When The Devil Drives (40 page)

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked anxiously, still not confident the getting-thrown-to-the-ground part could be entirely ruled out.

‘Saw somebody.’

‘Where?’

‘He’s gone now. Gone fast. He didn’t want to be caught looking.’

‘Have you seen him before?’

‘No, but once was enough to recognise what I was looking at. A pro.’

‘Another investigator? Like Rees?’

‘No. A different kind of pro.’

‘And what kind would that be?’

‘The ex-military kind. The kind who’s not going to get caught looking twice, so we probably won’t see him again. That won’t necessarily mean he’s gone, though, which troubles me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s also the kind who would “really know what he was doing” with a high-powered rifle.’

Fallan led her back to the main road, Jasmine as reluctant to catch up to this mystery stalker as she was curious to see whether there was a silver Passat parked somewhere near by. She wondered whether they might pop into the hotel again and wait for Tormod there, but Fallan turned right and strode on purposefully past the church.

He continued all the way along the narrow main street, beyond the last of the tourist shops, until they reached the point where the road broadened to accommodate a layby and an adjacent Perspex shelter denoted the bus stop.

There was an old punter standing there, plastic bag of library books in one hand and in the other a lead tethering a hairy white Westie.

‘Has this always been the bus stop?’ Fallan asked, indicating the modern transparent and graffiti-proof shelter. ‘For Inverness, I mean.’

‘Naw,’ he replied. ‘This is the new one. Used to leave from outside the chemist’s, but they changed it to here.’

‘When?’

‘Ach, not long. Would be about seventy-four maybe?’

‘Cheers,’ Fallan replied, flashing Jasmine a grin in acknowledgment of the fact that 1974 constituted ‘recent’ in the old man’s perception of Balnavon’s history.

Fallan looked south, towards where the main entrance to the Kildrachan estate was tucked away out of sight of the road.

‘That hotelier,’ he said, ‘Murdo Aitken, told us Saffron lived in one of the wee houses past his premises at the other end of the village, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Jasmine agreed. ‘I think it must have been that wee terrace just before the pavement runs out on the road north. What are you getting at?’

‘The quickest route home from Kildrachan House to where Saffron lived would be the back way, down that path by the meadow and along the lane at the church.’

Jasmine got it now, and asked the question for him.

‘So how could she have seen Tessa Garrion getting on that bus?’

They intercepted Tormod McDonald as he made his way from the manse around to the church. He checked his stride, halted for just a moment by the sight of them before proceeding unabated, and conspicuously trying to
look
unabated. He had an expression of mild irritation, as if he had nothing to fear from them and it was their own time they were wasting.

‘I have to prepare for a service,’ he said as he reached them, intending to brush past. ‘I told you as much as I’m prepared to.’

‘Adam Nolan’s family were a little more cooperative,’ Jasmine lied.

That stopped him like a Taser.

‘They even let us look through his private diaries.’

‘That would prove nothing,’ Tormod ventured, a little hastily.

‘True. But it does beg the question, why would he make it up?
Nowadays, different story: you’ve a public profile and a reputation to uphold, but back then you were nobody, and apart from anything else, you were underage.’

‘Private diaries can be private fantasies,’ Tormod argued.

‘Obviously they’re just his word against yours. But we’ve got more than his word.’

‘Hell of a story,’ added Fallan. ‘Adam Nolan, the admired and lamented RSC actor turned TV star, practically a gay icon, and Tormod McDonald, the man of the cloth and moralising newspaper columnist. Can’t think of an editor in the country who wouldn’t want this as an exclusive. Apart from yours, obviously.’

Tormod’s expression withered, his lower lip trembling like he was just a wee boy getting a row from his mum. Jasmine felt sorry for him, but it was pity she couldn’t afford.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, his voice wavering.

‘You know what we want,’ she said. ‘Tell us what you saw that night.’

‘You can take the earlier part of the evening as read,’ Fallan added, drawing a glare. ‘It’s what happened after that that we’re interested in. Like when you barged into Finlay Weir’s bedroom and your sister told you to fuck off. The way he told it, it didn’t sound like she was being taken advantage of, as you put it.’

