Powerstone (18 page)

There was a level piece of ground
to the right, but the helicopter did not land. Instead it hovered a few feet
above the ground and Drummond jumped out, rolled once and leaped up as if he
were a twenty-year-old youth rather than a man approaching his pension. As the
helicopter lifted, he ran toward the Defender and slid into the driver’s seat.

‘All right,
Sandy
?’ Drummond drove for a few
minutes, pulled into the shelter of a copse of trees and cut the engine.

After the clatter of the
helicopter and the hum of the diesel, the sudden silence was welcome. Taking a
can of oil from the back of the Defender, Drummond walked a few paces and
poured about half a litre onto the road. The dark golden liquid spread easily,
slicking over the irregularities in the tarmac to lie in venomous innocence, a
trap for any oncoming vehicle.

‘Now we wait,’ Drummond said,
returning the can to the back of the Defender. He pressed the switch to ease
down the side window.

Meigle looked ahead, not quite
sure what Drummond had in mind. Directly in front of them the road dipped, and
then rose into a sharp bend. Sunlight glinted from oil that dripped into a
drainage ditch on either side.

‘We’ll hear her coming before we
see her.’ Drummond sounded very calm. ‘I’ve sent MacFarlane away. Better if
there is only the two of us.’

Meigle nodded. He felt as if
something tight was being fastened around his chest. He had been introduced to
the Society on his thirtieth birthday, and had accepted the responsibility
willingly, rising with pride to be Chairman and head decision maker. Now, for
the first time in three decades, he was experiencing some doubt.

‘Listen.’ Drummond lifted a
finger. There was the sound of rising and falling gears as an oncoming motor
vehicle negotiated the intricate curves and hills of the road. Drummond checked
his seat belt. ‘Ready? This will be over quick.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Meigle looked
toward him, but it was already too late.

The Nissan appeared with startling
speed. One second the road was empty, the next the bronze vehicle was hammering
down the slope and approaching the corner. Drummond pulled out, directly in
Doctor Wallace’s path, with his lights on full and his hand pressed hard on the
horn.

Doctor Wallace must have reacted
instinctively, switching her right foot from the accelerator to the brake and
slamming her left foot onto the clutch. There was the painful scream of brakes
and the Nissan slowed, until the front wheels made contact with the oil. Bereft
of traction, they slewed sideways and the Nissan skidded from the road, carved
great grooves in the rough grass verge and thumped nose first into the ditch.
The engine whined its protest.

‘My God.’ Meigle watched the
devastation in horror. ‘She might be dead.’ He reached for the door handle to
get out but Drummond forestalled him.

‘Stay inside.’ His eyes were as
calm as ever, but there was no mistaking the steel in his voice. ‘As
Kirkpatrick said at Greyfriars, I’ll mak siccar.’ He reversed the Defender to
its previous position and killed the engine before walking slowly to the
Nissan. Meigle saw him slide into the ditch and try to open the driver’s door.
There was a pause, and then the noise stopped as Drummond switched off the
Nissan’s engine. He returned a few minutes later, his sleeve smeared with
blood.

‘She’s dead.’ He said laconically
and picked up his telephone.

‘What are you going to do?’
Drummond fought down his nausea. He knew that it had been necessary to protect
the Clach-bhuai, but the incident had still shocked him. He was a businessman,
used to the cut and thrust of negotiations and the ruthless demands of money,
but he had never before witnessed a violent death. He shook his head: he knew
the rules. Generation after generation of the same family served the Society,
but if the first demand was to protect the Clach-bhuai, the second was loyalty.
Any hint of dissent meant a threat to the existence of the Society; there could
be no wavering.

‘I’m going to call the police and
an ambulance,’ Drummond replied. ‘We were witnesses to a tragic accident. We
have to report it; after all, I am a Justice of the Peace.’

‘Of course,’ Meigle agreed. He
heard the distant bleating of sheep. At one time it had been a spider that
saved the
Kingdom
of
Scots
, now it was a different animal. ‘Then
what?’

