They barely spoke on the way home. Adam drove fast and viciously, pushing the car as though it were an enemy, his face set in hard, uncompromising lines. From time to time Jane looked at him as she sat beside him but she did not speak. It seemed to her that they had said all they were ever going to say to one another in the attic bedroom at the farm after she had shot at the cat. After he had found the blood on the grass Adam had spent hours searching the orchard, and then the surrounding countryside, staying out until long after it was dark. The next morning he had gone out again as soon as it was light but not before he and Jane had had the worst quarrel of their long marriage.
‘Adam, I’m sorry,’ she had cried at last. ‘What else can I say? I was afraid. I hate her.’ That last sentence had come out as a long wailing cry before she threw herself down on the bed and buried her face in the pillows. They both knew they were not talking about a cat.
Adam had looked down at her, his face set, then abruptly he had turned on his heel and left the bedroom. When he had returned, Jane was asleep.
Liza did not query their decision to go back to St Albans early. The atmosphere between the two had become unbearable and Adam was beyond reason. ‘You can’t blame her,’ she said to him in a whisper as they stood for a moment outside the kitchen door after supper. ‘For God’s sake, Adam, she was viciously attacked.’
‘Jane might have killed her!’ Adam was fumbling in a crumpled packet for a cigarette. ‘She might be badly hurt.’
‘We know she’s not, Adam.’ She tried to keep her voice even. ‘We would have found something –’ A cat? A woman? ‘ – if she was badly hurt. She’s run off somewhere into the woods. She’ll be fine.’ She tried to lighten her comment with a smile. ‘Here I am as bad as you calling her “she”. We don’t know it was a she. It might just have been a wildcat. That’s all. Or a feral cat from the farm up the pitch. We don’t know it was Brid, Adam. How can we? How could it have been? That’s totally ludicrous and we both know it.’
‘Do we?’ He turned and fixed her with an angry stare. ‘Do we know anything at all?’
They had not discussed it again, and the following day the Craigs had packed their belongings, left a note for Calum and Juliette and left the farm. ‘Drive carefully.’ Liza had reached up to kiss Adam on the cheek. ‘It will all turn out all right, you’ll see.’
‘Will it?’ He gave her a peck in return. ‘I wonder.’
It was late when they turned into their street and drew up outside the house. Adam switched off the engine and sat for a moment, staring out of the windscreen. Then he reached to open the car door, stiff after the long drive.
‘Wait.’ Jane’s voice was husky.
‘What is it?’ He turned and looked at her.
‘Please, don’t let’s go on like this. I’ve said I’m sorry. Adam, the house is going to be so empty without Calum, please, don’t let us quarrel.’
‘I have no intention of quarrelling.’ Adam hauled himself out of the car. ‘As far as I’m concerned the matter is finished.’ He went round to the rear of the car and opened the boot. ‘Give me a hand with the cases and let’s get inside. That drive seems to get longer each time we do it.’ He pulled out a suitcase and a canvas grip and turned to walk up the path. Jane was following him with another case when he stopped in his tracks. Something had moved in the window upstairs.
‘There’s someone in the house!’
‘What?’ Jane stared wildly at the building, scanning the windows. Everything seemed as it should. ‘Burglars, you mean?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper. She could feel her heart banging somewhere under her ribs.
He shrugged. Dropping the cases he moved on quietly, feeling in his pocket for his keys.
‘Be careful, Adam.’ Jane ran after him. ‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’
He shook his head. ‘Stay behind me.’ The front door was locked and the windows appeared as they had left them. There was no outward sign that there was anything wrong but he could feel a strange prickling at the back of his neck, the feeling that they were being watched.
‘Jane,’ he swung round on her, ‘go back to the car. Lock yourself inside.’
‘Why?’ She was staring round wildly. ‘I’m not leaving you. I’ll go next door and ring the police –’
‘Go to the car.’ He caught her arm and spun her round. ‘Do as I say.’
