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Katherine Kurtz – Adept 02 – The Lodge of the Lynx

HE IS ETERNAL. SO ARE HIS FOES…

Through countless lives and eras, the Adept has fought the powers of Darkness. Now, as psychiatrist Adam Sinclair, he leads his loyal Huntsmen against supernatural evil in all its myriad forms.

But the Darkness is striking back – in the guise of an unholy cult long thought to be extinct. Endowed with the elemental energy of an ancient Druidic artifact, the Lodge of the Lynx stands ready to unleash destruction on Sinclair, his allies and, ultimately, all of Scotland.

The old battle begins anew – and this time the future may belong to…

THE LODGE OF THE LYNX

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE ADEPT: THE LODGE OF THE LYNX

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Bill Fawcett and Associates

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace edition / June 1992

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10.014.

ISBN: 0-441-00.344-3

ACE Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10.014.

ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For

Our Aunts and Uncles:

Stephen and Janie Carter

and in loving memory of

Gretchen and Marshall Fisher

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful thanks are due to the following, for their assistance in rendering this novel:

Sgt. Graham Brown, PC Alan Jeffries, and PC Ian Richardson, Lothian and Borders Police, Edinburgh, for background on Scottish Police procedures;

Dr. Richard Oram, for continuing to provide a wealth of scholarly information on matters of Scottish history and archaeology;

Mr. Kenneth Fraser, for his on-going help in the St. Andrews University Library;

Mrs. Edith Rendle, for her advice on Scots law and Scottish legal procedure;

Dr. Ernan J. Gallagher, for general medical advice, and Dr. A.V.M. Davidson, for her advice on Scottish medical facilities and practice;

Scott MacMillan, for his expertise on weapons, police procedures, and interesting motor vehicles;

Peter Morwood, for military advice, especially on the SAS;

Bob Harris, for general aid, comfort, and research assistance;

And once again, to the St. Andrews branch of the Scottish Tourist Information Bureau, especially Rhona McKay, for their tireless efforts in running down local information not to be found in the guidebooks.

prologue

A brooding stillness lay upon the chill night air. High above the tower’s conical roof, the old man could feel the energy beginning to gather – a faint electrical prickle that stirred the hackles at the back of the neck and crawled on the tiny hairs of bare arms like invisible insects. At first it seemed little more than a tense, ongoing flicker in the silence, skittish as a flight of hunting bats. Then the pulses gathered strength, growing more potent with each passing moment. Before long, the energy was beating about the roof slates like some huge, winged predator struggling to break free from the restraint of its jesses – held only by the strength of will of the one who had summoned it. Even to undertake such a summoning was both difficult and dangerous. To direct the power thus summoned required exquisite control, acquired only through long years of study and unspeakable sacrifice. The merest wavering of will, the slightest distraction, might release the tight-leashed energy prematurely, to rebound with disastrous consequences upon the very tower where the summoner sat surrounded by his chosen Twelve. But the venerable Head-Master who ruled the tower was one well-accustomed to taking calculated risks. He had chosen both the venue and his acolytes with care. The chamber from which they worked occupied the entire topmost floor of the tower – a massive, twelve-sided structure that dominated the castellated manor house of which it was a part. Bleak and remote among the cataracts and crags of Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains, the house had been built in Victorian times upon the foundations of an Iron Age broch, with the tower and even parts of the house incorporating undressed stones from the earlier structure. Nowhere were these primitive origins more apparent than in the topmost tower chamber, whose thick, nearly windowless walls had been plastered starkly white, the ceiling above divided like a wheel by converging beams of black oak. Though the house and the floors below were wired for electricity, gaslight remained this room’s sole source of illumination. Gas jets hissed behind shades of crimson glass in brass sconces at the room’s four quarters, dispersing the fitful yellowish glow and casting only soft, vague shadows before the twelve white-robed figures seated cross-legged around the room’s perimeter. No shadows at all intruded upon the center of the room, with its mound of scarlet cushions. From there the white-clad Master directed the Work, palms upturned upon splayed knees, hairless head bowed, eyes closed in a gaunt, wizened face that resembled a mummified skull.

Before him on a mat of black ram skin lay a stacked heap of parchment, the pages yellow and brittle with age. And weighting the stack of parchments, its arc as wide as the span of a man’s spread hand, was the object of the old man’s concentration – a Celtic tore wrought of black meteoric iron. Its crafting was of the same distant age as the broch, with geometric knots and flowing zoomorphs cunningly inlaid with fluid traceries of silver. Smoky cairngorms smouldered baleful as serpents’ eyes among the interlocking shapes and whorls. Focusing upon its ancient energies, the old man extended his hands over the tore like a man warming his hands at a fire, feeling its potential danger prickling beneath his hands, only barely contained by the dark hallowing he had imposed upon it. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense its potent magnetic influence acting upon the elemental energies building outside the tower, straining to be away.

And soon would be away. The moment was nearly at hand. Hardening his intent for the ultimate exercise of his will, the old man lifted the tore in palsied hands and slipped it around his scrawny neck. The kiss of the cold metal against his throat plunged him even deeper into trance as he felt the ancient energies mesh with his own, and he flung back his head and raised blue-veined arms in a gesture both of invocation and command. Only then did he at last allow the image to form in his mind of the distant object of his intention. Some forty miles away, the royal castle of Balmoral lay quiet under a clear, frosty sprinkling of November stars. With the Queen and Royal Family back in London for the winter, the Scots Guards in charge of grounds security went about their appointed late-night rounds with the relaxed efficiency of men who had no reason to expect any serious trouble but were nonetheless prepared for it – in battledress and black berets for night patrol, and armed with the latest Enfield “Bull Pup” rifles.

Corporal Archie Buchannan had just completed his hourly circuit of the south lawn and was headed for his post by the south door, shifting the weight of his rifle on its shoulder sling, when a flicker of movement in the sky overhead made him glance up. He stopped short in his tracks, his brow furrowing sharply in surprise and astonishment.

A dense bank of black cloud was sweeping down on the castle out of the west, moving faster than any storm Archie had ever seen before. Its curdled vapors writhed and boiled like pitch in a cauldron, stirred by erratic pulses of sheet-lightning, so that within the span of only a few heartbeats, the clouds had blotted out half the stars in the sky.

“What the de’il?” Archie murmured under his breath.

A low growl of thunder rolled hollowly across the lawn, accompanied by a more defined crackle of lightning within the roiling clouds. The brief flare picked out two more figures in battledress uniform as they hurried out onto the grass from the shadows of the building, eyes turned skyward under uniform berets. “Oi! Archie! D’ye see that?” one of them yelled. “Where did all these clouds come from?”

Before Archie could venture a response, an eye-searing bolt of bright-white lightning ripped the sky above the castle roof, accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder. The lightning bolt struck the north turret of the great square tower with the force of a mortar round, hurling stones and roof slates up and outward in a blazing fountain of destruction.

The concussion flung Archie to the ground. As he frantically scrambled for cover underneath the nearest hedge, trying to protect his head from the debris already beginning to rain down, he could only think that it must have been a bomb, regardless of what his own senses told him. Above the ringing in his ears, he started to hear the intermittent clangor of security alarms going off. As the patter of falling debris subsided, an attendant clamor of shouts began to rise from other parts of the castle grounds, along with the thud of booted feet approaching.

Cautiously Archie raised his head to look around, squinting against the sudden glare of security lights fitfully coming on all around the castle and grounds. “Archie? Are ye all right, man?” said a voice close beside him, as a hand roughly grasped his shoulder.

“Aye, just let me catch my breath,” Archie muttered, rolling over to see the smudged faces of two of his colleagues, both looking slightly wild-eyed and dishevelled.

“Jesus, what happened?” demanded the one who had shaken him, as his larger partner shifted his grip on his rifle and looked around uneasily. “It sounded like a bloody bomb!”

Archie shook his head and let the other man help him sit up, testing gingerly for injuries beyond the bruises he knew were inevitable. Ears still ringing, he pulled himself stiffly to his feet, then gaped as he gazed across the lawn in the direction of the baronial tower.

Where the north turret had stood but minutes earlier, the bomb – or lightning strike – had left only a burning stump of charred masonry. Forty miles away, on the other side of the mountains, the old man in white exhaled with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction and savored his moment of triumph. Outside confirmation would have to wait until morning, when the news services undoubtedly would be full of it, but he had no doubt that his aim had been successful.

Slowly he reached to his throat, removing the ancient tore with both hands and carefully laying it back atop the stack of parchments before him. Then he let his arms sink to his sides, bowing his head in deep obeisance as he acknowledged the Power that had delivered the lightning into his hands. His twelve acolytes bowed with him, their shadows blurring together as they touched their brows to the floor.

But it was only outwardly a gesture of humility. A silence born of dark exultation reigned in the room as the acolytes straightened and then bent again, this time in homage to him.

Smiling primly, the old man acknowledged their deference with a nod and a hand gesture and dismissed them, waiting until they all had gone before lying back in his cushions to exult in private, and plan the further exercise of his art….

chapter one

THE silvery jingle of snaffles rang clear as sleigh bells in the frosty air of a fine November morning as two men on horseback approached the crest of the wooded hill overlooking Strathmourne House. Sir Adam Sinclair’s grey thoroughbred pricked his ears and snorted softly at the scent of the stables below and would have quickened his pace to a trot, had his rider not applied legs and reins with gentle firmness.

“Easy, Khalid. Walk,” Adam said.

The big gelding crested and tried a few tentative, prancing steps in piaffe, all but floating just above the ground, then settled back to a resigned, sedate walk, as if there had never been any difference of opinion between horse and rider. The second rider, a younger man with gilt-bronze hair and gold-rimmed spectacles, chuckled aloud at the sheer artistry of the partnership. “Ah, the master’s touch,” he remarked with a grin. “He really is an exceptionally fine animal, Adam. You must let me capture the pair of you on canvas one of these days – perhaps something along the lines of that study of your father and his grey hunter in your drawing room.” He cocked his head appraisingly at the older man.

“What about it? Shall I do you an equestrian portrait for Christmas?”

The question elicited a companionable chuckle and a pleased smile from Adam. “Do you think your painting hand is up to the strain? If so, there’s nothing I’d like better!”

Peregrine Lovat lifted his gloved right hand from the reins of his own mount, a blood-bay mare with a silken mouth and a coquettish disposition, and flexed the leather-clad fingers so that Adam could see them.

“Oh, not to worry on that account,” he said cheerfully. “My hand’s virtually good as new, thanks to your exacting supervision of the repair job. As a matter of fact, I’ve been back at my easel for nearly a week now, and haven’t had more than an occasional twinge.”

“All the same, I wouldn’t overdo,” Adam cautioned. “It was a nasty laceration that might have ended your painting career once and for all. I’d hate to think you might yet jeopardize it through impatience.”

Peregrine set his hand back on the reins, all at once very conscious of the protective bandage under the glove that he continued to wear when engaged in strenuous or dirty activities. The circumstances of the injury itself still gave him cause to cringe, whenever he thought about it too long. Sword cuts were not exactly common in this day and age. But in fact, it was precisely the sharpness of his recollection that had prompted him to take up his paints and brushes so quickly, as soon as the sutures were out and he felt able to hold a brush properly again. He bit at his lip thoughtfully, trying to find words to explain his recent sense of compulsion.

“It isn’t really impatience,” he told Adam. “Perhaps I pushed myself a little, but – well, this may sound a bit odd, but the fact of the matter is, I didn’t think I dared delay it. The – ah – studies I’ve been doing are all connected with what happened at Loch Ness.”

Adam gave him a sharp look from under his velvet riding cap. The two had met little more than a month ago, but that initial, brief social acquaintance, sparked by professional concern, had led to an esoteric partnership that was as welcome as it had been unexpected. Without Peregrine’s unique and hitherto unsuspected talents, employed both at Loch Ness and in the days leading up to it, the outcome might have been far less satisfactory. The young artist might not yet understand a great deal about that part of his talent that went beyond the mere artistic, but he was learning every day – and obviously had been busier than Adam expected.

“I haven’t yet dared to try that self-portrait you suggested,” Peregrine said, guessing the possible direction of his mentor’s speculations. “Somehow, it’s seemed more important, for now, to make a pictorial record of everything I could remember about that night at Loch Ness. My recall of it seems to be somehow linked to this cut on my hand – almost as if the wound itself is the very thing that ties me into that part of the affair. Right after it happened,” he continued, “all my mental impressions were crystal-clear, right down to the smallest details. But since my hand’s started to heal, those impressions have begun to fade. I can still recover them, but it takes much more effort.” Adam now was watching him closely, as their horses picked their way down the last of the sloping trail.

“That’s an interesting speculation,” he said. “What makes you so sure that it isn’t simply the passage of time?”

Peregrine grimaced and gave a snort. “Well, maybe you could get at the memories by using hypnosis or something, but the only way 7 seem to be able to do it is by first concentrating my attention on the cut on my hand. And since that’s healing, I thought I’d better push on with the paintings before I maybe lost the recall.”