‘Return home.’ There was a trace
of surprise in Drummond’s voice. ‘You have to inform the Society of the threats
to the Clach-bhuai.’

Edinburgh
, May

At first Irene had felt sick, then
humiliated and dirty, and finally angry. After leaving the bottle of champagne
she had shut the door and retreated from the hotel room as quickly as she
could. The receptionist looked up enquiringly when she rushed past, but Irene
ignored her hesitant offer of assistance, thrust through the front door and
back into the street.

She had known Patrick for nearly
eighteen months and thought that she understood him. ‘Bastard,’ she mouthed,
‘dirty, two-timing, double crossing, cheating bastard.’ The avalanche of abuse
did not help, so she increased her speed, walking without direction as she
struggled with this new concept. Patrick was the first man to ever cheat on
her; she had always called the shots in a relationship, deciding on its
direction and when it should end. The fact that it was Patrick, compliant, obedient
Patrick, only made it worse.

Patrick had always been there to
listen to her problems and to bolster her plans. She had turned to him
unthinkingly for support in her bid to become Ms Manning’s neophyte and had
automatically enlisted him in her campaign to steal the Honours. God, it had
been Patrick who recruited everybody from his circle of Irish dissidents and
other malcontents. Now he had betrayed her, and with a woman who was neither
particularly young nor particularly attractive.

Walking on to the
Dean
Bridge
, Irene stared over the parapet. What had Mary got to
entice a man? She was short and slender, wiry even, with stringy muscles and
hair that lacked even a pretence of style. What could Patrick see in her? Mary
could offer nothing, except free sex. Obviously that had been enough to tempt
him. She closed her eyes, reliving the images from her bedroom until she could
unfreeze her natural prejudice and try to see Mary through Patrick’s eyes. She
shook her head; there was nothing to see, no shape, minimal curves, no
personality even.

Irene swore, shouting a string of
the foulest words she knew into the deep gorge that gaped beneath. Balling her
fists, she hammered at the unforgiving stone parapet. If Patrick had betrayed
her with such an unprepossessing creature as Mary Kelly, then how many others
had there been? Was their relationship that frail, that meaningless? Pushing herself
away, Irene allowed her anger to drive her in an aimless march that continued
until her legs burned and the orange glow of streetlights softened the severe
stone tenements.

The images repeated themselves in
her mind; Patrick laughing as Mary gyrated across his hips, Mary turning slowly
to the door with her face triumphant, Patrick’s expression of serenity
gradually changing to shock.

Irene stopped and looked around.
She was in a broad street with a mixture of tall stone tenements and more
modern buildings. A sign above a row of street level shops announced the single
word Grassmarket. Above her, eerily lit by floodlights, the castle seemed to
hang from the sky as if separate from the city that it dominated.

The sight of the castle quietened
Irene. If she had a landmark, then she knew where she was. She took a deep
breath, putting things in perspective. After all, she was a professional, a
corporate executive, and Patrick was only an ex-marine. She remembered Ms
Manning’s stipulation that she must journey alone, so that Patrick was no
longer a fixed star in her firmament. Taking a deep breath, Irene began to view
the situation with more objectivity. Her hurt, like Patrick, was only
transitory. It was a pity that she had grown to like him, but there were many
more men that she could use for sex, when necessary.

Irene looked upward at the curving
stonework of the castle’s Half Moon Battery, whose cannon had threatened the
city for half a millennium. That, like her ambition, was permanent. She was in
Edinburgh
to steal the Honours. The theft
would further her career. If successful she would become one of the richest
women in the world. Patrick had been her boyfriend. He had cheated on her. But
she had intended to dump him anyway.

Ordering her thoughts always
calmed Irene down. Now she had to find some advantage for herself. She assessed
the situation logically; working out what angle she could best use. She had to
play the part of the wronged woman, while retaining both Patrick and Mary in
her team until such time as she could discard them both.

