Earlier that day Idina Campbell had been to Peter Jones. The four carrier bags with their distinctive green and white stripes lay discarded on the elegant Regency sofa in the drawing room. She had dropped them there when she came in, losing interest in her purchases almost as soon as they were made. Fretfully she had made her way into Giles’s study and looked round. The floor as always was covered with books and maps, the desk a sea of papers, old half-drunk mugs of coffee, overflowing ashtrays and sticky notes to himself stuck over the phone, the wall, the filing cabinet and the computer – sometimes she wondered how he could see the screen at all. She would have been astonished to know that every inch of the chaos and muddle in Giles’s room represented meticulous filing to him. He could lay his hand on any paper or letter within seconds – well, more or less – and knew where just about every book in his extensive travel library was. As long as Idina didn’t touch anything.
She shuddered. Her husband’s room was so different from the rest of the house, so alien to everything that she liked and aimed for she wondered sometimes how she could live with him another minute. It was such a relief when he was away. She thought for a moment about Damien Fitzgerald, her latest protégé; he was everything Giles was not. A society photographer who had entrée everywhere that mattered, he kept his creativity and his talent carefully confined and organised. She had seen his study and dark room only the day before. It had been in that dark room that Damien had turned to her with perfect timing and gently but masterfully put his beautifully manicured hands on the shoulders of her shantung suit and pulled her towards him for a kiss. The kiss had shot a message through her system which dear old Giles with his dutiful fumbling had failed to convey for years.
She stared round thoughtfully. On the top of Giles’s desk were some sketches of a Celtic cross and others of a castle. She sighed. Giles and his latest obsession. The book. The book he was going to do with Beth Craig. She sat down on the chair near his desk, first lifting a pile of magazines and papers and throwing them to the ground. There was nothing in here that would betray him, of course. All Giles’s dreams and fantasies about Beth were where Idina would never find them, in his head. That little bitch had set her cap at Giles the first time she had met him. With a shudder she pictured Beth’s wild dark curling hair, her Bohemian, don’t-care clothes, the paint under her fingernails, and her equally dreadful grandmother, the countess. Well, they could be seen off with no difficulty again as they had been seen off before. If that was what she wanted. Idina smiled to herself and went back to contemplating the delightful prospect of whether or not she should have an affair with Damien. Damien or Giles.
If she flew up to Scotland now, today, that would shake Giles and his floozy up a bit. Spoil their fun. And she could still be back in time for Damien’s party. That would be amusing. Idina stood up purposefully. Amusement was, after all, what life was all about.
Accident and Emergency. Fourteen stitches. Painkillers. The police.
It was dawn before Beth turned the Porsche wearily into its place outside the doors of the hotel and climbed out. She stood for a second taking deep breaths of the cold, pure air and then went round to help Giles. He was very white, his torn blood-stained jacket slung round his shoulders, his left arm heavily bandaged and in a sling.
Patti met them on the steps. ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ She was already dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater, her hair pulled back from her face in a perky knot. Breakfast for her energetic hill-walking guests started very early. ‘You haven’t crashed Dave’s car?’
Giles managed a grin. ‘No. No damage to anything important. Just me.’
‘Oh Giles!’ She caught his good arm and squeezed it. ‘You know I didn’t mean that! What happened? Did you have a fall?’
‘He was attacked by some kind of wildcat. Near my grandfather’s house,’ Beth put in. ‘We’ve spent most of the night in the hospital. And with the police.’ Trying, she wasn’t quite sure why, to persuade them not to go hunting for the animal with high-powered rifles.
She was pushing her way in through the front door when Patti put her hand on her arm. ‘Listen, you two.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Idina arrived last night, after you left. I thought you ought to know. She insisted I put her in your room, Giles, and of course she wanted to know where you were.’ She glanced from one to the other and registered their shocked faces. ‘Dave and I said that Beth had been summoned because her grandfather was ill and you went with her, Giles, to help drive. I don’t know whether we did right, but we didn’t know you’d be out all night! She stayed up until after midnight, waiting for you. She was awfully cross.’ This was, even by Patti’s standards, an understatement.
‘Oh shit!’ Giles closed his eyes, swaying slightly. ‘That’s all I need.’
Beth relinquished her hold on Giles’s arm. ‘You’d better go up and explain,’ she said bleakly.
‘Beth –’
‘No, Giles, there’s no point in talking about it. Just go.’
She followed Patti into the kitchen and sat down at the table, exhausted. ‘I can’t believe it. Not after everything we’ve been through last night. Why did she come?’ She was near to tears. She had sworn she wouldn’t let herself fall in love with him again. She had determined to be so strong. And it had worked. Almost.
Patti shrugged diplomatically. ‘You look as though you could do with some good strong coffee and a huge cooked breakfast. How does that sound?’
Beth hesitated, automatically assuming she could eat nothing, then she realised suddenly that she was ravenous and that the wonderful smells coming from two plates being carried into the dining room had made her mouth water.
‘Can I have it in here with you?’
‘If you don’t mind me rushing about like a mad flea. She won’t give him up easily, you know.’ She paused looking down at Beth.
For a moment Beth was confused. How did Patti know about Brid? Then she realised that she was talking about Idina again and she slumped back in her chair, allowing exhaustion and depression to sweep over her.
‘I’m sorry, love.’ Patti put the coffee down in front of her. ‘But I’ve known Idina for years. I like her very much but there is no hiding the fact that she is a very possessive woman. Dave and I have always wondered how much she really loves Giles. I suspect not all that much. But he is one of her possessions. She will fight to the death to keep him.’
‘Is that why she’s come up here. Because of me?’
‘You bet. Nothing would drag her out of Chelsea otherwise. Specially not Scotland. She’s never bothered to come here before.’ Patti was breaking eggs into a bowl. ‘Now tell me about this cat. It must have been terrifying. And how was your grandfather?’
‘Odd.’ She had an overwhelming urge to tell Patti everything that had happened, but something stopped her. She did not want Adam ridiculed any more, and she needed time to think. The cat attack had terrified them both. It was too violent and too sudden – and too specific – to be a coincidence.
She was coming out of her bathroom after breakfast, hair washed, bathed, wrapped in a towel, her thoughts still relentlessly and miserably whirling from Giles and Idina to her grandfather and back, when the phone rang.
‘Beth, I’m at Heathrow. Michele says you’ve been trying to reach me. What’s wrong?’ Liza’s voice was sharp. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? What are you doing in Scotland? Shall I take the shuttle to Edinburgh and come?’
How could Beth have forgotten her grandmother’s intuition?
‘Sweetheart? Can you hear me? Are you all right?’ Liza went on, her voice so clear she might have been in the same room.
Beth threw her towel on the bed and sat down, the telephone receiver in her hand. ‘Oh thank God! Liza, you are not going to believe what’s been going on.’
During her recital Liza was totally silent. Only when at last Beth paused to draw breath did Liza speak.
