There was no one in at Ford Cottage, two hours later, when I pounded on the door – where was he? – so I drove through the ford, praying that the full, midwinter stream would not be too much for my motor car. There was a moment when I could have sworn I was afloat and the engine spluttered alarmingly, but I made it up the other side and was soon bucketing along the winding back lane which would eventually bring me around the west side of the law to Luckenheart Farm and the steps leading to the chamber. I had a crowbar beside me on the seat, taken from the old stable we used as a garage now, but I was sure I should not need it. I was sure that the padlock would be open when I got to the little wooden door. At last, I spied in the light of my headlamps the rather crumbling gateposts and sagging rusted gates of Luck House and I knew I was almost there.
A door opened and a light appeared as I shot through the farmyard on my way to the rocky cleft at the foot of the hill, so I slowed and allowed the motor car to roll backwards until I was beside Jock Christie, who was holding up his lantern and staring at me.
‘Mrs Gilver?’ he said. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Are you alone tonight?’ I asked him, looking wildly around for carts, hoping against hope that his kitchen was full of large, competent farmers who could help.
‘Of course,’ said Jock Christie. ‘Mrs Gilver, what’s wrong?’
Part of me – most of me, if I am brutally honest – wanted to beg him to come with me, but he looked such a child standing there in the lantern light and I had no idea what was waiting up the hill.
‘Nothing,’ I told him then I put the engine back into gear and roared off, leaving him blinking. At the stopping place, I climbed out, switched on my electric torch and began to play the beam around, looking for the opening where the stairs were cut into the rock. My mind was all stern resolve and courage, but already, as so many times before, I could feel my body, my blood, my heart, my trembling legs, begin to warn me that dreadful things were coming.
Oh, Alec, where are you? I thought again. And then I stopped. It might not be one of the Misses Lindsay or McCallum that she would set her sights upon tonight. After all, they were her friends. Suddenly I was sure I knew who was in danger, for if she had wanted simply to warn me off and cause me grief this morning she would have gone for Bunty, but she must have felt that she needed to pay the kitten back for being the creature which showed me what an evil woman she really was. Well, would she not do the same tonight? If she needed a victim, would she not choose the one who had hurt and humiliated her so badly at that terrible party?
Could she overpower Alec? If she surprised him, could she throttle him or hit him so hard that he fainted? I stumbled up the rocky steps on shaking legs, praying that I was not already too late.
As I rounded the rowan bush and came upon the platform, my torchlight picked out the glitter of the key in the open padlock and the bright, unweathered wood on the inside of the little door. The mouth of the tunnel disappeared into thick, brownish darkness. I stopped to try to quiet my panting breaths, carefully lifting the padlock off the hasp and dropping it into my coat pocket, key and all, for the thought of someone coming after me and turning the lock, the thought of being trapped in there, was enough to run a trickle of cold terror down my spine. I shook myself, put out my torch and stole inside. Along the chill, dank passageway I crept, towards the faint glow of a light at the end. I could smell cigarette smoke, acrid and unpleasant in this closed-in place before I got to the arched stone doorway, the tiny glow of light went out and I could hear someone grinding the cigarette stub on the stone floor, the dust grating.
‘That was quick,’ said Nicolette Howie’s voice out of the darkness. ‘Put your torch on, darling, and let’s get on with it. It’s far too cold to hang around in here.’
I clicked the switch on my torch, too dumbfounded at her air of ease to think whether or not I should. She spoke as though we had met on a street while out shopping.
‘Where is she, then?’ said Nicolette, rising from her perch on the stone slab in the middle of the room. Then she turned and saw me.
‘What?’ she breathed. ‘What are you doing here? Where are they? What have you done?’
I could not answer her. I did not know. But I began to babble feverishly, unable to stop myself.
‘Where’s Lorna?’ I said. ‘Niccy, you must come with me. All these games you’ve been playing – if you’ve been playing them too – they must stop. She’s dangerous. Where’s Vashti? Do you know where Miss McCallum and Miss Lindsay are? Are they safe?’
