‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘There’s been bother here over this business with Catriona’s grave. The police are carrying out an investigation, they want me to be available.’
‘That’s shocking, Andrew. Was the grave badly damaged?’
‘Just the headstone. I’m having it replaced.’
‘Where will you find the money? We’ll be happy to send you some.’
‘Thanks, but there’s no need. The insurance will take care of it. Give Father my love,’ I said. ‘Tell him I’m sorry he’s not coming. Perhaps you can both come as soon as he’s better. He’ll need a holiday.’
‘Is there no way of getting in touch with you, Andrew? I’m worried. In case . . . anything happens.’
‘He’ll be fine, you shouldn’t worry. Look, I’ll ring every night. And I’ll look into getting a phone installed. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’
I walked home, shaken and afraid. Questions buzzed through my brain like flies. How had Mylne known that my father planned to visit me? If he had used something belonging to my father in order to set his spell, how had he come by it? Had the fresh desecration of Catriona’s grave been connected in any way to the attack on my father?
More than anything, I kept asking myself why it was that Mylne had left Harriet untouched until now. Was he unaware that we had been seeing one another? How could that be, if he knew about my father? And why was he so intent on acting against anyone who threatened in some way to come between him and myself?
I ate another badly cooked Chinese meal and played the television loudly, watching programmes in which I had not the slightest interest merely to make company for myself, and to put off the moment when I would be too tired to stay awake.
But not even the constant action on the television screen could interrupt the thoughts singing through my head. One in particular would not leave me alone. It returned to me again and again, and in the end I could stand it no longer. I got up and went to the filing cabinet in the corner. A drawer at the bottom contained two large photograph albums. I lifted them out and returned to my chair.
I knew what I was looking for, and I was not disappointed. The first album held all the photographs I had of my parents, including some taken the previous Christmas. In every photograph, my father’s face was that of a man newly stricken by sudden, inexplicable pain. He did not yet show the symptoms that had been so visible on Iain’s face in the photograph Harriet had shown me. But the beginnings were there, and I knew that, if I continued to look at them, they would soon betray his decline and eventual death.
The second album contained my photographs of Catriona. I only looked at one: it was enough, enough to haunt me for the rest of my life. I had expected to see her in the final stages of her illness, just as Harriet’s photograph had shown Iain shortly before his death. But that was not how Catriona looked at all.
It was the first photograph taken of us together. My friend Jamie had posed us outside the Burrell, solemn for once, my arm round Catriona’s shoulder. A steep northern light fell on us from behind.
The album slipped from my hands and fell to the floor with a crash. I closed my eyes, but the image would not leave them. What I had seen was simple but chilling: in the photograph Catriona was dressed in a long white garment. A hood covered her head and face. And my arm still lay where it had always lain, round her shoulder, pressing her to me.
TWENTY-TWO
The sounds returned again that night. Sometimes they came as far as my door, and I sat listening to them move about on the landing. After they grew silent, I retrieved my books from the cupboard and studied what I should do to protect myself. I prepared circles of defence against them, and filled them with spells carefully recited and drawn, but I had no confidence in them.
Still shaken by what I had found in the photograph album, I went to a nearby café for breakfast. On the way I stopped in a newsagent’s to buy a copy of the Times Higher Education Supplement, and while there I picked up a copy of The Scotsman to read over breakfast.
The story was on the second page. Inspector Cameron had left out any reference to Catriona or myself, and he had said nothing about the talismans and other items found in the grave, but the rest of the details were there. The baby had been identified as Charles Gilmore, eleven months old, taken from his pram outside a shop in Airdrie on Friday afternoon. There was a photograph of the bairn in his mother’s arms. Catriona’s grave was not shown, and nothing was said about Satanists or grave-robbers. The text merely stated that the ground had been ‘disturbed’.
On the way back to my rooms, I bought the morning tabloids, but they gave few more details and a great deal more speculation, none of it remotely accurate. I rang Cameron and asked if he had come up with anything since receiving confirmation of the baby’s identity, but he said there was nothing yet.
‘Say nothing to anyone,’ he told me. ‘If word gets out that a bunch of Satanists are prowling Glasgow killing babies, there’ll be an almighty panic.’
‘You don’t have to worry. I’ve no intention of going to the press. And I sincerely hope this is the last killing.’
There was a pause at the other end. The possibility of other murders must, I realized, be the Inspector’s nightmare.
‘I hope so too, Dr Macleod. If you think of anything you may have forgotten to tell us, get in touch.’
As I put down the phone, I reached a snap decision. I would go to St Andrews to look for Harriet. She would know what to do. It is a very small town, and I reckoned that I could call on all the hotels there in a single afternoon.
I went back to my rooms to change and pick up some money for the trip. As I turned to go, I noticed the book I had bought for Harriet lying on the table where I had left it, still in its wrapper. I thought a present might help lighten our meeting. Picking the book up, I slipped it into my coat pocket.
On arriving at the central bus station, I found that the next bus for St Andrews left in half an hour. I bought a ticket and waited. We left on time, heading north over the Forth Bridge, then east to the coast. Two hours later, I was at my destination. A cold wind was brawling in from the sea, and the streets were filled with students scurrying to lectures. The university domin- ated the small town, lending it an unreal air, like a film set inhabited by aliens.