‘Never mind the ifs and buts, Beth.’ Far away in the busy arrivals lounge in Terminal 2 Liza had gone completely cold. ‘If Adam is looking for a way to raise Brid from the dead, or conjure her up or something, I take it very seriously indeed. That cat was no coincidence. Don’t go near your grandfather again, do you understand me? If she is back, she won’t let anyone close to him. She won’t hesitate to kill again. And you are probably her prime target as the only member of his family left. Listen, I’m catching the first plane and I’m coming up there. I mean it, Beth. Don’t go near him again until I come.’
Beth sat still for several minutes after she had hung up, trying to take in what she had heard, then at last she lay back on the bed. Her mind was still racing in spite of her exhaustion. Adam and Brid. Giles and Idina. The cat with its vicious claws and snarling teeth. Closing her eyes she felt warm slow tears beginning to slide down her cheeks and miserably she turned her face into the pillow.
She was awoken from an uneasy doze by Giles creeping into the room, his finger to his lips. He had showered and changed out of his blood-stained clothes but he was still looking very white and strained. ‘Idina’s gone out for a walk. To cool off.’ He sat down on the bed. ‘Oh Christ, Beth, what are we going to do?’
She glanced at him as he eased his painful arm in the sling. ‘What does she want?’
He grimaced. ‘She thinks I’m having an affair with you.’
Beth was silent. She didn’t know what to say.
I love you so much it hurts.
I wish I was having an affair with you.
What good would that do? The only night he had spent with her in Scotland had been in the Accident and Emergency department of a hospital.
Not very romantic.
Idina was his wife and he must still love her or he would have divorced her by now.
She levered herself up onto her elbow. ‘What did you tell her?’ Her voice was husky.
He shrugged. ‘She wanted to know about my injury. But we didn’t really talk. She was too angry.’
Beth sighed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘Liza has just rung. She has flown into Heathrow from Florence. I told her what happened. She is coming straight on here.’
Don’t go near your grandfather … She won’t hesitate to kill again.
Liza’s words echoed suddenly again in her head. ‘She said it’s all true about Brid.’
There was a moment of shocked silence. Giles shook his head wearily. ‘I don’t suppose you’re joking?’
‘No.’ She closed her eyes. ‘No, Giles, I’m not. I wish I was.’ She looked at him and suddenly her hands were shaking. ‘Liza said Brid wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.’
‘She can’t mean it.’ Giles shivered. ‘My darling, I won’t let anything happen to you.’
‘How can you stop it with Idina here?’ She sat up and wrapped her arms round her knees. ‘You’d better go and let me get dressed,’ she added bleakly. ‘Liza will be here soon. Then she and I can concentrate on what to do about Adam.’
‘Beth.’ He sounded very stern. ‘I am here for you.’ Suddenly he leaned forward to kiss her. She closed her eyes. She should move away. She should leap out of bed and run. She should not let this go any further.
Their kiss lasted a long time. Then slowly he drew back. ‘I love you.’
She shook her head. ‘You can’t love two people, Giles. Not if they’re going to be happy. You have to decide between us.’ She slid out of the bed and picked up her clothes. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’
He hesitated, then he got to his feet. ‘Idina and I don’t get on any more –’
‘Don’t tell me. Tell her. Go on down, Giles.’ She sounded so calm; inside she was screaming at him: Tell her; tell her you love me! Get rid of her if she makes you unhappy! She forced herself to smile. ‘Please. Go.’
Only after he had closed the door behind him did she let herself cry again.
In his meditation Meryn frowned. The threads he was trying to gather between his fingers had grown tangled. Distress and fear and blood clouded the images, and his touch grew less sure. He was needed. The time had come to withdraw from his searches of the pathways of time. The one he sought was waiting in the shadows, waiting for a passage to open to allow him to travel freely down the centuries. He had to be stopped. But first there were matters to address in this existence: not on a dark, mist-shrouded area of common on a Welsh hillside but on the lonely Scottish mountain where the story had begun and where the energies were coalescing for a battle which would end only in death.
When Beth walked at last into the library where guests were encouraged to congregate before meals for a drink, Giles was already there. He looked strained as he stood up and beckoned her over to the sofa by the fireplace. No one else was there yet and they had the room to themselves.
He reached forward and touched her hand. ‘Beth, I love you. I’m going to ask Idina for a divorce. Right now. While she’s up here.’ He paced up and down on the threadbare Persian carpet. ‘She’s playing games with us and if she wants a showdown, she’s going to get one.’
‘Giles –’
‘I need you. I’ve always loved you, since I first met you.’
‘But I don’t think you mean it, Giles.’ Beth spoke very gently. ‘We’ve said all this before, remember? In Wales. You can’t live without Idina. We both know that in an ideal world you could have us both and we’d both be happy, but we all know it is not an ideal world. We would all end up miserable.’
‘I don’t love Idina. It’s you I can’t live without.’
‘You can.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I don’t think we can work together. I’m sorry.’
‘Beth! What is it?’ He looked up angrily as Dave put his head round the door to tell Beth there was a call for her.
It was Ken Maclaren again. ‘I am so sorry to bother you,’ he said when Beth picked up the phone, ‘but Dr Craig has gone up into the hills somewhere and the weather is deteriorating badly. I don’t know if I should call the police – what do you think?’
She stared out of the window. The early-morning watery sunshine had disappeared and now it was raining hard. She could no longer see the distant mountains, and smoky cloud was drifting up across the lawns below the house.
‘Why do you think he’s in trouble?’
‘The door was wide open. The kettle had boiled dry. His post was lying on the table half open; he hadn’t taken his coat or his stick.’
Beth took a deep breath. ‘Listen, I’m waiting for my grandmother to come.’
Don’t go near your grandfather …
‘She’s on her way. You do what you think best, then when she arrives we’ll come over.’
When she returned to the library Idina was there, standing next to Giles, her hand resting possessively on his good arm. She was dressed in a shocking-pink wool dress and black tights. Her figure was pencil slim, her hair immaculate, her make-up porcelain-brittle.
She greeted Beth with a tight smile and a double kiss in the air a good three inches from Beth’s cheeks. ‘Mmm. How are you, sweetie? I hear you and Giles are going to be doing another book?’
Beth was for an instant intensely aware of her own less than svelte curves, clothed in bog-standard navy jeans and heavy cream sweater, a silk scarf knotted round her hair, and immediately put the image out of her head as being too depressing to live with. She smiled bravely. ‘I don’t know about that, Idina. It very much depends.’ She glanced at Giles, who was concentrating on his drink, his knuckles white on the glass. ‘How’s London?’
‘Better than this.’ Idina looked at the window and shuddered.
‘I can’t think why you came,’ Beth couldn’t resist saying.
‘We won’t be here long, sweetie, I assure you.’ Idina gave an icy smile. ‘Just as soon as Giles has finished up here we’re going on to visit some friends in Edinburgh.’