And then she understood. ‘You think she’s there. You think it’s your girlfriend. Your cat friend! She’s beaten us home, is that it?’ Suddenly she was almost hysterical. ‘That’s it. Send Jane back to the car to sit out in the road all night, just so long as Brid is comfortable. No thank you!’ She snatched the house keys out of his hand and pushed past him. ‘No, Adam. This has gone far enough. I am not standing outside my own house whilst you pet your little friend inside and make sure she’s comfortable.’ Sobbing she ran up the path and with a shaking hand she put the key into the lock.
A pile of post sat on the hall table. Sarah must have come in to water the plants even though Jane had told her not to bother. She stopped. There was a strange smell in the house, a musky animal scent which made her feel suddenly very sick. She turned to Adam, her anger turning to fear. ‘She’s here!’ she whispered.
He nodded. ‘I wanted you to stay in the car because it’s safe,’ he murmured. ‘Please, Janie. Go outside.’
He had moved past her and quietly he tiptoed down the hall towards his study door. ‘Go. Please,’ he hissed over his shoulder. He pushed the door gently. The whole house was silent.
Jane did not move. She was staring after him, her mouth dry with fear. It was dusky in the study from the half-drawn curtains, and she could smell the heat. The sun had been beating on the glass windows all day and only in the evening had it gone round the side of the house leaving the room in the curtained shade.
In front of her Adam pushed the door open a little further and took a step over the threshold. ‘Brid?’ His voice was gentle. ‘Are you there?’
There was no sound and after a pause he took another step into the room. ‘Oh dear God!’ He threw the door back against the wall.
‘What is it?’ Jane followed him and stopped in the doorway.
The woman slumped onto the hearth rug had a small brass watering can still clutched in her hand. Nearby a pale pink cyclamen lay amidst the broken shards of its pot, its leaves and flowers already wilted and dying.
‘Sarah?’ Jane let out a sob. ‘Oh no! Is she …?’
‘Yes.’ Adam didn’t need to go any nearer to see the woman had been dead for several hours. ‘You’d better call the police, Jane.’ He knelt down on the rug but he didn’t touch her. He could already see the vicious cuts across the woman’s face and throat and the brown patches beneath her where her blood had soaked into the rug. ‘And then one of us is going to have to tell Robert.’
The house was empty. There had been no trace of any intruder, no sign of a window or door being forced; nothing had been stolen. The police noted that Jane had been attacked by some sort of cat during her stay in Wales but it was put down as being no more than a coincidence. They made the connection with the Brid who had escaped, the Brid who might be following Adam, but could take their investigation no further. Her trail had long ago gone cold. The verdict at the inquest was left open, but two days after it appeared in the paper Ivor Furness rang Adam.
‘May I come over? There are things we ought to talk about.’ He had seen the report and Adam’s name had caught his eye. ‘It was her, wasn’t it,’ he said soberly as they all sat outside in the evening sun.
Adam nodded. ‘I think it must have been.’
‘You and I are both doctors. Men of science. Sane. And you, Mrs Craig,’ Ivor turned a warm smile on his hostess. ‘Sane. Educated. Twentieth-century woman. None of us believes that a human being can turn itself into a cat, right?’
They all nodded.
‘Nor can she, for we are talking about a she, visit places as some kind of other being, whilst leaving her body in bed, or wherever.’ He was slowly packing the bowl of his pipe with tobacco. ‘You did not, I take it, mention any of our suspicions to the police?’
Adam shook his head. ‘It did not seem appropriate. They naturally thought of the Brid who escaped from hospital, but there was no evidence, nothing. They found no prints other than our own.’
‘I told them about the cat,’ Jane put in sharply. ‘I told them I had been attacked.’
‘And they thought it of no relevance as it had happened miles away. Quite.’ Ivor nodded slowly. ‘I am afraid we will always get that response. You are sure in your own minds, however, that this killing was done by Brid?’
Adam nodded slowly. He sighed. ‘I don’t understand it. Why would she do it? Poor Sarah, what had she done to make Brid angry?’ He shook his head in bewilderment. He and Jane had discussed moving house. At first it had seemed imperative. Now, they weren’t so sure. Poor Sarah had left no ghost and Brid would follow them wherever they went.
‘Robert is completely devastated. She was everything to him. They had no other family apart from each other.’ Jane found herself sobbing suddenly, her antagonism towards Sarah forgotten. She reached out for Adam’s hand.