A smile lit Adam’s dark eyes. “You’re learning more quickly than I thought. I think I’d like to have a look at what you’ve done.”

“Somehow I thought you might,” Peregrine said, with an easy grin that would not have been possible for the tight-wound young man of a mere month before. ‘ ‘I brought them along in the back of my car this morning. I thought they might make for interesting conversation over breakfast.”

The ring of steel-shod hooves on the cobbles of the stable yard summoned John, the ex-Household Cavalry trooper who looked after Adam’s horses. With a grin and a wave that was almost a salute, he came to take the reins as Adam and Peregrine dismounted.

“Did you and Mr. Lovat have a good ride, sir?” he asked, as Adam ran up his stirrups on their leathers and loosened Khalid’s girth.

“Yes, splendid,” Adam replied. “We had a good, long canter along the ridge in the upper field, and Mr. Lovat even tried a few easy jumps – successfully, I might add. At this rate, we’ll have him legged up enough to hunt by Christmas.” Peregrine, tending his own mount, rolled his eyes in good-natured self-deprecation.

“In this case, I’m afraid that successful is a very relative term, but I did manage not to fall off!”

Adam chuckled as the horses were led on into the barn, and Peregrine fell in beside him as they walked briskly on through the garden adjacent to the back of the house and headed for the back door. There Peregrine diverted briefly to collect a portfolio from the back of a green Morris Minor Traveller. When he joined Adam in the mudroom, hanging his riding helmet on a hook beside Adam’s, the older man had already exchanged his boots for velvet slippers crested with the Sinclair phoenix and was drying his hands on a monogrammed towel. “I’ll take those on into the morning room while you wash up,” Adam said, relieving Peregrine of the portfolio. “Humphrey’s left a second pair of slippers there by the bootjack. If we track mud on Mrs. G.’s clean floors, she may not speak to any of us for days.”

Grinning, Peregrine peeled off his riding gloves and applied the bootjack to his own muddy boots, then thrust stockinged feet into the indicated slippers. After ducking into the adjoining washroom to douse his face and hands and run a comb through his hair, he followed the way his host had gone, along the service corridor and on into the gold-damasked morning room. Humphrey, Adam’s butler of more than twenty years’ service, had set up for breakfast in the sunshine of the room’s wide bow window. As always, the table was an immaculate array of crisp Irish linen, fine china and crystal, and antique silver. Adam was sipping fresh-squeezed orange juice from a Waterford goblet while he glanced at the front page headlines of the morning, paper. Humphrey was pouring his master’s first cup of tea. Both men looked up as Peregrine entered, Adam raising his glass in salute and Humphrey poising the silver teapot over the cup set before Peregrine’s place. “Good morning, Mr. Lovat. May I pour you a cup of tea?”

“Yes, thank you, Humphrey. Good morning.”

“Sir Adam tells me that you’ve moved the last of your boxes into the gate lodge,” the butler went on. “I trust that the new accommodations are proving satisfactory?”

Peregrine grinned as he pulled out the Queen Anne chair and sat, shaking out his napkin with a flourish. It was barely two weeks since he had accepted Adam’s invitation to come and live in the vacant rear gate lodge, and already he was finding it a decided improvement over the cramped studio loft he had occupied in Edinburgh.

“More than satisfactory, Humphrey,” he said happily. “You know, I thought I’d miss the hustle and bustle of the city. Oddly enough, though, I find myself settling quite contentedly into the life of a country gentleman. There really is more room to breathe.”

This expansive remark gave Adam cause for private amusement, for he knew that literal breathing space was not at all what Peregrine had in mind. If the truth were strictly to be told, he suspected that Peregrine’s new-found sense of liberty was due as much to a change in outlook as it was to a change in environment. As a psychiatrist, Adam was not unfamiliar with the general phenomenon, but Peregrine’s case had presented factors Adam encountered all too seldom. Though reserved and withdrawn at their initial meeting, brooding like a hawk in captivity, Peregrine gradually had been given the opportunity to try his wings. Even now, though Peregrine himself was not altogether aware of it, the young artist was in the process of joining the Hunt in earnest, like the falcon-breed for which he was named. And if Adam Sinclair was reading the signs aright, the process was rapidly nearing completion.

“Have a scone, Peregrine,” he murmured with a smile, as Humphrey offered the younger man a linen-nested basket. “And you ought to know that Mrs. Gilchrist brought these by fresh this morning, especially for ‘that nice young Mr. Lovat.’ Apparently she’s taken quite a fancy to you.”

Peregrine had started to take just one scone, but now he plucked a second out of the basket before Humphrey could offer it across to Adam. “I’d better have two, then, hadn’t I?” He grinned wickedly. “After all, I shouldn’t want Mrs. G. to think I wasn’t properly appreciative. Good housekeepers are worth their weight in fresh scones!” “Aye, and you won’t find a better one in the entire county,” Adam agreed. “She accomplishes more for me in three half-days a week than most folk could manage working at it full-time. I don’t know what Humphrey and I would do without her. If she’s offered to do for you, down at the lodge, don’t let her get away, whatever happens!”

“Oh, I shan’t!”

As breakfast conversation ranged on from appreciation of domestic staff to their morning’s ride and the clouds now glowering to the north, the scones slowly disappeared, washed down with cups of tea. Humphrey, eyeing the portfolio Adam had set casually just inside the door, brought in a folding rosewood card-table from the adjoining parlor and set it up beside the breakfast table while they ate.

“Suppose we have a look at what you’ve brought now, shall we?” Adam said, when Humphrey had retired to the kitchen and they were about finished with breakfast. Peregrine, after popping the last bite of his last scone into his mouth, wiped his fingers hastily on his napkin and shifted his chair around to the rosewood table to unzip his portfolio, delving deep inside to draw out several sheets of watercolor paper, cut to varying sizes.

“My hand was still a bit stiff for pencil work when I started these, and oils take too long to dry,” he explained, as he handed one across to Adam. “I managed to get a fair amount of detail, though, even with the watercolors. Besides, I’ve always felt that watercolors were the best medium for capturing the feel of rotten weather.”

The first painting showed three figures crouched in the driving rain in UrquhartCastle’s car park, eerily backlit with a wash of luminescent green. The figures meant to be Peregrine and Adam himself were little more than vague suggestions of form, glimpsed from behind, but the third, brandishing a long, metal-cased police torch, quite clearly was Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod, Adam’s professional and esoteric colleague of many years’ standing. Rain spattered the inspector’s wire-rimmed aviator glasses and streamed off his short-clipped grey moustache as he turned slightly to glance back at them, and both he and Adam wore the dark green waxed jackets peculiar to country pursuits all over Britain. Peregrine sported his familiar navy duffel coat.

“Yes, indeed,” Adam murmured, smiling as he turned the painting face-down and read the caption Peregrine had penciled lightly on the back: Master Huntsmen and rank amateur. The smile died as Peregrine handed him the second painting. It had the same greenish luminance as the first one, but the perspective had shifted down to the rain-lashed shore of Loch Ness. Marching across the center of a night landscape, silhouetted by lightning flashes, was a procession of four dark-robed and hooded men. The two in the middle were struggling to carry a small but heavy chest of archaic design. The one bringing up the rear bore what appeared to be a framed picture above his head, ducking beneath it like a shield.

The fourth man, masked across the eyes like an executioner, was brandishing a sword as he led the odd procession. Light glinted from a heavy, silvery medallion around his throat and a ring on his right hand, but the very light made it impossible to see the items in detail. Above and around them all, whirling like a swarm of angry hornets, hung a hungry cloud of green-glowing spheres. The spheres in the foreground each contained the spectral impression of a winged homunculus with gaping jaws and razor-sharp teeth. On the back of this painting Peregrine had scribbled, The fury of the Sidhe. “Whoever would have believed that anything so tiny could be so deadly?” the artist said, surveying his own work with a wondering shake of his head. ‘ “The next one’s even more fanciful, if you don’t believe in monsters.” He passed Adam a third sheet of watercolor paper. This painting, a much darker night scene, showed two men cowering in the stern of a sleek, high-powered speedboat as it tossed about on a stormy sweep of black water. The speedboat was overshadowed by a huge serpentine form rearing out of the waves off the starboard bow. Reptilian eyes glittered green in a basilisk head, as the creature gathered its coils to strike and dive….

Anyone else viewing the picture might have taken it for the cover illustration from some modern horror novel; but Adam knew better. He had witnessed the event with his own eyes from the beach below UrquhartCastle, overlooking Loch Ness – but Peregrine’s painting showed far more detail than anyone could have seen from the shore.

For Peregrine Lovat had the gift of seeing more than other people. It was part of what made him such a gifted portrait artist – this ability to see more about his sitters than mere physical appearance – and it was what had driven him to seek Adam’s help. In learning to accept his talent for the gift it was, he was coming to understand what Adam already knew – that the truth sometimes went beyond empirical evidence and what would be admissible in a court of law. Being privy to the truth could be dangerous, of course. Peregrine’s last two paintings bore testimony to that fact. The first framed the upper body of the hooded man with the sword, the blade now discernible as an ornate Italian rapier. The detail of the sword-hand and the rapier hilt was good, the blade just striking the blow that had left Peregrine wounded, but the red-stoned ring on the sword-hand was not clearly visible.

“Here’s a better detail of the leader’s ring and medallion,” Peregrine said, handing Adam the last painting. “I had to think about this for a long time, but I finally got a clear look at what was on them.”

It might have been artwork submitted for a jeweller’s commission, so finely was it done. The opaque red gemstone set into the golden bezel of the ring had been skillfully cut to show the snarling mask of a big cat with the tufted ears and side-whiskers of a lynx. The disk of the medallion, sharply delineated in shades of black and grey, bore the same design. Adam’s long mouth thinned at the sight of the device, for it stirred memories that were far from pleasant. “You’ve seen one of these before, haven’t you?” Peregrine observed quietly, noting the narrowing of the other’s dark eyes.

“Aye,” Adam said quietly. “As a matter of fact, the ring you’ve depicted was recovered at Loch Ness. McLeod showed it to me, after we got back from having your hand sutured.”

Peregrine gaped, glancing at the painting again, then returned his attention to Adam.

“What does it mean, then?”

Adam pulled a tight smile that had no mirth in it. At Loch Ness, he and McLeod had guessed the truth, but they had kept the knowledge to themselves. However, if Peregrine was to join the Hunt, he had to know something of what they were up against.

“You’ve seen the rings that Noel and I wear when we’re working. Many Black Lodges do the same. This is the Sign of the Lynx.” He tapped the illustration of the Lynx ring with a well-manicured forefinger. “Let’s just say that the Lodge of the Lynx is an old enemy.”

Peregrine’s hazel eyes widened, but he said nothing. After a moment, Adam continued.

“We last encountered them about fifteen years ago. At that time, their leader was a man named Tudor-Jones. We lost three members of our own Hunting Party before we succeeded in bringing the Lodge of the Lynx to its reckoning. At the time, I dared to hope we’d gotten most of the ringleaders.” Peregrine blanched slightly. “Gotten!” he murmured.

His tone roused Adam from his abstracted recollection, and the older man smiled briefly at his young colleague’s discomfiture.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we – arrested them. You’ll perhaps remember that conversation we had in the car, the morning after the incident at Loch Ness, in which I said that Noel and I were something like an occult police force? Well, the analogy holds true on several levels. Like our more mundane colleagues, we’re committed to upholding the Law – in this case, the Law of the Inner Planes. The members of organizations like the Lodge of the Lynx, like any other criminal organization, want what they’re not entitled to, and will stop at nothing to get it. It’s our job to apprehend such people and bring them to justice before they can wreak harm on the world at large. “Which is not to say that there haven’t been fatalities on both sides,” he continued soberly. “As it happens, in the case of Tudor-Jones and his followers, most of those who were most heavily involved in the work of the Lynx are dead. But that was certainly through no intention of ours. We’re enforcers, not executioners. Our job then – as now – was to stop them from committing serious violations against the Law of the Inner Planes. When we’re obliged to use force, we try to utilize only that force already employed by the opposition – optimally, to turn it back against those who summoned it – but even then, only as a matter of necessity.”

He might have said more, but at that moment there was a brief rap at the door, followed by the precipitous entry of Humphrey carrying a small, tabletop TV. “I beg your pardon, sir, for barging in like this,” he said over his shoulder as he made hurriedly for the nearest electrical outlet, “but one of the headlines on the morning news may interest you. The actual report should be up any second now.”

