by Andrew Lane
The door slammed shut behind him. He turned, to find himself alone on the roof. Seconds later he heard a metal bolt slam across the inside, locking the door.
‘I’ll meet you at the other end,’ Niamh called from the other side of the door. ‘I’ll keep the door open for a count of ten seconds. If you don’t get through in that time, you’re stuck out there!’
Before he could say anything in response, he heard her footsteps running down the stone stairs.
Right now she was preparing to run along the corridor between the keep and the next tower. He had to match her, or beat her, if he wanted to get out of the cold wind. A flash of annoyance made his face feel hot. She seemed to like challenging him, and playing games. Well, if that’s what she wanted . . .
He started running along the castle roof, but almost instantly his foot slipped on a patch of moss and he fell sideways, slamming his shoulder into one of the worn battlements. Sick pain flooded his body and withdrew, leaving him weak. He climbed back to his feet and set off again, knowing that Niamh was outracing him a floor below.
This time he knew to avoid the patches of moss as he ran, but as a result his progress was marked by strange little dance-steps as he had to move rapidly right or left, or had to jump across wider areas. The bare stone wasn’t that much safer, he found – the rain had left it slick and slippery, and the soles of his new shoes were too smooth to get much of a grip. A couple of times he found himself sliding towards the battlements, and had to use his arms to cushion his approach and bounce off. He thanked heaven that nobody could see him – he must have looked as though he were mad. Of course, he realized, Niamh could visualize exactly how he looked. That was why she had shut him out there and made him run. For fun. For her own amusement.
The door ahead of him opened. In the darkness inside he could just see Niamh’s grin, taunting him.
He forced himself to a final burst of speed, ignoring the irregular blotches of moss, trusting to his speed and his weight to get him past them. In his head he counted down the ten seconds that Niamh had promised him.
When he got to eight, and he could see her preparing to shut the door, he jumped and let his feet skid on the moss, catapulting him towards the door.
He thudded against it just as she was closing it, pushing it back open and falling into the tiny room at the top of the stairs.
‘What did that prove?’ he gasped, leaning against the stones and trying to catch his breath.
‘It proved you can run fast,’ she said.
‘Faster than you.’
‘I got here before you, remember.’
He straightened up. ‘But you weren’t running on wet moss and wet stone.’
She twisted her lips in a little moue of disappointment. ‘Well, if you put it that way. All right, you won – this time.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Do you want to explore any more of the castle?’
She was challenging him again, waiting for him to back down.
‘Bring it on,’ he said. ‘But I’ve seen enough of the roof now. Let’s try for some lower floors.’
She took him around the second, first and ground floors, but they were much the same as the third floor – rooms of a similar size which were either set out as bedrooms or storerooms. Only the ballroom which occupied the ground floor of the other tower was different: a large, empty space lined with curtains with a dais at one end for a small orchestra.
‘I don’t think we’ve ever used the ballroom for anything,’ Niamh said quietly as they stood there. ‘As you can imagine, my father isn’t one for dancing.’
As they turned to leave, Sherlock had the sudden impression that a curtain twitched at the far end of the room. For a moment a dark shape, the size of a very large man, was revealed, and then it vanished again. Sherlock turned back to stare at the curtain, wondering if someone else was in there with them – a servant, maybe – but it didn’t move again.
‘Seen something?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Was it the Dark Beast?’
He laughed. ‘I doubt it. If it was, maybe it’ll stay for luncheon. He turned away and followed Niamh.
‘What about dungeons?’ he asked as they stood back in the main hall where they had started.
‘We’ve got them,’ she answered. ‘We keep them downstairs.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Mainly they’re used by the servants, and for the cooking. Would you like to see?’
‘I’d be worried about you locking me in a cell. I think I’ll pass.’
She smiled. ‘Probably a good idea. Shall we go outside now?’
‘Yes please.’ He checked the watch which hung from a chain on his waistcoat. ‘What time is luncheon?’
