With a growing puzzlement, Roger went on, laying each item carefully on the floor beside him, the objects of vertu and objects of use that comprised Brianna Randall’s history. History. Jesus, why had she called it that?
Alarm pricked the puzzlement as another thought occurred to him, and he grabbed the lid, checking the address label. Oxford. Yes, she had sent them here. Why here, when she’d known—or thought—that he meant to be in Scotland all summer? He would have been, if not for the last-minute conference—and he hadn’t told her about that.
Tucked in the last corner was a jewelry box, a small but substantial container. Inside were several rings, brooches, and sets of earrings. The cairngorm brooch he had given her for her birthday was there. Necklaces and chains. Two things weren’t.
The silver bracelet he had given her—and her grandmother’s pearls.
“Jesus bloody Christ.” He looked again, just to be sure, dumping out the glittering junk and spreading it on his counterpane. No pearls. Certainly no string of baroque Scottish pearls, spaced with antique gold roundels.
She couldn’t be wearing them, not to an engineering conference in Sri Lanka. The pearls were an heirloom to her, not an ornament. She seldom wore them. They were her link with—
“You didn’t,” he said aloud. “God, tell me you didn’t do it!”
He dropped the jewel box on the bed, and thundered down the stairs to the telephone room.
It took forever to get the international operator on the line, and a longer time yet of vague electronic poppings and buzzings, before he heard the click of connection, followed by a faint ringing. One ring, two, then a click, and his heart leapt. She was home!
“We’re sorry,” said a woman’s pleasant, impersonal voice, “that number has been disconnected, or is no longer in service.”
* * *
God, she couldn’t have! Could she? Yes, she bloody could, the reckless wee coof! Where in hell was she?
He drummed his fingers restlessly against his thigh, fuming, as the transatlantic phone line clicked and hummed, while connections were made, while he dealt with the endless delays and stupidities of hospital switchboards and secretaries. But at last he heard a familiar voice in his ear, deep and resonant.
“Joseph Abernathy.”
“Dr. Abernathy? This will be Roger Wakefield here. Do you know where Brianna is?” he demanded without preliminary.
The deep voice rose slightly in surprise.
“With you. Isn’t she?”
A cold chill washed over Roger, and he gripped the receiver harder, as though he could force it to give him the answer he wanted.
“She is not,” he made himself say, as calmly as he could. “She meant to come in the fall, after she took her degree and went to some conference.”
“No. No, that’s not right. She finished her coursework the end of April—I took her to dinner to celebrate—and she said she was going straight out to Scotland, without waiting for commencement. Wait, let me think … yeah, that’s right; my son Lenny drove her to the airport … when? Yeah, Tuesday … the 27th. You mean to say she didn’t get there?” Dr. Abernathy’s voice rose in agitation.
“I don’t know whether she got here or not.” Roger’s free hand was clenched into a fist. “She didn’t tell me she was coming.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Where was she flying to—which city, do you know? London? Edinburgh?” She might have meant to surprise him with a sudden, unexpected arrival. He’d been surprised, all right, but he doubted that was her intention.
Visions of kidnapping, assault, IRA bombings, drifted through his mind. Almost anything might have happened to a girl traveling alone in a large city—and almost anything that could have happened would be preferable to what his gut was telling him had happened. Damn the woman!
“Inverness,” Dr. Abernathy’s voice was saying in his ear. “Boston to Edinburgh, then the train to Inverness.”
“Oh, Jesus.” It was both a curse and a prayer. If she had left Boston on Tuesday, she would likely have made Inverness sometime on the Thursday. And Friday was the thirtieth day of April—the eve of Beltane, the ancient fire feast, when the hilltops of old Scotland had blazed with the flames of purification and fertility. When—perhaps—the door to the fairies’ hill of Craigh na Dun lay widest open.
Abernathy’s voice quacked in his ear, urgently demanding. He forced his attention to focus on it.
“No,” he said, with some difficulty. “No, she didn’t. I’m still in Oxford. I had no idea.”
