gate where his car was standing.
A small figure sprang from the back seat and ran towards him.
It took him several seconds before he remembered the girl … Morag Ross, the folk singer.
‘Thank God you’re all right!’
There was a catch in the girl’s voice and she flung herself into his surprised arms.
‘Hey, what the … ?’ exclaimed Tim.
‘I became scared,’ the girl said breathlessly. ‘There was this awful, terrifying sound … ’
‘It’s all right,’ soothed Tim. ‘It’s okay. I’m here.’
He felt something of a fool. Things were far from all right. Gently, he detached the girl from his arms and, with his hands on her shoulders, he looked with surprise into her face.
‘You’ve been crying.’
It was a statement.
The girl nodded and tried to smile.
‘I guess that I’m just a cry-baby. But I was scared. I was afraid that they had caught you.’
Tim shook his head.
‘I thought that you did not believe my story,’ he said, finding, to his surprise, he could feel a slight amusement in the situation. ‘I thought that you believed that I was up to no good.’
The girl nodded.
‘I did think you were a crook of some kind. The story you told me was so unbelievable.’
‘What made you change your mind … I take it that you have changed your mind having put the matter in the past tense?’
‘Yes,’ the girl spoke with fervour. ‘I’ve changed my mind right enough. I waited until you went to the house and then I decided that as you were a crook it was my duty to turn you in. I thought you were going to rob the big house there,’ she nodded in the direction of Balmacaan Castle. ‘So I started to go down to the house. I was going to knock them up and tell them the story as I saw it.’
Tim stared at her in amazement as she continued.
‘Only … as I was going down the path, I overheard a man and a woman talking. And what they said seemed to confirm your story … they are holding your girlfriend.’
‘Did they say where?’ interrupted Tim, eagerly.
‘No. But they were scared of your turning up with the police.’
‘She must be in the house!’ Tim said vehemently.
‘You didn’t find her, then?’
‘No. But I’m sure she is in the cellars.’
‘Why are they doing this? Is she an heiress or something?’
Tim shrugged. ‘I don’t know why. She did recently inherit that house but, as far as I know, there was hardly any money to go with it. I wish I could understand this mystery. At least you can come with me now as a witness to what I say.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m going to find the nearest police station and tell them the story. She is being held in the cellars, I’m sure of it, and I’ll need help to get in.’
‘Do you think the police will believe us? After all, they are probably more cynical than I am,’ said the girl.
‘We’ll just have to take that chance,’ said Tim, motioning her into the front passenger seat of the car and climbing into the driver’s seat.
‘And what was that strange sound I heard? Did you hear it, too?’
Tim frowned.
‘I really don’t know. A dog perhaps?’
Morag shook her head.
‘No dog howls like that.’
‘Well, we best get going. Come on, Morag,’ he used the girl’s first name easily enough, ‘it’s good to know I have someone on my side.’
The girl smiled.
‘I don’t know what this is all about, or why, but you have yourself a partner, Tim.’
Tim was about to turn the ignition key when he paused. The girl flashed him a look of understanding.
‘You will have to use the engine and lights to get us back across the mountain. It may warn them but you’ll have to do it.’
Tim nodded: ‘Perhaps they’ll be too busy to notice.’
He switched on the ignition. The engine gave a roar which sounded deafening as he threw it into gear and moved forward. They would be bound to hear it, he realised, as he switched on his headlights and began to drive up the incline towards the mountain track.
*
John Telstan was standing in the great hall of Balmacaan Castle, hands clasped behind his back. He was standing close to the main door, his eyes wandering over its locks and bolts. Behind him on the table, an oil lamp illuminated the scene. Mrs Murdo was locking the cellar door.
‘I still can’t see why you don’t run that damned generator the whole time and have decent electric light instead of these oil lamps,’ he remarked. ‘They may look romantic but they are not very practicable.’
Mrs Murdo gave one of her irritating sniffs.
But already the chubby-faced minister’s eyes were elsewhere.
‘Mrs Murdo,’ he said softly. ‘We have had a visitor.’
The housekeeper came to stand by his shoulder and followed his gaze.
‘The side window catch is undone. I know it was locked when we checked the door before getting rid of the girl’s car.’
Mrs Murdo exhaled with a hissing sound.
She went to the window and pushed it open.
‘Ah … ’ it was a sigh drawn from her pursed lips. ‘Look, Mr Telstan.’
Telstan peered past her and saw, just over the tops of the trees, twin beams of light moving off towards Beinn a’ Bhacaidh.
‘That’ll be friend Colbert in his car, I’m thinking,’ muttered the minister.