He set the TV on one of the mahogany side tables, plugged it in, and switched it on. Almost immediately, the jagged silhouette of grey turrets against a greyer sky filled the screen, to the accompaniment of a cultivated BBC voice-over. “… Grampian Police are investigating a mysterious explosion that took place early this morning within the grounds of BalmoralCastle,” the voice said, as the camera tilted down to a wet-looking expanse of formal garden and well-manicured lawn. “The explosion, which severely damaged the baronial tower of the castle, occurred shortly after midnight. No one was injured. Chief Constable William McNab declined to comment on the probable cause of the explosion, asserting that the facts will only be known following detailed examination of the wreckage. A police forensics team from Aberdeen and another team from the army are presently sifting through the debris in search of clues.” The steadicam panned to the damaged tower of the castle, showing a blackened stump of blasted masonry where the north turret ought to have been. Several figures in military and police uniforms were picking through the rubble that littered the grass around the base of the building. The camera pulled back to focus on the figure of a cold-looking newscaster in rain slicker and tweed cap, standing in the foreground with microphone in hand.

“A spokesman from BuckinghamPalace has confirmed that no member of the Royal Family was in residence at Balmoral at the time of the incident,” the newscaster reported gravely. “The authorities are looking into the possibility of a gas explosion, but it is understood that they have not yet ruled out the possibility of a terrorist bomb. To add to the mystery, there have been several unconfirmed reports by local witnesses claiming to have seen a freak bolt of lightning strike the roof of the castle. There has been no official statement as yet on behalf of the police or of the regiment currently in charge of castle security. So until the authorities are prepared to come forward with an explanation, the cause of the explosion seems destined to remain a mystery. This is Alan Cafferty, BBC News, BalmoralCastle.”

The story concluded with a final close-up of the ruined turret, smoke still rising in thin wisps from the blackened stones. As coverage shifted back to London for the business news, Adam signed for Humphrey to switch off the set and take it away, and glanced aside at the wide-eyed Peregrine.

“Mystery, indeed,” he murmured. “I wonder…”

Reaching behind him, he snagged the telephone and punched out the numbers that would give him the residence of Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod, veteran of many such unsolved “mysteries.” The line picked up on the third ring. ‘ ‘Edinburgh 7978,” rumbled a familiar bass voice at the other end of the line. Adam’s expression eased slightly. “Noel? Adam here. I don’t suppose you were listening to the news just now?”

“The bit on Balmoral? Aye, that I was,” said McLeod. “I was in the middle of shaving when Jane called me out to see it.”

Adam found himself smiling at the mental image of McLeod hurrying into the sitting room with the shaving foam still on his chin.

“I don’t suppose you know any more about it than I do, then,” he said. “What did you think?”

“My first thought was to be thankful it’s outside my jurisdiction,” McLeod replied. “It was only the bit about the lightning strike that gave me second thoughts.”

“Hmmm. Me, too,” Adam said. “At the very least, I wonder who the unnamed witnesses are. It seems strange that anyone should attribute the damage to a freak lightning strike, unless that was precisely what they thought they saw. It could be that there’s nothing more to it than some odd trick of the weather, but I don’t know that I’m prepared to make that assumption.” “Aye.” McLeod’s brusque reply made it clear that he was digesting what Adam had just said – and not said. “Well, I don’t suppose it would do any harm to have a wee look over the ground, once the press have backed off the case – if only to set our minds at ease.”

“My thinking, precisely,” said Adam. “If you can arrange the time off, perhaps we could drive up to Balmoral some time early next week.” “No problem there,” said McLeod. “I’ll ring you once I’ve had a chance to set it up. Were you maybe thinking to bring along young Lovat?” “If he wants to come,” said Adam, with an inquiring glance toward Peregrine, who had been listening avidly to Adam’s half of the conversation and now nodded vehemently. “As a matter of fact,” Adam went on, grinning, “he’s here with me now. We’ve been out for a ride. I’m being given to understand that a team of wild horses couldn’t keep him from coming along.”

McLeod chuckled.

“In the meantime,” Adam continued, “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be left to enjoy the weekend in peace. Give my love to Jane, and I’ll look to hear from you in a few days.”

With that assurance, he rang off. No sooner had he set down the receiver, however, than the instrument gave out with another trill of summons. Surprised, Adam answered it himself.

“Strathmourne, Sinclair here.”

“Adam? Good Lord, you’ve answered your own phone!” said a man’s musical tenor, as familiar in Adam’s ears as McLeod’s gravelly bass. “Oh, capital! I was afraid I might have missed you. It’s Christopher here. Seen the news broadcast this morning?”

“If you’re referring to that incident up at Balmoral, I’ve just been on the phone about it with Noel,” Adam said.

“Ah, then it struck you as odd, too,” the other replied, with jaunty good humor.

‘ ‘Well, we can talk about it further when we meet up. You are still coming?” “Of course. I was planning to leave as soon as I’d finished breakfast and gotten cleaned up,” Adam said. “I gather there’s been no change since we last spoke?” “No, not that I know of.”

“In that case, we’ll carry on as planned. By the way,” Adam added, “I happen to have someone with me at the moment who might be useful to have along. His name is Peregrine Lovat.”

“The artist chap?”

“That’s right. Would you mind if I were to bring him?”

“Mind? Good Lord, no!”

“In that case, I’ll see if he minds.”

He turned to Peregrine, who was manfully struggling to mask his curiosity.

“Well, what about it?” said Adam. “Have you got any plans for this morning?” “Actually, I was going to spend a fascinating morning unpacking cartons of books,” Peregrine said drily, the hazel eyes eager behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘ ‘But if this is an invitation, the books can wait!” Adam chuckled. “He says he thinks he can break away,” he told his caller. “We’ll meet you at the rectory as planned.”

“Splendid! See you then.”

As Adam returned the receiver to its cradle, Peregrine sat forward eagerly.

“So. What have I let myself in for?”

“Oh, nothing very serious,” Adam said. “The gentleman on the phone just now was Father Christopher Houston, an Episcopal priest and a very good friend of mine. A former parishioner of his has been complaining about her new flat being haunted. He’s asked me down to have a look at the place.” At Adam’s use of the word haunted, a dubious expression crossed Peregrine’s open face.

“Now, there’s no need to look like that,” Adam said. “I don’t for a minute believe that the flat is really haunted, in the gothic sense of the word. Christopher has already been out once to visit the premises, and he doesn’t think it calls for anything like a formal exorcism. On the other hand, the young woman who lives there has been having nightmares ever since she moved in. Whether the cause is psychic or psychiatric remains to be determined.”

“Which is where you come in,” said Peregrine.

“Which is where I come in,” Adam agreed. “We’ll approach the situation with open minds. The young lady in question may simply be undergoing some passing stress. Or there may actually be something unwholesome in the atmosphere of the place.

Either way, we shan’t let the matter rest unresolved.”

“So, where do I come in?” Peregrine asked.

“Well, when Christopher and I first discussed the case,” Adam continued casually, “I mentioned you as someone possessed of unusual artistic insight. Christopher was very interested to hear about your gifts, and expressed a strong desire to see some of your work. It occurred to me that this might provide an opportunity not only for me to introduce you to someone I value as a friend, but also for you to exercise your talents to good purpose.” “You want me to draw what’s in the flat?”

Adam nodded. “Assuming that there’s anything to draw.”

Both men knew they were not talking about furniture or decor.

“Fair enough.” Peregrine grinned. “Just tell me when you want me ready to go.” “Well, Christopher lives in Kinross,” said Adam. “He’s expecting us round about ten.”

Peregrine glanced first at his watch and then at his clothes. “Good God, Adam, you keep the tightest schedule of anybody I know! Have I got time to take a shower and change?”

“If you’re quick about it,” Adam said with a chuckle, “I intend to.” Peregrine tossed off the last of his tea and began hurriedly bundling his watercolor studies back into his portfolio.

“I don’t know how you do it!” he muttered. “What’s the uniform of the day, for meeting vicars and exploring haunted flats?”

“Oh, casual – but do wear a tie,” Adam replied, as the young artist made for the door. “I’ll collect you at the lodge in half an hour,” he called laughingly to Peregrine’s back. “And don’t forget to bring your sketchbox!”

chapter two

THE rhythmic thump of helicopter rotors reverberated across the granite summits of the Cairngorms, little muffled by the dusting of snow on the peaks. A trio of white-tailed deer started up from their browsing and took to their heels, bolting off across the frost-burned heather and bracken as a sleek private chopper swooped over the top of a ridge and skimmed along the floor of the valley below. At the far end of the valley, at the edge of a bleak escarpment, the glancing rays of the morning sun picked out the bluish roof slates and Gothic-arched windows of a Victorian manor house, poised breathlessly above a rushing cataract of white water.

The chopper followed the contour of the river as it made for the house, its shadow ghosting along the valley floor. It surged upward just before the cataract, circling once around the great central tower before settling like a wasp on the grass of the walled forecourt.

The pilot cut the rotors and got out of the chopper, rangy and economic of movement, barely ducking under the decelerating sweep of the blades as he came around to open the door for his passenger. He wore the brown leather flying jacket and scruffy peaked cap affected by military pilots half a century before, but sunlight flashed briefly off thoroughly modern mirrored sunglasses. The man who alighted from the passenger seat was pale and slender by comparison, with silky fair hair going thin at the top and brushed back at the sides. By his dress, he might have been anything from a successful barrister to a university professor. The well-cut topcoat suggested the former, thought it might have been within the budget of a very senior university lecturer; the suit beneath it spoke more of Saville Row than the halls of academia. In fact, Francis Raeburn dabbled in both areas of enterprise – and had made his fortune in neither. When pressed as to the source of his not inconsiderable wealth, it was his wont merely to smile and look inscrutable, murmuring vaguely about prudent investments, an indulgent bank manager, and the hint of family money.

The light grey eyes were even more inscrutable than usual as he stood motionless on the lawn, silently contemplating the Gothic grandeur of the house. Behind him, the pilot stretched back into the cockpit to retrieve an expensive leather document case, which he handed over to his employer with a deferential nod. “Anything else, Mr. Raeburn?”

The man called Raeburn shook his head distractedly and tucked the case under his arm, his attention now focused on the upper reaches of the tower. “Not for now, Mr. Barclay. Consider yourself at liberty for the next hour or so, but don’t wander too far. In fact, you might head down to the kitchen and see if Cook can provide something for that insatiable sweet tooth of yours.” At his glance and bemused half-smile, the pilot grinned and sketched his employer an appreciative salute.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Raeburn!”

As the man leaned back into the chopper to make certain everything was properly switched off, Raeburn set off briskly across the lawn toward the house. The front door opened as he approached, a man in what looked like a white monk’s robe greeting him with a nod that was almost a bow. Without speaking, the man ushered him respectfully through the entrance lobby and into a long corridor panelled in oak. Off the corridor to the left, an interior door gave access to a small cloakroom, where another open-fronted robe of white wool was hanging next to a full-length mirror.

Raeburn shrugged himself out of his topcoat and suit-jacket, handing them into the care of the waiting acolyte before sitting briefly on a small stool to remove his shoes and socks. He donned the white robe over his shirt and trousers, retrieved his document case, then allowed the acolyte to lead him back out into the main corridor.

A steep turnpike stair at the far end took them up to a circular landing with doors on two sides. The acolyte knocked at the south door, waited for a word of acknowledgement from within, then admitted Raeburn to the opulent confines of a Victorian library.

The south wall of the library was dominated by a great bay window, its upper panels worked in stained glass and grey-patterned grisaille. Sunlight spilling in from outside laid jewel-like splashes of color on the floor across a rich array of Oriental rugs. Where the walls were not lined with bookshelves, a patterned paper of crimson and gold echoed drapes of a heavy, antique damask swagged to either side of the bay.

At the center of the room, silhouetted dark against the bright window, stood a broad mahogany library table, its scrolled legs decorated in ornamental boulle-work. Seated at the head of the table, in the deep velvet comfort of a heavily-padded wing-back armchair, was the old man Raeburn had come to see. “Head-Master,” Raeburn murmured, inclining his head briefly but never taking his eyes from the other man’s.

After a moment’s penetrating scrutiny, the old man lifted a gnarled finger and beckoned the newcomer nearer, indicating the chair at his right hand. “Sit down,” he rasped, in a voice that was thin and rough with age. “Sit down and let me hear your report.”

Raeburn lowered himself into the chair, pausing only to settle the folds of his robe and lean the document case against the chair leg to one side. “You will not welcome what I have to say,” he warned. “Our worst fears concerning Geddes and the others stand confirmed. All of them are dead, and the treasures lost.”

When the other’s stern expression did not change, Raeburn went on. “Barclay, you will recall, was in the van on the further side of the loch that night, waiting to receive Michael Scot’s gold, along with his book of spells. From all the evidence I’ve since been able to piece together, it now seems certain that the storm of lights he reported seeing can only have been a Hosting of the Sidhe. I must conclude that they were responsible for the loss of those concerned.”