‘I told you, Idina, I am staying.’ Giles’s voice was harsh. ‘Beth and I are working on our book.’ He glanced at Beth. ‘What did Maclaren want? Is everything all right?’
‘Grandfather has gone missing again. I said we’d go over as soon as Liza arrives.’ Beth went over to the bar to order a whisky from George. The glass safely in her hand, she turned back to Idina, trying hard to contain her misery and resentment as she stared at the woman’s elegant figure. ‘He lives near Dunkeld.’
‘I see.’ Idina raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I fail to see why Giles needs to go with you.’
‘He doesn’t need to.’ Beth smiled wearily. Then she couldn’t resist adding, ‘But he might choose to.’
When Liza finally appeared late that afternoon she looked exhausted. Beth who had been watching from the library window, ran down the steps and enveloped her in a huge hug.
‘It’s been awful, I can’t tell you! Oh God, I’m so glad you’re here!’ She pushed Liza away so she could see her properly and felt a pang of remorse. ‘You look tired. I’m sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you –’
‘Don’t be so silly!’ Liza said crisply. ‘All I need is a cup of tea. And I need to know exactly what is happening.’ She was as slim and young-looking as ever, her fashionably cut hair showing only a few white threads amongst the auburn.
It took an hour for her to charm Dave and Patti, find her room, change, have her cup of tea and be ready for Beth to drive her over to Adam’s house.
There was no sign of Giles or Idina as Beth went into the office for Dave’s car keys. ‘Will you tell him where I’ve gone?’
‘Don’t worry.’ He winked. ‘If it’s any consolation they are not having a good time. You can hear the shouting down the corridor. Amongst other things, Idina doesn’t like the Scots rain. She must be afraid her frock will shrink.’ He gave a snort of laughter.
‘Dave!’ Beth pretended to be shocked. ‘I’ll ring you when I know what we’re doing, but don’t worry if you don’t hear tonight. Adam isn’t on the phone, and I suspect we’ll stay over there. We’ll play it by ear.’
‘Do I gather you and Giles are an item again?’ Liza leaned back in the deep leather passenger seat of the Porsche and closed her eyes as Beth turned out of the drive. It was already dark.
‘Hardly, with Idina here.’
‘Would you like to be?’
‘There’s no point in thinking about it. He’s still very married in case you hadn’t noticed. She’s the one in the pink dress.’
‘Silly woman!’ Liza sighed. ‘Poor darling. Life and love are never easy, are they?’
Beth glanced at her profile, illuminated by the dashboard lights. ‘Everything is all right with Michele?’
‘Yes, darling, everything is very all right with Michele.’ Liza’s eyes were still shut.
They stopped outside the Maclarens’ bungalow at last, after a slow journey through heavy rain, and ran up the path to where Ken waited in the open doorway.
‘Come away in and get warm and dry for a minute, then I’ll drive us all up the hill,’ he said after introductions had been made.
‘Did you speak to the police?’ Beth asked anxiously.
He nodded. ‘They have been up to Shieling House. They said there was no sign of the animal that attacked your friend, and they could see no tracks, but the rain has been so heavy, and my car or theirs, or the postie, or anyone else, might have obliterated them. There was still no sign of Dr Craig.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m worried. I know he thinks he knows the hills, but it’s a long time since he lived up here, and he’s not a young man. And the weather is appalling.’
They climbed into the minister’s old four-wheel drive and Beth, sitting beside him, peering out of the windscreen at the twin beams of the lights which reflected rivulets of mud pouring down the track, thanked heaven she had not had to drive the Porsche up here in the dark.
When they finally arrived Beth stared round nervously. She was wishing desperately that Giles was with them. Ken Maclaren had produced a large torch and the bright beam lit up the dripping bushes and the flattened grass in a wide arc as he swept it around. Beth held her breath, listening, but she could hear nothing but the sound of the wind and the rain.
They ran round the side of the house and Ken used his own key to Adam’s back door. He slammed the door shut behind them and scrabbled for the light switch.
‘It doesn’t help to think that wretched cat might be lurking somewhere around,’ he said soberly.
Beth and Liza exchanged glances.
‘It doesn’t look as though he’s been back,’ Beth said slowly. ‘Nothing has changed from last night.’
They walked through into the living room. Beth went over and pulled the curtains closed with a shiver. ‘I can’t help wondering if there is someone, or something out there watching,’ she said quietly.
Liza grimaced. ‘I think it’s a fair bet that there is. Go and check upstairs, sweetheart. Make sure the old reprobate isn’t asleep in his bed.’
Beth took a deep breath. She made for the staircase. Even with the lights on she could feel her fear returning, every nerve jangling as she climbed, her eyes frantically searching as she stepped onto the landing and looked at the open door of Adam’s room.
It was very quiet up here. Suddenly she could no longer hear the subdued voices below her where Liza and Ken were standing at the table looking down at Adam’s books.
Icy trickles of panic were creeping over her skin as she took first one step then another towards the darkened shadows ahead of her.
You have made my A-dam unhappy …
The voice was suddenly there, inside her own head. Beth clutched at the top of the banisters. Her mouth went dry.
I do not like people who make my A-dam unhappy …
‘Oh God!’ Her whisper sounded loud in the silence of the landing. She turned and fled downstairs.
‘Beth, what is it?’ Liza, peering at her over the top of her spectacles, had seen her white face.
‘It’s nothing. I just felt –’
‘You felt what? Did you see something? He’s not there, is he?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t look.’ She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.
Ken looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll go,’ he said. He took the stairs two at a time and they heard his footsteps stride across the landing, followed by the snap of a light switch.
‘I heard a voice. Inside my head. Was it Brid?’ Beth looked desperately at Liza.
Upstairs they heard Ken retrace his steps and repeat the manoeuvre in the bathroom and the other bedroom, then he reappeared on the stairs. ‘He’s not there. There’s no sign of him.’ He smiled at Beth. ‘My dear, I’m not surprised you’re worried. That cat could have got in when the door was open, but to be honest I doubt if it would. They are very shy beasts. It is unusual if not unheard of for them to hang around human habitation as far as I know. The police were very puzzled. They assumed you must have cornered it in some way and it felt threatened. I doubt we’ll ever see it again.’
Liza looked at Beth and frowned. The meaning of the expression was clear. Not in front of the minister. If Giles had initially found Adam’s story impossible to believe, how much more so would a man of the cloth?
‘What are we going to do? He can’t stay out all night in this weather.’ Beth was trying hard to get a grip on herself.
Ken shook his head. ‘I think I’d better ring the police again. Discuss it with them. I don’t know if we should suggest a search party? The thing that worries me so much is that his car is still here. But on the other hand we don’t know someone didn’t come and collect him.’
‘He would never have left the door open like that,’ Liza put in. ‘He might be old but there is nothing wrong with his memory. Is there?’ She turned to Beth.