I found the tourist information office and obtained a map and a list of all the town’s hotels. In the end, it did not prove as difficult as I had feared. I remembered that Harriet had once mentioned that her father-in-law was keen on golf, and it occurred to me that he would most probably have chosen a hotel near one of the courses. I found them at Rusack’s, right alongside the eighteenth fairway of the Old Course, in the dining room, having lunch.
Harriet made her apologies and we went together to the lounge.
‘This is a lovely surprise,’ she said. ‘My father-in-law can be rather boring this close to a golf course. It’s a relief to be snatched away. But I think I’ll have some explaining to do. A strange man coming all the way from Edinburgh to see me!’
‘I had to come,’ I said.
Her mood immediately grew serious.
‘Has something happened?’ she asked.
I showed her the piece in The Scotsman.
‘I read this this morning,’ she said. ‘I don’t see what . . .’ She stopped and looked at me in horror. ‘Don’t tell me it was Catriona’s grave.’
I told her all about my interview with Cameron.
‘Why didn’t you tell him about Mylne?’ she asked.
‘What would have been the point? I have no real evidence, nothing that would stand up in a court of law. Mylne won’t have been anywhere near Glasgow on Friday night, and he wasn’t even in this country when the grave was first opened.’
‘But we know he’s behind this.’
‘I’m certain of it. If we could find evidence to connect him to the child’s murder, I wouldn’t hesitate to pass it on. But I don’t think it will happen. I think we have to go about this in our own way.’
‘
What do you want me to do?’
‘I’d like you to come back to Edinburgh. If you have friends there who might be able to help, we should be seeing them now.’
‘Oh, Andrew, I don’t know . . . My parents-in-law will be hurt if I just get up and leave. They’re finding Iain’s death very hard: he was their only child. And I seriously think that leaving with a strange man could upset them badly. I wouldn’t be able to explain, not adequately.’
‘Harriet, I have no one else to turn to.’
‘What about your own parents?’
I told her about my father. I had not intended to, knowing how badly it would disturb her, but I needed to impress on her how things stood with me.
‘You should have told me about this earlier,’ she said. ‘You’re right, we have to do this together. Give me a few minutes with them, I’ll do my best to explain.’
‘You can’t tell them the truth.’
‘Of course not. But I can tell them about Catriona’s grave – what happened originally, and this business with the baby. They’ll keep it to themselves.’
She was with them for over half an hour. I waited in the lounge. Through the window I could see the golf course, green and silent, a carefully tended world utterly remote from the events in which I had become enmeshed. In spite of the wind, small groups of warmly clad golfers were doggedly making their way across the green, driving and putting as though it was the middle of summer.
Harriet returned.
‘My car’s outside,’ she said. ‘I’ve asked for my case to be brought down.’
‘I forgot to give you this,’ I said. I handed her the Hardy.
‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’
‘I hope my mother-in-law doesn’t see you giving me presents.’
The string had been tied tightly. Harriet undid it carefully, undoing the knot and rolling up the string as it came free. She pulled off the wrapping and laid it to one side. As she did so, a porter came to the door. I looked round, indicating that we were about to come. When I turned back, I saw Harriet looking at me, her forehead furrowed.
‘What is this?’ she asked, holding the volume towards me.
‘It’s a present,’ I said. ‘I found it for you on Saturday.’
She flung it across the table and stood. She was shaking with anger.
‘I don’t think this is funny, Andrew. Not one bit. Whatever it is you’re playing at, I don’t want to know. But if you want my advice, I think you’re sick. You don’t need me, you need to see a doctor.’
She turned and ran to the door. Stunned, I watched her go, unable to make sense of her behaviour. Then, looking at the book she had thrown onto the table, I realized that it was bound in dark brown leather. The Hardy had been bound in black. I picked it up, and as I did so felt my heart lurch. It was not possible. I had burned it, burned it and scraped away the ashes.
My hand shook as I lifted the front cover and looked at the title page. The room swayed, and I clutched at the table to steady myself. It was there in black and white, the same title that I had seen all that time ago in the library of the Fraternity of the Old Path:
With a hand that still trembled, I turned back the page and looked at the flyleaf. There, unchanged, was the same faded and illegible inscription that had been in the copy I had burned.
TWENTY-THREE
I got myself back to Edinburgh on the next bus, scurrying home with my tail between my legs. Harriet’s anger had troubled me. Innocent though I knew myself to be, I could not throw off a sense of culpability. For although Duncan Mylne and his associates carried the heaviest blame for the tragic events of the past months, I knew that my own weakness and pride had themselves played no small part in bringing matters to this point.
As the bus twisted through the countryside, I sat rigid in my seat, fighting down waves of panic and terror that threatened to overwhelm me. It was all I could do to stop throwing up. I shivered every time I saw my own reflection in the bus window. A hooded scarecrow made me start. The book nestled in my pocket like a smoking gun. I could not have left it there for Harriet to find if she returned to the lounge. In any case, I knew that any further attempt on my part to destroy or lose it would prove as unsuccessful as the first.