‘My sister
was
taken advantage of. We both were. We were young and impressionable. We were in thrall to those people.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ Fallan replied. ‘They must have seemed very impressive, very sophisticated. They encouraged your curiosities, you and your sister. They let you join in: let you drink, try some drugs, but their company itself must have been intoxicating. Altogether a disinhibiting environment. Maybe brought out desires you never knew were in you.’

‘Yes,’ Tormod agreed, looking less adversarial towards Fallan. ‘A lot of that is true. But there was more than intoxication involved. Those were not my desires, don’t you see? They came from somewhere else, somewhere outside. Possession. Through those other indulgences my wantonness cried out and announced my vulnerability to something that is ever-listening. I was weak, and in my weakness I let it in.’

Jasmine and Fallan shared a look, mutually understanding that they should say nothing, let him speak. Clearly he needed to believe this, or the rest of his world would fall in on itself.

‘It truly felt like possession,’ Tormod went on. ‘Something else in control, something that would not be denied. Then suddenly it was gone, and like Adam and Eve I was aware of my own nakedness, of my sin.’

He looked down at the ground, not wishing to meet anyone’s eyes for a moment.

‘I went to Finlay Weir’s room, it’s true. I wanted to intervene before it was too late, to save Mhairi from the moment of awakening I had just suffered. I failed. I was distraught and, I will admit, still very drunk. More than drunk. I was uncontainable. Adam tried to calm me, I think, but I didn’t want him near me. I went staggering through the house in a daze.

‘Eventually I stumbled into the doorway of one of the grand rooms downstairs. The door was open, a strange light coming from within. The doorway was as far as I got, though. What I saw caused me to turn and flee. I saw figures in robes. I think there were two of them, but my attention was drawn almost entirely to the one who was holding a knife, a sacrificial dagger. I saw him stab a woman who was strapped to an altar. She was naked apart from the bindings. There were candles everywhere, symbols painted on sheets. I only glimpsed those for a moment, but I can still see them now, imprinted. And I can see the blood. It gushed like a burst pipe, dark red. The woman strained against her bonds but she didn’t scream. It was as though she was in a trance, or sedated.’

‘Did they see you?’ Jasmine asked.

‘No, I don’t think so. Perhaps. They could have, but I don’t remember them reacting. It felt as though it was happening somewhere else and I was only having a vision, like I could have walked over but not been able to touch them. I fled, though. I ran in panic, thinking I was lost in my own nightmare. Then I realised I was going to be sick, so I found a toilet. I vomited, and then after that I must have fallen asleep on the bathroom floor. I woke up maybe an hour later, an hour and a half perhaps. It was about quarter to eleven.’

‘So the festivities had started quite early that night?’

‘Earlier than usual, yes. Rehearsals just kind of broke down at about four o’clock and things deteriorated from there. I was very woozy, probably still drunk, but much calmer. Everything was calmer. There was music playing somewhere, but the house seemed still. I started to remember what had happened before I passed out, but the problem was, I couldn’t decipher whether I was remembering elements of a drunken dream or actual events.

‘With some trepidation I went back to that room, where I had seen the stabbing. There was no sign of what had been there: just an ordinary, or rather very expensive and possibly antique oak table with carved legs and a candelabra in the centre. The curtains were drawn, there were a few empty wine bottles around the mantelpiece and a smell of snuffed candles.’

‘No sheets? No bloodstains?’

‘No. I began to think I must have imagined it. I went outside. Part of me wanted to go home but another part felt I couldn’t leave the place. Mhairi might still be in there, as far as I knew. Plus there were things I wanted to understand. I didn’t want to see Adam right then, but I felt like it would be worse to just disappear, like he might be laughing about me or, worse, telling somebody. I ended up wandering in the grounds not knowing where to put myself. That was when I saw somebody dragging a body; dragging it by the legs.’

‘Did you recognise them?’

‘It was dark. I just saw shapes.’

‘How close were you?’ Fallan asked.

‘Twenty or thirty yards.’

‘Where? Were they on open ground? Gravel? Grass?’

‘The woods. They were among the trees.’

‘They? More than one person?’

