Again, the oddity of it all shouted to him. If the brochure were from Liza, why hadn’t she written down where she was and if she needed help? He didn’t doubt for a second that it was the same pamphlet she’d torn the Greyfriars Kirkyard piece from at the bus stop—there couldn’t be two such things. Yet, if the piece was from her and she had delivered it, why be so secretive? How had she delivered it, and why not wait for him? And perhaps more important, how did the person know McLaren was staying there?
That opened another set of chilling possibilities. Was he being followed? If so, why? The courier obviously knew about McLaren’s connection to Liza. Did this pamphlet imply that Liza had escaped, and the courier thought McLaren could locate her?
He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the headache that had come on suddenly. The brochure had to have come from Liza. She was the only person who knew its significance to him, that he’d identify it with her. So there had to be a clue as to her whereabouts on the piece of paper. If not, he was back to the absurdity of the whole thing.
He bent over the paper, trying to discern a scratch or underscoring of a word, anything that would hint at Liza’s whereabouts, but could see nothing. Then the brochure itself was significant. But only as a link to Liza. The clue had to be in the information about Greyfriars Kirkyard.
He pulled the scrap from his rucksack and stared at every photo and read every word on it. The main portion explained the history of the cemetery, the imprisonment of more than twelve hundred Covenanters south of the churchyard in 1679, the headstone to the dog who guarded his master’s grave for fourteen years, and the famous Mackenzie haunting.
He shook his head at the conflicting images, remembering some of the mentioned points from his recent visit, hurried though it had been. He hadn’t paid attention to any of those spots, but he made notes in his notebook before reading more about the graveyard online.
The information on the kirk and the cemetery made no impact on him. Besides, the place was so large he had no idea where to hunt for Liza, if she was there. Which seemed absurd.
Covenanters and a poltergeist hardly held any significance, either. Was she hinting he should sit there all night to talk to the ghost?
But his questions turned serious when he read about Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye Terrier guarding his master’s grave, his master who was Edinburgh police officer John Gray.
McLaren read the section twice, making certain he caught the significance. Or at least what he inferred to be important. Liza knew he was a former police officer—they’d talked briefly in her front room right after the hit-and-run. She also knew Jamie currently was a constable, a bobby. Was she asking him for police help? If so, where was he to send it?
Or was Liza giving him a different clue connected more directly to the faithful dog? She couldn’t be at the dog’s statue. That was at the junction of Candlemaker Row and George IV Bridge. Would anyone be imprisoned there? Were there shops or houses in which she could be kept? If so, which one would he search?
Maybe he completely missed the inference. She could be implying something else, like the church? Or even one of the cemetery’s mortsafes, a low ironwork cage constructed over graves to protect bodies from the nineteenth-century grave robbers? He couldn’t fathom that. It would mean she’d be sitting there, waiting for him. And if she could do that, she could get to Auchtubh.
Any of the other inferences were just as farfetched. She’d not be hovering at any of the mausoleums or monuments for the same reason. No. As far as he was concerned, at the moment, the pamphlet was a non-starter.
He tossed it onto the bed, half frustrated that he couldn’t decipher the puzzle, if there was one, and half angry that he was no closer to locating Liza.
He brewed a cup of tea and sipped it slowly, going over the possible links. The photo of the stone wall and the mortsafes yelled at him. He set down his cup and grabbed the scrap, staring at the photo. Stone. Mortsafes. Cages. Was that a clue, that Liza was locked up in a stone edifice?
The paper sank onto the bed as he stared out the window. It could be, but was he reading something into it? And where would he begin to search? Edinburgh was a city of stone buildings. So were the villages around Edinburgh, around Scotland. Even here in Balquhidder, and in the countryside. Where the hell was he supposed to look, if he was correct?
He groaned, massaging his head, and stood up. He knew himself well enough to know he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t at least check out part of the puzzle.
He grabbed his keys, and a minute later was in his car heading back to Edinburgh.