Nicolette’s face broke into a smile.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘You have got in a muddle, haven’t you? I have no idea where Miss Lindsay and her little pink gnome of a friend are. Gone on another Women’s March probably. And no, my dear Dandy. Lorna is not dangerous. She’s just silly and getting extremely tiresome. I, on the other hand . . .’ She looked just as calm and amused as ever, rearranging the strings of beads across the lapels of her little suit and smirking up at me from under her lashes.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I thought it was . . . What are you doing here? How did you get the key?’
‘Lorna brought it,’ said Nicolette. ‘She’s such a sweet girl. She’d do anything for her dear friends, you know.’
She was so calm, so very unperturbed, that I feared for a moment I had imagined everything.
‘Did you . . .’ I began. ‘Don’t laugh at me for asking this, but did you rob the grave?’ I waited to see if her eyes would widen, if she would shriek with laughter and tell me I was a scream, but there was not so much as a flicker.
‘Yes, well that didn’t work terribly well, did it?’ she said.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘You dug someone out of her grave?’
‘Well, Irvine and Johnny helped with the actual spadework,’ said Nicolette, deliberately misunderstanding me, ‘once we had finally talked them into it. But they absolutely refused to enter into the spirit, which can’t have helped. No matter – we’re going to make a proper job of it tonight, just Vash and me.’
‘But why?’ I said. ‘For God’s sake, why?’
‘Well, not for God’s sake,’ said Nicolette, with an ugly laugh. ‘For our sake. Vash’s and mine. Do you know, Dandy, it was six weeks after we bought that God-awful pile that they found the entrance to this place. Six pathetic weeks and then the very thing that gave Luckenlaw its power was stripped away and we were left there with nothing.’
‘You moved here for that? How did you know?’
‘Oh, it’s very well known about in certain circles,’ said Nicolette. She had lit another cigarette now and the smell of it in the dank air of the chamber was sickening. ‘But since the day those wretched archaeologists took her out everything’s gone wrong. Everything we’ve touched has failed.’
‘Do you mean money? That’s happening to everyone.’
‘But it wasn’t supposed to happen to me,’ she said, so grimly she was almost croaking. ‘We come from an illustrious line, Vash and I.’
‘An illustrious line of what?’ I asked, although I was sure I knew.
‘Enchantresses,’ said Nicolette, rolling the ludicrous word around her mouth like brandy. ‘We always knew it – our mother taught us our history from when we were tiny and she made us swot it all up and practise like anything. She was determined that no matter what degradations my useless father made us suffer – rented rooms, Dandy, with the landlady looking down her nose as though we were nobodies – we would find our rightful place in the world one day. And we did, although she didn’t live to see it.’ Here Nicolette gave a small sigh. Her face had grown gentle as she spoke and she gazed at a spot above my head, remembering. Then suddenly her attention snapped back to me and her voice hardened again. ‘We married into Balnagowan just in time for that loathsome Ross cousin to sell it out from under us. And of course we found out that Irvine and Johnny couldn’t care less about it, hardly knew about the family much less tried to keep up the traditions. Va
sh and I had to nag them to death to make them move here. And no sooner had we arrived than Mr holier-than-thou Tait put those precious bones into the filthy soil of a churchyard and we were stuck here, for nothing, with two useless boobs of husbands and no hope of getting out. We tried all sorts of things over the next few years, everything our mother had taught us, but nothing worked. And so, eventually, we realised that we had to take matters into our own hands and put right what was wrong.
‘Only we needed another one. Three is the powerful number, you know. And there were only two of us, which is where dear Lorna came in. Of course, she didn’t know what was happening. Such a very bovine trusting creature, isn’t she? Only, just recently we began to think it would be better all round if she was . . . How can I put it? . . . a full board member? So we thought we would convince her, show her what riches, what power, what ecstasies were in store.’
Her high-flown language, like something from a cheap adventure, made the tide of terror which had been rising in me begin to subside again. I felt sickened and angry, but no longer scared.
