“Can you tell me the rest as we walk back?”
Falcone stuck out his chin before nodding.
We started down the side of the hillock, the same way my dad had come, none of us wanting to risk the woods at this hour. The light was rapidly failing and a fresh wind had started to blow up from the south. We had to scramble down a muddy bank and through a tangle of weeds before we re-joined the steep incline of the hillside proper. I pushed on alone back towards the gate we’d first come through, anxious to get away.
I waited for them at the gate, using the time to catch my breath.
My dad was the first to join me, attacking the hillside with his head down.
“What’s got into you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just keen to get out of here.”
“Can’t say I blame you. That place was giving me the willies.”
He pushed open the gate and strode through without a backward glance.
Falcone didn’t make it to the top before he had to stop, dropping his hands to his knees.
“Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
In truth, I was rattled. I wanted to get back to the college, kick off my walking boots and be away from there, not stopping until we’d crossed the border.
I held the gate open for him. His ponytail had come loose and strands of hair whipped at his face.
“So what did happen?”
“All we really know is that three of them came up here that night and only two of them made it back down the following morning. Kohl had learned from previous experience how exhausting the whole Summoning process was so the others assisted him. Hardy and O’Connell. There is no doubt that they succeeded in bringing something through but Kohl hadn’t thought far enough ahead. The process of binding a demon to your will can be more tortuous than the single act of summoning it. And once called, a demon has to be paid.”
“A sacrifice?”
“Quite right. A blood sacrifice.”
“But what does that mean?”
Falcone stopped walking, his eyes scanning the horizon.
“Carl Hardy’s body was never found. The police got involved, took a few statements as I recall. But with no body and no murder weapon they had very little to go on.”
I tried to let the enormity of that sink in.
Carl Hardy’s body was never found.
What had happened up here?
“What about Kohl and this other lad… O’Connell? Weren’t they questioned?”
“They questioned both of them, of course. Kohl had a solicitor come across from Edinburgh. I doubt he told them very much at all. And then there was O’Connell. He was in a poor way afterwards. I saw him once at a lecture. He just looked very troubled, like he hadn’t slept in weeks. Don’t know how you recover from something like that, if you ever do. The school itself held some kind of internal inquiry and the Dean stepped down not long after.”
My dad was approaching the second gate and I quickened my pace eager to join him.
“What about Kohl? What happened to him?”
“He left as soon as the police revealed that they weren’t pressing charges. There was no way that he could have stayed on. I suppose he just went back to Italy.”
“Italy? I thought he was Austrian.”
“His parents were separated. His mother was Austrian but his father worked in Rome. That’s where he went after her death.”
Then he looked me straight in the eye, “No idea what became of him. If you hear anything you’ll be sure to let me know.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, trying to sound non-committal. “If I hear anything you’ll be the first to know. But what about this other lad: O’Connell. What happened to him?”
“O’Connell? I’m not exactly sure. Had some kind of breakdown, I think. Went back to Ireland and that’s the last I heard of him.”
I stopped long enough to take out the photograph I’d received that morning. Falcone’s eyes lit up when he saw it.
“Where on earth did you find this?”
“It was sent to me in the post.”
“Well, that’s me there. On the back row.”
He was to the left of Kohl with a pair of thick spectacles and long dark hair. Only his nose gave any indication that this was the same man.
“I can see Kohl,” I tapped his image. “What about the others?”
“That’s Carl Hardy, there,” he indicated a figure in the front row wearing a knitted red football hat. “He wore that hat everywhere.”
“And what about O’Connell?”
Falcone slid his glasses to the end of his nose and squinted over the top of them.
“There he is. That’s him.”
His finger rested on a figure in the front row. A fresh faced young man with a goatee beard.
“Oh my God!”
“Do you recognise him?”
I nodded.
It was Niall Kinsella.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The sky was quite black by the time we returned to the college and we were lucky to get inside before the downpour came. Falcone took me across to the office which was just about to close. They had records for every student going back to the 1930s and Falcone knew just where to look. After we had said our goodbyes, I went and collected my dad.
As we drove towards Inverness the weather took a turn for the worse. A porter with a huge black umbrella escorted us out to the van. The rain was unrelenting, even with the headlights on and the windscreen wipers turned to their highest setting, we were forced to drive at twenty miles an hour just in order to see the road.
“So tell me again,” my dad said. “Why are we heading to the airport?”
“It’s simple: I need to catch a flight to London and then on to Rome.”
My dad slowed the car even further as we approached a tight hair-pin.
“Rome?”
“The guy I’m tracking used to live in Rome.”
“But he doesn’t live there now?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
I tipped my head at him and smiled. “That’s lovely of you to offer but there’s no need. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? None of this seems ‘fine’ to me.”