Ivor frowned. He struck a match and held it while the flame steadied. ‘I am so sorry for you both, as well as that poor woman and her husband. What a mess. As the focus for Brid’s attention you are in an unenviable position.’ The match went out and he stared at it for a moment before tossing it over the wall of the terrace onto the rose bed. ‘Brid does not have the social restraints of a normal person,’ he went on thoughtfully, speaking half to himself. ‘She is an attractive woman and is undoubtedly very charming when she wants to be, but there is a psychopathic personality there. She acts as she feels at the moment without conscience or remorse, and her background appears to have taught her the use of unrestrained violence. Fascinating.’ He shook his head again and withdrew another match from his matchbox. ‘The question is, did she come here in person, for real, or was it merely a visit in her dream state?’ He looked from one to the other for a moment before striking the match and holding it over the bowl of his pipe. ‘And if in a dream state, where was she – the corporeal Brid – as it were? And if she can murder while she is in fact elsewhere, how can you two protect yourselves from her in the future?’
There was a long silence. Ivor was staring across the garden, his gaze fixed unseeing on Adam’s cherished roses. ‘I wish I’d had the chance to investigate her more while she was in hospital.’
‘I wish you had, too.’ Adam spoke with feeling. He had reached out to take Jane’s hand as he saw the implication of the other man’s statement sinking in.
Jane had gone very white. ‘She would never hurt Adam. It is me she wants to kill. Do you think she saw poor Sarah and thought she was me?’ She bit her lip, trying to keep her panic under control.
Ivor shrugged. ‘I would have thought a woman with powers such as we are presupposing would be able to distinguish between two different people. Oh, my dear, I’m sorry.’ He stood up suddenly and put his arm round Jane’s shoulders. ‘I am not being reassuring.’
At the unexpected show of sympathy and warmth she felt tears well into her eyes again. ‘I’m so scared.’
‘Of course you are.’ He glanced at Adam, surprised that he was not supporting his wife, but Adam was lost in thought.
‘Dr Craig!’ His voice was sharper than he intended. ‘We discussed Brid as she was as a girl. Did she show signs of abstraction then? Did she seem violent? Irrational?’
Adam nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. She had a temper.’ He pictured her suddenly standing by the waterfall, her naked body silhouetted against the rock. ‘And I thought, even as a somewhat naïve schoolboy, that she was irrational in her approach to life.’
‘But you never suspected that she had come from another place?’
‘Another planet, you mean?’ Adam gave a humourless laugh.
‘Another age.’
‘No.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘No, that never occurred to me. Brid was real enough, believe me. There was nothing ghostly about that young lady.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I cannot believe that you and I are having this conversation! There must be a rational explanation for what Brid has done. It seems to me that there is a sleight of hand going on here. She makes us believe she is in two places at once, and we in our credulity –’ without realising it, he looked at Jane for a moment – ‘fall for it. We assume the extraordinary and look for mystery when the ordinary would do. She seems to move around quickly. Perhaps she is just good at getting lifts. You assume she was in a hospital bed while she was somewhere else. Perhaps she had slipped out, leaving pillows or something in bed to look as though she were still there. After all she found it easy enough to leave after Nurse Wilkins was murdered. By coincidence a cat came into this house once or twice at a relevant moment. A cat attacked my wife in Wales. On neither occasion was there proof that it was anything other than a real cat.’ Was he being disingenuous? He paused for a moment uncomfortably. ‘To make the assumption that Brid and the cat are the same and that she is capable of time travel and remanifesting herself in different places is to my mind ludicrous. It just isn’t possible. The only doubt is whether this person is my Brid or a lookalike, possibly her daughter, or, maybe,’ he looked up suddenly, ‘two people, mother and daughter, engaged on the same quest.’
‘A quest to murder me,’ Jane said softly. She was shivering in spite of the warmth of the summer afternoon.
Neither man spoke.
‘It had not occurred to me that she might be two people,’ Ivor said at last. ‘Mother and daughter. That is plausible.’ His relief at having a new idea around which to rearrange his thoughts was palpable.