‘So you made her the love charm,’ I said. ‘As an advertisement of attractions to come.’
‘And to earn her gratitude, of course,’ Nicolette went on. ‘Except it didn’t, did it?’ She almost spat the words. ‘Not only – thanks to you, I might add – did she find out about the “poor darling little kitty-witty” and decide that Vash and I were beyond the pale, she heard about the stupid skeleton too – you again, I assume – and that shocked our Lorna to her milk-and-water little core. But worst of all – and this will make you laugh – she sent him packing. Our beautiful charm, nine months in the making, worked so well that it brought that maggot Watson to his knees, and Lorna turned him down.’
‘That’s what she told you?’ I said.
‘That’s what happened,’ said Nicolette. ‘We found her in a broom cupboard at her party all upset because he’d forced himself on her. And so, you see . . .’ Her voice trailed off and she was silent for a moment. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘what brings you here tonight?’
‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘If you hoped to get away with it, why did you kill the cat?’
‘What?’ barked Nicolette, her ease gone in an instant.
‘This morning,’ I said. ‘Someone killed the little cat that I saved on the road.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Nicolette. ‘That’s where she was then. My sister! I don’t know what to do with her. She was very angry with you – we both were, actually – but Vashti takes it so seriously. I mean, look how she dresses, darling. She was most mysterious at supper last night, saying that unpropitious elements had to be swept away to allow the power to flow. So, she came and slaughtered the cat, did she? How theatrical. How very typical of Vashti. Still, she did volunteer for the messy end of tonight’s work, so I’m not complaining.’
‘The messy . . . ?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘She’s killing two birds with one stone tonight,’ said Nicolette. ‘She’s restoring the fortunes of Luckenlaw and shaking that irritating creature off our backs for good. I do admire neatness, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Where is Vashti? What’s she doing?’
‘She’s preparing Lorna.’ I held onto the rough stone of the wall behind me as my head clouded and cleared again. ‘We’ve been at it all day, actually,’ Nicolette went on. ‘We asked Lorna to come round for breakfast and bring her father’s car. Wasn’t that a clever touch? My idea, if you’ll forgive me bragging. I thought even if she was missed no one would think she was anywhere nearby so long as the car was gone too.’
‘But how can it work?’ I said, thinking furiously. ‘There are only two of you. I thought you needed three.’
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ said Nicolette. ‘I expect when the two are as talented as Vash and me the third is immaterial. Look at the love charm after all. That was two of us. Vash in her cat-burglar suit and me doing the incantations. And if Lorna hadn’t spoiled it by turning him down it would have worked . . . well, like a charm.’ She threw her head back and cackled, smoke billowing out of her nose and mouth, making her look diabolical in the torchlight.
‘Where are they?’ I said.
‘Oh, surely you don’t think I’m going to tell you?’ she said, still cackling. ‘You’ll only spoil it all. Although, actually, I’m surprised you can’t guess.’ I frowned at her. What did she mean by that?
‘I suppose you would spoil it, wouldn’t you?’ she said, half into herself. ‘I don’t suppose you’d help out instead?’
Where could they be? I was so sure this place would be the scene of the nightmare if it was going to happen.
‘I mean to say, I really do think Vash and I could do anything we set our minds to, but three is more traditional.’
Would they be in the graveyard? At the kirk? I tried to think of the whole of Luckenlaw, laid out in those sketch maps I had drawn, and in Alec’s terrible pictures where he said it looked like a lollipop.
‘It’s the most tremendous fun,’ Niccy was saying, ‘except for some of the really grisly bits, and Vash does all that.’
The road, leading up, the village in a cluster, the kirk and manse like gateposts, the five farms all around and . . . the law. Of course, the Lucken Law.
‘And there is a way to make it even more fun. I’ve got some tonight to give me courage if it’s nasty.’
I began to sidle along to the doorway now, feeling for where the passageway led away to the outside.