I had to admit: he had a point. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do once I got to Rome. Falcone had found a copy of Kohl’s father’s address but there was no guaranteeing that he still lived there. I just didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. I was still reeling from the revelation that Kohl and Kinsella had once been close friends. It threatened to over-shadow everything I thought I knew about both of them.
Kinsella had put himself in an impossible position. Even if he was innocent of any collusion with his former friend, he had gone out of his way to conceal their friendship, though I thought I might know why he’d done that. If the Inner Council had suspected that he had any links with Kohl they would never have allowed him to pursue the case. Kinsella would have had to have stepped down and he wouldn’t have wanted that.
But it looked like the strain had proven too much for him anyway. It had been a catastrophic error of judgement to send the Dark Team into the millhouse without checking it out first. Other details I was less sure about. The murder of the two technicians didn’t add up. If he was going to kill them then why abandon the van and set off on foot? It didn’t make sense.
And with Kinsella and the Dark Team gone there would be no one left to track down Kosi and the others. I could still picture her being forced onto the helicopter. Kosi had asked for none of this. She had placed her faith in people only to be let down time and again. I wanted to punish myself with thoughts of her sitting alone in the dark somewhere, but I had to push those thoughts away. I had to channel my energies more positively now.
I had to focus on finding Kohl.
My dad parked in the airport’s Short Stay car park and then came with me while I bought a return ticket to R
ome. Once I’d been booked on the flight he produced his credit card and insisted on paying. “You can claim it back on expenses,” he said.
Then he gave me a hug.
“Don’t forget to stay in touch.”
As I watched him walk away across the concourse, I experienced a sudden surge of panic. I wanted to chase after him, to forget everything that had happened and let him take me home. But then I thought about the others. Kosi couldn’t go home and neither could Carlotta, or Paula, or any of the others.
I examined the other travellers: businessmen and women for the most part but also a substantial number of people heading out on holiday. What I would have given at that moment just to be normal. To pursue a simpler life.
Why did everything have to be so damned difficult?
I went straight through customs and then went and bought myself a cheap phone. I tried ringing Millie’s number but it went straight to Voicemail.
Then I rang Valeria. I figured that I had nothing to lose. It was true that she’d lied to me about attending Erasmus but I was alert that that now. And that gave me an advantage. Also, she was the only person I knew on the ground at the millhouse.
She picked up straight away.
“I’ve been here for half an hour and it’s not looking good. There’s rubble everywhere.”
“Any sign of Marcus?”
“What do you want me to say? They’ve so far pulled out two bodies but there’s no easy way of identifying them.”
I let that sink in.
“What about Kinsella?”
“We’re looking at the CCTV. We hope we’ll get something there. In the meantime, the Inner Council have taken charge of the Bear Garden. Judging by what’s happened, it looks like they had a contingency plan already in place. They’re shutting everything down. What’s happened here is being referred to as a training incident. No mention of Kohl or even Kinsella for that matter. I think they just want everything to go away”
“What about the Novices though. Surely the Council will have to act on that?”
“I’m not sure that they will. As far as they’re concerned, Kohl has done them a favour. Previously, the women’s welfare presented them with a problem. Now that problem’s been solved.”
I started to object but then realised the truth of what she was saying.
I was feeling pretty low by the time I came off the phone. No one was going to be looking for the Novices anytime soon. It looked like it was all going to be up to me and I had no idea what I was doing.
I tried to imagine what I would do in Kohl’s position. His base of operations was in Europe so he’d do everything he could to get them out of the country. But would he keep the women together or try and separate them? By dividing them up he’d be able to control one group by threatening the other, though using multiple sites would also increase the potential for escape attempts and possible detection. If I knew which approach he intended to use I’d have a better chance of tracking them down.
Information trumps instinct, as Kinsella was fond of saying. But what would I learn in Rome? There was no guarantee that Kohl’s father was still alive.
But then I remembered something that Kohl himself had said.
They always phone home.
Yes, there was a good chance that Kohl had broken off his relationship with his father long ago. But equally, there was always the chance that he rang him every week.
When I looked up I saw that my flight was already boarding.
*
It was only after I’d caught my connecting flight from Stanstead that I started to relax. My plan had been to try and get some sleep but a pulsing headache had started to build behind my right eye. I’ve suffered from pressure headaches ever since I’ve been a teenager and know how to handle them. I usually go to bed and just lie there in absolute silence but, with all the activity on-board the flight, I found that even with the light out and my eyes closed, I just couldn’t seem to relax.
The pain in my head slowly intensified over time. It grew, forcing through the weakness behind my eye like the sea rushing through a bore-hole in a rock. It was a nagging kind of pain resonating through my teeth and jaw. My ears buzzed with it and even my hair felt electrified. The pain blossomed at one stage to the point of being almost unbearable. But then, just as quickly, it started to recede.