Beth shook her head. ‘He seemed all there to me.’ She sighed. ‘How would a search party know where to look? He could be anywhere if he has gone out into the hills.’
‘And he wouldn’t. Not without his coat. He’s a sensible man,’ Liza added.
Beth raised an eyebrow. ‘Why didn’t he have a phone here? Surely he could afford it.’
‘I’ve asked him that.’ Ken sighed. ‘That, I’m afraid, was sheer stubbornness. He was very sharp with me and said there was no one he wanted to talk to on a phone and that he was perfectly capable of looking after himself. I asked him what would happen if he had a fall or something and he said if he had a fall it was his own damn silly fault and he would take the consequences.’
Liza smiled. ‘That’s my Adam.’
‘Not very helpful though, in these circumstances.’
‘No.’ Liza hesitated. ‘Mr Maclaren, can I ask, were there any signs that Adam was drinking heavily?’ She too had spotted the whisky bottle on the side. The level of alcohol in it, Beth had already noticed, did not seem to have moved.
Ken shook his head. ‘He told me he had been an alcoholic as near as makes no difference and he said he had it controlled. I’ve certainly never seen him drink.’
‘Liza!’ Beth’s eyes had strayed down to the books on the table and she realised suddenly that they had been rearranged since she had been there last. Several were lying open, others had bookmarks and one, on the top of the pile, had been marked in red ink. ‘Look!’ It was entitled Psychic Self Defence. She pushed it over the table.
Liza drew it to her and lowered her glasses from her hair onto her nose. She studied it for several minutes.
Ken frowned. ‘I deplore the content of most of those books.’
‘They consist mostly of history,’ Liza retorted. ‘And philosophy. They contain a great deal of wisdom.’ She went on reading.
‘They contain evil. Black magic. Witchcraft.’
‘Rubbish.’ Liza pushed her glasses back onto her hair. ‘Listen, young man, why don’t you go and make us all a cup of coffee whilst I look through some of these? They may give me some idea of where he is.’ The briskness of her tone told Beth that she was thoroughly irritated.
She watched as Ken made his way out of the room. ‘What is it? What have you seen?’
‘Look.’ Liza pushed the book across the table at her. ‘You spotted it. Read it.’
Beth sat down. Slowly she flipped through the book, reading the passages which had been marked and underlined in red:
It is a well known fact that if an occultist, functioning out of the body, meets with unpleasantness on the astral plane, or if his subtle body is seen, and struck or shot at, the physical body will show the marks.
And again, further down the page:
The artificial elemental is constructed by forming a clear-cut image in the imagination of the creature it is intended to create, ensouling it with something of the corresponding aspect of one’s own being and then invoking into it the natural force. This method can be used for good as well as evil …
Was Liza suggesting that that was how Brid made the cat? Or did she actually turn herself into it? Or had she somehow gone inside the body of a real cat? Beth looked up at Liza. ‘You believe all this stuff, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Beth, I believe all this stuff. Look at this. And this. And this.’ Book after book on Celtic magic had been marked in red. The sections were all on shape-shifting and out of body experience, pathworking. ‘He’s been trying it. Or he’s been planning to try it. And it’s all linked to that stone.’ She threw the sketch on the table in front of Beth. ‘Do you see? He’s been working out what these symbols mean.’
‘Giles knows about those.’
‘I doubt it.’ Liza frowned. ‘He might think he does, but I think Adam has worked out some totally different system. You see how he’s annotated this book?’
‘The carving of a mirror. He’s ringed that.
‘Brid’s mark, it says. The sign of a Druidess or female magician, able to transcend “reality”. These stones are signposts; they direct the way through parallel worlds, not to places in our own.
A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleases through it pass
And then the heaven espy.
She hesitated, squinting at the tiny scribbled writing: Into the past or the future. Place where the veil is thin. She looked up at Liza. ‘Veil?’
‘Between the planes.’ Liza smiled. ‘Esoteric stuff again. He is implying that that is where Brid comes and goes between our time and hers.’
Beth shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t get my head round this stuff. I’m not being obstructive, but it sounds like some kind of fantasy world.’
‘There is often truth behind fantasy, Beth.’ Liza smiled. ‘Read your Jung. Don’t worry about it for now. Let us just assume that that is what Adam believes. Has he gone to the signpost?’
‘The standing stone thing? Ken Maclaren says it isn’t far from here. You walk up the ridge behind the house, apparently. He said Grandfather had been obsessed with the stone.’ She paused. ‘You think he’s gone up there? In the dark?’
‘It wouldn’t have been dark when he went.’
They stared at each other.
‘Beth, darling. I don’t know if it has occurred to you but tonight is Halloween. That is one of the nights when the veil, if you will allow me to use that term again, is thin. It is traditionally supposed to be easier for spirits to pass between their world and ours on a night like this. Supposing he has chosen tonight to try and go and look for Brid?’
‘But why should he want to look for her if she keeps chasing him? If she was here, as a cat? If I could hear her, just now?’
Liza bit her lip. She shook her head and shrugged, then she sat down again, and rested her head on her hands. ‘I don’t know what to think. I just can’t get this vision out of my head, of him up there on the open mountainside, in the pouring rain, perhaps taken ill, perhaps too tired to come home, perhaps injured or lost.’
‘You think we should go and look for him don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
They both glanced up as Ken reappeared with a tray of coffee mugs. Sliding it onto the table amongst the books he sighed. He had heard her last comment. ‘I think we should look for him too. Drink this whilst I ring Moira. We’ll stop off at the manse and collect torches, and some of my camping stuff and survival equipment.’
Beth looked at Liza doubtfully. The thought of going out in the dark terrified her. ‘Do you think you should wait here –’
‘No.’ Liza glared at her. She was indignant. ‘I’m probably fitter than you, and this young man, and his wife as well. I walk miles each day in Tuscany and I have lived in the hills all my life. If you think a bit of wind and rain are going to put me off, you are very mistaken.’
But they put me off, Beth thought miserably. And so does the thought that out there somewhere there is a vicious female magician fourteen hundred years old and spoiling for a fight, or a wildcat bent on slitting my throat. And the fact that it is Halloween. But she said nothing.
‘We’ve both got strong shoes and good coats,’ Liza went on. ‘Beth, I know what you’re thinking but I’m guessing that she won’t be there.’ She glared at Ken again, challenging him to ask who they were talking about. ‘If Adam has gone into her time, then she will be there with him. If he is ill or injured she will want us to find him. Believe me, whatever else she does or doesn’t do, she loves him.’
Beth did not see, luckily, the surreptitious crossing of her fingers under the table as she spoke.
