Ash (64 page)

Ash took another sip of the whisky before he spoke, trying to dilute his abhorrence of the tale just told. He waited for the heat the single malt had created in his chest to subside before answering. ‘I think all legends eventually become exaggerated,’ he said. ‘I hear some pretty gruesome things about many ancient manor houses, and especially castles, much of the time in my line of work. It doesn’t necessarily make them true, but I do know that certain inhuman activities can create a mark that lives on with the property. Such excesses as you have described can send out resonances so intense that they are recorded into the buildings’ very fabric. Given time – and it could take hundreds of years – they may fade away of their own accord. You could say, like a battery running down.’

‘An understandable reaction, Mr Ash. I mean, from you.’

‘I’ve studied these phenomena for many years,’ he said, placing his hand over the tumbler as Byrone approached with the bottle.

‘I’m sure you have many interesting tales, Mr Ash. But let me finish the story of the Mullachd, if you’d care to hear its ending, of course,’ the present laird of Comraich Castle said, regarding Ash as if immensely interested in his reaction.

‘I do dislike unfinished legends, embellished or not.’ Ash had the feeling that this wily old man was testing him for some reason that he couldn’t fathom.

‘Then you will be interested in this. Laghlan Deahan was not yet finished with the unfortunate Laird McKinnon. While two strong men held him down, the Demon pushed the red-hot blade into McKinnon’s left eye. And as the man screamed, the searing blade was pulled free, and slowly inserted into the other eye. Yet although McKinnon writhed in agony, still he never once pleaded for mercy.

‘They pulled him to his feet and made ready to haul him down to the castle dungeons to live out whatever life remained for him in complete darkness and tormented by memories. But somehow – whether because McKinnon possessed incredible strength and fortitude, or because the pain and torture had ignited in him unnatural powers – somehow he broke free of the men holding him to stagger to the very edge of the battlements.

‘Leaping into a crenel, he turned back to face his tormentors and he screamed his last defiance at them. The curse. The Mullachd.

‘He told them that the castle, so hard fought for, would never be left in peace, that it would eventually be consumed by the same fires that had eaten away his own eyes.

‘Then, before anyone could reach him – though personally, I imagine that no one tried too hard to do so – Laird Duncan McKinnon leapt to his death on the rocky shoreline far below.’

Shawcroft-Draker had lost himself for a few moments, for he gazed unblinkingly into the flames of the fire as though seeing images there of the legend he had just recounted. He’d related it with such unabashed and graphic detail it was as if it gave him distorted pleasure.

After a few quiet moments, the old man, the head of Comraich Castle, forced his attention away from the unwarming blaze and turned it on the psychic investigator.

Placid Pat raised his head, although he remained on his knees in the small aisle that led to the chapel’s altar. From outside came the sound of the helicopter settling on the castle’s helipad as its searchlight lit up the tall stained-glass window behind the statue of the Blessed Virgin.

He stared at Carsely, committing perverted sin in the very house of God, and the corrupted nun he sodomized in front of God’s altar, the scene now lit like a ghastly kaleidoscope.

Shaking, Placid Pat raised the pistol. Carsely lifted a hand and his voice boomed out as, even now, he continued his penetration.

‘
Noooo!
’

Pat pulled the trigger anyway. The
click
of the hammer echoed through the chapel. But the gun didn’t fire.

Pat quickly checked the safety catch and tried again, but the result was no different. He pulled back the slide to see if the bullet was actually in the chamber. It looked fine. It looked menacing. It looked good to go.

Releasing the slide, he tried one more time and still nothing happened. The debauched pair’s fear turned to laughter. Carsely thrust his hips in and out again.

‘It’s God’s will, you know!’ Carsely shouted, mocking him.

In frustration, Pat bowed his head and prostrated himself before the altar. The pistol lay discarded near his spread right hand. Tears fell onto the thin red carpet that led to the altar steps.

With blurred vision he saw the shape of the nun still bent over the length of the first pew, the ex-cleric continuing to mount her, still laughing derisively at the humbled figure lying no more than twelve feet from them. The nun beneath him sniggered.

But when the blast came from somewhere beneath the confined pulpit, she lost all sound, and when the flames that instantly followed engulfed them she no longer heard, nor saw, nor felt anything. She swallowed flames that seared her throat to boil her lungs as her priestly lover melted into her.