‘Brid’s mother didn’t look like her.’ Adam went on with a shake of his head. ‘She was a nice woman. Kind.’
‘And her father?’
‘Dead when I knew her. Her uncle was a complete madman though. That would explain where she got the violent streak.’ He stood up and wandered onto the grass, absent-mindedly snapping off the dead head of a rose as he did so. ‘They will catch her?’
‘Of course.’ Ivor shrugged. ‘But until then, you should not lower your guard.’ He looked at Jane. ‘Either of you.’
The fever burned her body as she lay in the cottage by the burn, but she fought it, crawling once each day to the water to slake her thirst and wash the sour sweat from her face and neck. She had packed the shot wounds above her breast with herbs, and the flesh had stayed free of infection after she had cut the ragged edges of skin away with her knife. For a long time she had not known what had happened. She had ricocheted away from the orchard in Wales in deep shock, finding herself first on the mountainside and then seconds later in Adam’s house. She had not known until she drew the knife that she was once more in a human body and she had no knowledge of why she had stabbed the woman who had found her in his study and who had asked if she could help. All she remembered was a sudden blinding rage that someone should stand in her way. For several seconds she had stood over the collapsing woman, staring down at her, puzzled, as she lay dying on the carpet. Then, suddenly, she had felt the surge of energy and excitement which came with the blood and without warning she was upstairs in the house, looking out of the window watching eagerly as A-dam’s car drew up outside, then in an instant she was back in the glen, the wind cooling her burning flesh and tearing at her clothes.
For the first time in a long time she wept. She was alone and afraid and the pain beneath her collarbone was intense. Sometimes, in her delirium, she called for her mother or for Gartnait; more often she called for A-dam. But he never came. Day succeeded day and slowly she grew weaker. She had almost lost her strength entirely when, lying by the burn to scoop the soft brown water into her mouth she noticed the scraped nest bowl of a plover amongst the heather stems. In it were two speckled eggs, still warm from the mother. She took them and broke them into her mouth, feeling the rich yolks running down her throat. Lying still, her head in her arms, she felt the sun’s rays on her back and she gave thanks to the hen bird whose eggs had given her strength. Later she sucked the sour juice from blaeberries and sat for a while, staring down into the sparkling water. When she crawled back into the cottage at dusk she slept without fever, knowing she would soon be recovered, and in her dream Adam came to find her at last and put his hand upon her head and declared her fever gone. And in her dream she smiled, and rubbed her face against his hand.
The moon had waxed and waned twice before she felt strong enough to go to the stone and look for the gateway to Adam’s time. Her energies were still low and her concentration feeble, but as the nights grew longer and the air chill and damp, she found herself longing more and more to be with him. He had never come to her again, beyond that first night when she had dreamed about him and she knew in her heart it had been no more than a dream.
She stood for a while beside the stone, her hand caressing gently the carvings her brother had made with such care. A crisp frosting of palest green lichen had crawled into some of the deeper cuts in the granite and she scratched at it with her fingernail. It did not matter. It did not diminish the power. That came from beneath the ground, welling and ebbing up like a tide in the ancient rocks beneath her feet. And now, with the new moon a slim sickle in the sky she could feel the tide gathering. Its strength would carry her down the years to Adam’s time.
As the sun set behind the mountains she watched her shadow lengthen across the ground, then slowly she turned towards the east and raised her arms above her head. Her eyes were closed as she went within and felt her strength grow.
Adam was sitting at his desk in his study. For a moment he did not sense her there in front of him and she looked round, breathless and triumphant. He was alone. The room was empty. She watched him for a moment, her love spilling out towards him, then slowly she held out her hands.
A-dam!
As he looked up, startled, she felt the atmosphere in the room curdle and separate around her. It grew suddenly very cold.
‘Brid?’ Adam’s voice echoed after her as she found herself once more on the hillside, on her knees beside the stone, tears pouring down her face.
She tried again the following night. This time he was in his garden. She watched him from the shelter of the old pear tree, her heart aching with longing as he pottered about in the flower bed and then walked slowly back towards the house.