‘If you go after her, I am going to get a divorce.’ Idina had screamed the words after him as Giles climbed into the car and sat for a moment staring up at his wife, who was standing in the hotel doorway, sheltering from the streaming rain. Lightning lit the front of the hotel for a fraction of a second then all was darkness again except for the small square of light seeping round her slim figure from the lamps in the hall behind her. He shook his head. ‘I have just spent three hours telling you that that is what I want.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’ He paused for only a second. ‘Didn’t you say Damien is waiting for you, to take you to a party, Idina?’ The look he gave her was one of complete contempt. ‘I’d say that was more important than waiting to see if an old man has died in a storm, wouldn’t you?’ Without looking at her again he backed out his borrowed car – from one of the waitresses this time – and turned it towards the drive, wincing at the sharp pain in his elbow. When he glanced in the mirror he saw her still standing there in the rain, watching him drive away.
He reached Shieling House as Liza and Beth were getting into the minister’s car. ‘Giles?’ Beth stared at him, her face alive with hope. ‘Where is Idina? What’s happened?’
‘Idina is going back to London,’ Giles commented tersely. ‘For good. I am here to stay. Wherever you want me, my darling.’ He put his arms out and gave her a quick hug.
Beth looked up at him. She smiled incredulously, then she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Oh Giles –’
‘Come on, you two.’ Ken pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. He grinned at them. ‘If a celebration is in order, I suggest we do it later.’
They stopped at the manse. Moira was ready for them with thermoses of hot soup and two rucksacks, one large, one small, and all the torches she had been able to find. She was already dressed in stout walking shoes with a thick quilted jacket and scarf. Ken frowned at her, worried. ‘Are you sure you want to come?’
‘How could I not?’ She reached up to kiss him, standing on her toes. ‘I’m very fond of old Dr Craig. And don’t worry. I phoned and told the police the situation. If we run into any kind of problem they’ll come out or call Mountain Rescue for us.’
They parked the car in a lay-by at the foot of a hillside path. A sign, slightly askew amongst the brambles, pointed up the hill indicating that the footpath led up to the Symbol Stone one and a half miles away. Somewhere out of sight to their right Beth could hear the rushing of the mountain stream, as it cascaded down the hillside through its ravine of rocks. On either side of them the trees, clinging to the steep path, were festooned with dripping lichen. Her feet were slipping on the wet rock, and the roar of the wind in her ears blocked out everything but the rush of water. The footpath followed the bed of the stream fairly closely, climbing the ravine between the trees, winding round rocky outcrops, swiftly growing steeper and steeper until in places the footholds were almost like a staircase amongst the entwined tree roots. The water was deafening as the burn, swollen by the storm, hurled itself down over waterfalls and cataracts. When Ken, leading the way, turned off his torch for a moment they could still see the luminous foaming white in the darkness and feel the trembling of the ground beneath their feet. Lightning flickered between the trees and Beth shivered. She glanced up at Ken’s back in its shiny waterproof and heavy rucksack to where he was shining his torch along the path until the beam of light grew feeble between the serried trunks. He had handed out the torches, spare batteries, and woollen scarves before they set off and had tried very hard and without success to persuade Liza to stay behind in the car.
Every nerve tense and alert, Beth plodded on, every now and then glancing back to see that Liza was still there beside Moira, aware that Liza, at nearly seventy, was not kidding when she said she was fitter than any of them.
Giles, stumbling on the scree, hurried to catch her up and she felt his hand take hers. She glanced at him and smiled. She felt safer with him there. Behind them Moira, her own small rucksack loaded with coffee and sandwiches, stumbled on the steep path. They waited for her and Liza, their torches bright on the slippery rock. ‘Okay?’ Giles felt his words being drowned in the roar of the water nearby. Moira looked up and smiled. She nodded. ‘Okay.’
There was a sudden rush of wind, stronger than the rest, and Beth stumbled on a loose piece of scree. They were coming up out of the treeline now, and it was getting colder. Ken stopped. He turned and waited for them. ‘Everyone all right? It’s a bit further, I’m afraid, and it gets quite a bit steeper. Shall we take a breather?’ He turned off his torch to save the batteries and they stood together for a moment.
‘What happens if he’s there?’ Liza asked, raising her voice against the scream of the wind.
‘If we need help getting him down we ring the police.’
She nodded, staggering against him as another gust of wind caught her.
‘We’d better get on,’ he bellowed, trying to make himself heard. ‘I don’t like the way the weather is deteriorating. And we don’t want to get chilled. Come on.’
They walked closer together now, their torches illuminating a faint path through the rocks and heather, the bright circles of light blocking out their night vision so that when Beth looked up into the teeth of the wind and sleet she could see nothing at all. She stumbled and almost fell.
Liza caught her arm. ‘Are you all right?’
Beth shook her head. Her fear was growing. There was something out there watching them, she could feel it strongly now. She saw Liza’s eyes on her face, and she saw her grandmother smile reassuringly. She wanted to cry out, but the words wouldn’t come. Already Ken was moving on without them and all she wanted to do was to catch him up.
‘Not far,’ Liza mouthed. ‘Keep going.’
Beth shrugged herself deeper into her coat and forced herself to move on, Giles close beside her. Whatever it was out there wasn’t coming any closer. It was pacing them.
It was Liza who stopped next. She bent over and caught her breath. ‘Sorry. Stitch. We’re going a mite too fast even for me!’
Ken waited, his eyes going out at last into the darkness beyond their small circle of light.
Then at last Liza felt it. She straightened and looked round. ‘There’s someone here.’
‘What?’ Ken stared round. ‘Where?’
She turned off her torch, and gestured for the others to do the same. ‘I can feel someone watching us.’
‘Adam?’
She shook her head.
‘I’ll shout –’
‘No!’ She clutched at his arm. ‘No, don’t. We don’t know who or what it is.’ She turned round slowly, staring out into the dark. ‘Whoever it is doesn’t want us to know he or she is here.’
‘How do you know?’ Ken spoke close to her ear.
She shrugged. ‘Women’s intuition. Instinct. It’s not Adam.’
‘Is it Brid?’ Beth huddled closer to them, feeling an icy shiver running across her shoulders. Giles had put his good arm around her.
‘I don’t think so. Don’t ask me why. How far is it to the stone?’
Ken stared round. ‘It’s easier to see where we are with the torches off. Between the clouds there, against the stars see, that’s the high peak of Ben Dearg in the distance. I think we’re fairly close to the cross. We’re lucky there is a path up here now. Not so long ago no one came up here at all.’
‘Except Adam,’ Beth put in quietly.
Liza was frowning. ‘You called it a cross!’ She pulled at Ken’s coat. ‘We’re not going to find a cross! We are looking for a Pictish symbol stone.’
He nodded. ‘That’s right. There is a Celtic cross on the front and Pictish symbols on the back.’ He smiled at her cheerfully. ‘Not long, I promise, and you’ll see for yourself.’ He turned swiftly as a flicker of lightning lit up the horizon. ‘I hope that’s not the heathen Picts in action. When St Columba came to Inverness to convert King Brude his Druid conjured up a storm to frighten him away. Or at least he tried to. I have a feeling it didn’t work, because Christ’s power was so much greater.’