Patrick would expect her anger, so
she could take immediate revenge on him, but Mary was more difficult. She was
proud of her motoring accomplishments, so that was where Irene would hurt her.
Once she had control of the Manning Corporation, she could buy over Mary’s
sponsorship and then cut it off entirely. Or perhaps she would sponsor a rival
female driver? The prospect of removing Mary from her top spot put Irene in a
better humour, so she looked forward to meeting Patrick again. God but she
would make him squirm.

A group of youths burst singing
from the nearest pub and the momentary flicker of light from the interior
illuminated the shop next door. A heavy grill protected the window, but Irene
realised that it was a jeweller. She stepped closer, trying to peer inside, but
the noise from the pub distracted her and she walked on, slower now, as ideas
worked through her head. Obviously Patrick had to go, but she could make the
most of their final few weeks.

Back at the hotel, she found him
in their room.

‘God, Irene, I’m sorry, so sorry,’
Patrick stood before her with his head down and his hands spread wide. ‘It just
happened, you know? I did not plan it or anything.’

Sitting in front of him, Irene
allowed him to grovel. She could nearly enjoy her feeling of power, although
she still hurt and wanted to retaliate. Patrick continued to profess his
sorrow, offering a dozen forms of penance to assuage his guilt and her anger.

‘What can I say? What can I do to
prove it was an accident?’

‘Nothing.’ Irene kept her tone
flat; unsure whether it would be more effective to slap him or storm out the
door. ‘You can do nothing, Patrick. You’ve done enough.’

‘I know.’ His head was down again.
‘I’m sorry.’

‘And would you be so sorry if I
had not caught you?’ She allowed the fire to light behind her eyes, moved her
hand to the side and saw him flinch as if he expected a blow. Really, men were
soft beneath the muscles. She felt like a puppet mistress.

Patrick said nothing. He stood
directly under the central light of the room with the crisp hairs of his chest
showing in the vee of his shirt.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Irene
said softly, allowing him some hope as she injected doubt in to her voice. She
was punishing him, playing with his emotions as he had toyed with Mary’s body.

Patrick stepped one pace forward.
He was a full seven inches taller than her, with a forty-four inch chest and
powerful arms, but at that moment he looked like a small boy caught out in some
infantile transgression. He reached out to her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ There was no need
to act as Irene recoiled in genuine disgust. ‘Not after you’ve been rolling
around with that woman!’ Her slap was instinctive and so fast that Patrick had
no time to duck. It caught him full across the face with a sound that rebounded
from the walls of the room. ‘Get back.’ Irene held her ground, forcing him to
retreat by the power of her will. ‘Get back from me, I said.’

‘Sorry, I’m truly sorry,’ Patrick
stumbled backward, one hand to his face. He looked shocked at the intensity of
her anger.

‘Oh, get out,’ Irene pointed to
the door. ‘Go on.’ As logic battled with anger, Irene knew that she was making
the wrong decision. She would be better to forgive him, to allow him back into
her favour, but she could not. ‘Get back to that woman.’ She could not bear to
say Mary’s name.

Patrick opened the door.

‘Oh for God’s sake, go!’ Irene
pointed outside, turning her face away to hide the tears that were burning at
her eyes. She heard the soft click of the door closing before she collapsed
onto the chair.

It was early in the morning before
she could control her sobs, and she could not return to the bed that Patrick
had defiled. She knew that she should never have allowed emotion to rule her,
but at that moment she would have swapped every jewel in
Scotland
, and every artefact in Mannadu,
for one man on whom she could rely.

Dawn in
Edinburgh
was subtle rather than
spectacular, with a silvery sheen slowly seeping from the east, adorning the
stylish stonework of the Georgian architecture and the greenery of the gorge
below. Irene leaned against the parapet of the
Dean
Bridge
, listening to the increasing
rumble of traffic that combated the soft singing of blackbirds. She had slept
fitfully but awoke with new purpose; she had to control her emotions today, and
show forgiveness to Patrick. Somehow she also had to face Mary. Retaliation
would wait until the Honours were secure.