The old man gave a contemptuous snort. “It would appear, then, that Geddes fatally overestimated the virtue of the Fairy Flag of the MacLeods.” “Perhaps,” said Raeburn, “but I think not. If the Flag failed to protect our men, I would guess that it was because of a change in the Flag’s status. Our agent in the Edinburgh constabulary tells me that the Fairy Flag – minus its frame – was handed back to the Chief of the MacLeods at UrquhartCastle by another member of the Edinburgh police force, an Inspector Noel McLeod. This means that the frame and glass containing the Flag must somehow have gotten damaged before Geddes and the others could make good their escape. And once the Flag was no longer encased, it became a danger rather than a protection.” “Explain.”

“There is a legend,” Raeburn went on, “that if anyone not of the Clan MacLeod should lay hands on the Flag, that individual will suffer instant immolation. The police are saying there may have been a bomb, but I suspect that, in fact, the legend is true. The glass and frame somehow got broken – perhaps through the agency of this Inspector McLeod – but our man forgot the legend, in his panic. He tried to take it up again and, not being a MacLeod, paid the ultimate price. And once it was clear that to touch the Flag was certain death, the survivors had no choice but to take their chances among the Faerie Host – who tore them to shreds.”

The Head-Master pondered this conjecture in silence for a long moment, then fixed the younger man with a sharp eye. “You’re sure that Geddes was among the victims?” he said.

“Oh, yes,” said Raeburn. “I’m quite sure.”

He slipped a graceful hand into his trouser pocket and drew out a handsome gold ring set with a blood-red carnelian, mate to one he wore on his own right hand. When he held it up for the other man to see, the sunlight flashed on the device incised in the face of the gemstone: the snarling head of a stylized lynx. “This was Geddes’ ring,” he informed the Master curtly. “It was still encircling a severed finger when the busy Inspector McLeod booked it into evidence, along with other shreds of human flesh and bits of clothing, pieces of the boat, and the Hepburn Sword. Our Edinburgh police agent was able to check the print taken from the severed finger against the set of Geddes’ prints on record in our own membership files. The match was conclusive.”

The Head-Master reached out a bony, blue-veined hand. When Raeburn laid the ring in the open palm, the old man curled his fingers tightly over it and closed his eyes. For a long moment he sat motionless, as if lost in deep thought. Then he opened his eyes with a grim nod of confirmation.

“Yes, this is Geddes’ ring,” he said. “With regard to the fingerprint, I trust that the police will not be able to repeat your comparison of prints and identify him?”

“Impossible,” Raeburn said with cool certainty. “Geddes had no police record.

We’re quite safe there.”

“What about his medallion?”

“It wasn’t recovered,” said Raeburn. “It must have been lost in the loch.”

“And the others?”

Raeburn inclined his head. “Barclay claims that two members of the party started to make an escape in the boat. They even had the chest aboard. He caught a glimpse of the boat heading away from the beach below the castle, but it apparently hit something in the water. Barclay didn’t want to tell me at first what he thought he saw, but I gather that it was – what one might expect, stirred up by magic from the depths of Loch Ness. In any case, the boat broke up and sank, and the men themselves must have drowned; no bodies have been recovered. That would account for all of our operatives.” The Head-Master’s expression was veiled. “Where does that leave us?” Raeburn shrugged. “The police have put forward a rather muddled official theory concerning explosives gone wrong, with possible terrorist associations. As to the boat, they’re postulating the presence of a submerged log. Far-fetched as these explanations may seem, no one has ventured any others, at least officially. At this remove, and with no one to raise the hue and cry over our missing men, no one is likely to. After all, who would guess the truth?” “Your Inspector McLeod?” the Head-Master suggested. Raeburn’s fair face registered a flicker of dislike. “Possibly. I haven’t forgotten about him. Right now, he’s doing us a service by diverting attention away from the supernatural elements in the incident, but his motives in doing so are far from clear. He will bear watching.”

“I should think so.” The old man’s hooded eyes held a dark gleam of malice. “He has been far too closely involved for my liking – first at Melrose, then at Dunvegan, and finally at Urqu-hart. And always with the same two men in attendance – Sinclair and that young artist.”

Raeburn elevated a flaxen eyebrow. “It could be argued that McLeod’s presence has been largely coincidental. He apparently is the accepted police authority on matters that smack of the occult, and Melrose is certainly within his jurisdiction. As for Dunvegan – it might be judged sufficient that the inspector bears the clan name, and probably had the authority of his Chief. Urquhart, however, is another matter, and our man in Edinburgh has his orders to keep McLeod under surveillance.”

“And Sinclair?”

“His true role is also open to conjecture. I’ve had some inquiries made, and it seems that he’s a fairly eminent psychiatric physician who occasionally gets called in by the police as a consultant. It would be worth some trouble to learn whether his interest in the occult is limited to professional curiosity.” “What about the artist?”

Raeburn nodded. “In a way, he strikes me as possibly the most dangerous of the three, precisely because he’s so different from McLeod and Sinclair. His name is Peregrine Lovat, and apart from the fact that he seems to be Sinclair’s protege, he’s the one whose presence is most difficult to explain. Were he twice the age he is, I might suspect him of being the leader of a Hunting Party. As it is, he’s little more than a boy.”

“Is he a pretty boy?” the Master asked, with a contemptuous curl of his lip. “If the answer is yes, then perhaps you need look no further for reasons why Sinclair is his patron.”

Raeburn snorted. “That might explain some of it, but I don’t think it’s the case. The titled Dr. Sinclair has a tiresomely consistent reputation for prowess where women are concerned. I think we must look elsewhere for the Lovat connection. I intend to do so.”

“Lovat is not worth your personal attention,” the Head-Master said. “If you want him watched, put someone else on him – someone you can easily spare. If our plans are to proceed on schedule, you have far more important things to do.” “I wonder.” A slight frown pleated the smooth skin between Raeburn’s blond eyebrows. ‘ ‘What if the presence of these three men was not coincidental? If, in fact, they are adepts of some kind – then they could represent a very real threat. They’ll have seen the sigil on Geddes’ ring. If they knew enough to recognize – “ The old man snorted. “If they knew enough to recognize it, we would know by now. Still, if it pleases you, keep them under surveillance. If they become a further nuisance, we shall deal with that when it occurs.”

“But, if they were responsible for our losses at Urquhart – “ “Our losses at Urquhart are ultimately of little consequence,” the Head-Master said dismissively. “What have we really lost? The gold? Unfortunate, perhaps, but we have other means of generating wealth. The book of spells? Who can say for certain that the spells it contained were as potent as tradition claims? Let us bear in mind that even the bumbling Geddes was able to entrap the spirit of Michael Scot and force it to do his bidding. Could he have done that, I wonder, if Scot had truly possessed all the knowledge and power that legend attributes to him?

“As for Geddes and his men,” he continued scornfully, “must we regret the loss of those who fail to accomplish what they set out to do? No, the Lodge of the Lynx has no room for failures. We are stronger without them. Let it be as if they had never been!”

Clutching the carnelian ring in one claw-like hand, he heaved himself shakily out of his chair and moved over to a plain oak side table set into an alcove to the left of the window bay. On top of the table stood a small portable furnace, along with an assortment of tools and moulds for making models from lead. The Head-Master switched the furnace on. While it was heating up, he locked the band of the ring in the jaws of a table vise, then picked up a small jeweller’s hammer. A swift, sharp tap to the stone reduced it to half a dozen shards, like crystallized blood, which he swept into his cupped hand and placed in a mortar. A few seconds under an electric pestle rendered the shards into a fine, scarlet powder, which he poured into a plastic vial and capped. The setting he removed from the vise and dropped into a tiny crucible, which he then set inside the furnace.

Raeburn watched the procedure from his seat at the table, half coming to his feet as the Master rejoined him and deftly catching the plastic vial which the Master tossed in his direction.

“So much for Geddes,” he remarked, as the old man seated himself again. “Where do we go from here?”

“Where we have always intended to go,” the Head-Master said testily. “The end remains unaltered. We shall simply resort to other means.” Raeburn’s head lifted with a slight jerk. “You mean the Soulis tore?”

“And why not?”

He opened a drawer in the end of the table and produced an oblong box of polished ashwood, which he pushed across the table towards Raeburn. After a sidelong and almost incredulous glance at his superior, the blond man thumbed the latch on the front of the box and carefully lifted the lid. Inside, cushioned on scarlet silk, lay a heavy necklet of meteoric iron worked in Pictish designs. Raeburn’s pale eyes widened in awed recognition. “Impressive, isn’t it?” murmured the Master. “Its Druidical makers were masters of their craft. The elemental powers with which the tore is imbued are as potent as any spell Michael Scot ever devised – and it is already in our keeping. Haven’t I urged from the very beginning that we should reawaken its slumbering energies and make use of them according to our own purposes?” “You have,” Raeburn acknowledged. “But after a lapse of so many centuries… the risks – “ “Are well within acceptable limits,” said the Master. “And you are wrong in thinking that the tore has not been used for many centuries. How could I possibly vouch for its potency, if I had not already personally put it to the test?”

Raeburn looked up sharply at this disclosure. “The Balmoral incident? I did wonder. Who was your subject, then?”

“No one of consequence,” said the Master, with chilly indifference. “An underling with ideas above his station. Next time, however, we shall want someone more eminent. I hope you have found him for me.” Raeburn had resumed his air of silken composure. “Have I ever disappointed you?” he asked, reaching for the document case on the floor beside his chair. As the Head-Master looked on, Raeburn opened the case and took out a black-and-white photograph, which he tendered to his superior. The old man glanced briefly at the photo before turning it over to read the typed bio taped to the back of the print. When he had finished reading, he took a second, longer look at the photograph before placing it face-up in the open lid of the box containing the tore.

“Excellent,” he murmured. “A most appropriate choice. Will you require any assistance?”

“It would, perhaps, be helpful,” Raeburn said. “My own men know what is expected of them, and are prepared to assume their roles when the time comes. But this undertaking will require much more than simply putting a few rounds through the head of a no longer useful pawn. If I could count on some extra backup, I would be that much more confident of success.”

The Head-Master’s wrinkled lips framed a cold smile.

“Of course. Choose whichever six you wish.”

chapter three

THE rectory for St. Paul’s Scottish Episcopal Church, Kinross, was a rambling Victorian cottage adjacent to the church, set well back from the street amid an exuberant riot of rose bushes. As Adam eased the blue Range Rover into the gravelled driveway in front of the house, avoiding a miniature pink bicycle with training wheels, Peregrine glanced ruefully at the sky, which had clouded considerably since their pleasant ride of earlier in the morning. “I don’t think there’s anything quite so fickle as Scottish weather,” he said. “It’s a good thing we started when we did. We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t bucket before lunch time.”

As Adam cut the engine, an active, upright figure in a clergyman’s collar and trenchcoat emerged from behind a yellow-painted door, a small briefcase clutched in one hand. He gave them a jaunty wave and bounded down off the trellised porch to meet them as they got out of the car.

“Good morning again, Adam! So glad you could make it. Is this Mr. Lovat, then?” “The same,” Adam said. “Peregrine, allow me to introduce you formally to Father Christopher Houston, a friend of long standing.”

Peregrine studied his new acquaintance over a firm handshake. Seen at close range, Christopher Houston was lean and loose-jointed, with a wide, good-natured mouth and a flyaway shock of fine brown hair that made him look artlessly dishevelled, like a schoolboy newly come from the playing fields. He wore his black clerical suit with casual ease, but the brown eyes above the long, straight nose were disconcertingly shrewd.

Peregrine summoned what he hoped was an appropriate air of respect and said sincerely, “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” “No, Adam’s the ‘sir.’ I’m just Christopher,” the priest said amiably. “What my husband means is that there’s no need to be so formal,” said an amused female voice from behind Christopher’s shoulder. “The fact that he wears a collar is absolutely no reason to stand on ceremony – particularly since you’ve come to us in Adam’s company.”

Taken slightly aback, Peregrine shifted his gaze and found himself looking into a fine pair of blue-grey eyes. The face that went with the eyes was attractive rather than pretty, with a smooth, wide brow and an agreeably determined chin. She had two little girls with her, the elder about five years old, and the other a toddler of two or so. All three were dressed to go out, in coats and hats. “My wife, Victoria, and my daughters, Ashley and Alexandra,” Christopher explained fondly. “Vicky, did you happen to catch the introductions just now?” “I did,” she said. Her smile afforded him a glimpse of lurking dimples. “Welcome to Rosemount, Peregrine. I’ve been an admirer of your work for quite some time – though I had no idea you were so young. You should be at least twenty years older, to paint the way you do!”

Adam chuckled and set his hand under the elbow of a blushing Peregrine, edging him back toward the car and casting a summoning glance in Christopher’s direction.

“He’s an old soul, Victoria,” he said casually, “but you’re going to have to wait until we get back to discuss that further. Besides that, you and the girls look like you’re on your way out as well.”

