‘What were they taking?’
‘I just saw some furniture, some antique chairs, I think they were Georgian …’
‘Who was there?’
‘An older woman – Karen called her Granny. There was a boy. Wearing a khaki jacket, he kept his head down, always holding his hand up to his face, like he was shy. He was playing with the little girl. She was blonde, a pretty girl. They seemed …’
‘Go on.’
‘They just seemed odd. It’s hard to explain exactly, but there was something disturbing about them.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Mrs Tey’s brow creased beneath her hair. ‘It sounds stupid …’
‘Stupid things can be important.’
‘There was a man, tall with blond hair. He kept his face covered with a scarf too, didn’t speak. He was in Sebastian’s garage. Look, I’ll be honest with you. Sebastian was a loudmouth, always playing it large. But when my husband was alive, occasionally they’d get chatting, and Sebastian would invite him over for a beer. His garage was done out inside like a little bar on one side, a workshop on the other. It sounds unkind, but we laughed about it a bit. He had peanut packets on the wall behind the bar, a fridge with a glass door so you could see the bottles inside.’ Monica nodded her on, impatient. ‘Anyway, that man came striding out of the garage. It’s stupid, but it upset me … My husband told me that Sebastian had a collection of tools, sort of on display – hammers, saws, chisels in an old toolbox. Sebastian said he’d inherited them from his father, who founded the family business. His dad’s first set of tools, from when he started out as a joiner. Sebastian seemed so proud that his father had passed them on to him. I saw that man coming out of there with the toolbox. It just felt wrong. Taking them like that when they meant so much to Sebastian.’
CHAPTER 72
‘Still nothing about Annabelle,’ Crawford said as Monica joined him back in the car. He had taken a call from Fisher while Monica was questioning Mrs Tey.
Monica was pondering what the woman had told her. The coincidence of the tools seemed to offer a potential connection between the Slates and whatever had happened at the garage. But Mrs Tey said she’d have no chance of recognising the tools. It would take time that Annabelle didn’t have to find someone else who might be able to tell if the tools recovered from the garage originally belonged to Innes Sinclair. More importantly, Monica had no idea where the Slates lived.
‘Fisher’s finally got hold of his stepfather, Joel Whittaker, Annabelle’s dad,’ Crawford continued. ‘Apparently he’s on his way up, freaking out about it as you might expect. Annabelle’s mum’s going to be here tomorrow too.’
‘How does Fisher sound?’ Monica wondered for a moment if she should drive down and see him. But what could she say? Sorry we can’t find your stepsister? Sorry this seems to be at least partly your fault? So far only she and Hately knew what had happened between Fisher and Annabelle at the wedding. It would be better for the young detective and his family if it stayed that way.
‘Like he’s still in shock about it all. It’s weird … him drinking like that the other day, so out of character. Then this. Like something was bothering him.’ Crawford wasn’t stupid. But the fewer people who knew the details the better. Monica nodded but didn’t reply, turned the Volvo in the street and pulled out onto the long road that led back downhill towards the centre of Inverness.
‘I take it nothing came back about the Slates’ address?’
‘Khan hasn’t been able to find any record of them,’ Crawford said. ‘It’s as if they don’t exist. Not on any database anyway.’
‘So Karen’s family supposedly live out somewhere close to Little Arklow, near where Sinclair and Gall were discovered.’ And near where the body of one of Innes Sinclair’s business associates was discovered forty years ago, Monica thought but didn’t add. This piece of information only seemed to add to the complexity of the case. ‘And for some unknown reason, Annabelle drove down that way too and was taken hostage but escaped.’ She thought about the cars again, matching BMWs. Trying to find some new clue she hadn’t considered so far.
‘Karen Sinclair clearly had a motive. The fact he wanted to sell their businesses. The house was practically the first thing she mentioned to us,’ Crawford said. ‘But how does Annabelle fit into that? Sinclair and Gall were both already dead before she was even in Scotland. I just don’t get it.’
Monica swore and slapped the dashboard. Hating the feeling of impotence, knowing Annabelle was out there somewhere. If she could only work out where.
‘We need to find the Slates, it’s as simple as that,’ she said, turning the car to the left at the bottom of the hill. West, towards those mountains and glens that lay shrouded in darkness.
Through the window Monica could see shadows cast by flames from an open fire dancing over the walls, the only light inside the small house in Little Arklow. She got out of the car and caught the mix of smells. Chilled air from the mountains and the cloying scent of woodsmoke, hanging low over the dark village. Crawford came and stood beside her at the gate, taking in the birch woods that surrounded the house on three sides.
A hundred feet away a group of men standing smoking outside the pub turned to stare. Crawford and Monica looked back at the figures, only visible as dark silhouettes against the shifting smoke.
‘Feels strange here,’ Crawford muttered. ‘Almost like a different country …’
There was no reply when Monica rapped on the door. She tried again and finally heard the sound of rustling from inside. ‘Go away! There’s nothing for you here.’
‘Gillian? It’s DI Monica Kennedy.’
‘I don’t care who you are. You can get lost.’
Monica cleared her throat. ‘It’s about the Affric Men.’
