by Jemma Harvey
Presently, nudged by HG, I asked in a suitably hollow voice, ‘Is anyone there?’
‘Try not to ham it up,’ Russell said. ‘Start again.’
‘I’m not hamming! I just wanted to be in tune with the whole paranormal thing—’
‘Start again.’
No lights, camera, no action. I asked the same question. ‘Is anyone there?’ Morty was suppressing a grin; Ash looked inscrutable. Morag, probably because of her religious training, had the right kind of frozen glare, like Mrs Danvers in Rebecca.
HG said, ‘We may not all believe in this, but there’s no point in doing it without conviction. Try to keep an open mind.’
Then the glass moved.
It moved to no.
‘Who’s taking the piss?’ Morty demanded – but at least he demanded it in a hushed voice.
Ash said: ‘No reason why the dead shouldn’t have a sense of humour.’
Further questioning revealed a severely dyslexic spirit with an inability to keep to the point. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be Charles II.
‘Perhaps it’s Bonnie Prince Charlie,’ Roo suggested from the sidelines. ‘You know – he thinks he’s Charles III, but he got the wrong number.’
The glass whizzed instantly to yes.
‘See?’ I heard Russell murmur. ‘Ghosts take direction.’
He and Roo shouldn’t have been talking, but everyone knew this section would be cut.
‘Ask him if he hid out in the maze,’ HG prompted me.
I obliged. The glass, picking up its cue, went to yes.
‘Do you know anything about the death of Elizabeth Courtney?’ I went on, deciding to cut to the chase. I didn’t believe there was a spirit there at all, let alone Bonnie Prince Charlie (who was centuries too early to have known Elizabeth), but I might as well play along and ask the important questions.
The glass didn’t move at all, but the silence felt suddenly tense. Then it slid from side to side, as if unable to make up its mind.
In the background, there was an audible hiccup (from Dick), and the camera stopped rolling.
Russell said: ‘Bugger.’ Morty gave a short laugh, HG looked exasperated. Only Morag still maintained her fixed stare, as if she was gazing into another dimension. (Or, as Nick said later: ‘On some really cool stuff, man.’) She spoke in a voice that would have been husky if Morag had done husk.
‘She’s here.’
‘Who?’ I cried. ‘Who’s here?’
‘Camera!’ hissed Russell. Dick hiccupped again. The camera jammed.
Morag didn’t seem to hear me. She appeared to be talking to someone – listening to someone – who wasn’t there, asking questions, repeating phrases and fragments, as if horrified by what she heard. If it was an act, it was a good one. There was no eye-rolling or mouth-frothing; her expression stayed oddly blank. What made it somehow more convincing was that her Scots accent lightened (I’d always suspected it was overdone), so she sounded quite different.
‘Amends . . . ye want to make amends? . . . One evil deed . . . but such a deed . . . Ye would not give her even a single night? . . . To pay lifelong is not enough. His love wore out? But yours did not. A woman loves for aye . . . He married you . . . after all those years o’ watching and waiting . . . There were others? There would be . . . but ye saw to it he could not harm you? Because ye knew . . . ye knew the truth . . . His cousin too? The wickedness of it . . . wickedness and greed . . . And ye were part of it . . . ye led her to her doom . . . All for love? Will ye tell that to the good Lord? Blood on your hands . . . for love . . . May He have mercy on your soul . . .’
She fell silent, and there were tears on her face – I saw the glitter of them in the candlelight, though her stare had not changed.
Ash said gently, ‘Morag.’
She blinked, and seemed to focus on us again.
‘Great show,’ said Morty.
‘Ha’ ye finished wi’ yon inferrnal game?’ Morag said, indicating the board. ‘I must . . . I must ha’ dropped off a wee minute. I wouldna stay awake tae chat wi’ the deil. Ye could talk tae demons wi’out me.’
‘Actually . . .’ HG said. He and Ash explained to her what had happened, while her face grew stiff again, this time in shock – disbelief – disapproval – any combination.
I got up and walked away. I needed to think. Light was dawning; facts were falling into place. Morag had evidently been communicating with her great-great-however-many-greats aunt; there were clues in the one-sided conversation, road signs pointing me in the right direction. If I could just concentrate for a moment . . .