‘At one o’clock.’
‘We’ve got about an hour, then. Less if we get dirty or wet and need to change when we get back.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Afraid of getting a little bit dirty or wet?’
‘Not at all. I’m just afraid of missing lunch.’ He caught himself, and smiled. ‘I’m beginning to sound like my brother. God forbid.’
‘Do you get on well with him?’
‘That’s simple to ask but not so simple to answer,’ he replied, uncomfortable with the question but wanting to answer it honestly. ‘We’ve been apart for a while – well, I’ve been away. Abroad. We’ve obviously both changed since I left, and I think we’re both trying to work out what our relationship is now. I don’t need to rely on him the way that I did, but he needs to realize that we’re closer to equals now.’ He paused, wanting to change the conversation but unsure how. ‘What about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘Apparently I had an older brother,’ she said, ‘but he died when he was a baby, before I was born.’ Her expression turned serious. ‘Lots of children die as babies where I come from.’
‘A fair number die as babies where I come from,’ Sherlock said, thinking about cholera, and the various other diseases that ran rife through the poorer areas of the big cities. ‘Not that I’m trying to draw any equivalence between your background and mine. I know I was privileged.’
‘Hey, I grew up in a place of beautiful beaches and beautiful sunsets where you could just pick your meals off the trees, and I’m now living in a castle. Believe me, I feel like I’m privileged.’
‘Touché.’
She punched his arm. ‘Come on, let’s take a tour around the outside of the castle. We won’t go too far – we can save that for later.’
He followed her across to the door that led out of the great hall. The doors were half open, and she slipped between them. Sherlock followed into the central square that lay between the castle’s walls. In daylight, and facing outward rather than facing towards the doors, as he had been the day before, he could see that it was mainly paved, with scattered patches of grass. In the centre was a statue of an armoured man on horseback. His arm was upraised, and holding a sword.
Niamh led the way outside through the entrance arch and crossed the moat quickly, but Sherlock paused to look down, into the moat’s murky water. He couldn’t see more than a foot or so into it, because of the mud and vegetation in the depths, but there were things swimming in there – sinuous shapes that could be fish or could be eels, he wasn’t sure.
The bulk of the castle shielded them from the wind that had chilled Sherlock up on the roof. He stared out at the Irish landscape. The low clouds had disappeared inland, and he could see the same low hills that he had spotted from the battlements. He looked around, trying to place where the tower he’d spotted was located, but he worked out that it must be around the side of the castle.
Niamh set off in the opposite direction. ‘Let’s look at the sea,’ she said. ‘I never get tired of it. Back on my island the sea is blue and green, but here it’s always grey. It’s also always angry, always crashing itself on the shore rather than coming in as gentle waves.’
Sherlock thought about the different ways he had seen the ocean as he�
�d sailed to China and back. ‘It’s like people,’ he ventured. ‘Despite the fact that we all look basically the same – two arms and two legs and a head – there’s an infinite range of personalities. The sea should be just as simple – chemically, it’s not complicated – but the same stretch of sea can look completely different depending on the weather and the time of day.’
Niamh vanished around the edge of one of the towers, and Sherlock followed. He found her heading across the stretch of grass that he had seen from the library – the one that separated the castle from the cliffs. She strode right up to the edge of the cliff and stood there, hair blown back from her face by the wind. He joined her, and together they stared silently out into the majesty of the Atlantic Ocean. The waves seemed to form momentary mountain ranges, grey and bleak and topped with white. It was only the size of the gulls that rode the waves that gave away their true size.
Niamh turned her head and stared at him boldly. He returned her stare, not sure what message he was sending but aware that messages were being exchanged.
Niamh opened her mouth to speak, but Sherlock’s attention had been snagged by something that he saw sticking out from a bush just the other side of her.
It was a foot. A bare foot.