The empty air between them vibrated, the silence filled with dread. He had to ask. He took another breath—he seemed to be taking them one at a time, each one a conscious effort—and changed his grip on the receiver, wiping his cramped and sweaty palm on the leg of his trousers.
“Dr. Abernathy,” he said carefully. “It’s just possible that Brianna’s gone to her mother—to Claire. Tell me—do you know where she is?”
The silence this time was charged with wariness.
“Ah … no.” Abernathy’s voice came slowly, reluctant with caution. “No, afraid I don’t. Not exactly.”
Not exactly. Great way to put it. Roger rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble rasp under his palm.
“Let me ask you this,” Roger said carefully. “Have you ever heard the name Jamie Fraser?”
The line was utterly silent in his hand. Then there came a deep sigh in his ear.
“Oh, Jesus Christ on a piece of toast,” Dr. Abernathy said. “She did it.”
* * *
Wouldn’t you?
That was what Joe Abernathy had said to him, at the conclusion of their lengthy conversation, and the question lingered in his mind as he drove north, barely noticing the road signs that whizzed past, blurred by the rain.
Wouldn’t you?
“I would,” Abernathy had said. “If you didn’t know your dad, never had known him—and all of a sudden, you found out where he was? Wouldn’t you want to meet him, find out what he was really like? I’d be kind of curious, myself.”
“You don’t understand,” Roger had said, rubbing a hand across his forehead in frustration. “It’s not like someone who’s adopted, finding out her real father’s name and then just popping up on his doorstep.”
“Seems to me that’s just what it’s like.” The deep voice was cool. “Bree was adopted, right? I think she’d have gone before, if she hadn’t felt it was disloyal to Frank.”
Roger shook his head, disregarding the fact that Abernathy couldn’t see him.
“It’s not that—it’s the popping-up-on-the-doorstep part. That—the way through—how she went—look, did Claire tell you—?”
“Yeah, she did,” Abernathy broke in. His tone was bemused. “Yeah, she did say it wasn’t quite like walking through a revolving door.”
“To put it mildly.” The mere thought of the standing stone circle on Craigh na Dun gave Roger a cold grue.
“To put it mildly—you know what it’s like?” The far-off voice sharpened with interest.
“Yes, damn it, I do!” He took a long, deep breath. “Sorry. Look, it’s not—I can’t explain it, I don’t think anyone could. Those stones … not everyone hears them, obviously. But Claire did. Bree does, and—and I do. And for us …”
Claire had gone through the stones of Craigh na Dun on the ancient fire feast of Samhain, on the first day of November, two and a half years before. Roger shivered, and not from cold. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck whenever he thought of it.
“So not everybody can go through—but you can.” Abernathy’s voice was filled with curiosity—and what sounded vaguely like envy.
“I don’t know.” Roger rubbed a hand through his hair. His eyes were burning, as though he’d sat up all night. “I might.”
“The thing is …” He spoke slowly, trying to control his voice, and with it, his fear. “The thing is—even if she has gone through, there’s no way of telling whether, or where, she came out again.”
He shook his head, his vision of Joe Abernathy so clear that he forgot again that the man couldn’t see him. Dr. Abernathy was no more than average size, a thickset black man in gold-rimmed spectacles, but with such an air of authority that his simple presence gave one confidence and compelled calm. Roger was surprised to find that this presence transferred itself over the phone lines—but he was more than grateful for it.
“No,” he said aloud. Leave it at that, for now. He wasn’t about to go into everything now, on the phone with a near stranger. “She’s a woman; there wasn’t that much public notice of what individual women were doing, then—not unless they did something spectacular, like get burned for witchcraft, or hanged for murder. Or be murdered.”
“Ha ha,” said Abernathy, but he wasn’t laughing. “She did make it, though, at least once. She went—and she came back.”