When I opened my eyes I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I was looking at. Then it resolved itself into a bright moon. It hung in the sky like a conch shell: cold and brightly enamelled.
The seats and over-head compartments were gone, replaced by a wide expanse of night sky. The fact that I no longer appeared to be in an aeroplane didn’t seem to bother me. My greatest concern was the cold. Although I appeared to be swaddled in countless layers of animal furs they weren’t in themselves enough to keep me warm. Despite the fur gloves I wore, it was proving increasingly difficult to feel my fingers.
“Not far now.”
I turned to see my companion, a boy in his late teens, towering over me. His hair standing up in a tall corkscrew that was rimed with frost.
The landscape looked darker, somehow, more hostile. We were walking through thick snow which crunched under-foot and there was an urgency about our measured progress. Night had fallen and it was clear that we had to find shelter quickly before we froze. But there appeared to be no sign of habitation in any direction. At our backs, was just one vast expanse of white. Directly ahead of us, a forest filled the horizon as far as the eye could see. I was enraptured by the sight of it. The scenery was totally foreign while, at the same time, seeming wholly familiar.
I was distracted by the sound of something swooping over-head. There came the beating of wings followed by a long, powerful glide and then the thing was gone, swallowed by the mist.
“Owls,” my companion observed without breaking step. “They like to hunt at this hour.”
Whatever that hour was I wasn’t sure. Though the only illumination came from the moon, the luminescent glow off the snow was enough to light our way. I tried to gauge the height of the trees ahead of us but struggled without a proper sense of scale. The trees on the edge were small but within a couple of hundred metres began to show their real age. The wood was deep and dark and I imagined that it would be possible to completely lose your way in there and never come out again. The trunks were ancient and wild, their branches twisting this way and that as if they had been battered by the elements over countless generations.
We passed through a patch of frost-stiffened weeds which brushed against our legs, the ground dropping away into deep, snow packed hollows which were difficult to judge until you were virtually on top of them. Several times I struggled to maintain my footing as we stepped down into another bank of snow. On each occasion my companion was on hand to offer assistance.
“You have to be careful,” he admonished. “If you break your ankle out here there’s not much that I can do to help.”
I bridled at that. I was working as hard as I could to keep up; he was the one pushing the pace. I wanted to say something but when I looked at him and saw the sweat glinting off his forehead, I realised that his concern for my welfare was genuine.
“Do we have much further to go?”
“No, not much further. I can see your place up ahead.”
My place? I didn’t know what he was talking about but I let him take my arm and propel me up to the side of the next hollow. It had started snowing and I paused just long enough to take in my surroundings. A single snowflake drifted into my eye and I had to blink it away in order to clear my vision.
That’s when I saw it: a single squat building with snow on the roof and a trail of grey smoke reaching up into the sky.
“That’s my grandmother’s house.”
The young man squeezed my arm and I had the frustrating sensation that I’d seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t think where.
“Are you close to your grandmother?”
I shrugged. “In a way.”
/> “Would she try and protect you, if she could?”
“I suppose.”
He reached down inside his collar and pulled out a crude looking necklace of black cord, knotted in places.
He passed it to me and then ran down the far side of the snow bank. When I pulled the loop over my head he nodded his approval. Then I ran down to join him.
The flakes were falling more thickly now and we walked for long periods where the little cabin was obscured to us on account of the wind blowing straight at us. But then my companion would point up ahead and there it would be, only slightly larger than before. Every time this happened my spirits would soar. It was hard work traversing the terrain but I found that my pace was starting to quicken now that our destination was in sight.
The cabin came upon us in a rush. We climbed a small incline and suddenly we were there, the trees in the distance looking even taller now. They must have topped several hundred feet and from this distance I could see that their branches were thick with ivy and mistletoe.
The cabin was solidly built with shutters over all the windows except the one on the end wall. The window glowed with reflected warmth. Next to it was a door which looked all too familiar. I gave it three solid kicks and waited.
The young man stood back, looking off into the distance as if to dissociate himself.
A long, thin crack of golden light split the wall and the door swung open.
“Who’s out there?”
Then the familiar face of my mother, looking young, her hair thick and dark. Her features looked drawn but she was still attractive. She gathered the lapels of her coat at her throat looking first at me and then to my companion. Her eyes registered momentary surprise.
“Bronte, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I lost track of time.” An excuse from another era, yet it came so easily.
“Come in before you catch your death,” she tried to grab my arm but I was too quick for her.
“What about my friend? Can he come in to get warm?”
The young man darted nervous glances at me and my mother as if suspicious we might launch a surprise attack upon him.
Bitter Moon: Urban Witch Series - Book 2 Page 29