‘No, I mean whoever it was and the body. But I had seen more than one figure in robes back in the room, which is why I ran when I heard someone else coming. I heard the door to the house close and footsteps on the stone stairs. I ran as quickly and as quietly as I could, all the way home.’

‘Which way?’ Fallan asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The main road or the back way?’

‘The back way. It was the shortest route home to the manse.’

Tormod glanced towards the path at the side of the churchyard, remembering his flight.

‘I spent a tortured and largely sleepless night, perhaps the worst of my life. I didn’t trust my own memory or my own senses. I didn’t know what was real and what was down to intoxication, and I wondered whether what I had seen was a manifestation of my guilt. If I had allowed something to possess me, then what might the residual effects be? But my conscience wasn’t to be denied. I had to tell the police in case what I had seen was real.

‘I spoke privately to Sergeant Strang, because I didn’t want anything down in black and white. I didn’t tell him about the drugs because I feared there would be hell to pay if the police went up to Kildrachan and seized stuff. I think he read between the lines, but I knew I could trust him.’

‘So why did you try to recant your testimony?’ Jasmine asked. ‘Callum Ross told us you came back and claimed you’d been imagining things. Why would you do that when you could trust Sergeant Strang’s discretion and when he already knew your account was potentially unreliable?’

‘Someone leaned on you, didn’t they?’ said Fallan. ‘Somebody told you to change your story or they’d broadcast your wee secret.’

Tormod swallowed, decades of doubt and regret etched upon his face. He nodded.

‘Who?’

He looked away, past the back of the churchyard, past the stone walls and the meadow, towards the woods, beyond which lay Kildrachan House. Then he answered: a single, simple word.

‘Darius.’

Duncan was in bed by the time Catherine made it home, but fortunately not yet asleep, so she went in for a few soft words and a cuddle. Six months ago she’d have been at risk of waking Fraser by allowing herself this wee indulgence, but the boys each had their own rooms now. What used to be the playroom had long been earmarked as Fraser’s future bedroom, but he was not enamoured of the idea of finding himself alone after lights out and clung to the comforts of sharing with his big brother way past his big brother’s tolerance for such a cohabitation.

She asked him what he’d done with his day. He and Fraser had been at a summer club, as although Drew wasn’t in the office this week he really needed some peace to make headway on his current project. Duncan told her at length about playing rounders, and how much more he enjoyed being on the fielding side because they’d been using proper baseball mitts. She suggested he might want to use some of his report-card money to buy a catcher’s glove of his own for playing in the garden, then made the mistake of asking, ‘Or have you already thought of something else you’d like to buy?’

He went quiet for a moment. She thought she wasn’t going to get an answer, and when he spoke again she assumed he had moved on to another subject, as was typical of his capricious thought process.

‘Greg Paterson was at summer club today,’ he began.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Well, you know you said he was a nice boy?’

‘I did. He is.’

‘Well,
he’s
got
Trail of the Sniper
for his Xbox and it’s not made him, you know, disturbed or anything.’

Oh God. It wasn’t over.

‘I know Dad said it wasn’t suitable for my age, in case it puts horrible thoughts in my head, but Greg’s had it for like a month and he’s still normal. In fact, he’s about the only boy who doesn’t go in a rage when he gets caught out at rounders.’

Catherine had to suppress a smile at the logic and the way he put it, but she was also suppressing her annoyance, and not at Duncan for his refusal to let it lie.

Drew had had words, as promised, but Duncan had read equivocation between the lines. Normally he understood that Mum and Dad were two heads on the same hydra. The boys grasped that there was little point in trying to play one off against the other when they were resolutely in agreement. Unfortunately, both Duncan and Fraser were adept at detecting the fault-lines. Drew had said his piece and handed down his ruling, but Duncan had detected his lack of conviction, same as Catherine had the night she picked a fight over it.

As she softly closed Duncan’s bedroom door she was already saddling her high horse in preparation for sallying downstairs into battle. The smell of what he was cooking wafted up to meet her, and the thought of turning dinner into another argument was enough to give her pause. Drew had done as he said he would; she couldn’t take him to task for being insufficiently convincing. That would be ridiculous.