****
Greyfriars Kirkyard and church stood silhouetted against the western sunlight, contributing another air of mystery to the site. In another hour or two, twilight would creep across the land. Night came early in December, late afternoon usually saw darkness and the moon creeping up the sky. But he had enough daylight to see properly and to find any hint to Liza.
He found himself retracing his route from yesterday, but this time he kept to a leisurely pace, examining every item that could conceivably be referred to in the brochure scrap.
The Black Mausoleum of Mackenzie’s ghost held no clue; neither did the Covenanters’ Prison, the area formerly housing the prisoners and eventually merged with the cemetery as vaulted tombs. He forced himself to pause at each Scottish Presbyterian’s plaque or grave in the stone wall, and examine the ground around the iron railings, even though the area disturbed him. The stories of the ghostly attacks played havoc with his imagination, but the Covenanters’ history also disturbed him. And, he admitted, he’d just as easily believe Liza was killed or spirited away by the vengeful wraith, with all the knife wounds, scratches, and bitings it dealt its night visitors, as believe she left the message.
He searched the areas as quickly as he could, making sure no note or clue was there before moving on.
He gravitated to the mortsafes, thinking it the most likely spot for a hint of Liza. If any of the clues made sense, this one did, with its confining cage over the stone markers. Again he had to shake off the feeling of netherworld presence and upsetting history. He pulled his small torch from his jacket pocket and played it around the iron bars, examining all sides of the rods and flushing the tomb slabs with light. Nothing lurked in the shadows.
He walked back to the entrance. His last hint was Greyfriars Bobby.
The statue of the Skye Terrier sat on a carved stone pedestal just opposite the kirkyard’s gate and in front of the pub bearing the dog’s name. McLaren could see as he approached that it could neither hide nor shield any message, but he walked around the monument. The basin halfway up the pedestal’s height might’ve held something at one point, if the note-leaver didn’t mind the item getting wet, but nothing sat in it now. Besides, it was out in the open, very public. Frustrated, he returned to the cemetery.
He paused at the large marker listing some of the graveyard’s more notable residents. Of the nineteen listed names, one was a woman. Mary Erkskine. He stared at the name, trying to link it with Liza’s surname. But however he twisted the names around he could come up with nothing that made sense.
He abandoned the futile attempt and wandered over to the dog’s burial spot. The red granite marker poked out of the heap of offerings left by sentimental visitors, various sticks and dog toys dotting the more numerous bouquets of flowers.
McLaren sighed but squatted before the tombstone. He had no intention of sifting through the shrine, disturbing the offerings. He stood up, about to leave, when a strip of a red, green, and blue fabric fluttered in the breeze. He stooped, his fingers automatically reaching for the tartan material.
He drew it from its half-hidden place behind the headstone and stared, disbelieving, at the fabric. Its edges were frayed, as if sitting for eons in the weather or being torn from a garment or bolt of cloth. It was also wrapped around a scroll of paper.
He slipped the loop of fabric from the paper. Although patches of snow still dotted the ground
and the top of the stone, the paper sat clear of the wet soil. It was limp and damp with moisture, but unrolled easily enough. He laid it on his thigh and read the words.
It was an inked message, printed in block letters. He realized immediately he would never forget the three words, and though his name didn’t appear on the paper, he knew it was addressed to him. Tag. You’re it.
****
He drove back to his bed-and-breakfast in Balquhidder, hardly aware of the road or the countryside. The words danced before his eyes in a taunt that implied it would be more difficult to locate Liza than he’d imagined. But without another hint at her location, he was thwarted.
He parked in front of the guesthouse and stared into the twilight. Shadows stretched eastward from the building and base of the mountain range across the loch and over the village houses. It held a peace that belied the struggle within him. What should he do? Phone the police with this new development? But what did it prove? Nothing. Other than the fragment of Skene tartan, he had no positive link to Liza. There were probably thousands of Edinburgh residents who wore the fabric.
Perhaps the mystery and its solution would clear if he gave it time to perk. A walk might help. He still wanted to see the clan meeting place on the hill, too.