“Aye, she did.” Roger had been trying to take comfort in that fact himself, but there were too many other possibilities forcing themselves upon his consciousness. “But we don’t know that Brianna went back as far—or farther. And even if she did survive the stones and come out in the right time … have you any idea how dangerous a place the eighteenth century was?”
“No,” Abernathy said dryly. “Though I gather you do. But Claire seemed to manage all right there.”
“She survived,” Roger agreed. “Not much of a sell for a vacation spot, is it, though—‘If your luck’s in, you’ll come back alive?’ ” Once, at least.
Abernathy did laugh at that, though with a nervous undertone. He coughed then, and cleared his throat.
“Yeah. Well. The point is—Bree’s gone someplace. And I think you’re probably right about where. I mean, if it was me, I’d have gone. Wouldn’t you?”
Wouldn’t you? He pulled to the left, passed a lorry with its headlights on, plodding its way through the gathering fog.
I would. Abernathy’s confident voice rang in his ear.
INVERNESS, 30, read the sign, and he swung the tiny Morris abruptly to the right, skidding on wet pavement. The rain was drumming down on the tarmac, hard enough to raise a mist above the grass on the verge.
Wouldn’t you? He touched the breast pocket of his shirt, where the squarish shape of Brianna’s photo lay stiff over his heart. His fingers touched the small round hardness of his mother’s locket, snatched at the last moment, brought along for luck.
“Yeah, maybe I would,” he muttered, squinting through the rain streaming over the windscreen. “But I would have told you I was going to do it. In the name of God, woman—why did you not tell me?”
31
RETURN TO INVERNESS
The fumes of furniture polish, floor wax, fresh paint, and air freshener hung in throat-clutching clouds in the hallway. Not even these olfactory evidences of Fiona’s domestic zeal were able to compete with the delectable aromas floating out of the kitchen, though.
“Eat your heart out, Tom Wolfe,” Roger murmured, inhaling deeply as he set down his bag in the hall. Granted, the old manse was definitely under new management, but even its transformation from manse to bed-and-breakfast had been unable to alter its basic character.
Welcomed with enthusiasm by Fiona—and somewhat less by Ernie—he settled into his old room at the top of the stairs, and embarked at once on his job of detection. It wasn’t that difficult; beyond the normal Highland inquisitiveness about strangers, a six-feet-tall woman with waist-length red hair tended to attract notice.
She’d come to Inverness from Edinburgh. He knew that much for a fact; she’d been seen at the station. Also for a fact he knew that a tall red-haired woman had hired a car and told the driver to take her out into the country. The driver had no real notion where they had gone; just that all of a sudden, the woman had said, “Here, this is the place, let me off here.”
“Said she meant to meet her friends for a walking tour across the moors,” the driver had said, shrugging. “She had a haversack with her, and she was dressed for walking, sure enough. A damn wet day for a walk on the moors, but ye know what loons these American tourists are.”
Well, he knew what kind of a loon that one was, at least. Curse her thick head and fiendish stubbornness, if she thought she had to do it, why in hell hadn’t she told him? Because she didn’t want you to know, sport, he thought grimly. And he didn’t want to think about why not.
So far he had gotten. And only one way of following her any farther.
Claire had speculated that the whatever-it-was stood widest open on the ancient sun feasts and fire feasts. It seemed to work—she had herself gone through the first time on Beltane, May 1, the second time on Samhain, the first of November. And now Brianna had evidently followed in her mother’s footsteps, going on Beltane.
Well, he wasn’t going to wait till November—God only knew what could happen to her in five months! Beltane and Samhain were fire feasts, though; there was a sunfeast between.
Midsummer’s Eve, the summer solstice; that would be next. June 20, four weeks away. He ground his teeth at the thought of waiting—his impulse was to go now and damn the danger—but it wouldn’t help Brianna if his impulse to rush chivalrously after her killed him. He was under no illusions about the nature of the stone circle, not after what he’d seen and heard so far.