Victoria cast an indulgent glance in her daughters’ direction. The girls were gazing up at Peregrine in wide-eyed curiosity. The friendly innocence of their regard dispelled his own initial stiffness. Feeling all at once at home, he smiled down at them, and had the satisfaction of seeing them smile shyly back. “We’re only going as far as my mother’s,” Victoria said, “if, that is, the girls will stop flirting with Peregrine. But the three of you are going to be coming back here for lunch, aren’t you?” Christopher nodded yes. “Oh, good. We’ll see you later, then. Come on, girls. Grandma was expecting us for ten, and we’re already late.”

“We’ll be late too, if we don’t get going,” Christopher said. “We’re only waiting for you,” Adam replied with a laugh. “Come on, man, get into the car.”

Peregrine repaired to the back seat, deciding that he liked the Houstons. Christopher handed back his briefcase, and Peregrine stashed it on the floor beside his sketchbox while Adam started the car. But as everyone buckled up and Adam and Christopher briefly discussed the best route to take, Peregrine found himself momentarily far more curious about the Houstons than whatever might lie in store for them in Edinburgh.

Of one thing only was he certain yet, concerning the two. He had the distinct feeling that there was far more to both of them than met the eye. Though the brief conversation in front of the rectory had dealt only in friendly commonplaces, Adam’s manner had been unusually open, suggesting that he felt no need to be on his guard where the two were concerned. And that seemingly casual remark of his, about Peregrine being an old soul….

Curious to test his intuition, at least about Christopher, Peregrine took a deep breath and sat back in his seat, letting his eyelids droop until the physical images before him softened to a blur of color and motion. Turning his attention to the back of Christopher’s head, he took another deep, slow breath and prepared to let his deeper sight take over….

Before he could capture his first impression, Adam’s mellow voice intruded on his reverie.

“So, my friend,” he said, addressing the priest, “before we meet this young lady of yours, is there anything more you think I ought to know about her?” Peregrine snapped out of near-trance to discover that Christopher Houston was frowning thoughtfully into the windscreen.

“Rather think I’ve already told you everything of substance,” he said. “Helena Pringle’s a sensible lass, not at all the sort to give way to flights of fancy. That’s what made me prick up my ears when she first phoned me up to say there was something wrong about the flat.”

“Has she actually claimed to see anything like a physical manifestation?” Adam asked.

“No, thank God. But since I visited her there, she’s had more of the nightmares – nasty enough to make her afraid to go to sleep. I know I told you before that I didn’t think there was any need for a formal exorcism, but you ought to know that I did bring along a few things, just in case.”

He gestured toward his briefcase in the back as he spoke, but his use of the word exorcism had already given Peregrine an unpleasant jolt. He looked up sharply and found himself meeting Adam’s amused gaze in the rearview mirror. “Don’t worry,” Adam said. “I know I told you we didn’t think it was serious, but Christopher likes to be prepared, as do I. Whatever else we’re going to do today, I doubt very seriously that we’ll be casting out demons by bell, book, and candle. Just keep your eyes open, and be ready to draw anything that comes strongly to mind….”

Nicholson Street

was an area inhabited largely by students from EdinburghUniversity. Helena Pringle’s flat was located on the second floor of a large, mid-terraced house across from a row of small shops. Christopher led the way up two flights of stairs and knocked briskly on the door at the left-hand side of the landing. Almost at once a girl’s soft voice called hesitantly from the other side of the door.

“Father Houston?”

“At your service, m’dear,” Christopher said jauntily. “Brought along some reinforcements as well. If we’re to do a proper investigation, I thought we might as well make a thorough job of it.”

Helena Pringle opened the door. In person she was plump and fair, with a fresh complexion and lustrous ginger-blond hair. She made an effort to smile as she ushered them through into the sitting room, but Adam was quick to note the shadows of sleeplessness underscoring her wide blue eyes. “This is Dr. Adam Sinclair,” Christopher said, performing the introductions.

“He’s a psychiatrist – specializes in hypnotherapy. And this is Mr. Lovat.

Between us all, we should be able to sort this thing out.” Helena glanced uneasily from Christopher to Adam, standing tall against the light from the sitting room windows. She was nervously twisting her hands together.

“A psychiatrist?” she murmured. “Does that mean I’m mentally ill?” “Not in the least,” Adam said with a reassuring smile. “But from what Christopher has said, I understand that you’ve been having some exceptionally disturbing dreams. It occurred to both of us that it might be useful to look more closely at those dreams, to see if we can find out what’s causing them. With your permission, I thought I might try hypnosis to help you recall details that you might have overlooked.”

“You want to hypnotise me?” she whispered apprehensively. “I assure you, it won’t be anything like what happens in the more lurid late-night horror films,” he said, trying to reassure her enough to elicit a smile. “I’ve never yet bitten a patient on the neck.”

At her startled look, he smiled gently and continued. “Seriously, the procedure is perfectly safe, and quite clinical. You will always remain in control. My own function is merely that of guide. Christopher will be here the entire time. He can even hold your hand, if you like.”

Despite an obvious effort not to, Helena did allow a brief, self-conscious smile to flicker on her lips.

“I – I see,” she murmured. “I suppose I’m being silly, to be so frightened.” Her blue eyes shifted uncertainly to Peregrine, hovering uncomfortably in the background. “Are you a psychiatrist, too?” she asked.

“No, I – “

“Mr. Lovat is an artist,” Adam interposed easily. “He’s assisted me before. He has a gift for translating psychic impressions into concrete images. And there’s nothing at all silly about being frightened. But once you understand what’s frightening you, I think you’ll find that you aren’t frightened anymore. Again with your permission, I should like Mr. Lovat to make sketches as you narrate the events in your dreams.”

“Father Houston?” Helena turned appealingly to Christopher, who gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Wouldn’t have brought them, if I didn’t think they could help,” he told her firmly. “Think you might be willing to give it a try?”

Helena swallowed hard, then gave an affirmative nod. “All right,” she said tremulously. She squared her shoulders and transferred her attention to Adam. “I’ve never been hypnotised before, Dr. Sinclair. What do you want me to do?” Adam had already made a survey of the room. It was cosily furnished, its old-fashioned cast-iron fireplace tastefully altered to accommodate a modern gas fire. The glow from the grating reflected warmly off the flowered print upholstery of an overstuffed three-piece suite arranged around the hearth. The assortment of small ornaments in the room included half a dozen small crystal prisms strung up across the right-hand window on transparent strands of nylon thread.

“First of all,” he said, “I suggest we all make ourselves comfortable. May I call you Helena?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you. Then perhaps you’d care to take a seat in that armchair to the right of the fireplace, Helena, and I’ll ask for the loan of one of these lovely prisms in the window. Yes, this should do very nicely.” Watching as Adam set the stage for the work he was about to do, Peregrine was reminded of his own initial experience with hypnosis. Like Helena Pringle, he had been bedeviled by fears and spectres – until Adam had helped him discern the gift beneath his fears. He hoped that Helena’s case would end as happily as his own.

Carrying the prism by its nylon thread, Adam brought it back from the windowframe and hung it temporarily over a candlestick on the mantel, so that it dangled over the edge and could catch the light.

“Now, we’ll just draw the inner curtains to filter out some of the light,” he said, heading back to the windows. “You’ll find it much easier to relax with the lighting a bit more subdued.”

Helena watched him closely, her manner stiff with shrinking uneasiness, and Christopher moved closer on the adjacent settee.

“There, there,” he murmured. “Nothing to be afraid of, I promise you. Here – hold my hand, if it will make you feel better.”

He reached out and took one of Helena’s small, tense hands firmly between his own. When her fingers tightened on his, he moved closer yet, so that they were almost touching knee to knee.

Peregrine, meanwhile, had selected a straight-backed chair between the windows, where he knew the light would be best for sketching. It would also put him outside Helena’s peripheral vision, and therefore less likely to distract her. He sat down and was just arranging his sketchbook and pencils when something about Christopher’s apparently casual double handclasp with Helena struck him as being somehow significant.

He took a closer look. Then his gaze focused sharply on the priest’s right hand. The ring had not been there before – Peregrine was certain he would have noticed. The gold-set sapphire was square-cut rather than oval like those Adam and McLeod sometimes wore, and somewhat smaller, but Peregrine suddenly had no doubt that the ring served the same purpose.

Good God, he’s one of them! Peregrine thought, hardly knowing whether to be scandalized or impressed by his discovery, though somehow it did not really surprise him. He’s doing the same sort of thing Adam does – helping him, starting to guide that girl safely into a hypnotic trance, so she won’t be afraid. And it isn ‘t the first time they ‘ve worked together this way! The priest had brought two fingers to rest lightly over the pulse-point in Helena’s wrist, and was speaking to her in a voice too low for Peregrine to make out the words, but his expression was serenely distant, almost as if he were listening to faraway music.

Even as enlightenment settled into acceptance in Peregrine’s mind, a greyish film seemed to pass in front of his eyes. It was like looking through some sort of heavy, semi-transparent veil, like a shower curtain. Six weeks earlier, such a clouding of his vision would have terrified him – and had terrified him. Now, thanks to Adam, he knew what it meant, and what he had to do. Blinking once, he leaned back in his chair, letting his eyelids droop behind his spectacles and bidding his vision focus through and beyond Helena. During the succession of slow, deep breaths that followed, the veil before his eyes began to take on the character of a ghostly overlay of images. Disregarding for the moment all concrete aspects of the room, he set himself to capture on paper the visual resonances of past events….

The light in the room was subdued now, filtered through the sheer inner curtains Adam had drawn. Peripherally aware that Peregrine had begun to sketch, Adam returned to the fireplace and cast an inquiring look in Christopher’s direction. The priest gave him a slight nod, and Helena also glanced up at him, looking far less anxious than she had before.

Taking his cue with a smoothness born of long practice, Adam reclaimed the prism from the mantel candlestick and sank down in the chair opposite his subject. Holding it by its transparent thread, he extended his hand so that the prism hung slightly above Helena’s eye-level. Its multiple facets caught the glow off the gas fire, fracturing the flickering amber light into rainbow glints of red, yellow, and green. The sparkling play of colors drew Helena’s gaze like a magnet.

“Now, this is your own crystal, Helena, so you know that there’s nothing particularly mysterious or frightening about it,” Adam said quietly, moving the thread of prism slightly between his fingers so that it twirled slightly. “It’s simply a focus, so that you can turn all your attention to one, single point. This is the way we distract your conscious mind, so that gradually your unconscious mind, where dreams come from, can rise closer to the surface, and recall things in greater detail that you need to see.

“So I want you to focus all your attention on this crystal. Watch it turn and sparkle, watch how it catches the light. Let the crystal be the only thing in your vision, and listen only to my voice, as all the background sounds outside recede and you focus completely on the crystal and what I am saying.” Adam watched the movement of her eyes, locked already on the subtle flashing of the crystal, and shifted to more specific instructions in a low, conversational tone.

“That’s just fine, Helena. Just drift and let yourself relax. You’re quite safe and comfortable. Christopher is right here beside you…. “You haven’t been getting your rest of late, have you? You must be very tired. So tired…. I imagine there’s nothing you’d like better right now than a little bit of sleep. Why don’t you let yourself go? Just relax, and let your eyelids droop… that’s right. You’re feeling warm and safe and drowsy… very, very drowsy….”

By degrees the tension went out of Helena’s face and neck. Her eyes closed, and her breathing settled into a slow, regular rhythm. Adam lowered the pendulum and eased back in his chair, continuing to speak reassuringly of sleep and greater relaxation. When he was satisfied that his subject had achieved a sufficient level of trance, his suggestions began to shift more specifically to their needs.

“You’re doing very well, Helena. Just fine, in fact. You’re a very good subject.

You can hear me quite clearly, can’t you?”

“Yes.” The girl’s response was a mere whisper.

“Very good,” Adam said in the same gentle but confident tone. “Now, in one sense, you’re awake – fully aware of your present surroundings. But in another sense, you’re like someone sitting in a cinema, waiting to see a film. The film is a recording of the dream you had the night before last. In a moment I’d like to start the film running. Are you willing to watch the film and tell me what you see?”

“Yes.” The affirmative came after only a slight hesitation. “Excellent,” Adam said with soft approval. “I’m going to start counting backwards from five now, just like you sometimes see on the screen before the actual picture begins. When I reach the number one, that will be the sign for your film to begin, and you’ll begin to describe everything you see on the screen. Five… four… three… two… one.”

Helena’s eyelids trembled, watching the inner memory unfold, and after a moment she drew a deep breath, eyes remaining closed.

“It’s this room, but different. There’s frost on the windows. The carpet is dull red, instead of blue, and the chairs have bare wooden arms. The people have all gone away, but they’ve left their shadows behind. The shadows are drifting in and out like ghosts – “ She broke off abruptly, a look of consternation furrowing her brow. “It’s only a film,” Adam reminded her quietly. “You can turn it off anytime you want, but there’s nothing you see there that can do you any harm. Christopher and I are right here. You’re not afraid, are you?”

“A – a little,” she murmured.

