‘Continued life without these things would be merely a prolongation of misery. Given the vicissitudes of our physical existence, it would be unreasonable not to anticipate some setbacks: disease, disablement, a decline in one’s fortunes, the loss of dear ones . . . Under such circumstances, prolonged existence would quickly become intolerable. From seeking life, we would rush to welcome death.
‘No, Andrew, if there is to be life eternal, there must be the means to ensure that one remains protected from these vicissitudes. It pays to be circumspect. The same magic that can grant life can also bestow good fortune in the shape of power and wealth and physical well-being. Some have attained one, some the other; but it has only been granted to a small elite of men to achieve both together.’
He paused. While he had been speaking, I had seen that more than youth had been stripped away. All the politeness, all the bonhomie had gone. In their place I saw nothing but an iron will, the single-minded determination of a man who seeks only his own ends.
‘Dr McLean has shown you some of what we keep down here. You have had time to think about what is waiting if you are uncooperative. But before we go upstairs, there is something else I want you to see.’
McLean took my arm and urged me forward. We went through a low arch, then another, and came up against a wooden door with large rusted hinges. The doctor bent forward and turned a key in the lock. The door opened onto pitch-darkness.
We did not enter. McLean stood beside me and shone his light inside. I could see very little. Just the hard shapes of coffins, and a brightness of bones, and then, slow and confusing, crawling white forms, and the sound of sucking and nibbling. I remembered the woodcut in the book that lay open on the lid of the coffin. And I thought of the words at the end of Iain’s letter: Destroy everything . . . They are swarming . . . Angus brought them back from Morocco . . .
I closed my eyes. Mylne’s voice came out of the darkness behind me, liquid and emotionless.
‘The Carthaginians called them Ibad-Tanit, the servants of Tanit. The Arabs simply called them didan, maggots. They were found in an underground chamber in Tangier. You have been there with the Comte d’Hervilly. The Carthaginians found it and called it Mikdash Tanit: the Temple of Tanit. She was their goddess of eternal life. But more than that, she granted power to those who worshipped her. And she continues to grant power.’
McLean withdrew the lamp. I could see only darkness now, but I could hear the servants of Tanit as they ate.
‘It’s time to finish what we came here for,’ said Mylne. McLean closed the door and locked it. Mylne took my arm and guided me to a flight of narrow stairs.
We climbed slowly and came out into the main body of the church. The old, dark church of my worst dreams. As before, the only light came from candles set on tall sconces in the aisles. I had thought there would be others waiting, but it was empty. There were to be just the three of us for this ceremony.
In the chancel, where the altar had once stood, a trestle held a coffin. At each corner stood a candlestick and a burning candle. The last time I had seen the coffin had been in the cemetery in Glasgow, when they lowered Catriona to what I had thought would be her final resting place. The lid had been prised off and replaced loosely on top.
And so my last instruction began. Mylne sat down with me and rehearsed me in what I should say and do. There were to be two rituals, and I understood why he was there that night as an old man. The time had come for another transformation, and for that he needed me. Not my body, but the life in it. He would suck me dry like someone sucking juice from a pomegranate, and discard the husk. Duncan Mylne would move from Edinburgh and, after a discreet interval, his son would appear in London or Paris or wherever took his fancy, a young man of intelligence and promise, with a young and beautiful wife.
It was well into the morning before he was satisfied. My wording was perfect, my gestures accurate. All that remained was to put them together, beginning with the ritual to bring Catriona back among the living.
We stood in front of the coffin. Mylne began in a loud voice, invoking powers I had not even heard of, the names of deities and forces as old as death itself. This went on for some time. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see something moving in the shadows formed by the choir-stalls. I looked more closely and saw a huddle of white shapes, squirming and throbbing like a pack of rats. The servants of Tanit.
Mylne’s voice faded and he turned to me.
‘Now, Andrew. It is time to begin.’
I started to speak, reciting the words of the ritual almost by heart, glancing down from time to time at the open pages of the book. Mylne had a second copy, with which he followed me carefully, to ensure that all was done according to the text.
The Kalibool Kolood is divided into fourteen chapters or abwab, each subdivided into seven sections known as fusul. Each of these fusul is devoted to a separate aspect of the topic under discussion, with the spells arranged in the last three fusul of each bab. In addition, Mylne had added his own incantations on the basis of emendations by Sheikh Ahmad. These he passed to me at the appropriate times, and after reading them I would return to the original text.
It was as we reached the seventh fusul of the fifth bab that I became aware of a soft, irregular noise. As I reached the end of the incantation, there was a silence in which I listened carefully. A dull banging was coming from inside Catriona’s coffin.
Mylne held my arm more tightly.
‘Go on,’ he hissed. ‘Do not break off now.’
I continued, though my hand shook and my voice trembled. The knocking inside the coffin grew louder. I remembered the thing I had seen in Constance Mylne’s coffin in that room in the crypt, and I prayed for strength to go on. To my horror, the banging slowed and was replaced by a long, piercing cry that changed in moments to whimpering. It was not the crying of a woman, I realized, but the frightened cry of a small baby. And it too was coming from within the coffin.
‘Go on,’ said Mylne. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
I continued, lifting my voice so that it would cover the knocking and the crying. But I could recite neither quickly enough nor loudly enough to drown them out completely.
Suddenly, the candles around the coffin flickered. Something had disturbed the air. I heard a banging sound behind me, and the candles flickered wildly again. Beside me, Mylne had turned and was staring back down the nave. McLean did the same. And then I heard a man’s voice calling my name.