I remembered the words of the old bookseller as he handed it to me, words I had thought a little odd at the time: ‘This was the book you wanted, wasn’t it?’ If I had had my wits about me, I would have guessed what he was up to. The first time the book had been left for me to find, in the library, it had, in a sense, forced itself on me; I had not taken it home knowingly. When I had found and disposed of it, they had been compelled to find a way of tricking me into taking it back voluntarily. The old man had asked me if it was the book I wanted, and I had answered that it was. It belonged to me by right.
I knew there was only one way to get rid of it now. Burning it, throwing it in the sea, burying it: none of those would work. The book had to be given back to the old man in person, and he had to be persuaded to take it from me of his own volition, just as I had taken it from him. My only hope of achieving that lay in tricking him in the same way he had tricked me. Whatever evil the book carried in its pages would revert to him, and I would be free of it forever.
The moment I arrived home, I got my boxes of books out of the cupboard. I dumped them on the floor and set aside two which contained spells for protection against evil forces: I thought I might need them before the night was through. They were both volumes that Duncan had loaned me from his own collection.
Sorting through the others, I found one of almost identical dimensions to the Matrix Aeternitatis. Carefully removing its cover, I glued it round the older volume. Provided the bookseller did not leaf through it, there was a good chance that he would accept it as a copy of the 1972 reprint of Mathers’s edition of The Key of Solomon the King.
I could not possibly carry all my books in one trip, but a mere bagful would be useless as a hiding-place for my Trojan horse. The more I could get to the shop in one go, the better.
On my first day at my new address, I had noticed a second-hand bicycle shop a couple of streets away, on Leven Street. I went there now and found just what I needed, an old sit-up-and-beg with front and rear baskets, going cheap at ten pounds. Back at my flat, I crammed one bag into the rear basket and a second into the front. Dismantling a large cardboard box, I folded it and tied it to the back: once I was at the shop, I would reassemble it and put all the books inside, with the Matrix at the bottom.
The bicycle was much too unwieldy to be ridden safely. Perching another, smaller box on the saddle, I set off pushing it, making my way back into the maze of side streets. I went unsteadily at first, but by and by settled into the rhythm of pushing and steering. The bicycle had been well oiled, and fitted with decent enough tyres and brakes.
When I reached the corner of the street off which the shop was situated, I leaned the bike against a wall and set my bags and boxes on the ground. Unfolding my large box, I fixed it together again and began to fill it with books. By the time I had finished, it was immensely heavy.
Leaving the bicycle where it stood, I staggered down the street with the box in both arms. Only then did I wonder what I would do if the shop were closed. With a couple of stops to rest my arms and re-balance my load, I reached the cul-de-sac. I put down the box and looked in both directions. Perhaps I had been mistaken, perhaps this was the wrong street. But on the corner stood the pub that I had noticed on Saturday.
Where the shop had been was just an empty shell. Going closer, I realized that it was indeed the same shop, but utterly changed. It looked as if no one had done business there in years. The sign had been taken down, and over the window only the faintest trace remained of the original name. The door was boarded over, and when I pressed my face against the window I could see nothing but empty shelves and what looked like litter.
Leaving my box outside the shop, I went to the corner and entered the pub. It was almost empty. A w
oman was cleaning glasses behind the bar. She looked up as I came in, then away again, as if to indicate that customers were not the reason for her being there.
‘I’ll have a half of Caledonian,’ I said.
She pulled the half-pint without a word and pushed it across the bar. I paid her and took a sip.
‘I noticed there’s a wee shop round the corner that’s empty,’ I said. ‘Has it been like that long?’
She looked up, dishcloth in hand, as though making up her mind whether I was human or not.
‘You’re no’ from round here, are you?’ she said.
‘Not far,’ I answered. ‘I moved to Drumdryan Street a few weeks ago.’
‘Student?’
I shook my head.
‘I’m looking for work,’ I said. ‘Some friends and I were hoping to find a wee place to open a shop. We make leather goods. You know, bags, belts, and stuff.’
‘Oh, aye?’
She did not seem impressed. Her hand turned listlessly in an empty glass, smearing rather than cleaning it. I took another mouthful of the beer.
‘The shop I mentioned would suit us well,’ I said.
‘Where’s that?’ she asked. She had obviously not noticed my first mention of it.
‘Just round the corner. In the cul-de-sac.’
‘Oh, aye, I know the one you mean. You’re wastin’ your time.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It hasnae been open in years, no’ since the old man left. They say no one will take it. Or they’ll no’ rent it out, I’m no’ sure. It has a bad name.’
‘I don’t understand. What sort of shop was it?’
‘I’m tol’ it was a bookshop. This is before my time, you ken. I’m only here five years.’
‘And what was wrong with it? Did they sell dirty books or something?’
She grimaced and twisted her cloth into a tight roll.
‘Do you think a thing like that would worry anyone round here? It wisnae dirty books. It was just . . . I’m tol’ there was something aboot the old man, something people didnae like. And since he’s gone the place has had a bad feeling aboot it. That’s all I ken. But no one will take the place. You and your friends would do well to look elsewhere.’
The Matrix Page 15