“Then here, take my hand too,” he said, enfolding her free hand in his two, as Christopher had done with the first. “Now, you’re perfectly safe, with both of us here. So when you’re ready, I’d like you to go back to the film and continue telling me what you see. Will you do that for us?”

At her timid nod, he patted her hand reassuringly.

“There’s a brave girl. Now, you mentioned something about shadows. Can you tell me what it is about these shadows that you find so frightening?” Helena bit her lip. “They’re – so dark – like cutouts made from black cellophane. And they won’t keep to the walls. They keep coming out into the middle of the room. I can hear them whispering. They’re cruel. They want to break the things they can’t have – “ This time the break in her voice was a small gasp of fear. “That’s enough for now,” Adam said, glancing back at Peregrine, who was still sketching busily. “You needn’t be afraid. It’s time to turn off the film. When the lights come on, it will be as if you’ve moved into a different room – someplace where you feel safe and secure. What room would you like that to be?” “My old room at home, in my parents’ house.”

“That’s where it will be, then,” Adam said confidently. “The lights are now on.

What do you see?”

Helena was smiling again, relaxed. “My bed, with the quilt my grandmother made for me. All my dolls are lined up along the footboard.” “That sounds like a wonderful, cozy place, Helena,” Adam said approvingly. “Why don’t you go lie down on the bed and have a little nap? Nothing will disturb you, and you’ll remember nothing of what you might hear. In a little while, I’ll give you a touch on the forehead and call you by name. At that point you will wake up feeling refreshed.”

Helena sighed and sank back in her chair with a small wriggle, like a child nestling under the blankets. Satisfied that she was comfortable, Adam disengaged his hands from hers and straightened up, shifting his attention to Christopher with a look of inquiry. The priest likewise released the hand he had been holding and shook his head.

“Whispering black shadows,” he muttered. “Sounds to me like there really is something darkening the atmosphere of this place. Wonder what it could be.” “So do I,” Adam agreed, in a thoughtful undertone. “I doubt we can glean much more from Helena, though, at least at any practical level. If I thought it involved her directly, I could probably get at it with more aggressive techniques – drug support, and such – but I don’t think it’s warranted, in this case. My suspicion is that she’s simply been picking up resonances of things that took place here in the flat long before she moved in – and what she’s picked up suggests several intriguing possibilities. Fortunately, we have other resources at our disposal besides her dreams.”

He cast a pointed glance in the direction of the windows. Peregrine was still sketching, his pencil darting back and forth across the page in front of him with swift, unerring precision. From the expression on the young artist’s face, Adam could tell that he was temporarily oblivious to the present scene, his attention focused wholly on the task of isolating and capturing a significant image of the past.

Christopher elevated an eyebrow, clearly impressed.

“He sees what took place?” he said, almost incredulously. “And he’s learned all this in only a month?”

Adam nodded. “Less, actually. I suspected, from our first meeting, that he had the makings of a Huntsman. At Melrose, I became convinced of it. You see now, don’t you, why I was so keen that you and Victoria should have a chance to meet him for yourselves?”

“Indeed,” Christopher acknowledged with a fleeting grin. “I can hardly wait to see what’s going down on that bit of paper.”

Even as he spoke, Peregrine made a few more decisive flourishes with his pencil, then leaned back in his chair. With his next breath, his hazel eyes snapped back into normal focus. He gave himself a slight shake before glancing down at the page in front of him.

“Adam!” he exclaimed. “Come and take a look at this!” Adam rose swiftly to answer the summons, Christopher following after a glance to reassure himself that their subject still slept. Peregrine handed over what he had drawn, and Adam turned it to the light, his dark eyes intent as he looked it over. Christopher edged closer and peered over his shoulder. The sketch showed Helena’s sitting room as seen from Peregrine’s perspective, but with some features altered – notably the chairs and the settee, which were far more severe than the present furnishings.

Other elements in the room included a Christmas tree in the window bay and a large oriental screen shielding the room’s other window. Of greatest interest, however, were the two human figures sketched in the foreground. The most prominent of them was an intense young man with longish, dark, straight hair. Dark-robed like a monk, with a hooded cowl pushed back on his shoulders, he was kneeling upright on the carpet, offering up his crossed wrists to a somewhat older man, also robed, who was reaching out as though to bind them with a cord that Peregrine had labeled as being red.

The binding was being supervised by a third robed man who watched from the background, a short distance away. Though his features were little more than an impressionistic blur, it could be seen that he wore a medallion on a chain about his neck.

“Look there,” Peregrine said, using his pencil as a pointer. “Where have you seen a medallion like that before?”

chapter four

THE arrested expression on Adam’s face was answer enough for Peregrine, but Christopher obviously was missing something. Somewhat bemused, he glanced from Adam to Peregrine and back again.

“Afraid you’ve lost me, chaps,” he said to Adam. “Where have you seen a medallion like that?”

“In far too many places of late,” Adam said thinly, “if Peregrine intends what I think he does, by this sketch.” At the artist’s tight-lipped nod, he went on. “Most recently, in a series of paintings he snowed me just this morning. I regret to inform you that the Lodge of the Lynx appears to be active again.” Christopher breathed out softly through pursed lips. “Angels and ministers of grace defend us! I’d wondered, with everything else that’s been going on. But who would have thought we’d stumble across their tracks here, in a student flat in Edinburgh?”

Adam set his jaw in grim disapproval. “They have to recruit new members from somewhere. Where better, than from the ranks of the young and impressionable?” Peregrine had been following this exchange so closely that it only belatedly occurred to him that Christopher had spoken as a man with knowledge – and why. He blinked and took a closer look at the clergyman. Gone, for the moment, was the air of a cheerful schoolboy. All at once Christopher Houston looked deadly serious, no more to be trifled with than Adam or McLeod. As Peregrine recalled his earlier conjecture, he glanced furtively at the ring the priest still wore. “I see you’ve arrived at the proper conclusion,” his mentor said with a slight smile, as he handed back the sketch. “I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out. Yes, Christopher and his good lady are members of the same enforcement group as Noel and myself. They’ve assisted in the Hunt on many past occasions.”

“But never in anything where the Lodge of the Lynx had a hand,” Christopher put in, a little distractedly. “Before my time, you see. I rather hoped our predecessors had put a stop to their doings, once and for all.” An uncharacteristic grimace momentarily distorted the schoolboy face. “Appears we were overly optimistic.”

Peregrine blinked once behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, then returned his attention to the sketch in his hand, now consciously comparing what he had drawn with what the room now held. Silently commending the young artist for his swift grasp of priorities, Adam turned his attention briefly to a glance around the room.

“Well, I wonder how long it’s been since the flat was last furnished in the style shown in our drawing.”

Christopher’s brows knit, also returning to practicalities. “Seem to recall Helena saying something about it having been refurbished before she moved in,” he said breezily, returning to the clipped phrasing of his usual repartee. “I’ll have a word with Mrs. Beaton before we leave – that’s the landlady. She ought to be able to tell us when the work was done – and also who some of the previous tenants have been.”

“In the meantime,” Adam said, “the flat itself remains a problem.” He took the sketch again and glanced at it distractedly. “The fact that Peregrine sketched this particular scene, which seems to be a ritual binding of some sort, suggests that this was the high point of the rite, if you can call it that – which ought to reassure everybody that the chap with the tied hands wasn’t done to death right here in the flat. If he had been, I’m sure Peregrine would have seen and sketched that. Death, as he’s learned, leaves a different kind of residue.” As Peregrine nodded his emphatic agreement, Christopher took the sketch and studied it more closely.

“We can rule out a simple ghost, then, as I suspected from the beginning. Would you say that it was an initiation, then?”

Adam nodded. “That would be my guess, though it’s impossible to know for certain, at this remove. Negative enough, in its own way, if the Lodge of the Lynx was behind it, but not as heavy-duty as it might have been. Still, it’s nasty enough to bother our Helena after close to a year, if the Christmas tree is an accurate indication of time. Whatever the cause, the effect now needs to be dealt with. What do you recommend, Christopher?” Since their very first meeting, Peregrine had come to take Adam’s leadership for granted. He was momentarily surprised to hear Adam asking Christopher for advice, until he reminded himself that one of the most valuable gifts of command was the ability to exercise a discerning trust in the competence of others. Christopher deliberated a moment before replying.

“Earlier, I’d have said the place just needed a spiritual airing out – a general benediction to lighten the atmosphere. Now, knowing the Lodge of the Lynx is involved, I’d say we do need something more like an exorcism. “Not the formal rite of the Church, though – poor Helena would probably find that as frightening as a disembodied spirit. No, I’d rather try something a trifle more subtle – something Helena herself can take part in. It’s important that she have faith in what we’re doing, and that’s best achieved through sharing in the work.”

The ceremony he went on to propose was both graceful and straightforward, containing nothing overt to suggest that it was anything more than a simple house blessing and dedication. When Christopher had finished, Adam nodded his approval.

“I think that will answer the purpose very well,” he told the priest. “Let’s wake our young lady and acquaint her with what you have in mind.” Helena roused easily in response to Adam’s prearranged cues, Christopher once more holding her hand.

“Hullo, m’dear,” the priest said, smiling and lifting the back of her hand lightly to his lips. “Nice to have you back with us again. How do you feel?” “I – I do feel better,” she acknowledged, with a tremulous smile. Then a small shadow of anxiety crossed her face. “Did you – were you able to find out anything?”

Adam smiled and sat back casually in his chair, toying with the crystal he had taken up before waking her.

“Indeed, we did. And you were a most cooperative and useful subject. After reviewing the evidence, I think we may safely say that these nightmares of yours owe their origin to influences outside your own psyche.” Helena blinked at him owlishly, as though she hardly dared believe him.

“Then, it wasn’t just me!”

“Not at all,” Adam said. “Not unless you count having more than your share of womanly intuition – and that has nothing to do with causing such things, just perceiving them.”

At Helena’s puzzled look, he went on.

“It’s a fact that physical objects – even whole houses – can and do act as psychometric receptors, storing up emotional resonances from past events,” Adam explained. “Anyone who happens to be sensitive to such things can be adversely affected – as seems to have been the case with you.”

Seeing that Helena was still looking a bit bewildered, Christopher gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze and smiled.

“What Dr. Sinclair means is that there must have been a lot of bad feelings connected with some of the people who used to live in this flat, Helena. Bad vibes, if you like – a bit like a nasty smell. Once it gets into the woodwork, it tends to hang about till you give the place a good clean-out. “So that’s just what we’re going to do,” he went on decisively, echoing Helena’s hopeful nod. “We’re going to give this place a metaphysical house-cleaning. Only we’ll use spiritual fortitude instead of ammonia solution.” Helena giggled in spite of herself.

“That’s the ticket, m’dear,” said Christopher. “Now, I know you have both a Bible and a prayer book. Thought you probably wouldn’t mind giving me the loan of them, so I didn’t bother to bring mine. Could you fetch them for me, while I get my other things? That would be splendid.”

He opened his briefcase and lifted out a clerical stole of green silk, along with a small plastic bottle of what Peregrine assumed must be holy water. Helena brought the required books from the bookshelf and sat down beside him as Christopher laid the stole around his neck and began leafing through her small, leather-bound copy of the Scriptures. While the girl’s attention was focused on her pastor, listening to his murmured instructions on the passages to read, placing the colored ribbon markers, Adam drew Peregrine into a corner of the room by the door.

“Stand here and watch,” his mentor told him. “You’re the one who can see what we’re after. I want you to be certain we get it all.”

“But, how – “

“Just watch,” Adam insisted, shaking his head to belay any further argument.

“You’ll know, when we’re done.”

They both were out of Helena’s line of vision. Even so, Adam was careful to shield what he withdrew from his coat pocket, so that even Peregrine caught only a fleeting glimpse of it.

Adam called it his toothstone – dark and oblong, curved like a wolfs fang, all but hidden in the cradle of his palm – but it was, in fact, a piece of lodestone, spiritually as well as magnetically polarized for drawing off malevolent psychic energy. Peregrine had seen it used once before at Melrose Abbey, to dispel the residue of dark intent left by those who had summoned the spirit of Michael Scot back to his grave.

Even though he was not afraid, Peregrine felt his heart thudding in his chest as Adam turned full toward him, the dark eyes already taking on an otherworldly depth, the toothstone closed in his hand between them. The older man bowed his head briefly over his closed fist, touching it to his lips, then raised hooded eyes to Peregrine’s, suddenly far more than Dr. Adam Sinclair, psychiatrist, or Sir Adam Sinclair, Baronet.