McLaren exited his car, breathing deeply of the cold air. His headache hadn’t abated, but seemed less intense as he turned and trudged up the hill to the clan’s ancient rallying spot.
The view from the Boar’s Rock laid the village out in picture postcard fashion, the houses clustered among the trees and lochside. The spent heather, its purple and lilac colors withered to brown, claimed the higher elevations of the hills. But below, in the heart of the glen, the loch stretched smooth and serene, nearly black as it threw back the color of the sky.
A string of heavy gray clouds creeping eastward hinted that darkness would soon be complete. He had no desire to be caught on the hillside at night. The semi-blackness of Mary King’s Close had tested his resolve to enter confined, dark places; nighttime in the forest wouldn’t be much better.
Wanting to take home a link to his ancestry, he bent to pick up a small rock. It was the last he remembered before waking up in the snow.
Chapter Ten
His fingers dug into the snow as he rolled onto his back. The coldness wasn’t apparent at first. He stared at the sky, black and star-strewn overhead. He lay still for several moments, trying to fathom where he was. His necklace—a leather cord strung with several wooden and ceramic beads—had slid up onto his neck. As he pushed himself into a sitting position, he tugged it back into place. His fingers lingered momentarily on the beads, the ceramic ones cold to his touch. It assured him he was alive and not dreaming.
Night had smothered the land; the moon hadn’t yet risen. Swatches of snow shone barely visible against the dark ground. Gurgles, like slowly running water, sounded somewhere to the left. He stared into the darkness, trying to discern details of the landscape or a hint of where he was. All he was certain of was the snow, the cold, and the unending stretch of the unknown. Who had dragged him off the hill onto this flat ground?
He got to his feet; the world tilted and spun; he bent over. His right hand went to the back of his head. The flesh was tender and throbbed. When he removed his fingers the tips felt cold and slightly wet. From the snow? He patted his hair with his other hand. It was damp but not sticky, as was his right hand. He brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Blood. Had he fainted and hit his head on a rock? He got on his knees and felt through the snow where he’d lain. No rocks. He crawled forward and pawed through the snow on both sides, then pushed his hands through the snow in front of him. No rocks. McLaren sat back on his heels. How did he end up on the ground with a head wound?
Someone had hit him. Knocked him out and left him in the freezing temperatures. Which meant setting the scene to look like an accident. Which also meant his assailant thought McLaren would die of exposure and become another unfortunate victim of wintry misadventures. His assailant would be getting away with murder.
The question wasn’t whether he had enemies in Scotland, but who had attacked him. Could Lanny Clack be here? He knew McLaren had spotted him outside Mary King’s Close, had followed him underground. If Lanny had panicked, afraid McLaren was trying to apprehend him for the hit-and-run, would Lanny follow McLaren here? If he had done, on Charlie Harvester’s orders, why wasn’t McLaren killed outright? Why leave him alive?
If Lanny wasn’t his attacker, it had to be either Jean MacNab or Harvester.
The implication chilled him more than the cold. It murmured in his head, blotting out the rustle of the tall grass and sighing of the wind. Was Harvester in Scotland? He was probably behind the botched hit-and-run attempt on McLaren’s life, never mind that he wasn’t the driver of the vehicle. If Harvester wasn’t in Balquhidder, hadn’t personally hit McLaren, had he orchestrated it? Why? To use him as bait for his grandfather? But that would mean kidnapping McLaren, tying him up, and hiding him some place. Leaving him for dead on the snowy ground was not the norm for a kidnapper. So, again the question whispered to him: why not kill him outright?
McLaren wiped his fingers on his jacket and stood up. The land held no further information of where he was. No light shone, so he was either in the more desolate area of the moor or he was near a village that had bedded down for the night.
He was on flatland, and the gurgling sound suggested he was probably near the River Larig—assuming he was in the same area. If his assailant hadn’t moved him far. But would the man have risked being seen? McLaren had been on the Boar’s Rock when he’d been attacked. Even at dusk, the man would’ve taken a chance moving McLaren very far. So he had an accomplice to lift McLaren into a vehicle. Probably unloaded him after dark, McLaren mused.