In my head, the memory of Elizabeth Courtney said, ‘Yes!’
‘I’ve got it!’ I said, turning to the others. No one took any notice, so I said it again, louder. ‘I’VE GOT IT!’
‘Got what?’ said Morty.
‘The truth, the mystery, the secret of the maze. It came to me then – something Morag said.’
‘Go on,’ HG said grimly. Why grimly I don’t know, but people do grim at these times. It builds up the suspense.
I was all for that.
‘Iona did it,’ I said, ‘we know that, but not with Archie – with Alasdair.’ Puzzled expressions met mine. ‘Don’t you see? They were the ones who were madly in love – the Romeo and Juliet syndrome, only without much opposition. Their problem was cash. The McGoogles were poor, and Elizabeth Courtney was rich. She fell for Alasdair, and he planned to marry her, and then kill her. Iona went along with it because she loved him. Like Jackie in Death on the Nile. She loved him “beyond reason and beyond rectitude and beyond pity”.’ I’d done a dramatisation of the book once on radio. ‘Elizabeth didn’t even know about the previous engagement, so Iona lured her into the maze, gave her the slip close to the centre, and Elizabeth found her own way there. And at the heart, behind the statue, was Alasdair, her new husband, her love. He put his arms round her, gave her one last false kiss –’ I felt I owed it to her to get the maximum amount of drama out of the story – ‘and strangled her. Then he hid the body in the chamber which, you can bet, only the McGoogles knew about. The legend was his cover story. Without a body, there was no crime – just another tragedy to add to the McGoogle family saga. It was a superstitious age, and there was no proper forensic science. The maze took the blame. Brides were always disappearing there: it was practically a tradition.’
‘It sounds good so far,’ Russell said, ‘but then it all falls down. If he’d got away with it, why Africa?’
‘What did Morag say that gave you the clue?’ Roo asked.
‘How did—’
‘Wait!’ I was still sorting it all out in my mind. ‘Morag said, “You wouldn’t give her even a single night . . .” Don’t you see? Iona was passionate and possessive – she couldn’t bear for Alasdair to sleep with Elizabeth even once. That’s why they had to do it on the wedding night. Then he pretended to be grief-stricken and destroyed the maze and any plans of it to conceal the body. That way, even if someone heard or guessed about the underground chamber, they’d never be able to find it.’
‘By George,’ Russell said, in the words of Professor Higgins, ‘I think she’s got it.’
‘It certainly fits in,’ HG said. ‘But then . . . Africa?’
‘His mother,’ Roo said, struck with the light of inspiration. ‘His mother knew.’
‘Of course,’ said Nigel. (He hadn’t said anything to date, and an of course was long overdue.) ‘She knew he was in love with Iona – that was why she disapproved so strongly of his marrying Elizabeth. She must have sensed his moral weakness and distrusted his motives accordingly. She feared all along what her son might be capable of. When Elizabeth vanished, she would have guessed the truth and confronted him. His exile was the price of her silence. He had murdered – for nothing – and she wore black to the end of her days, not in mourning for her daughter-in-law but for her son.’
‘Yes, but she must have known he would come back after her death,’ Russell said prosaically.
>
‘He died first,’ HG pointed out.
‘Maybe she left some sort of confession of what she knew,’ Roo said. ‘In the hands of her lawyer, to be opened in the event of Alasdair’s return. Only when he died she destroyed it.’
‘Not wanting to risk blighting the family honour,’ I concluded.
‘Then Archie came back, so Iona married him?’ Morty sounded sceptical.
‘We know that,’ said HG.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You still don’t get it. It wasn’t Archie who came back. It was Alasdair. Morag said: “His cousin, too?” In the wilds of Africa anything could happen – and it did. Alasdair killed his cousin and stole his identity. I expect he had a faithful henchman who helped him, some local chief whose life he’d saved and who thought killing relatives was the order of the day.’
‘That’s so politically incorrect,’ said Russell.