‘Stop a minute,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
Sherlock gestured at the foot. ‘I think,’ he said grimly, ‘we need to get someone from the castle.’
Niamh took one look at the foot sticking out from the shrubbery, nodded, and ran back towards the castle as fast as she could. Sherlock moved closer to the shrubbery and carefully pushed back the leaves.
A body was lying beneath the bush. It was one of the castle servants. She was on her back, staring upward at the sky, and her face was twisted into an expression of pure terror. Sherlock checked her wrist and her neck for a pulse, but there was nothing. Her skin was cold, and her eyes had a thin coating of dust and pollen on them. She was undoubtedly dead.
This wasn’t the first time that Sherlock had seen a dead body, but the sight still made him uneasy. He was amazed at how thin the line was between life and death, and how easy it was to cross. He thought he recognized the girl as well: she was the servant who had dropped the plates and run out of the dining room during breakfast. So quick then, and so still now.
Without touching the body, Sherlock made a visual examination. There was no sign of blood, no obvious trauma. She looked as if she had suddenly fallen down and died on the spot.
Something was nagging at the back of his mind, and he quietened his thoughts to let it come forward. It had something to do with what he had first seen. He stepped back, and let his eyes move over the body, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet, trying to work out exactly what it was that was bothering him.
The feet! That was it! She wasn’t wearing shoes!
He heard Niamh returning from the castle, accompanied by others. He turned as they arrived. Silman was there, as were several of the house servants. They saw the girl on the ground and gasped, blessing themselves.
Silman bent to check the girl’s pulse, as Sherlock had done. She straightened up, shaking her head. ‘The poor girl. She must have had some kind of seizure, God rest her soul. I could tell that there was something wrong this morning, at breakfast. Perhaps her heart was weak.’
‘Perhaps it was the sight of the Dark Beast that drove her mad and killed her,’ someone whispered. Silman turned to glare at them. ‘Fetch sheets. We’ll wrap her body up and take her back to the castle. Someone go for the priest. The doctor is already on his way on other business. He’ll need to examine her, and sign a certificate of death. If he finds traces of disease then he might well quarantine the castle, which would be awkward for the master.’ She turned to Sherlock and Niamh. ‘Mistress, young master – I’m sorry you had to see this. Thank you for alerting us. I will tell Sir Shadrach, and we will make all the necessary arrangements. There is nothing else you can do here – I suggest you go on with whatever it was you were doing when you found her.’
Niamh nodded. ‘Thank you, Silman,’ she said soberly. ‘Please let me know if there is anything that we can do.’ She paused. ‘Did she have family?’
‘Not in this area. I believe she had a mother and a brother down near Cork. I will write to them.’ She sighed. ‘Such a tragedy, when young people die for no reason.’
Niamh was obviously still shocked. ‘I was only talking to her this morning,’ she said. ‘How can the Lord just . . . take people away like that? Do you understand it?’
‘What I don’t understand,’ Sherlock said thoughtfully, ‘is why she was outside in bare feet. She was wearing shoes this morning. Where did they go?’
Silman suddenly made a wordless exclamation, and slapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Forgive me, young master,’ she said, ‘but the shock of seeing poor Máire here made me almost forget that I was already in the process of looking for you when the mistress ran in to find me.’
‘What did you want me for?’
‘It’s your brother, sir.’
Sherlock felt his heart shift suddenly. He felt sick. ‘What’s happened to Mycroft?’ he asked, stepping forward.
Silman hesitated, apparently trying to frame her next sentence properly. ‘He’s been injured. It’s his head . . .’
CHAPTER SIX
Ignoring Silman and Niamh, Sherlock raced back towards the castle. The idea that his brother had been injured filled him with horror. He had only just got back to the British Isles, only just met up with his brother again. For anything to happen to Mycroft now would be unimaginable. He had always been a fixed, solid presence in Sherlock’s life. He had to stay that way!