Mrs Murdo turned back to the hall and went to a wall cupboard. She took out a small key from her pocket and unlocked it. Inside the cupboard stood an old-fashioned black telephone, one which had no dial and had the earpiece hanging from the part of the instrument which was the mouthpiece as well as the main stand. She removed the earpiece and joggled the rest several times.
A voice answered.
‘Our friend has been here,’ she said immediately. ‘No, I don’t know. But he’s on his way by car over Beinn a’ Bhacaidh now.’
She paused and replaced the earpiece, shut the cupboard door and relocked it.
When she turned back to Telstan her cold eyes held a gleam of triumph.
‘He will know what to do,’ she said simply.
Telstan nodded, closed the window and adjusted the catch.
*
Tim was doing about twenty miles an hour, the fastest speed that the twisting mountain trackway would permit. It was that fact alone that saved their lives.
As he swung around a particularly narrow bend, Morag cried:
‘Look out, Tim!’
He automatically shot his foot on the brake.
The vehicle skidded on the muddy surface and ca
me to rest at right angles across the track parallel to a great fir tree which blocked their path.
Shaking, Tim climbed out of the car and examined the tree by the light of his torch.
‘Well,’ he said in disgust, returning to the car, ‘there’s no shifting that without a dozen or so men.’
‘But it wasn’t here when we came down,’ the girl pointed out.
‘Maybe it fell over in the wind,’ hazarded Tim.
‘What wind?’ said Morag with a crooked smile.
‘Well never mind that now. The point is how can we get out of here? It’ll take hours to walk across the mountain.’ ‘There was an alternative turning to the left about a hundred yards back down the path. It looked fairly well used.’
‘I didn’t see it,’ admitted Tim. ‘But then I was concentrating on this track.’
‘Can you back a hundred yards?’
Tim shook his head.
‘Have you ever tried backing in conditions of total darkness?’
Morag gave an apologetic grin: ‘I don’t drive. You don’t have much call to use a car on a small island.’
Tim scratched his head.
‘Are you sure this path you saw looked navigable?’
‘It started to go through the woods towards the loch side. It could be an alternative route to the main road.’
Tim bit his lip and peered round.
‘There’s no way I can completely turn the car about.’
‘I know,’ the girl said brightly, ‘give me your torch and I’ll guide you down. I’ll walk down the middle of the track and shine the torch at the centre of your back window. Keep the light in the centre of your window and follow it down.’
‘Good girl,’ exclaimed Tim. ‘We might make it.’
It took them almost fifteen minutes to cover the hundred yards but they eventually made it without too many scratches to the vehicle.
Morag climbed back into the car.
‘It’s very cold out there,’ she shivered, ‘and I’m beginning to get hungry.’
Tim glanced at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock.
‘Hang on,’ he encouraged. ‘We shouldn’t be too long now.’
The new trackway, one still could not call it a road, for its surface was still of earth and stone hardened by use, ran fairly straight through a heavily wooded area. Tim was able to increase his speed to thirty-five miles an hour, still keeping to his dipped headlights.
‘If the roadway continues like this we should soon be in Foyers,’ he said, half turning to Morag.
The girl screamed, suddenly unnerving him.
She was staring, horrified, straight ahead through the windscreen.
Tim jerked his gaze back.
For a split second, in the glare of his headlights, he caught a glimpse — no, an impression — of something, something indescribable, obscene, terrifying. A creature, a thing, standing in the path of the vehicle. The impression was so quick that there was no time to register any details in the conscious mind; just an overwhelming feeling of distaste, of horror.
Tim swung hard at the steering wheel as an automatic reaction, his foot thrusting down to the floorboards as he attempted to brake. The car skidded off the track, careered wildly through some undergrowth and smashed, bonnet first, into a clump of spruce.
For a moment Tim had an impression of flying: then the world burst into a massive display of exploding colours which were almost immediately replaced by a deep whirlpool of black eternity.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jeannie Millbuie sat on a bed in a tiny cell-like room. She was clad in shirt and jeans and sat with her knees drawn up, her arms clasped around her legs, head forward with her chin resting on her knees.
The room had no windows. A small iron grille in one corner provided an air vent. Jeannie had already examined it and felt the cold fresh air blowing through. But the vent was only six inches in height and twelve inches wide … even if it had not been blocked off by the iron structure. The walls were of thick grey stone, cold to the touch, which made her suspect that she was in the cellars of Balmacaan Castle. The only entrance into the room was by an iron-studded heavy wood door.
An oil lamp provided her only light.
There was a cupboard for her things; an iron cot, with a straw mattress, sheets and blankets, while a curtained-off corner hid some toilet facilities.
Jeannie had been kept a prisoner for nearly three days — as far as she could tell, for the grim-faced Mrs Murdo had confiscated her wristwatch and she was able to record the passing of the days only by the regularity of her meals. These were brought to her by Mrs Murdo who refused to be drawn into any form of conversation with her, even when, on one occasion, Jeannie became hysterical.