‘No it isn’t,’ I protested. ‘Africa is like that – raw and primitive. Life there is cheap. I know: I read a Wilbur Smith once.’ Roo stared at me. ‘On holiday. Anyway,’ I went on, ‘he waited till after Lady Mary’s death, then he came home. That proves it. Archie wouldn’t have needed to wait.’
‘He’d never have got away with it,’ HG said. ‘Someone would have recognised him.’
‘He was tanned to a crisp from the sun and prematurely aged from all those African diseases,’ I reminded him. ‘They didn’t have any drugs then. He’d probably had everything from beriberi to lesser spotted swamp fever. Also, he grew a beard. Look at the pictures: Alasdair as a young man and Archie after his return. They’re awfully alike, even though they’re by different artists.’
‘He might have pulled it off,’ Roo said. ‘That was another age. Even if some of the villagers did guess, they wouldn’t necessarily have said anything. The McGoogles were aristocrats, the most important family in the area. Archie, or Alasdair, was the Laird. Best to shut up and stay on his good side.’
‘It’s possible,’ Nigel admitted cautiously, wary of any idea he hadn’t thought of first.
‘It’s obvious,’ I insisted. ‘Iona married him. “All those years of watching and waiting . . .” He must’ve promised her he’d come back some day, come back and marry her – and he did. Like in “The Highwayman”:
Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight,
Though Hell should bar the way.
‘My grandmother told me he had the luck o’ the deil, Archie McGoogle,’ Morag said. ‘There’s only one way tae win the deil’s luck. Ye mun sell your soul.’
‘What happened to him?’ Roo asked Nigel.
‘There was a son,’ Nigel said. ‘He was scholarly rather than athletic, a disappointment to his father. Then there was a stillborn child, or more than one. After that, Archie lost interest in his wife. He had a roving eye and was still an attractive man, for all his weather-beaten appearance. And he was the Laird. There were women enough willing to oblige him in these parts. Iona threw herself into charitable works – she was an exemplary lady of the manor, stoic, long-suffering, always kind to the poor and needy. Whatever guilt she bore, she must have done her best to expiate it. She lived to be over ninety, and saw both her husband and her son die.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘The son was sickly – he died of a wasting disease. Archie had a fall from his horse. It was a black stallion called Demon, notoriously difficult to manage; Archie prided himself on mastering difficult horses. It reared and bolted just outside the castle, close to where the maze used to be. The rumour was it saw something no human eyes could see, but ghost stories, once started, have a tendency to persist. It galloped along to the loch, stumbled or something, and Archie was thrown into the water and drowned. A belated and rather inadequate punishment if he was indeed Alasdair and a murderer twice over.’
‘Maybe that wasn’t his punishment,’ Ash said. ‘Maybe his punishment – if that’s the word – was to stay here, in the home he’d killed for . . . an impotent spirit bound to this place for all time. More than one person has seen a figure in Highland dress here; perhaps they weren’t imagining it.’
‘Brie and her intuition?’ I said.
‘Being empty-headed doesn’t make you empty-eyed. She might have seen something. We think of evil as a weight, a burden on the soul. Could be that isn’t just a metaphor. Evil weighs Alasdair down, holding him here – unfinished business, wrongs that can never be put right. His spirit must linger on, pointlessly, till it withers away altogether.’
‘Do you really get paid for this baloney?’ Morty asked.
‘Why not?’ said Ash. ‘You get paid for yours.’
‘Considering what has just happened,’ Roo said, ‘sneering isn’t just cheap, it’s stupid.’
‘Oh, Morag here gave a great performance—’
‘I dinna perrrform for any man,’ Morag said superbly, rather as if she’d been accused of pole-dancing. ‘I’m no’ clear what I said, but I were Iona’s image when I were a child, so my Grandma told me. She said the likeness made a bond between us. She had a picture of Iona when she were young and beautiful, but she kept it locked in a drawer, because Iona wasn’t well thought of i’ the kirk. She turned to heathen ways when she got old, nae doot wanting to confess and be free o’ her sins.’
Heathen ways? I mouthed, visualising witchcraft and pagan rites.
‘I think she means Catholicism,’ Roo whispered.
‘Do you still have the picture?’ HG asked Morag.