He raced across the moat and through the high arch into the open central area of the castle, heart pounding and breath rasping in his throat. The entrance to the keep was off to his left, and he pelted towards it and up the ramp without slowing.
In the hall, servants were gathered around the entrance to a room that Sherlock hadn’t been in before. Guessing that was where Mycroft was, he pushed past them.
The room was a reception room, with comfortable chairs, chaises longues and sofas scattered around. Mycroft was sitting in one of the chairs, his large frame spilling over the arms of the chair and threatening to snap the thin legs. He was as white as the ectoplasm that Ambrose Albano had manifested the night before. It looked for a moment as though he had an enormous wound on his forehead, until Sherlock realized that the blood was a stain that had soaked through a bandage wrapped around Mycroft’s head. His skin was so white that the bandage was almost invisible.
Sir Shadrach was beside Mycroft, still in his bath chair. In Silman’s absence, one of the foot-servants was stationed behind the chair, ready to push it if needed. Count Shuvalov was standing in a similar manner behind Mycroft’s chair with his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder.
Mycroft himself had his eyes closed and a hand raised to his forehead. Sensing Sherlock’s approach, he opened his eyes and waved his sausage-like fingers. ‘Ah, Sherlock,’ he said, voice weak. ‘I apologize for disturbing your pre-prandial constitutional.’
‘What happened?’ Sherlock asked urgently.
‘I was alone in the library. Sir Shadrach had very kindly given me his permission to conduct some research – I gather that you had the same idea earlier, and I am sorry that I missed you. As it turned out, someone did not miss me. I was struck down from behind. I am informed that the object in question was a candelabra, although I confess that I did not notice at the time. Fortunately, one of the servants entered to see whether I required a cup of tea, and found me on the floor.’
‘Did you shut the door when you went into the library?’ Sherlock asked.
‘I did, yes.’
‘And when the servant entered the library, was the door also shut?’
Sir Shadrach glanced away from Mycroft and towards one of the female servants. She curtsied briefly and said, ‘Yes, sir, it was.’
‘The library door le
ads directly out into the hall,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘Anyone going in or coming out would be liable to be seen by someone – unless there’s another way in or out.’ He was thinking, as he had earlier, about secret passages.
‘I am not aware,’ Quintillan said stiffly, ‘of any other ways in or out of the library, save the windows, which were and still are firmly closed.’ He grimaced. ‘On the other hand, there were people going through the hall all the time, and none of them saw anyone going into or out of the library between the time your brother entered and the time he was discovered unconscious.’
‘How do you feel?’ Sherlock asked, kneeling by his brother’s side.
‘I have the kind of headache I normally get the day after drinking a bottle of particularly old and crusty port, and my stomach is informing me urgently that luncheon is completely out of the question.’ He smiled weakly. ‘On the other hand I am alive, and that is always advantageous.’
‘We have called for a doctor,’ Sir Shadrach said. ‘We need to check for concussion, obviously, as well as signs of skull fracture.’
‘The important questions,’ Count Shuvalov said in his thick Russian accent from behind Mycroft’s chair, ‘are why the attack was carried out, and by whom.’
‘The “why” is obvious,’ Quintillan pointed out. ‘Someone wanted to stop the British Government from taking part in the auction for Mr Albano’s services. This kind of action is despicable and deplorable, and I will not put up with it in Cloon Ard Castle.’
‘You seem to imply,’ Count Shuvalov said calmly, ‘that either I, von Webenau or Herr Holtzbrinck are responsible. For the sake of form, I deny any involvement, although I am sure that the other two gentlemen will do the same.’
‘Calm yourselves, gentlemen,’ Mycroft said faintly, waving a hand again. ‘There is another possibility. The attack may have been arranged as a means of making Mr Albano’s services seem worth killing for, and therefore driving the price up.’
‘That,’ Quintillan said ominously, ‘would suggest that either I or Mr Albano might be responsible. I completely—’