‘That was Broichan,’ Beth said slowly. She was wiping the rainwater out of her eyes.
‘That’s right. Broichan.’ Ken looked at her in surprise. ‘You’ve been studying your grandfather’s books, I see.’ He turned and led the way on upward and after a glance at each other in the dark, Liza and Beth switched on their torches and followed him.
As they climbed higher the storm grew worse. Lightning flashed around the mountain peaks in the distance, then began slowly to travel towards them and now at last they could hear the thunder rumbling round the hills. Beth bit down on her fear, forcing herself to plod onwards. Whatever was watching them was still there, she was certain of it, and as she caught sight of Liza looking quickly over her shoulder beside her she knew her grandmother was feeling the same.
Liza reached out and took her hand. ‘Not far, sweetheart. He’ll be there. I can feel it.’
Ahead of them Ken stopped again. He was flashing his torch around on the track in front of him. ‘The path’s gone. I can’t see it. This wretched sleet is obliterating everything.’ Ahead the heather and grass stretched in all directions, as far as his beam of light reached. Beyond that there was darkness.
Beth shivered and this time Ken noticed. ‘We’ll find it, don’t worry.’
‘What if we don’t?’ She was staring round, flashing her own torch into the distance. ‘What if Grandfather couldn’t find his way either? It’s getting colder. Supposing he’s lost? Supposing we are all lost?’
‘We’re not lost, Beth.’ Liza’s voice was still strong. ‘Don’t worry. We’re close, I am sure we are.’
Ken took a few paces ahead and stopped again. He shone his torch up into the rain and then he gave a cry of triumph. ‘I can see it. There!’
The huge stone slab, black with rain, reared up ahead of them like a great jagged tooth, illuminated by the flickering lightning, and even from where they stood they could see at once that there was someone or something huddled at its foot.
Alone in the darkness Brid stared round. She did not know where she was. She could feel the wind, hear the rain on the leaves of the trees, hear the thunder, but she was lost. Lightning flickered and she felt a charge of energy but in a second it had gone and she was left in the long dark night once more. A-dam was there somewhere. She had heard him calling her. Desperately she fought to reach him but she couldn’t.
She could feel Broichan close. He was hunting her, his skills far greater than hers, his strength unabated. When he caught her he would kill her and he would kill A-dam.
There was someone else there too; the Welsh stranger who followed Broichan through the layers of time. He was drawing closer.
She turned round slowly, feeling the wind lift her hair, sensing the darkness. If the storm came closer she would feel stronger. Her body, the body which lay in the bed as Broichan’s prisoner, was growing weaker by the day.
For him to kill her body without the soul would mean nothing. So he kept it alive by employing the best healers to wash it and feed it and give it broth and milk and wine until her spirit returned from searching between the ages. When she returned to that bed it would be to die at Broichan’s hands.
Her brain was fuzzy. It would not think properly. Nothing stayed in her mind save the one imperative, to find A-dam and be one with him. And now he had gone again. He was not in his house, not in his car, nowhere that she could find him, and somewhere out there, somewhere close, other people were hunting too. People who would take him from her, just as he had learned to come back to her at the stone.
She waited for the lightning to flash again, breathing in its energy, feeling the strength return. A-dam was close. If she could get to him she would take him into the shadows with her and then they could be together forever without bodies to shackle them.
She smiled to herself. There was another source of energy, of course. One which would revitalise her completely, at once. The shedding of living blood required no skill. It required no initiation, no special Druid learning. She had discovered for herself in the act of killing that the energy released by death would come to her. And close, near the stone, she could sense now the people who wanted to take A-dam from her. It was as her knife appeared in her hand that her wandering mind realised who they were, the two who had come between her and A-dam for a very long time. The woman Liza and the child of A-dam’s child, Beth.
It was right that they should die to give her and A-dam life.
‘Is he still alive?’ The five figures huddling over him shone their torches down at Adam, and saw his white face, his soaked clothes, his closed eyes, felt his freezing skin. Ken pressed beneath the old man’s ear, seeking for a pulse, and he looked up, shaking the rain from his eyes. ‘I’ve got one. He’s alive. But only just.’
He was tearing off his own jacket when Liza put her hand on his arm. ‘There’s no point in you dying of cold too, Ken. You need it.’
He stared at her and then he nodded. He lowered the rucksack to the ground and tore it open. ‘Help me wrap him up. Here, Beth,’ he groped frantically in his pocket, his fingers wet with rain, ‘take the phone, ring the police. We’re going to need help getting him out of here.’
She took it from him as he, Moira and Giles worked on Adam in the light from the two torches which Liza held aloft. From the rucksack came chemical heatpacks which Ken tucked inside Adam’s shirt and jacket at armpit and groin, then they wrapped him in the deceptively frail foil survival blanket, their fingers slipping in the cold rain, fixing the cocoon around him with its sticky tapes, then finally Ken reached for the bright orange survival bag.
As they hurried to make him warm, Beth, with her back to the wind, fumbled with the tiny buttons on the phone, her frozen fingers slipping as she tried to dial.
‘I can’t get a signal.’ Panicking, she tried again, moving further away from them. ‘Ken, I can’t get through!’ She turned round slowly and moved further, wondering if the stone itself was interfering with the reception.
Preoccupied in their small intense circle of torchlight the others did not hear her. The wind was trying to wrestle the bag out of their hands, and Adam was a dead weight between them, his head falling back helplessly, his eyes still closed.
In the trees Brid watched, the knife steady in her hand. Adam was ill. She reached out for him in the darkness.
A-dam, what is wrong? A-dam, come to me.
There was no reply. She was not strong enough.
Her eyes narrowed. Beth was moving closer to the trees.
‘Hello?’ Beth had dialled and was trying to hear if there was a ringing tone against the roar of the wind. ‘Hello? Help us, please! We’ve found him at the cross. He’s unconscious. He’s desperately ill. Hello, can anyone hear me?’
Behind her Ken and Giles had at last managed to push Adam’s feet into the bag. Slowly and painfully they eased it up his cold body. Liza was chafing his hands, trying to warm them as she tucked them into the silver foil. Carefully they propped him with his back against the stone, letting it shelter him from the worst of the sleet and wind as they knelt round him.
At last Giles looked up. ‘Beth? Have you got through?’ He stared out into the rain. ‘Beth, where are you?’ His voice rose sharply.
Ken looked up. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Where is she? I can’t see her!’
Ken climbed to his feet and flashed his torch towards the trees. Liza and Moira were still holding Adam, their arms around his shoulders. ‘Stay there. Don’t move,’ he instructed. He stared round, narrowing his eyes against the rain, shivering. He shone the torchlight in a huge circle, cursing the fact that the batteries were failing. He ought to go back to the rucksack and replace them, but he did not want to change them until the last possible minute. ‘Beth, where are you?’