‘Ay, that I do. Her picture, and the box she left us, the box wi’ no key. They say she gave it tae the vicar firrst, to be broke open if she died before her time, but she had a long life though none too happy, and the box came back tae her family in the end.’
‘Box???’ Several of us spoke more or less at once. ‘She left a box?’
‘Her confession!’ Roo breathed. ‘Like Lady Mary. Her confession she made to protect herself.’
‘Of course,’ said Nigel. ‘If Delphi’s right, Alasdair was a habitual killer. He wouldn’t have hesitated to dispose of a wife he no longer loved – unless she had a hold over him.’
‘Did you open the box?’ HG asked.
‘No,’ said Morag, who was clearly superhuman. ‘It were her secret, and she died in her bed. There was nae call to go opening it.’
HG paused before taking the plunge.
‘Would you let us open it?’ he said.
Chapter 12:
Pro-Celebrity Marriage
Ruth
We broke open the box on camera, in a moment of incredible TV drama. The real-life drama was pretty hot, too.
Sure enough, there was a letter inside. Delphi wanted to read it out on camera but we let Morag do it; that seemed more appropriate. It was written in the slanting script of the time, with long sentences and capital letters all over the place, and it went on for several pages.
‘This is the True Confession of Iona Cathleen McGoogle, née Craig, being an Account of my Terrible Crime and an Indictment of the man who was my Lover and who led me into Evil. If any open and read this, after my Death, may they find it in their Heart to Forgive me, though I have done little to deserve their Forgiveness. Yet not a night now passes when I do not wish the Deed Undone, and wake in the Darkness like Lady Macbeth, to see Blood on my hands that will never wash off.
When I was but sixteen, I loved and was beloved by Alasdair McGoogle, Laird of Dunblair. We were Betrothed in secret, for he had no Money, and said he would have to go to the Colonies to seek his Fortune before we could be married, and he would not have me Bound to him, though I was not unwilling to be so Bound. Then, in the summer of my seventeenth year he went to London, and wrote to me from that Capital of Empire that he had met a woman of great Wealth who was enamoured of him, and he planned to marry her, for the sake of his Family, though he would always love Me. I learned later that his Mother, who had long suspected our Attachment, was not pleased with the Match, though they
were in Sore Need of Money for the Upkeep of the Estate. I thought my Heart would break, but I determined not to Stand in his Way. Eventually he returned, bringing the Heiress with him, and came privily to meet with me, unbeknownst to both his Betrothed and Lady Mary his Mother. He told me he still loved me, he loved me more than ever, and could not Live without me, but he must marry for Financial Advantage. He said he would wed the Heiress, and she would go into the Maze and vanish, like the other McGoogle Bride of long ago. Many have entered the Maze and never come out: the Legend of the Castle had taken them. At first I was shocked, and could not speak, but his Love for me overcame my Resistance, and the Danger of this Venture excited me in the most Dreadful Way, causing me to forget or abandon the Moral Precepts with which I had been brought up. Furthermore, the Heiress was an Englishwoman, older than my Beloved and not handsome, and I was so sunken in Wickedness, it was all too easy for me to see her as my Enemy, deserving of her Fate. I became involved in the Preparations for the Wedding, in order that Alasdair and I could meet in the Castle, but I was consumed with Jealousy every time I saw his Future Bride, for all her Plainness, and I made him Swear to me he would never Hold her in his Arms, never bestow on her a single Kiss. Therefore on the night of the Wedding we put our Plan into action . . .’
It went on, as I said, for several pages. Lady Mary’s ultimatum, Alasdair’s exile, his vow to return. Iona’s Torment when she heard of his death, her Unbounded Happiness when a letter arrived six months later, unsigned, carrying the message that he still lived. And at last, beyond hope or expectation, he came back. Whether he found her changed, far removed from her seventeen-year-old loveliness, she did not say. He married her; he had no choice. She had waited faithfully for so many years, and, in any case, she knew too much. And with marriage came the final disillusionment, the realisation that the man for whom she had sacrificed her Immortal Soul no longer loved her, was perhaps incapable of loving anybody. Knowing him as she did, she wrote this confession, the only safeguard of her future.