Placid Pat had seen enough explosions in his time to know that he was witnessing the effects not of God’s wrathful vengeance but of a concealed incendiary device. He watched in horrified resignation as flames flew down the aisle towards him. Within seconds, he had become part of the inferno. Pieces of burning timber fell from the vaulted ceiling, everything made of wood exploding into fire around him. He lay spread-eagled, his mind screaming with the agony of burning.

At least he was facing the altar.

At least his burning arms were stretched out as if in supplication.

And at least all pain, all remorse, all guilt was evaporating as he lay dying in the furnace that had once been the holy chapel of Comraich Castle.

The timing wasn’t great, but Ash knew he had to get round to the subject of his and Delphine’s departure. (It seemed best not to mention they wished to take the young man in the tower too at this particular juncture.)

Before he could speak, the old man held up an emaciated arm.

‘Byrone,’ Lord Edgar rasped, ‘I think I should take my other medicine now, don’t you? I’m sure it will give me time to finish my discussion with Mr Ash.’ He looked at the investigator. ‘Would you mind popping into the other room?’

Ash rose to his feet and took himself and his drink to Lord Edgar’s office. He was pondering how someone could tell a tale of such gory terror – and not without enthusiasm, as Lord Edgar had done only minutes ago, when Byrone appeared at the door.

‘His lordship is ready now,’ he announced, a puzzled expression on his long face.

As he followed Byrone into the smaller room, Ash wondered what kind of ‘medicine’ the butler had administered this time – he had already decided that the frail old man had been sipping morphine earlier. Byrone went to stand by the sideboard, where the cloth-covered tray still rested.

Lord Edgar Shawcroft-Draker gave Ash that queer half-smile that the investigator was becoming used to as Byrone filled another glass with murky-looking liquid and handed it to the laird.

‘I assume, Mr Ash, that you have many questions to ask about the Inner Court and Comraich Castle.’

God, there were so many questions Ash wanted to ask Lord Edgar, even though escaping Comraich was a priority.

‘Well . . .’ Ash began slowly, picking up as he went along, ‘I was wondering how you knew so much of the, uh, bloodier details of the Mullachd? It’s almost as if you were there.’ It was a crass remark, he knew, but over the years the parapsychologist had learned that flattery was the best way to gain a person’s trust.

What he got from Lord Edgar was a desiccated chuckle. ‘It was written down, young man, as near to the actuality as dammit. You see McKinnon employed a young scribe, whom Laghlan Deahan forced to record the events. The Gaelic account was translated into English for King Edward III and bound into a book. Copies of both are in Comraich’s private library.’

Ash sipped his whisky, relishing the smoky taste. He wondered how well it mixed with the Modafinil.

Shawcroft-Draker appraised him. ‘The curse is common knowledge. What we cannot understand is why the castle is now apparently being haunted after so many years of peace. We had hoped you would pinpoint the source of the hauntings and so advise us how to end it.’

‘I’m no exorcist. I told Maseby and Haelstrom that.’

‘No, but I understand you are skilled in the alleviation of such problems.’

Ash said nothing.

‘Many important people have lived out their lives at Comraich, mainly in serenity. But now we are at a loss as to what to do.’

‘That’s easy. Evacuate the bloody place!’

‘Please, Mr Ash, don’t take me for a fool. You’re fully aware that would be impossible. For many of our guests exposure would mean immediate incarceration – in many cases, for life.’

‘Is it any different here?’

‘Call Comraich a prison if you will, Mr Ash, but I doubt you’ll hear any so-called prisoner complain.’

Ash decided it was time to bring the conversation round to requesting safe passage for himself and Delphine. ‘Speaking of prisoners, Lord Edgar—’ but the old man interrupted him.

‘I’m sure by now that you’ve recognized several infamous faces. General Lukovic, for one,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘I understand he inadvertently saved your life. A stroke of luck for you.’

Only then did it strike Ash just how lucky he was still to be alive. First, he’d walked from the crashed lift almost unscathed; then in the containment area the guards had arrived just in time to prevent the patients there tearing him apart; and that morning he and Delphine had been saved from the wildcats with seconds to spare. Then there was the password to access the computer files, and how easily SANCTUM had popped into his head. He’d never believed in guardian angels, but it was as if there were something here working in his favour. Whether it was luck, or something else, somehow he felt he wasn’t entirely on his own. Anyway, if luck was on his side, he might as well push it.