Very quietly, he began to make what preparations he could. And in the evenings, when the fog rolled in off the river, he sought distraction from his thoughts, playing draughts with Fiona, going to the pub with Ernie, and—as a last resort—having another bash at the dozens of boxes that still crammed the old garage.
The garage had an air of sinister miracle about it; the boxes seemed to multiply like the loaves and fishes—every time he opened the door, there were more of them. He’d probably finish the job of sorting his late father’s effects just before being carried out feetfirst himself, he thought. Still, for the moment, the boring work was a godsend, dulling his mind enough to keep him from fretting himself to pieces in the waiting. Some nights, he even slept.
* * *
“You’ve got a picture on your desk.” Fiona didn’t look at him, but kept her attention riveted on the dishes she was clearing.
“Lots of them.” Roger took a cautious mouthful of tea; hot and fresh, but not scalding. How did she do that? “Is there one you want? I know there are a few snaps of your grannie—you’re more than welcome, though I’d like one to keep.”
She did look up at that, mildly startled.
“Oh. Of Grannie? Aye, our Da’ll like to see those. But it’s the big one I meant.”
“Big one?” Roger tried to think which photo she could mean; most of them were black-and-white snapshots taken with the Reverend’s ancient Brownie, but there were a couple of the larger cabinet photos—one of his parents, another of the Reverend’s grandmother, looking like a pterodactyl in black bombazine, taken on the occasion of that lady’s hundredth birthday. Fiona couldn’t possibly mean those.
“Of her that kilt her husband and went away.” Fiona’s mouth compressed.
“Her that—oh.” Roger took a deep gulp of tea. “You mean Gillian Edgars.”
“Her,” Fiona repeated stubbornly. “Why’ve you got a photo of her?”
Roger set the cup down and picked up the morning paper, affecting casualness as he wondered what to say.
“Oh—someone gave it to me.”
“Who?”
Fiona was normally persistent, but seldom so direct. What was troubling her?
“Mrs. Randall—Dr. Randall, I mean. Why?”
Fiona didn’t reply, but pressed her lips tight shut.
Roger had by now abandoned all interest in the paper. He laid it down carefully.
“Did you know her?” he said. “Gillian Edgars?”
Fiona didn’t answer directly, but turned aside, fiddling with the tea cozy.
“You’ve been
up to the standing stones on Craigh na Dun; Joycie said her Albert saw ye comin’ down when he was drivin’ to Drumnadrochit Thursday.”
“I have, yes. No crime in that, is there?” He tried to make a joke of it, but Fiona wasn’t having any.
“Ye know it’s a queer place, all circles are. And don’t be tellin’ me ye went up there to admire the view.”
“I wouldn’t tell you that.”
He sat back in his chair, looking up at her. Her curly dark hair was standing on end; she rumpled her hands through it when she was agitated, and agitated she surely was.
“You do know her. That’s right; Claire said you’d met her.” The small flicker of curiosity he had felt at the mention of Gillian Edgars was growing into a clear flame of excitement.
“I canna be knowing her, now, can I? She’s dead.” Fiona scooped up the empty egg cup, eyes fixed on the discarded fragments of shell. “Isn’t she?”
Roger reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Is she?”
“It’s what everyone thinks. The police havena found a trace of her.” The word came out “polis” in her soft Highland accent.
“Perhaps they’re not looking in the right place.”
All the blood drained out of her flushed, fair face. Roger tightened his grip, though she wasn’t trying to pull away. She knew, dammit, she knew! But what did she know?
“Tell me, Fiona,” he said. “Please—tell me. What do you know about Gillian Edgars—and the stones?”
She did pull away from him then, but didn’t leave, just stood there, turning the egg cup over and over in her hands, as if it were a miniature hourglass. Roger stood up, and she shied back, glancing fearfully up at him.
“A bargain, then,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, so as not to frighten her further. “Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you why Dr. Randall gave me that picture—and why I was up on Craigh na Dun.”
“I’ve got to think.” Swiftly she bent and snatched up the tray of dirty crockery. She was out the door before he could speak a word to stop her.
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