‘Andrew! Leave them and come to me.’
I turned and looked into the shadows at the back of the church. Two figures stood in front of the door.
‘It’s all right, Andrew. Do as he says.’
This was Harriet’s voice, tense and full of fear, yet held steady in order to reassure me. The figures walked down the aisle, and I saw they were Harriet and Father Silvestri.
Mylne pulled himself to his full height and pointed a finger at Silvestri.
‘Get out of here, priest! There’s nothing you can do.’
Silvestri ignored him. He continued walking towards the chancel, speaking to me in a calm, quiet voice.
‘He has no further hold over you, Andrew. Just step away from him. Go with Harriet. She knows what to do.’
I started to step back, but at that moment the baby cried again. I could not leave it.
‘Stay where you are, Andrew.’ Mylne’s voice was cold and peremptory. ‘Ramsey, hold him fast.’
McLean made to take my arm, but I was awake now and full of anger. I hit him full in the stomach and, as he doubled over, punched him hard in the throat. He fell back, choking and gasping for breath.
I stumbled forward to the coffin and pushed aside the lid. Dear God, I do not like to think of that moment. I did not want to look inside, yet I had to find the baby. It was lying against Catriona’s breast. I picked it up and clutched it to me, then staggered backwards.
At that moment I felt another arm take mine. Just as I was about to tear myself away, a v
oice whispered in my ear. A very gentle and familiar voice.
‘Come with me, love. It’s time for you to leave.’
And I knew beyond all doubt that this was no simulacrum, that Catriona herself had found me.
She guided me through the confusion of the chancel, past flapping, shuffling shapes I dared not pause to examine, to where Silvestri and Harriet were waiting. I felt a kiss against my cheek, then she was gone.
Harriet reached forward and took the baby from me.
‘My car’s outside, Andrew. Let’s get out of here.’
I stammered.
‘Catriona . . .’
Harriet nodded.
‘Yes, I saw her. But you have to let her go.’
The baby whimpered. Behind me, I heard Mylne’s voice lifting in a conjuration. The candles flickered and went out.
Harriet pulled me to the door.
‘What about Silvestri?’ I asked.
‘It’s what he wants,’ said Harriet. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’
I turned at the open door. A bright, unnatural light was shining in the chancel. Angus Mylne stood against it, outlined, his arms held high above his head. I could hear his voice ringing through the empty building. A second figure, no more than a shadow, moved towards him as though fighting against a high wind.
‘There’s nothing more you can do,’ said Harriet.
I looked for the last time. Silvestri kept on moving. I could just make out his voice, low yet firm. The door closed and we were outside in the freezing cold.
THIRTY-FOUR
A young priest was waiting for us at the rectory. Silvestri had given him careful instructions on what to do with us.
‘You must leave Edinburgh tonight,’ he said. ‘Both of you. I have some money you can take. You must never come back here, and no one must know where you have gone. You’ll have to change your names, take on new identities. I will be able to help you.
‘Andrew,’ he said, ‘I do not think you will ever know peace again until you die. That creature in Fez has long tentacles. Mylne is not easily tired, and he has a long memory. Wherever you go, you will have to be on the watch all the time. Trust no one, confide in no one, befriend no one, above all, let no one befriend you.
‘Leave the baby with me tonight. I’ll see it’s taken care of and returned to its parents in the morning. There’s nothing more you can do here.’
Harriet had already got things together. She and the priest had gone to my flat and packed enough clothes for the journey.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I asked.
‘It was either there or Penshiel House,’ explained Harriet. ‘Silvestri was almost certain it would be the church, that that was where Catriona’s remains were being kept.’
‘What will happen to them?’
The priest answered.
‘I’ll see the police are informed. And I’ll make sure they don’t come after you. Inspector Cameron’s a Catholic: he’ll understand.’
‘And Silvestri?’ I asked. ‘We can’t just leave him there.’
‘He is my responsibility,’ said the priest. ‘You have to think about yourself and Harriet.’
We left soon afterwards, driving north in Harriet’s car. We drove on through the night, into greater and greater darkness. And on my cheek I could still feel the touch of lips that had not been there.
THIRTY-FIVE
The sea inhabits our darkness and our light. Its rising and falling is a token that all is well, day by day. We live in a little house near an inlet on a small island that I shall not name. Harriet weaves and takes in local children from time to time, to help them with their English. I am learning the art of dry-stone walling and am a passable mason. It helps that I speak Gaelic. People do not ask too many questions.
My father died six months after we left Edinburgh. I saw his obituary in the local paper. My mother lives alone. I telephone her every week, but I cannot tell her where I live now.
Father Enzio Silvestri was buried in private in a Jesuit cemetery in Florence. The circumstances of his death were never made public. I pray for him each night, though I do not believe.
Harriet and I were married soon after we arrived here; it seemed best, and we find we love one another well. We both have memories, we are both restless, but we are learning contentment. The sea is vast, and cruel in winter. Harriet expects a child next spring.
I heard something outside the house last night. Perhaps it was just my imagination. I said nothing to Harriet. But if it returns tonight, I shall have to tell her. It will be time for us to move again. For us it has become as the words of the Psalm:
’S an fhàsach iad air seachran chaidh
an ionad falamh fàs;
Is bail’ air bith cha d’fhuaradh leo
gu còmhnuidh ann no tàmh.
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
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