The Exiled (10 page)

Alan leaned forward and tapped the book cover.

“I’ve seen it,” he said quietly. “In its natural habitat, I believe, along the cliffs below the high turrets.”

Ferguson lifted his beer with both hands, but still it shook so violently that he spilled dribbles of it down his beard as he gulped it down.

“We cannot talk here,” the old man finally replied in a conspiratorial whisper. “It would get back to them in minutes and we would both be fucked. Come on—it will cost you a bottle of single malt, but I think you will find it is worth it.”

* * *

They got to Ferguson’s flat in Dundas Street by going the long way round. Firstly Ferguson made his way to an off-license and Alan came out thirty pounds lighter. The Scotch went into the voluminous pockets of the old man’s coat and Alan, carrying the folded sandwich board, followed behind as they traversed backward and forward through the alleyways and closes running between Rose Street, George Street and Queen Street. By the time they reached the bottom end of the hill where the old man lived they’d walked more than twice as far as they needed to and the sandwich board felt three times as heavy as it had when they set off.

“Can’t be too careful,” Ferguson said as he pushed open a door and motioned Alan through to a dimly lit flat beyond. “They’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

The old man’s flat proved to be as unkempt as his appearance. Books and magazines lay piled around, interspersed with overflowing ashtrays, fast-food cartons, open beer cans and empty whisky bottles.

“Excuse the mess, it’s the maid’s day off,” Ferguson said, and cackled. He cleared two chairs by simply throwing the papers off onto the floor, took two whisky glasses down from his mantelpiece, and motioned for Alan to sit as he opened the Scotch.

“This might take some time, so it will be best to get cozy,” he said.

Alan took a glass of Scotch—Ferguson had poured two fingers for Alan, four for himself. He took out the book, opened it at the end of Part One and read.

“‘I know what the Black Swan is, and why the secret has to remain hidden.’” That’s what you said. Is that true?”

“Aye,” Ferguson replied, downing half the Scotch in his glass. “Every word. But first you need to know something about the Masons. It started back in the days after Bannockburn. The Templars wanted to be paid for helping the Bruce and…”

Alan sat dutifully through a rant that lasted almost fifteen minutes before his patience snapped.

“Look, Mr. Ferguson, I don’t care about the bloody Masons. I need to know about the Swan, and what it’s got to do with these missing lassies.”

Ferguson finished his Scotch and poured himself another—he didn’t offer Alan any.

“There is only one thing you need to know,” the old man finally said “And when you do, it will all become clear. The Cobbe does not take children—they’re given to it.”

* * *

Alan couldn’t believe it—wouldn’t believe it.

“Who would do such a thing?”

“People from here that want to get to the other side and stay there for a while—people that want access to power. Masons.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I, at first. But the Swan is the gatekeeper—the Dweller on the Threshold if you like. Anyone who wants to be able to move between this world and the other at will has to pay for the privilege. The current going rate is children from this side.”

The old man said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that he might have been talking about the price of a loaf of bread.

“Why?” Alan asked. “Why kids?”

Ferguson turned coarse and belligerent as the drink took hold of him, as if a switch had been flicked inside his head. The semblance of culture disappeared in an instant, and the deranged inner drunk surfaced into view.

“How the fuck should I know?”

I need to get answers fast before he gets too pissed.

“Okay—another question. What exactly is this other side?”

Ferguson swigged Scotch straight from the bottle. The whisky level dropped fast, and so did the old man’s manners.

“Fairie, the astral plane, Shangri-La—fucking Brigadoon for all I care. Why are you asking all these questions?”

“I told you—I’ve been there, on the other side.”

“I will bet you didn’t pay the gatekeeper though, did you? So what do you want now?”

Ferguson polished off the Scotch in one more gulp and dropped the empty bottle at the side of his chair.

“I want to know how to get there,” Alan said.

“If you want to know the time, ask a policeman,” Ferguson sang. It seemed their little question-and-answer session was over.

Alan made one more try.

“You said there was a ritual—to get to the other place?”

“It only works for seconds,” Ferguson said, carefully trying to enunciate his words. “Then the Cobbe sends you straight back here if you don’t have the payment. But you know that—you have done the ritual for yourself.”

The old man slurred most of the last few words, and was near to unconsciousness.

Alan shook his head.

“It happened by accident…”

“Accident my arse. The only other way through is to get invited. And the only people that can do that are the fucking Society. I can see through you now, you know? You’re a fucking Mason, aren’t you?” Ferguson tried to stand, failed, and fell back in the chair. He could still shout though. “I will not have a fucking Mason in my house. Get out. Get out.”

Alan knew when he was beaten. He got up and headed for the door. Ferguson threw the empty whisky bottle at him. It smashed against the wall near his head. The old man bent to get another missile, fell off the chair and rolled among the discarded magazines, still shouting at the top of his voice. The shouts followed Alan out into the street.

“Fucking funny handshaking fucking Masonic fucker. Don’t come back.”

13

Grainger tried not to laugh too hard as Alan told the story of his visit to Dundas Street. The younger man related it completely deadpan, which only made it all the funnier. The laughter brought more pain to his shoulder so he tried to dial it back a bit, but when Alan got to the dénouement and Ferguson’s parting words, he couldn’t help himself. He roared, even through the pain.

Alan turned and looked at him.

“At least somebody’s feeling better.”