He was on flatland. He was certain. In a glen. Mountains in front and behind masked the lower portion of sky, giving the blanket of stars a jagged lower edge. But what glen?
His mobile was no help, neither providing GPS location or placing a call. The signal evidently didn’t reach to wherever he was.
The soggy ground clutched his shoes as he walked, and he stumbled several times. His hands plunged into the sodden soil as he righted himself, and he shook off the frigid water. The aroma of wet grass around him was strong. He trudged onward, no goal in mind other than reaching a house.
He lost track of time as he staggered toward an unknown goal. The wind curled around his head and bore into his ears. It whipped the grasses against his legs and pelted him with sleet. He covered his ears with his gloved hands but soon abandoned that stance. He needed his arms to keep his balance.
His shoes and bottoms of his jeans, heavy with water, hindered his progress, and the chill seeped through to his skin. He flexed his fingers. Fearful they would stiffen and freeze, he slapped his folded arms against his chest to force circulation into his blood. He couldn’t do the same for his feet. Nothing dry or solid existed on which he could stamp. He prayed for an end to the glen and a place to rest.
Near a stretch of still water that he assumed to be a loch, a rectangular mass proclaimed itself against the blacker hue of the mountains. He trudged up to it, wary of its identity. He moved slowly, slipping constantly, unaware of the uneven ground beneath his near-frozen feet.
As he neared the form, he stopped. The moon broke from behind the mountain range and silvery light trickled onto the landscape, revealing the darker lump.
It was a cottage. Or ruin of a cottage. The roof was gone, probably centuries ago, he thought as he stood in the doorway and peered inside. Tall grasses and heather had taken root between the cast-off rocks littering the ground outside and inside the structure. But enough of the walls remained to give him shelter from the wind, and a fireplace and chimney claimed the gabled end of the far wall. He staggered into the house and practically fell onto the firm ground.
Hours seemed to race by as he lay there, his chest heaving from the trek across the moor. Hunger gnawed his sto
mach but he couldn’t alleviate it. He cursed himself for not slipping an energy bar into his jacket pocket, then excused his blunder; he’d had no suspicion this would happen. He’d planned to be on the Boar’s Rock for a few minutes only. Someone else had caused his situation.
The insight didn’t placate him much. Hunger was hunger, no matter the reason for it. He rolled onto his side, bringing his knees to his chest, and broke a stem off a clump of heather. He chewed it more to fool himself into believing it was food than to actually eat it.
It helped only slightly. Either that, or numbness made him insensible to further feeling.
He shut his eyes, his thoughts on Dena and his grandfather. They seemed to speak to him: Dena commiserating with his situation, Neill jeering at his stupidity. His chewing slowed, then stopped. The heather stem sagged at the corner of his mouth as his breaths lengthened and deepened. The stars had altered their position by the time he sat up.
The darkness and cold momentarily confused him. His hand went to the heather dangling between his lips and he tossed it away. He brushed the snow off his clothes, trying to make sense of it and the place. Wind snaked down from the opening in the roof, bringing the scent of the marsh with it. McLaren nodded. He remembered where he was.
He dug into his jacket pocket and withdrew a book of matches. He lit one and in the brief flare of light looked around the area.
Sticks, cut wood, and a mound of dried grass were stacked in the corner near the fireplace. He brushed the broken pottery from the hearth, wiped his hand on his jeans. As the match went out and the night reclaimed the ruin, McLaren took a deep breath. Did something rustle in the corner? Was the cottage about to be overrun with something crawling out of the dark?
He fought the urge to scream and run onto the moor. He’d never survive the sleet and freezing temperature if he left. Ignoring his pounding heart, he grabbed several handfuls of grass and piled them in the center of the hearth. He then carefully placed twigs and branches over the grass in teepee fashion.
An Unfolding Trap Page 13