The Scots pines were grouped on the side of the ridge. Frowning, he stared at Giles. Why couldn’t they see her torch? Had hers failed?
‘Beth?’ Giles bellowed with all his strength, but the wind snatched the word from his lips and shredded it long before anyone could have heard it. He glanced back at Liza. She had both her arms round Adam, rocking him gently, willing warmth back into his frozen, wet body. Anxiously he stared round again and took a few steps nearer the trees. ‘Beth!’
Ken followed him. Now that he was standing up again and could feel the full force of the wind he was suddenly very tired. He stopped. He should never have allowed them all to come up here. He should have left it to the professionals. But every time he had been here before the weather had been gentle, the path easy to see, the views stunningly clear on every side. He had not realised how steep the path was, or how rugged the ground. Beth could have tripped and fallen, or lost herself in the trees. She could have slipped into a boggy mire or fallen over one of the cliffs which sliced the countryside into its stunningly rugged profile.
‘Beth!’ He was growing hoarse and he could feel the chill penetrating his body to the bone.
And then he saw her. The smallest flash from the torch, its beam weak, over by the trees. She had her hand to her ear – still trying to make herself heard on the mobile against the raging wind.
‘Beth!’ He pointed at her, his torch picking up at last her pale green jacket and her white face being lashed by her hair. Giles strode towards her. He had nearly reached her when they heard the growl from the trees.
She lowered the phone and stared in the direction of the noise. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Come away. Slowly.’ He held out his hand towards her, directing the beam of the torch into the pines. ‘It can’t be the same one. It can’t!’
‘It is. It’s Brid. She’s come for Adam.’ She was breathing heavily, the phone clutched in her hand. ‘Oh God, where is she? I can’t see!’
Giles stretched forward and caught her elbow. ‘This way. Away from the trees. Don’t run.’
The torch beam was failing. He glanced back. Ken was standing waiting for them, his torch pointed in their direction. Behind him at the stone Liza and Moira were still cradling Adam, oblivious to what was going on. They had nothing to protect themselves with, beyond the heavy torch with its rubber casing.
‘Ken!’ Beth called softly. ‘Help us!’ As she and Giles walked cautiously towards him she heard another snarl and she saw Ken look round. He had heard it. ‘Ken, be careful. It’s not a real cat.’ Her eyes were straining into the trees. ‘If you know any really good prayers I think you should say them now.’ Her voice was shaking violently.
‘What do you mean not a real cat?’ The wind was whipping the words from his mouth.
Slowly and steadily Giles was drawing her away from the trees.
‘I mean it is a woman. Some kind of an evil magician. Please don’t doubt me. Just use whatever power you have as a priest to send her away.’ Beth’s voice rose hysterically. ‘She’s going to attack us. She’s done it before. She wants to kill me!’
Giles’s arm tightened round her. ‘Come on. Let’s get back to the others quickly. I won’t let her touch you.’
The growl came again, closer, although he could see nothing in the fading beam. ‘Come on. Quick!’ He broke into a run, pulling her with him, jumping across the rough ground, running over heather and tussocks of bog cotton, followed closely by Ken.
Behind them the cat leaped from the trees.
Beth let out a scream.
Whirling, Giles pushed her behind him and faced the animal as it flew at them. Freeing his arm from the sling in one quick movement, Giles thrust the torch as hard as he could into the animal’s face with both hands, hearing the crunch of bone, followed by its yowl of pain.
The cat disappeared.
Shaking, his hands slippery with rain and blood, Giles stared round in the dark. The torch had gone out and he waited, breathing hard, listening with every ounce of concentration he possessed. Where was it? Had he killed it?
Suddenly a light reappeared over to his left. ‘Giles?’ Beth’s voice was very shaky. ‘Are you all right?’ She shone the light towards him and then beyond him at the trees. Standing near the pines they both saw, for a fraction of a second, the figure of a woman. She had her hands to her face. As the light hit her she stared up at them and as she moved her fingers they saw the blood pouring from her forehead beneath the long dark hair, the frightened, pain-filled eyes, her mouth open in agony; then Beth’s torch flickered and died.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Ken was staring at the spot where they had seen her. ‘Oh my God, what have you done?’
‘He’s saved our lives. Maybe.’ Beth caught Giles’s hand and held it tightly for a moment. ‘Come on. Quickly. Don’t wait. Let’s get back to the others.’
‘But the woman …’ Ken was staring over his shoulder.
‘Leave her!’ Beth was once more verging on being hysterical. ‘Come back to Liza, please!’
It was as they were making their way back towards the stone that Ken staggered suddenly backwards.
‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’ Giles waited for him anxiously.
‘Fine, just a stitch.’ Ken could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead. There was an agonising pain in his chest and down his left arm.
‘Ken?’ Beth was there now, her face close to his. ‘Come on, what’s wrong? Can you make it back to the stone?’ A flash of lightning illuminated his white face for a second and she could see the agony in his eyes.
‘I’m okay. Just let me rest a minute.’ The pain in his chest was getting worse. He couldn’t catch his breath.
‘We’re nearly there, old chap.’ Giles’s arm was round him now. ‘Only a few more steps.’ He glanced behind them into the darkness, but there was no sign of any movement.
Step by step he led Ken onwards, half carrying, half pushing him, terrified he was going to collapse, with Beth close behind them glancing in terror every few seconds over her shoulder.
Ken closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ He tried to smile. The irony that Liza was at least twenty-five years his senior had not escaped him. He was gritting his teeth against the pain. Trying to hide it, he closed his eyes for a moment.
‘You’ve been fantastic.’ Beth squeezed his arm. ‘Just breathe slowly and steadily. You’ll catch your breath.’ Her eyes scanned the black shadows between the trees behind them. ‘The worst is over. Once we reach the stone we can decide what to do.’
They staggered back towards the stone, and Giles lowered Ken gently down beside Adam.
‘What’s wrong?’ Moira’s voice was shrill.
‘Nothing.’ Ken forced himself to smile. ‘A silly stitch, that’s all. I’ll be all right in a minute. Giles. In the rucksack. New torch batteries.’
With a worried glance at him, Giles threw himself down on his knees beside Liza and started rummaging in the rucksack with shaking hands. ‘A wildcat attacked us.’ He glanced at her, holding her gaze for a moment, then he looked down at Adam. ‘Is he holding his own?’
‘Only just.’ Liza was staring at him in horror. ‘Are you both all right?’ She shone her own torch at him and saw the blood. ‘Oh my God. She’s hurt you.’
‘Only a scratch. Most of it is hers. I injured her pretty badly.’ Giles found the batteries and started to rip them from their packets. ‘Keep watch.’ He shook the rain out of his eyes. ‘It was a cat that attacked us, but then I saw a woman. Was that Brid?’