They were in Alan’s car, heading up the scenic road through Glen Devon, making for Crieff, then the old library at Innerpeffray. Grainger had only been released from hospital that morning but he knew there was no way he could just go home and sit on a sofa all day. And given that Ferguson was unlikely to divulge the ritual, it seemed like it might be a plan to search it out for themselves. It was a good day for a drive and as it was a weekday the traffic was light—they had the road to themselves. In their younger days they might have had the windows rolled down, a beer in hand and heavy metal blaring on the stereo. This trip was a bit more sedate. Grainger’s only concession to rebellious youth was to light up a smoke, but even then Alan made him hold it out the window rather than in his mouth so it burned down after only two or three draws.

They went past the Glendevon Hotel and he bit back an urge to ask Alan to stop, head for the bar and just get lost for a while.

Maybe later.

“All this Masonic stuff?” Alan asked “Do you think there’s anything in it?”

“Not as much as Ferguson claims,” Grainger replied. “I doubt there’s a secret society of magicians controlling access to another realm of reality—most of the cops I know who are members would have trouble controlling a piss-up in a brewery. Yes, there’s favors done for brother members, and things are maybe swept under the carpet that shouldn’t be. But sacrificing kids? I can’t see it. There’s something else going on here—Ferguson has seen a part of it and made some wild—too wild—guesses that fit in with his own prejudices. Let’s see if we can get closer to the truth.”

* * *

The library proved to be a quaint stone building attached to an old chapel in a very quiet hamlet. They were the only visitors and the portly gentleman who showed them in seemed only too pleased to leave them to their own devices among the shelves once Grainger identified himself as a police officer—a little white lie, but a necessary one.

They quickly found out that they were looking for a needle in a haystack. Grainger got increasingly frustrated as time wore on and finally Alan spoke up.

“Go for a walk, have a smoke. This is my side of things—this is what I do. So leave me to it. I’ll yell if I find it.”

Grainger didn’t need a second opportunity. He made his way out into watery sunshine and sucked gratefully on a smoke. Once that was done he turned to head back inside, but noticed that the door to the small church beside the library was open. Curiosity got the better of him and he stepped in.

It proved to a very pretty old chapel, all wood paneling, rough walls and stone floor. He had a momentary flashback to the cathedral, but where that had been huge and overwhelming this small building was both homey and comforting. It also felt cooler in here, and somehow relaxing.

Grainger and Alan had been brought up Church of Scotland—religious education classes at school, Sunday school and church on Sundays. It hadn’t taken in either of them and both had stopped attending when their father got diagnosed with cancer and withered to a horrible, pain-filled death in the space of two months. Grainger had been sixteen, Alan twelve, and since then the only churching they had was at weddings and funerals. He had attended too many of both over the years, but he’d never felt like this—he was almost calm, for the first time since Simpson’s death.

He sat on a pew and let the silence seep into him.

Almost immediately he thought of Simpson—not of the shroud-covered dead meat on the gurney, but as the young D.C. he’d first met five years back. She’d stood up to three youths they had collared for a stabbing at a football match, and kneed one of them in the balls when he got too mouthy. He’d known then that she was going to work for him. Yes, she talked too much, but she was Scottish, and a woman, so that was pretty much a given anyway. He’d come to like her droll, almost surreal, sense of humor, and she always knew when he needed to know something, and when he didn’t.

I’m going to miss her.

He sat there for a while—he didn’t cry, but he mourned her all the same. And before he stood to leave he didn’t pray, but he made a promise to her, and anyone else than might be listening.

I’m going to get that bastard Galloway—I don’t care where he’s hiding.

* * *

When he got back to the small library, Alan was bent over a desk studying a book that looked almost too frail to be touched. The younger man looked up.

“I think we’ve found it, John. But I’m not sure it’ll do us much good.”

Grainger went over to have a look. Crude drawings surrounded text scrawled across page after page of what looked little more than gibberish—he skimmed over stuff about antimony, pelicans, retorts and white matter, and the need for quintessence of quicksilver at several stages of what looked to be a long and convoluted process. He couldn’t make head or tail of any of it.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked.

“An alchemy experiment by the looks of things,” Alan replied.

“And what makes you think it’s what we’re looking for?”

Alan turned a page and pointed.

It was a single drawing, covering almost the whole sheet of the page, done in deep black ink—a swan with piercing eyes, wings pulled forward in a hood.

Grainger looked at it for several seconds before speaking.

“Do you understand any of what it says needs to be done?”

“Not a lot,” Alan replied. “But I know a man who does.”

“Ferguson? He won’t give us the time of day.”

“He will if we buy him enough booze.”

14

Alan helped the curator as they carefully photocopied the relevant pages of the old book while John went outside for another smoke.

“There’s a strange thing about this particular book. Nobody looks at it for two centuries, then we get three requests in as many years,” the man said as he turned another page.

“Three? Was one of them an elderly gent? Bald and bearded?”

The curator nodded.

“I remember him well—he was fine in the morning but most abusive later on, and he smelled of strong drink. I had to expel him when he started ranting about Freemasonry.”

“And the other one?”

Alan expected to get a description of Dave Galloway, so was rather surprised by the reply.

“A woman—’30s, well-spoken, Glasgow accent, I think. She knew exactly what she was looking for—I photocopied these exact same pages for her. I never did get her name, but I had a feeling I’d seen her somewhere before.”