‘Oh, don’t go,’ said Nicolette. ‘Aren’t you listening to me? It’s marvellous fun. A scream.’ She was stalking towards me. ‘Look, try some of this if you need to.’ She rummaged in the pocket of her tight little suit, bearing down on me. ‘You’re going to love it, truly.’
At the same time as I sprang away from her into the passageway, she lunged for me and knocked me to the ground. I fell on my side and felt a sharp crack as I came down onto the unyielding lump of the padlock. The pain shot through me, needle-sharp and sickening, but still I struggled and rolled, ignoring it, trying to get away from her, to get out from under her as she lay across me, using her weight to pin me down, while she wrestled with something she held in her hand. At last I heard a popping sound and Nicolette giggled.
‘Welcome to Wonderland,’ she said, and before I knew what was happening she had poured a stream of thick, bitter liquid into my mouth. I choked on it and tried to spit it out but I could feel some of it trickling down my throat, burning. With all of my strength I heaved her off me and got to my knees, gagging.
‘Ow!’ said Nicolette, sounding amused. ‘Careful now. You could have hurt me.’
Whimpering with pain and trying to scrub out my mouth with my coat-sleeve I hauled myself up. The torch lay on its side a little way from us. Nicolette was still on the floor of the cave, with her legs tucked demurely to one side, ankles together, as we had been taught to sit on picnics, but when she had finished tidying her necklaces and turning her many rings around to the front of her hands again, all of a sudden she changed. She leapt up to her feet and stood, braced in a half-crouch with her arms wide, her hands flexed like little claws and a new look of excited concentration on her painted face.
‘Now, Dandy,’ she said. ‘You’ve had your fun, but you surely didn’t think I was going to let you walk away, did you?’
With that, she sprang towards me. I dropped to the floor and kicked out with all my strength. Nicolette’s feet shot away from under her, her high heels screeching against the stone, and I heard a dull, wet clunk as her head hit the wall above. She rolled down, groaning, but she was starting to scrabble her way up again before I had even got to my feet and so, hugging my ribs with both arms and biting down hard on my lip to bear the pain, I groped my way along the passage to the open door.
I could hear her dragging herself after me and did I only imagine that, as I scraped the door round on its gritty hinges and forced the hasp closed, I could feel her weight
slump against the other side? I snapped the padlock shut and stood against the door, trying to breathe without moving.
I was out. And if she had poisoned me then it was poison that might leave me time to get Lorna before I fell. I started first one way along the little sheep track and then the other, but I needed to get to the top, so I put my hands down on the steep grass slope stretching upwards and started to climb. I could see nothing, but Nicolette’s face still hung in front of me, swinging like a pendulum and cackling, and the cackling was the grating of my bones and the pendulum swing was the new booming pain that swelled up around it.
On and on I scrambled, slipping back almost as much as I pressed upwards, clutching at tussocks to stop myself from sliding all the way. My hands were scratched and I felt my nails bend back and break as the earth pitted in behind them. My knees were raw, scraped bare through my stockings. Still I climbed, and time began to slow down, to roll past, falling away behind me in heavy folds; each time I lifted a hand and hauled myself upwards it was like a tree uprooting itself; each time my foot struck the ground a tide rushed up through me and shattered behind my eyes.
Was that a light? Was I imagining it? Up ahead of me I thought I could see a thick glow smeared across the darkness and I could hear a noise that was not a hum and was not a howl but was both of them and neither and then I was up on top of the law standing immensely tall, with all the darkness splintered and streaming away from me, my ears rushing with the howling humming sound and there was the dark stranger, all in black, but his legs had stuck together and turned into a bell and the bell swung around as he moved. It was Vashti, it must be, in a black robe like a bell and there were the bones, white and shimmering, too big to be a kitten’s bones. And they were clothed with flesh again and it was Lorna’s body, lying white and still.
I moaned and the humming howl broke off, whispering and rustling like a thousand crows’ wings all around me. I staggered forward and fell as the black bell turned, clanging.
Bury Her Deep Page 32