To Peregrine, he seemed inches taller as he drew a deep breath and used the top of the toothstone to sign first himself and then Peregrine with a symbol of personal warding. Peregrine fancied he could feel the path of the toothstone in the air before him, and imagined himself drawing the symbol about him like a protective mantle as Adam smiled faintly, nodded, then began making what appeared to be a casual, clockwise circuit of the room, ritually sealing it off so that the evil was trapped and could not escape. Christopher, meanwhile, had invited Helena to join with him in a moment’s quiet meditation, kneeling with her in the space contained before the fireplace, defined by the chairs and settee. The furniture also provided additional screening for what Adam was doing, should Helena look up – though in response to Christopher’s gentle instructions, she had bowed her head into her hands, eyes closed. Once Adam had finished his circuit of containment, briefly disappearing into the short corridor off the sitting room to deal with any residuals in bedroom and bath, he returned to his starting point by the door and took the toothstone between the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand. His hand steady as a surgeon’s, he then began going over the sitting room walls with a sweeping motion, back and forth just a few inches from the surface. Peregrine looked on in silence as all around him the ghosts of past events were sucked away like so much dust into a vacuum cleaner. What remained behind was a kind of emptiness. The evil was gone, but the vacancy left behind was not a comfortable one. It was a dullness that made the surrounding air seem stale in his mouth. Even as Peregrine looked instinctively toward Adam in search of an explanation, Christopher broke the silence.

“I think we may begin now,” said the priest, getting to his feet. He took a step backwards and made the sign of the cross over the still-kneeling Helena, intoning as he did so, ‘ ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let us pray. Our Father…” There followed a succession of readings from Scripture, interspersed with other prayers, some of them read by Helena herself, beseeching divine intervention to keep evil at bay and restore peace to the house. As Peregrine listened, only partly comprehending, he felt the flat emptiness of the room begin to give way to a new freshness of life. It was almost as if the room were like a cup. Adam had emptied the cup, had gotten rid of the poison and cleansed it, and now Christopher was refilling it with a lightness that eased the heart and mind like sparkling wine.

Except that Christopher was merely the vehicle – the steward at the feast, not the Master. The real Authority lay above and beyond him, even while It invested him with Its power. As Christopher moved on to asperse the corners of the room with holy water, Peregrine was forced to acknowledge that he understood what the priest was doing even less than he understood what he had seen Adam do. Religion was a mystery to him. As a child he had learned the forms of Christian worship, but the substance had always eluded him. Eventually he had come to the conclusion that there was no substance. Lately, though, he wasn’t so sure. He was still puzzling over what it was that he seemed to be missing when Christopher brought the apparently simple service to a close. Helena was smiling, all her earlier anxieties clearly laid to rest, now that the oppressive atmosphere in the flat had been lifted. Christopher waved aside her thanks with airy good humor. “All in the line of duty, m’dear,” he told her cheerily. “Must be off now, but I’ll be sure to stop in early next week to see how you’re getting on. And don’t hesitate to call me if anything at all still bothers you.” They said their farewells on the doorstep before heading downstairs to the basement flat occupied by the landlady. Mrs. Beaton, a motherly widow, greeted Christopher with a pleasure that was tinged with relief. “I’m that glad to see ye, Father Houston,” she said broadly. “I’ve been worried about our poor lamb all this last fortnight, but now ye’ve been in to see her, she’ll perhaps be easier in her mind.”

She proved quite ready to answer Christopher’s questions regarding the flat and its previous occupants. When at last Adam and his companions took leave of her, they had a short list of names, along with the fact that Helena’s flat had been redecorated only a few months earlier. Outside, the weather had turned wet and gusty. They beat a path back to the car under a stinging splatter of cold rain. “I suppose it was only a matter of time,” Christopher said resignedly, futilely brushing rain from the shoulders of his trenchcoat when they had reached the shelter of the car.

Adam glanced over the scrap of paper they had obtained from Mrs. Beaton, then tucked it carefully away in the breast pocket of his coat. “I’ll pass the names on to Noel,” he said. “He’ll know how to track down whatever additional information may be available. How are we doing for time, Christopher?”

The priest glanced at his wristwatch. “Not too badly. Vicky will be hoping we’re back by one, but she knows better than to plan anything for lunch that won’t hold for an hour or so. Why?”

“Oh, I had a note from Randall yesterday, saying that he’d managed to find a book for me that I’ve been after for some time,” Adam said, turning the key in the ignition. “Would you mind if we made a slight detour to his shop, to pick it up?”

“Might as well, since we’re here,” said Christopher. “Don’t fancy your chances of getting parked, though – not in this weather and on a Saturday.” “We can but hope,” said Adam, and eased the blue Range Rover deftly into traffic.

The bookshop in question lay at the upper end of a stepped close opening off the Royal Mile. The street itself was ablaze with headlamps as cars and lorries ploughed doggedly through the worsening rain. After two passes, Adam gave up looking for a parking place and pulled up at the curb in what was formally designated as a loading zone.

“This will have to do,” he said ruefully, glancing up and down the street for signs of a traffic warden. “I shan’t be long. Christopher, could I prevail upon you to stay behind and keep an eye out for the ‘yellow peril’? I doubt very much that even the most punctilious traffic warden would award a ticket to a man of the cloth.”

“Benefit of clergy, eh?” Christopher cocked a sly grin at his seat-mate, then made a show of adjusting the neck of his trenchcoat so that his collar was more clearly visible.

“Very well, heathen that you are! I’ll stay here and keep dry, and hope I shan’t be obliged to move the car.”

“In that eventuality, I do hope you’ll come back for us,” Adam said with a smile. ‘ ‘Come on, Peregrine. This place might interest you.” The Parnassus Bookshop was warm and still inside, an Aladdin’s cave of library shelves crammed full with volumes of every size, shape, and binding. The air had a pleasant, powdery smell that reminded Peregrine of the manuscript collections housed in the OxfordUniversity libraries.

Almost at once, his eye was drawn to a complete set of the collected fairy tales of Andrew Lang, their gold-embossed covers proclaiming them to be first editions. As he paused to admire them, a slim girl with a long mop of dark curly hair popped out from behind the counter at the back of the shop and came forward with a smile.

“May I help you, sir?” she began, then her face lit up with pleased recognition. “Oh, it’s you, Adam! How lovely to see you. Papa didn’t tell me you’d be calling in today. Is that a friend you’ve brought with you?”

She tilted her head in Peregrine’s direction, her dark eyes bright as a wren’s. ‘ ‘Miranda, if you flirt with that rascal instead of me, I shall be inconsolable!” Adam informed her with a chuckle. “However, I will admit both to having brought him and to him being a friend – a uniquely talented one, as it happens. His name is Peregrine Lovat, and he’s a portrait artist.” “A portrait artist?” Miranda was intrigued. “Have you ever painted anyone famous, Mr. Lovat?”

Peregrine flushed at the question, but found himself already caught up in the good-natured banter.

“Well, I once did a sketch of the Queen Mother,” he told her with a wry grin. “It was only from someone else’s photograph, though, so I don’t really think it counts.”

“Don’t let him get away with false modesty, Miranda,” Adam said easily. “He hasn’t painted any of the Royals – yet – but he’s had some very distinguished clients. Peregrine, this is Miranda Stewart, my friend Randall’s daughter.” Peregrine had already taken note of the piquant face and the way she had draped a silk paisley shawl, Romany-fashion, about her slender shoulders, and now he cocked his head at her in new reflection.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Stewart, though I should tell you that the most famous faces are not necessarily the most interesting ones.” Miranda gave him a tip-tilt glance from under long, dark eyelashes. “Now I’m not sure which I’d rather be – famous or interesting. Would you paint my portrait either way?”

“With pleasure,” Peregrine said, and added recklessly, “Anyway, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be both.”

Miranda laughed, and Adam, not without regrets, took the opportunity to intervene.

“Much as I would like to continue this merry exchange, I have Christopher waiting in a loading zone outside, and I need to have a word with your father, if I may. Is he in?”

“He’s in the stockroom,” Miranda said. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll nip back and tell him you’re here.”

She was gone in a gypsy whirl of dark skirts, vanishing through a door at the back of the shop. When she returned a few minutes later, she was accompanied by a slight, elderly man in spectacles. When he caught sight of his two visitors, he hurried forward.

“Adam!” he exclaimed. “What a delightful surprise on an otherwise gloomy Saturday morning!”

“You’ll spoil me with such greetings, Randall,” Adam said with a chuckle. “Perhaps I should have telephoned, but I must confess, this is a slightly impromptu visit.”

“It matters not a whit,” said the elderly bookseller. “You know you’re always a welcome visitor.”

His mild blue gaze turned to Peregrine. “And who is this?” he inquired. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“This is Mr. Peregrine Lovat,” Adam said, beckoning Peregrine forward.

“Peregrine, my very dear friend, Randall Stewart.”

Peregrine surveyed Miranda’s father as they exchanged handshakes. Lightly-built like his daughter, Randall Stewart had silvery hair and the finely-chiseled face of an aging scholar. The gentle, old-world courtesy in his manner was suggestive of more courtly times.

“Peregrine Lovat,” the old man mused. “That name is not unfamiliar to me – ah, I have it! You’re the portrait artist, aren’t you? The one whose works were so favorably reviewed in The Scotsman.”

Peregrine had the grace to blush. “The critics have been very generous, sir.” “And you are too modest,” Randall replied. “I myself saw an exhibition of your work in the National Gallery. The critics’ praise was well-merited, and I’m happy to have met you in person.”

Before Peregrine could summon a suitable reply, the old man turned back to Adam. “Forgive me, but I was almost forgetting. You’ve come about the Bartholomaeus, haven’t you? It’s locked up in my desk. Come upstairs and I’ll get it for you – you, too, Mr. Lovat. Miranda will look after the shop while we chat, won’t you, my dear?”

They followed him up two flights of stairs to a large garret room at the top of the building. In addition to the heavy oaken desk by the windows, there were two comfortably well-worn armchairs drawn up on either side of a gas fire, as well as a sink and sideboard built into a nook in one corner. “My home away from home,” Randall explained to Peregrine with a smile. “Adam, would you and your young friend care for some tea?”

“I’m afraid we really haven’t a great deal of time,” Adam said apologetically. “I’ve left Christopher minding the car, with instructions to invoke benefit of clergy if a traffic warden gets stroppy, and Victoria will be holding lunch for us. Besides that, we appear to have caught you in the middle of some work.” He gestured toward the desk, which was dominated by an ancient manual typewriter. A sheet of typing paper half-covered in print stuck up above the platen.

“It’s nothing that can’t wait a few minutes,” Randall said with a faint smile. “A letter to the editor of the Sunday Times. It won’t make this week’s edition anyway.”

“Another letter?” Adam quirked an eyebrow. “I admire your diligence, Randall. Your piece in last week’s Times was quite an elegant apologia for the institution of Freemasonry.”

The bookseller looked pleased. “Why, thank you. That’s high praise, coming from someone who is not a member of the Craft – though I know you’re sympathetic to the work.” Then his face sobered. “I must confess, I’m not a little worried about the recent attacks that have been made on our fraternal order. Just the other night, vandals broke into the Freemason’s Hall in

George Street

and did damage to several of the rooms. And there have been other incidents….” His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “I don’t know what the world is coming to. Granted, the public have not always understood the nature of our institution. Our detractors mistrust what they regard as our secrecy. But it’s only through secrecy that we can guarantee that the knowledge entrusted to us will not be abused by men of self-seeking ambition. And so we must continue to guard our rites, hoping at the same time that our works themselves will stand as proof of our benign intentions.”

Adam was nodding. ‘ To quote from a more modern rendering of the oassaae from St. Matthew, Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice, for by doing this you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven. You make a very able advocate, Randall. I’ll be watching for your letter in next Sunday’s editorial section.”

“In that case,” said Randall, “I shall make a point of getting it finished. Now, let me show you the Bartholomaeus.”

Beckoning Adam to accompany him, he crossed over to the desk and unlocked the lowest drawer on the left-hand side. Peregrine followed, peering over Adam’s shoulder as the elderly bookseller lifted out a stout volume bound in tooled leather.

“This is merely a Victorian facsimile of the 1495 edition by Wynken de Worde,” Randall explained, “but I think you’ll find that it faithfully mirrors the original.”

Adam opened to the title page, then lifted the book in his hands so that Peregrine could read it: De Proprietatibus Rerum.

“Concerning the Properties of Things,” he said aloud, automatically translating the Latin. As Adam continued to leaf through it, Peregrine realized that the book itself was written not in Latin, but in Middle English. “It’s a late medieval encyclopedia,” Adam said, answering the unasked question. “It was compiled in Latin by Bartholomaeus Anglicus – Bartholomew the Englishman – and later translated by one John of Trevisa. It’s a repository of a wealth of knowledge, as it was understood by the readers of the day, and therefore of considerable interest to anyone interested in the evolution of ideas.” He smiled over at Randall Stewart as he closed the book, cradling it against his chest with pleased possessiveness.

“Thank you for finding this for me, Randall. I know it was no easy task, and I hope you’ll not undervalue your own efforts in setting the price. Don’t give me any numbers now!” he warned, holding up a hand and shaking his head emphatically.’ ‘I insist that you come up to Strathmourne in the next week or so, and we’ll discuss it over drinks.”