Silence. Then slowly the door opened a crack until Monica could see a grimy face peering back at her.
‘The big policewoman? Is that really you?’
Monica realised with a start that the woman was pointing a knife at her. She took a step back and held her ID up, shone the light from her phone onto it. Gillian reached a grubby hand through and poked at Monica’s face as if checking she was really there. Monica caught the smell of unwashed human steeped in alcohol and jerked her head away reflexively.
‘Jesus,’ Crawford whispered from behind her.
Gillian seemed convinced and after a moment she pulled the door all the way open.
‘I thought you were them lot, coming back to play tricks on me again.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
Without answering, the woman turned and walked through into the earth-floored room Monica had visited before.
‘Slide that bolt back across, they’ll just try sneaking in otherwise,’ she shouted over her shoulder to Crawford. Who shrugged but did as he was told.
Gillian crashed back down into her chair by the fire. Laid the knife on the hearth and picked up a bottle of vodka, splashed some into a mug.
‘There were lights over the mountains earlier. Usually means something bad’s going to happen.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Monica glanced around for somewhere to sit, remembered there was only the one seat and crouched by the hearth instead. Appreciating the fire’s warmth after the cold night outside. ‘The Rescue are out looking for a girl who’s missing. It’ll be their lights.’
‘People disappear in these mountains, and good luck finding them.’ Gillian raised the mug as if in toast to Annabelle then took a mouthful of the vodka. Her face twisted up at the sting of the spirit.
‘Her name’s Annabelle Whittaker. Does that mean anything to you?’ Crawford asked hopefully.
‘Drive you mad,’ Gillian continued as if Crawford hadn’t spoken. ‘A surveyor came up here in the 1960s. Mapping the place. He had these two clocks that had to be synchronised. One he kept at his office down the street, one he brought with him into the hills. Every day when he took the one from the mountains back with him it would be out by
a fraction of a second. Running slower. At first he was convinced it was a problem with one of the clocks, so he replaced them. Same thing though. Out by fractions of a second at the end of each day. He couldn’t work out what was going on with these bloody clocks. He became obsessed with the idea that time ran differently up in these mountains.’
‘I’m guessing he didn’t win a Nobel Prize for this work?’ Crawford chipped in.
Monica looked at him in irritation, and Gillian set the mug of vodka down on the hearth. Reached for a ratty-looking roll-up.
‘What are you here for if you think what I’ve got to say is a bloody big joke?’ The tip of the cigarette flared as she lit it with a match. Monica glanced at the window where a branch was poking through. Since her last visit Gillian had stuffed scraps of cardboard around the hole to keep the cold air out.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Well … he did end up in Craig Dunain nut house. Wandering about in those mountains will do that to you.’ Gillian seemed delighted by this part of the story and creased up with laughter for a full minute.
Monica glanced at Crawford, who was still standing by the door. He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands: Why did you bring me here again?
She turned back to Gillian. ‘Tell me about the Slates.’
Abruptly she stopped laughing.
‘I don’t know anything about them.’
‘But you know the name?’
Gillian didn’t answer, just stared into her mug. Monica surveyed the room, taking in the smoke from the open fire as it snaked up among the row of unlit candles on the mantelpiece. ‘You knew the surveyor, didn’t you?’
Gillian didn’t raise her eyes. ‘He wasn’t the only one in the nut house. I’d had my problems too. That was where I met Euston. I told him I had a mission to save the world through unconditional love; he told me he was close to being able to control time.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Eventually they kicked us out and we moved here. Euston started his work in the mountains again—’
‘And it led him to the Slates?’
‘I heard him mention a man called Slate, once. Euston thought he knew what happened to Colin Muir back in 1980. That was just one of his stories though.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he said Doc Slate lived up in Glen Turrit. And everyone knows there’s been no one living up there since they flooded the old village to build the dam. Back in the 1950s.’
CHAPTER 73
The sound of the door echoed down the corridor. Annabelle stared at Marcus’s prone body as if waking from a trance, suddenly flushed with a new kind of horror. What had she done? He was dead, and she had killed him. She was a murderer. The flash of guilt at that word was almost overwhelming. In one moment the world was a completely different place.
He deserved it. Her harsh internal voice spoke up. Not that it’ll matter either way because the Doctor’s coming to take your arms. You need to move. Annabelle tried to respond, but she couldn’t wrench her eyes from Marcus’s body. How could she leave him lying like that? She had to cover him with something.
No! The voice inside her head seemed to explode with frustration this time. You need to move now!
Somehow she forced herself to turn away from what she’d done, grab the crutches from where they’d fallen to the floor. She managed to stand and staggered out into the tunnel. She glanced up at the metal door. Half expecting to see the Doctor standing there, staring down at her. It was still closed. Was he really out there? Maybe she had imagined the sound of the shed door opening? Surely she wouldn’t have been able to hear it through the metal? Maybe he wasn’t coming at all. If she could just get out of the tunnel she would be free.
She hesitated then turned to the right, facing up the slope.
Another sound echoed down the corridor. The wooden door squeaking closed. She hadn’t been mistaken, and Marcus hadn’t been lying. Any moment now the top door would open and the Doctor would see her.