‘Adam!’ The woman’s voice from his study window cut through the silence like a knife and Brid found herself shaking violently. For a moment she hung on, her nails digging into the mossy bark of the tree, and then she was gone, back to the hillside where the darkness had already fallen and the moon was obscured by rushing cloud. Back in the cottage she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth in her misery. What was wrong? Why couldn’t she stay with A-dam? Why couldn’t she focus? She needed his love to hold her, and with that woman always there, his love was not strong enough.
She knew it must be that she was too weak. She made herself a hunting knife and some snares and caught rabbits and birds for her pot. She sought out herbs and infused them in rainwater in the sunlight to increase her strength and then she tried again.
This time A-dam was in Scotland, too. She felt her heart leap with excitement as she recognised the mountains and knew that he was very near. Then he turned to face her and she saw with a cry of horror that A-dam was old. His face was lined and coarsened and his hair, still wild and curly, was white as the snow on the high peaks in winter. It was the wrong time.
No!
Her cry of anguish as she moved towards him startled him visibly. He stared at her and she saw the recognition in his eyes, but already he was fading, and the rush of cold wind on her face and the stone beneath her desperate hands once again told her that she had lost him.
‘Time. I must study time. I must find him when he is young.’ Her hands shaking, she made her way back to the hut and felt over the door for the strike-a-light to fire the wood and kindling she had left stacked in the dry near her stone fireplace. Holding her hands out to the warmth she breathed slowly and deeply, trying to concentrate her mind. She remembered her training – when you return from travel you eat to regain strength and re-establish your roots in the ground. Reaching above her into the darkness she found the capercaillie meat, hung from the roof beams where the thin slices she had carved from the carcass had dried in the smoke of the fire, and she chewed on it, feeling the flavour grow rich and nourishing in her mouth. In her head she was working out the position of the stars and of the moon and remembering the lessons of her Uncle Broichan.
When she again made the leap into time A-dam was young once more, but he was holding his wife in his arms and Brid, watching, knew that he must be freed from these people who clung to him and held him from her and stopped him reaching out to touch her as she hovered hear him. When she stood next by the stone she had her knife in her belt and an amulet at her throat. This time she would not fail.
She knew by the stars she was in the right time. The place too was correct, though the windows of the house had been painted and the door was shut. Standing in the garden she crept forwards and looked into his study from the flower bed outside. At first she thought the room was empty, then she saw that Adam was standing near the door. Facing him was his son, and behind the young man was a woman. Brid stiffened as she watched, her senses quivering. In the woman’s arms was a baby.
‘You cannot take that child out of the country. It would be complete madness!’ Adam was shouting now. ‘Good God Almighty, Calum, have you no sense at all! Please, think. She is only a few months old! Have you any idea at all of the diseases you will find in these places! Have you any idea how many adults die on the hippy trail? Do you know what hepatitis can do? Or typhoid or cholera?’ He turned round and walked over to the window, smacking his fist against the palm of his hand. His face was working with anger and grief. ‘And what about your career?’ He swung round without looking out. ‘Have you no interest at all in going to university any more?’
‘Cool it, Dad.’ Calum put a protective arm round Julie. ‘You’ll upset the baby. Look, you knew this is what we planned to do. Of course I’ll go to university. When I come back. What’s the hurry? There’s all the time in the world, okay? And as for Beth catching diseases, that’s rubbish. She’s had her vaccinations and stuff, and she’ll be fine. Loads of babies go off with their parents; loads of babies get born on the way. That’s what’s natural.’
‘She will be all right, Uncle Adam.’ Julie’s voice was very quiet. ‘You mustn’t be so stuffy. And you can’t stop us!’
‘No!’ Adam threw himself down on the chair behind his desk. ‘No, I haven’t been able to stop Calum doing anything, have I, since you entered his life? Have you any idea how much damage you have done? His exams, his ambitions, his future.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘And now you take that innocent child –’
‘Dad, that’s enough!’ Calum’s voice rang through the room. ‘You can’t talk to Julie like that.’
‘Yes I can!’ Adam’s face was white with anger. ‘Isn’t it bad enough to know the mother of my grandchild smokes pot –’
‘No? You think I don’t know what the stuff smells like!’