‘Of course it was Brid.’ Beth had knelt down beside them. She was staring out into the darkness, holding her dead torch in front of her like a baton. ‘She’s a witch. A magician. Liza was right. And she’s a killer.’
Giles slotted the new batteries into his torch with shaking hands and switched it on. He trained it on Adam and reached into the sleeping bag to check his pulse again. ‘It’s still very weak. Beth, the phone – did you get through all right?’
She stared round, stricken. ‘Where is it? Oh no, I must have dropped it when the cat attacked us! Oh God, I’m sorry! What are we going to do?’ She was staring round frantically.
He bit his lip firmly. ‘It doesn’t matter as long as you got through.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I got through. There didn’t seem to be a signal and it was crackling, and the wind and rain were so noisy I couldn’t hear if anyone spoke. Oh Giles, I’m sorry, I’ll go and look for it.’
‘You can’t.’ Liza was adamant. ‘You can’t possibly go back out there, not while that creature is still lurking around, and the phone will be ruined anyway if it’s been exposed to the rain. There’s no point in looking.’
Giles stood up. ‘I’m afraid there is. It’s Adam’s only hope.’ He glanced out into the darkness. ‘I’ll go. You all stay here.’
‘You’ll never spot it, Giles. Not in all the wet heather and mud.’ Liza appealed. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’ve got to try.’ He gave her a grave smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep my eyes skinned. I’ve got a good torch this time. I’ll find it.’
The three women watched as he retraced the route they had taken earlier, flashing the torch all round, onto the ground in front of him, then again into the trees ahead. Beside them Ken lay back in Moira’s arms, his teeth clenched against the pain.
‘I’m such a fool.’ Beth dropped to her knees beside Liza. ‘Oh God, this is awful.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘We wouldn’t see her if she crept up in the dark, would we?’
‘No.’ Liza was cradling Adam against her shoulder. ‘No, we wouldn’t.’
‘It’s my fault. If I hadn’t dropped the phone …’
‘Beth, you didn’t do it on purpose. No one is blaming you.’ Liza switched off her own torch with a shiver. ‘We’d better preserve the batteries and let our eyes get used to the dark. We’ve a better chance of spotting her that way.’ She was remembering Meryn, thinking of his strength, surrounding them all in her mind with a wall of impenetrable light.
Huddling together, from time to time they caught sight of Giles’s torch beam in the distance, methodically raking the ground as he drew further and further away towards the pines. Every now and then he swung it up into the air, drawing a quick sweep around him as though to check that there was no one there.
‘Will she attack us again?’ Beth huddled closer.
Liza shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She put her hand gently on Adam’s forehead. ‘Where is he, Beth? If he has gone into her time, why isn’t she there with him? Why is she still here?’
Beth stared at the old man’s face. His eyes were closed, his skin, wet with sleet, pale. There was no sign of inward struggle. His expression was serene. ‘You think he has transported himself into another time?’ She was speaking quietly so that Ken and Moira couldn’t hear.
Liza nodded. ‘I think he probably has, but maybe he got it wrong. Maybe he has gone to the wrong place or the wrong time. Oh, Beth, how do we know?’ She stared out to where Giles’s torch had temporarily disappeared. ‘Maybe Brid could tell us if she wasn’t so intent on killing us.’
‘I can’t see him.’ Beth too was searching for the sight of the distant torch beam. Her voice rose in panic. ‘Liza, I can’t see him!’
Liza tensed, staring round.
A-dam. Where is A-dam?
She was hearing the words somewhere in the back of her skull.
‘I still can’t see him!’ Beth had risen to her knees.
‘Wait.’ Liza put her hand on Beth’s arm. ‘Listen.’
‘What is it?’
‘I heard a voice. Her voice.’
‘Brid’s?’ Beth whispered the name. Both women listened, trying to tune out the sound of wind and rain.
A-dam!
‘There.’ Liza clutched at Beth again. ‘Did you hear it?’
The figure was barely visible in the periphery of her vision. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the rain in her face and stared again. Yes, there, on the edge of darkness, a darker figure, barely more than a shadow, the long hair and cloak part of the rain itself. She swallowed. ‘Brid?’ she called. She felt Beth stiffen in terror. ‘Brid, we have lost Adam too. Help us to find him.’ She held her breath. Was the shadow drifting closer? ‘Please. He’s lost. We all love him. Help us find him.’
The figure was definitely closer now. The terrified women could make out the details of her cloak, see the silver brooch which fastened it, the sweep of her hair under the hood now, her white face with its regular, pale features, a vivid, raw, blood-stained scar above her nose, the expressionless eyes and the rigid set to the mouth. She did not seem to be looking either at them or at Adam, but rather between them on the ground.
A-dam!
Her mouth didn’t move.
A-dam, I love you!
She was standing about twenty feet from them, her eyes now fixed on Beth’s face.
‘We all love him, Brid.’ Liza tried to keep her voice steady. She held her breath as the figure drifted closer.
Then, without warning, it launched itself at them and they both at the same moment saw the vicious, long-bladed knife in her hand. Beth screamed as she pulled Liza out of Brid’s path and found her eyes only inches away from the blazing fury of the fixed gaze. Desperately she raised her arm again to try to save herself. She was fending off the knife once more when she heard a voice from beside her.
‘In the name of Christ, go!’ Ken was sitting up, his hand shaking as he made the sign of the cross.
Brid hesitated. The knife still clutched in her hand, she paused in her attack.
‘It’s okay. I’m here!’ Giles had seen it all. He raced the last few yards towards them and, gasping for breath, he reached out towards Brid. ‘Leave them alone, you hell-hag!’ He was trying to grasp her knife. The torch arced up into the air and fell to the ground nose-down in a clump of tangled, wet heather, and he found himself flailing about in the dark.
A-dam!
Her pitiful scream tore through their heads.
A-dam, save me. I love you!
He felt the sharp bite of metal on his palm and he swore, desperately trying to wrestle it from her, but he was already exhausted. He couldn’t catch his breath.
Beth had climbed to her feet. She groped for the torch and shone it wildly in the direction of the struggle.
‘In the name of Christ, go!’ Ken was sobbing with pain.
Giles and Brid were circling, their feet slipping on the wet ground. In the torchlight and intermittent lightning Beth could see the flash of the blade. Behind her Liza rose to her knees, Adam still cradled in her arms. ‘Beth, no!’
‘I’ve got to help him.’ Beth crept closer to the fighting pair, the heavy torch raised high, ready to bring it down on Brid’s head if she could get close enough. She could hear Giles’s frantic, breathless gasps, see the knife only inches from his face. She was almost there when, with a deafening roar of engines and a whirlwind of spinning darkness, a helicopter swung in over the shoulder of the hill and hovered twenty feet above the cross-slab, flooding the area with light.
With a scream Brid dropped her knife and looked up, her hair and cloak streaming in the down-draught.
When Giles and Beth looked again, she had gone.