Jeannie had eventually cured her hysterics and now waited with a forced patience, wondering what would happen next.
She could fathom no reason for her imprisonment, or for the peculiar actions of Mrs Murdo, her sister Miss Struan and the Reverend Telstan, all of whom appeared to be in this strange mystery together.
She also wondered what had happened to Tim.
Had he gone to meet her at Inverness? If so, what had he done when she had failed to show up? Would he have received that postcard that Telstan had forced her to write before he left London? She did not think so. She had written as Telstan had dictated but she had tried to warn Tim that something was wrong by putting in some inconsistencies as signing herself ‘Jean’ and calling him ‘my darling Timothy’; things which Tim would surely recognise as alien to her character.
Tim must know something was wrong by now. What would he do?
There was a rattle at the door. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open to reveal the smiling chubby face of Telstan.
‘Good morning, Miss Millbuie,’ he greeted her brightly.
Jeannie said nothing.
Telstan entered and shut the door behind him, carefully locking it and pocketing the key.
‘Dear me, are we uncommunicative this morning, Miss Millbuie?’ he chided gently, reaching forward for the chair, sitting astride it, leaning his arms on the back of it.
She merely glared at him.
‘Tut, tut,’ grinned the man who called himself a minister. ‘Well, never mind. I’ve come to give you some news.’
‘You can begin by telling me what you mean by this!’ snapped Jeannie. ‘Who are you? Why am I locked up like … ’
Telstan silenced her with an upraised hand.
‘All in good time, all in good time,’ he smiled, almost benignly. ‘All that concerns you for the moment is that your waiting is over.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mrs Murdo will bring you some new clothes shortly and you will have to prepare yourself. Today is the first day of May, Miss Millbuie. The whins are in flower across the hills, covering them with their traditional blanket of yellow. Today was called La Buidhe Bealltuinn by the ancients, you know. The golden-yellow day of the Fires of Bel, Bel the sun, creator of all life and god of the ancient Celtic peoples. It was the start of the new year period; the day when all the fires were ceremoniously extinguished. Then, at midday, a priest of the ancient faith, a druid, would rekindle a fire from the light of Bel and that fire would then rekindle the fires of all the households to symbolise the old year was done with and a new year was beginning.’
Jeannie stared at him as he rambled on inconsequentially.
‘I’m not particularly interested in that, Mr Telstan,’ she said sharply. ‘What do you mean, Mrs Murdo is bringing me new clothes so that I can prepare myself? Prepare myself for what?’
‘Ah, Miss Millbuie,’ Telstan shook his head reprovingly. ‘You must listen to what I am saying. You see, you are the last of the Millbuie family … aye, the very last.’
Jeannie frowned.
‘What has that to do with anything? Why are you keeping me here? I demand you give me an answer!’
Her voice rose in indignation and Telstan again raised a chubby hand, as if best
owing a blessing, to still her.
‘Please, Miss Millbuie. Let me come to things in my own time. Do you know anything about the history of the house of Millbuie?’
‘Is that important?’ sneered Jeannie.
‘Humour me; humour me, Miss Millbuie. You will see that it is. Do you know the story of Cathan of the Yellow Honey who founded the family?’
‘Only what Colonel Maitland has told me,’ admitted Jeannie, deciding to humour the man, as antagonism could get her nowhere.
Telstan’s fleshy face crinkled in a smile.
‘Ah, the good colonel. Such an expert on these matters. And what did he tell you?’
‘Is it necessary?’ sighed leannie.
‘Indeed.’
‘He told me that Cathan was one of MacBeth’s warriors and that legend had it that he helped MacBeth wrest the throne from Duncan.’
‘Is that all?’ The minister was plainly disappointed.
‘That’s all I remember.’
He shook his head lugubriously.
‘Then I shall have to tell you the story in more detail.’
He paused to collect his thoughts.
‘Duncan was a young man when he became king and in the five years he ruled Scotland he demonstrated just how unfit he was to govern the country. He led his army into wars which they could not win and was defeated five times. The clans of Scotland met and called for his withdrawal from the High Kingship, which they were entitled to do under the Celtic Law system, for all offices, from petty clan chieftain, to provincial ruler, to the High Kingship itself were elected offices. But Duncan refused to obey the wish of the people.
‘In MacBeth, the Mormaer of Moray — that is, the High Steward of Moray — the Scottish clans saw a man who was eligible for election to the High Kingship because MacBeth was grandson of Malcolm I. They gathered round him. But Duncan imported a large army of mercenaries from Ireland.
The Curse of Loch Ness Page 17