‘Julie, I think we should go.’ Calum reached for the door handle. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I really am. I thought you and I would one day be able to have a sensible conversation, but as it is, I doubt if it will ever happen. So I don’t think there is any point in continuing this discussion or any other. Tell Mum I’m sorry we missed her. We’ll be in touch with her when we come back from Nepal.’
‘Calum –’
‘No, Dad. That’s enough. And I think you can forget the career in medicine. You’re right. I don’t have what it takes. I’m not sure if I’ll bother to do anything at all. Why don’t I just behave like the layabout you obviously think I am!’ Calum ushered Julie past him into the hall. ‘Don’t bother to see us out.’ With one last furious look at his father he slammed the door.
‘I won’t!’ Adam bellowed after him. ‘And don’t bother to come back, I never want to see any of you again!’
He sat where he was without moving. He was shaking like a leaf. For a long time he stayed, staring down at the blotter on his desk, then slowly he reached for his handkerchief and blew his nose. When he stood up and walked over to the window again, of long habit seeking the comfort of looking at his roses, his eyes were full of tears.
Outside the window Brid watched him in silence. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but the glass was in the way. Stepping forward she put her hands up against the pane, near his face, trying to reach him, but he didn’t see her. For a moment he stayed where he was, then he turned away. Slowly he walked to the door and went out into the hall.
The front door was open. On the step a small teddy bear lay face down amongst the scatter of dead leaves. Stooping, he picked it up, then quietly he closed the door and walked back towards his study.
In the car little Beth was screaming. Julie clutched at her, trying to rock her to sleep. ‘Quiet, quiet, please, please be quiet. Drive slowly Calum, there’s no need to go so fast. Calum, please!’
‘He’s so stupid!’ Calum changed gear and turned onto the A1. ‘He is so damn stubborn and old fashioned. And as for accusing you of smoking pot!’
‘I did once.’ Julie buried her face in the baby’s hair. ‘I did once, when I was staying there and you came back late. I felt so lonely and unwanted, and your father was so sniffy towards me, I went up to the bathroom and had a joint –’
‘You did what?’ Calum turned and stared at her in shock. ‘Julie!’
‘I know, I’m sorry. Calum, for Christ’s sake, watch the road!’ She closed her eyes and sighed with relief as Calum pulled the car back on course, narrowly missing a white van which came racing out of the darkness of the straight road, horn blaring. On either side of them the tall poplars rose, black sentinels in the darkness, flashing by as Calum increased his speed. It was beginning to rain again and the windscreen of the old Mini smeared beneath the wipers. ‘Come on, Calum, let’s forget your father. I’m fed up with him always there, always criticising me. Let’s go. Let’s just go. We could be in France by tomorrow. Let’s drive towards the sun, and never come back!’
Calum turned towards her and grinned. ‘You’re right. Life is for living. We’ll go back and get our gear together and tell Max we want the van he offered us. We’ll get shot of all this hassle.’ He groped for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Beth, baby, you are going to have one incredible childhood!’
Brid, standing in the garden, watched in despair as Adam sat at his desk weeping. She pressed her hands against the window again, then went to the French doors, and knocked. Still he didn’t seem to hear her. Her hands on the glass made no sound and she beat against them harder.
A-dam! A-dam!
Her cry was caught up on the wind and whisked away without him hearing her.
A-dam, let me in!
What was wrong? Why couldn’t she make him hear? Sobbing with frustration she stepped away from the glass doors. It was his son’s fault, his son and that stupid insipid child his son called wife. They made A-dam unhappy. He wasted his love and emotion on them when he could be with her. Her desperation and fury focused suddenly on them, the two young people with their baby in the silly little blue car who had gone away laughing to leave her A-dam crying and alone.
When she found herself out on the road in the rain she did not understand for a moment what had happened. A car sped past her, hooting and she jumped back out of its way. Then she realised where she was and she smiled. The Mini was going more slowly, but still, when she stepped out in front of it and raised her hands to curse the man and woman whose faces she saw momentarily as white screaming shapes in the blackness, it spun and skidded round four times before spinning off the road and into the ditch, where it lay with its wheels in the air, the only sound the hissing of steam and the thin high-pitched wail of a baby crying.