She looked around frantically. Just the electric lights of the tunnel and the damp smell of the rock. All those tons and tons of the mountain, weighing down on her. With the Doctor blocking her only way out.
Not the only way out, the voice piped up again. She had to go deeper. Down into the old tunnels, just like Grandad Slate had in Marcus’s creepy story. Annabelle turned and looked at the row of lights that dropped down into the darkness.
She desperately didn’t want to go down there, but the top door would open any moment. The Doctor would take her arms. And who knew what else he would do to her when he saw the terrible thing she’d done to Marcus?
CHAPTER 74
Monica glanced in the rear-view mirror at the figures outside the pub. They had wandered closer and were now standing in the middle of the road. Almost as if preparing to block the way back down the glen towards Inverness. Crawford stared at the men as he adjusted the collar on his coat, making a show of not being intimidated, then he climbed in beside her. They were going in the other direction anyway, the road west to Glen Turrit.
‘Fisher said one of the patrols checked. The gate on the road’s still locked up at the head of the glen,’ he said as she accelerated down the gloomy street out of the village and into the birch forest that enclosed the road on either side. ‘There’s no way Annabelle could have gone down there.’
Monica didn’t reply. Gillian’s story sounded crazy, and Fisher had already looked into Euston Miller’s death and found nothing obviously suspicious. But these little fragments – the Slates’ link to Sebastian Sinclair through Karen, that connection to the garage. Now Gillian’s ghost of a link between the Slates and the death of Colin Muir.
‘I just want to have a look,’ she replied finally as she pulled the Volvo through a tight bend in the single-track road, exactly the kind of place where she had attended several accidents in her recent traffic stint. Over-exuberant teenagers who had gone too hard at a corner and wrapped themselves round a tree. Cautious Sunday drivers swerving for a deer and ending their days at the bottom of a gully. She took heed of the memories and eased off the throttle after thirty seconds.
After another five minutes their path was blocked by a gate. Beyond it the road was black and foreboding, crowded by yet more birch trees.
‘I told you,’ Crawford said from beside her. She looked at the sign picked out in the Volvo’s headlights: STRICTLY PRIVATE.
Monica glanced at the time on the dashboard: 9.30 p.m. ‘We know she messaged from somewhere in this area,’ Monica said almost to herself as much as to Crawford.
‘But it could have been from anywhere within a twenty-five-mile radius of the tower.’
Without replying Monica got out of the car and walked over to the gate. The mountain air already felt colder; it was just that little bit higher than Little Arklow. She shone the light from her phone onto the padlock. She tried pulling it open, but it was secure.
‘Why would she have come out this way anyway?’ Crawford had got out of the car and was standing beside her. High above the black shape of the mountains the moon was almost full, the shadows of the trees dense around them. ‘The tourists all go down Glen Affric; that’s the place for sightseeing.’
‘What if she wasn’t sightseeing?’ Monica said, and she lifted her head to gaze at the road beyond the gate. Smooth and black in the moonlight. So alluring to someone who wanted to drive fast.
‘What was—’ Crawford stopped. ‘She was driving an M4.’ As if it was suddenly the most obvious thing in the world. ‘She wanted somewhere to race. This road goes all the way through to the west coast. Like the one in her message.’
‘There should be a set of bolt cutters in the boot of the car,’ Monica said, still gazing at the black road. ‘Can you get them?’
CHAPTER 75
Annabelle forced herself to turn and began hobbling down the tunnel. She was uncoordinated and felt much slower than when she’d practised with the crutches in the cell. Twice she almost fell. Any
second the door would swing open, and the Doctor would see her straight away. He would walk quickly towards her, faster than she could move. If she was lucky he’d inject her so she was asleep when he took her arms. If she was lucky … because he’d see what she’d done to Marcus. This time he might make her watch.
The thought was too much. She lost concentration for a moment; the crutches tangled, and she landed hard on her side. She jerked her head back over her shoulder. Not even registering the pain where her hip had smacked the ground. He still hadn’t opened the door. ‘Please, please, please,’ she whispered under her breath. Willing some magical force to keep the door closed as she scrabbled frantically for the crutches. It was hopeless though. It would take her ages to make it far enough down the tunnel to where he couldn’t see her. The tears stung her eyes as she finally heard the metal handle clank. He’ll see you. Use those tools on you.
Her eyes fell on a door in the side of the tunnel. She’d already passed the bathroom and the locked door that led to St Magnus’s Chamber. This was Scott’s old room, the one she’d heard the screaming from. She’d completely forgotten about finding him. It was only closed by a bolt, the same as her room.
Over her shoulder she could hear the top door creaking open now. Horrified, she looked back. He was there. Clearly illuminated under the electric lights, he was crouching over something in the open doorway.
Hardly daring to breathe, Annabelle pulled herself towards the door. Slid the bolt back as quietly as she could, pushed the door open and crawled into the dark space inside.
CHAPTER 76
After twenty minutes of driving they emerged from the birch forest. The valley opened out ahead of them, cast in archaic shades of grey by the bright moonlight.
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