‘We have others like Lukovic,’ Shawcroft-Draker was saying, ‘but we at Comraich do not judge, we simply listen.’

‘And use what you hear for blackmail, of course.’

‘Nothing so crude, Mr Ash, although I admit our guests and their knowledge are often very advantageous for us.’

‘What about Robert Maxwell? How was he “advantageous” to you during his time here?’

Lord Edgar stiffened and scrutinized the investigator with heavy, weary eyes.

‘How on earth did you discover that?’ His tone was more curious than threatening.

Ash realized he was doing himself no favours; the more he knew, the less likely Lord Edgar was to let him leave.

‘I didn’t,’ he said, backtracking. ‘It was just a lucky guess. I’d never believed the story that Maxwell either had a heart attack or jumped overboard. But he needed to disappear, and this would have been the ideal place.’

‘Very perceptive, Mr Ash.’

Lord Edgar suddenly sat straight, as if making a positive effort to regain his authority. Ash was aware that Byrone was watching from the sidelines.

‘Unbelievably perceptive, in fact,’ he continued. ‘It seems you have “guessed” rather too much about Comraich. I would imagine Dr Wyatt has been of some help to you in that regard. Perhaps I should tell you everything; that might help your deliberations as to our problem here. However, it need not be a problem for much longer.’

Ash frowned, perplexed. Was Shawcroft-Draker hinting that Ash would soon no longer be a problem? That sounded ominous. Nevertheless, Ash was intrigued as Lord Edgar continued to reveal more than Ash could have ever imagined of the secrets of the Inner Court. He was horrified by Comraich’s grisly roll call of criminals and despots who’d spent or were spending their last days at Comraich while the world thought they’d dropped off the face of the earth. And yet, it was fascinating.

The most intriguing story concerned Rudolf Hess, Deputy Head of Hitler’s Third Reich, and his solo flight to Scotland during the height of the Second World War

‘You may have read of the famous Mitford sisters? Particularly Unity Mitford, who became obsessed with Hitler, and, unfortunately, fell in love with him.’

Lord Edgar leaned forward in his armchair again as if to take the investigator into his confidence.

‘Or,’ he said quietly, ‘of Hess’s solitary foray into Scotland. You see, Unity Mitford, entranced by Hitler, fell pregnant by him. When war was declared, she shot herself in the head at the English Gardens in Munich. She failed, but the bullet did enter her brain. The family brought her home and immediately sent her away to a secret place where she gave birth to Hitler’s child.’

Ash was grey with shock, but managed to remain still and expressionless.

‘Now the great irony.’ Shawcroft-Draker was still leaning forward in his seat, grimacing. ‘The baby was
not
a boy. Hitler’s dreams of siring a male heir to follow in his own footsteps were dashed. The child was a girl!’ The lord weakly slapped his knee as though he thought the outcome was greatly amusing.

‘Not only that, the great Führer, leader of Germany, and most of Europe at that time, had not only fathered a girl, but it was apparent that she was abnormal!’ His voice had risen in near-hysteria, but Ash remained unmoved. ‘She was abnormal, dear boy, with a misshapen head and was, as the doctors and carers were soon to discover, feeble-minded too. Can you imagine Hitler’s shock when the news got back to him? Which Churchill made sure it did.’

‘Churchill
knew?
’

‘Indeed.’

‘Did she die?’

‘No, she has lived in Comraich ever since.’

Ash gasped. ‘Of course. In the dungeons. That old disfigured woman is Adolf Hitler and Unity Mitford’s daughter.’ It wasn’t a question.

Lord Edgar merely nodded his head.

Suddenly, Shawcroft-Draker clutched his stomach and bent forward, a grimace appearing on his face. Byrone hurried over to his master, looking full of concern.

‘I’m all right,’ Lord Edgar assured him. ‘Not yet, not
yet
.’ He’d emphasized the words as though the two men shared a secret pact. Ash studied the room, particularly the high French doors that opened onto the battlements. He was looking for a fast way out should the necessity arise.