“I’d like that,” Randall said, smiling. “As it happens, I’ve got to make a trip up to Stirling tomorrow to do an estate appraisal. It’s supposed to be a large collection, so it may take me several days. Why don’t I give you a ring when I’m finished? If it turns out that you’re planning to be in, I’ll make a slight detour on my way back home.”

“That should mesh nicely with my plans,” Adam said. “I’ll look forward to your call.”

Downstairs, Adam and Peregrine tarried long enough for Miranda to wrap up the book, then bade her and Randall a cordial good-bye. Back outside amid the rainy bustle of the Royal Mile, the Range Rover had disappeared. Mildly dismayed, Peregrine turned up his collar and cast a searching glance over the moving lines of traffic. Just then, the hoot of a familiar car-horn caught Adam’s attention. “There’s Christopher now,” he said, pointing. “Run for it, before we both get utterly drenched!”

They arrived back at the rectory closer to two o’clock than to one. Victoria met them at the door and hustled them into the shelter of the hall. “Lord, it’s turned perishing cold, hasn’t it?” Christopher observed, as the three of them shook themselves out of their dripping coats. “Sorry we’re late, Vicky. If this keeps up, I think we’ll see snow before dark.” “Never mind,” said Victoria. “The kettle’s on the boil, and so is the soup. Come along through to the dining room and I’ll start serving up.” Shortly thereafter, the four of them sat down to steaming bowls of Scotch broth, with omelettes and hot buttered toast to follow. In the course of the meal, Christopher and Adam related what had occurred at the flat. At length, prompted by Adam, Peregrine brought out the sketch he had made on the premises. Victoria studied it gravely for a long, thoughtful moment before handing it back. He noticed, hardly even surprised now, that the center stone in her engagement ring was a sapphire.

“I suspect we should count ourselves lucky to have stumbled across what might turn out to be an important lead,” she observed. “Do you think there’s any chance that Noel will be able to find the young man in the picture?” “If he can’t, no one can,” Adam said. “The youth himself is probably no more than a novice. But it’s just barely possible that he might be able to tell us something useful concerning the older man in the background.” “The man with the medallion?” Christopher paused to give his long nose a rub. “Are you thinking this fellow might have been mixed up with the events at Loch Ness?”

Adam frowned. “I wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility.” Victoria gave her head a thoughtful shake. “Whatever was in Michael Scot’s spellbook, they wanted it badly enough to risk lives for it. What do you suppose they’re up to?”

“I only wish we knew,” Adam said. “Whatever it may be, they obviously intend to stop at nothing to achieve it.”

“What about the wee lassie?” asked Christopher. “Scot’s current persona – what’s the name, Talbot?”

“Gillian Talbot,” Adam said with a nod. “It’s still too soon to tell. When I saw her in the hospital, she was in a bad way – her entire personality disrupted, at every level. I was able to leave one of my cards with the mother, but so far there’s been no follow-up. If I don’t hear anything by the end of next week, I’ll give some thought to finding a way to renew the contact.” “Couldn’t you just telephone?” Victoria asked.

Adam grimaced. ‘ “That could be a bit awkward, explaining my interest. Besides, there may well be a better way. I’ve got to go down to London toward the end of the month; Mother’s coming over for the holidays. If her schedule permits, I may arrange to call in at the hospital again. We’ll just have to see.” A fresh gust of wind rattled the windows at his back. Christopher squinted down at his watch and clucked his tongue.

“Lawks, is that really the time? Sorry, Adam, but I’m going to have to think about leaving. I’ve got a christening in half an hour.”

“We’ve got to be going as well,” Adam said, with a glance that included Peregrine. “Thank you, Victoria, for an excellent lunch. I hope I can count on seeing both of you tomorrow night?”

“Wouldn’t think of missing it, old fellow, even if there’s a blizzard,” Christopher said with a grin. “To paraphrase what the postmen say where your mother comes from, Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall stay these dinner guests from their appointed feast….”

chapter five

THE thickly forested hills to the north of Blairgowrie were blanketed with newly-fallen snow. Thinking back over his twenty-seven years’ service as a gamekeeper, Jimmy McArdle could recall only a handful of times when there had been snow on the ground so early in the season, with the first of December still nearly a fortnight away. It would bring the deer down early this year. He must see about having extra bales of hay set out at the usual places – and keep an even closer watch than usual for the poachers, who would be drawn by the deer’s easier accessibility.

Pausing briefly on the whitened footpath, Jimmy inhaled deeply of the clean tang of pine resin and turned his face to the dark sweep of starlight overhead, then eased the weight of his rifle to his shoulder and put his eye to the scope to sight in briefly on the splendor of Sirius, flashing red and green and white like a beacon. With no moon, even with the snow but newly fallen, the night was tailor-made for poachers. His breath made a filmy plume of steam against the far-flung scattering of winter stars as he lowered his weapon and drank in the sounds of the night, savoring the stillness and the solitude. Jimmy loved these woods, and he loved these rugged hills, especially in winter. But now that the weather was clearing, the cold was beginning to bite deep. In another few years he would be too old to do this. Lately, he noticed that he seemed to mind the cold more.

Aware of an aching touch of frost in his bones, Jimmy set down the red-filtered woodsman’s torch he always carried but rarely used and delved beneath his parka for the hip-flask of brandy that was a welcome anodyne to creeping winter chills. Fingers clumsy in their heavy gloves, he unscrewed the cap and lifted the flask to his lips. Even as the brandy hit his tongue, the stillness of the surrounding woods was broken by a muffled noise that sounded not unlike a cry. The noise came from uphill, somewhere off to his right. It had not sounded like a deer. Instantly suspicious, Jimmy cocked his head to listen, gradually picking up a more muted scuffle of movement among the trees beyond. An unpaved forestry access road skirted the other side of the hill, but it was a private one, and no one should be using it at this hour, much less without Jimmy’s knowledge. Hastily stowing his flask away, Jimmy shifted his rifle into the crook of his arm and picked up his torch. He had been told not to tangle with poachers personally, for there had been some nasty incidents in the Highlands of late, and even a few killings, but if he could get close enough without being seen, he might at least get a better look at tonight’s culprits through the rifle’s scope.

The snow underfoot was ankle-deep and powdery. Scuffling through it rather than on it, so as not to give himself away, Jimmy began to work his way toward the origin of the sound, taking advantage of the cover of the snow-laden trees. He was halfway up the slope when a low, sing-song wail rang out through the surrounding woods, bringing him abruptly to a standstill. As the echoes died away, a thin chorus of whispering began.

Sibilant in the dark, the whispers rose and fell with the eerie cadence of a chant. The sound of it made Jimmy’s flesh creep. For a moment he stood rooted to the spot, unable to bring himself to move. Then he took a firmer grip on his rifle and forced himself to push on.

A dim red glow began to show through the trees ahead. Creeping forward almost against his will, Jimmy arrived at the hill crest and found himself gazing down into a hollow dell turned suddenly strange, though he had known it all his life. About a dozen figures in hooded white robes stood ranged in a circle around a central clearing. Alone at the center, on the flat grey stone that often had served as a picnic site in Jimmy’s youth, stood another white-robed figure, cowled head thrown back and arms raised, facing another kneeling figure at the edge of the stone, whose bowed grey head was bare.

Sullen pockets of fire burned red at each of the four quarters of the circle, sending up heavy spirals of evil-looking black smoke. The moving flicker of the flames cast eerie shadows on the kneeling man. Looking more closely, Jimmy realized that his hands were bound behind his back.

Even as Jimmy stared in mesmerized horror, the chanting abruptly ceased. The old man had offered no resistance as his captors dragged him uphill through the new-fallen snow, nor could offer any. His captors had seen to that. From the moment they had seized him – from behind, with a chloroform-soaked pad clamped over mouth and nose – their mastery had been complete. He did not even know how long they had been holding him, for they had never allowed him to recover fully from the effects of the chloroform. A succession of injections kept him drifting in and out of consciousness. He remembered being shaken awake enough to use the toilet once or twice, and a meal of sorts a few hours before – a stale, oatmealy sort of scone and a glass of harsh red wine – but little else. Shortly after the meal there had been another injection, just before they bundled him into the back of a large, closed car; and then a long ride lying on the floor, loosely covered by a tartan rug. Despite his efforts to stay awake and try to see where they were taking him, he had nodded off most of the time, his fleeting dreams peopled by nightmares.

He had roused as they hauled him out of the car, groggy and half-sick, his head throbbing from the drugs and the fear. They were parked beneath some trees – a bewildering maze of tangled evergreens, the scent of them sharp and pungent on the frosty night air. He had no idea where he was or what they intended. All he knew was that his life was in mortal danger, and he was powerless to put up a fight.

Once they left the car – he thought there was a second one, parked close behind it – the only illumination came from the electric torches of the two men going ahead and behind to light the way for the rest of the party. The old man guessed there might be as many as a dozen of them, but he could not be sure. They moved too quickly, and all were dressed alike, anonymous in long white robes like the vestments of some strange priesthood, cowled hoods pulled low over their faces. He had never seen his kidnappers clearly – and his keepers had worn Balaclava helmets – so he had yet to see the faces of any of his captors. That gave him some hope that they might eventually release him, for he certainly could not identify any of them.

What began to worry him most was that they had put one of the white robes on him, too. They must have done it during the long car ride, while he faded in and out of drugged sleep. He was bundled in an overcoat over the robe just now, his bare feet jammed into rubber Wellington boots several sizes too large, but he could sense that they had left him wearing nothing underneath the robe. Even drug-blurred logic told him that this did not bode well for whatever future he might have, even if he hadn ‘t seen their faces.

They had taken away his glasses, and his eyes wouldn’t focus properly anyway because of the drugs, but peering blearily ahead, he could see that they were approaching the crown of a hill. The iron hands at his elbows propelled him forward, up and over the crest, to descend toward a tree-ringed dell. Open to the sky from above, the clearing was blanketed in white except for a flat grey stone in the center, nearly the size of a car. The air was icy, silent as a tomb, and his ghostly escorts spoke not a word.

Fear gripped him like a vise, and he cried out once as he tried to balk. His keepers did not seem to care, and easily overcame his feeble struggles, shoving him bodily between the trees and into the center of the clearing. There rough fingers stripped off the overcoat and forced his bare, half-frozen hands behind his back, securing them with a length of thin cord while others pulled off the boots, first one and then the other. The icy shock of the snow beneath bare feet elicited a gasp, and the cord bit cruelly into his wrists. He bit back a sob of pain and bewilderment as they forced him to his knees in the snow, just at the edge of the huge, smooth stone, and stood over him to make sure he remained there.

The snow was numbing his legs from the knees down, soaking through the thin robe, chilling his blood, threatening to numb what little sense he still had left to him. Dull-eyed, increasingly sluggish, he watched his captors trace a wide ring of ashes on the whitened ground around the clearing. Flames flared red and golden in the darkness as small fires were set to burning at the four quarters of the circle, each tended by one of the white-robed men. At a signal from another, who seemed to be their leader, each of the four cast a handful of powder upon his fire. The powder flared up like gunpowder, then gave off dark, noxious tendrils of smoke that snaked slowly upward in serpentine spirals.

The smell of the smoke was sickly-sweet, heavy as opium, biting at the nostrils. The old man shivered, dread supplanting cold, for his captors’ likely intentions suddenly acquired new menace. As his two keepers stood back from him a little, and their leader stepped imperiously onto the flat stone, the old man made a final, valiant attempt to get to his feet; but frozen legs refused to respond. The effort nearly made him overbalance and fall over, and he teetered precariously on numb knees until one of his keepers leaned forward to steady him for a moment. As the man drew back again, the leader raised both arms above his head and began to recite a deep-throated invocation, in a language full of trills and liquid vowels, teasing at the edge of familiarity but not quite recognizable.

The other members of the circle joined in, their voices low and full of menace in the freezing night. The invocation yielded to a guttural chant, harsh as stone on stone. The odorous smoke from the firepits was thick in the old man’s nostrils. Paralyzed in mind and body, he wavered on the edge of fainting. The chant rose to a sudden, sharp crescendo, then ceased. The leader crossed his arms on his chest and bowed low from the waist, then pulled something dark and metallic from underneath his robe and came to kneel gracefully before the old man, offering the object on both extended palms for the old man’s inspection. It was a tore of blackened metal, overlaid in silver with primitive designs and set with tawny gems. The old man stared at it in blank incomprehension, cringing then as hands seized his upper arms from either side and more hands clasped his head, one cupping over his nose and mouth so that a sharp whiff of ammonia suddenly cleared his head and all at once he knew exactly what was about to happen.

Another moved in the darkness then, swooping down on the old man from behind. Pain exploded at the back of his skull, but heightened consciousness lingered a few heartbeats longer – just until the breath suddenly caught in his throat and hot fire seared below his right ear.

And the trembling Jimmy, watching by now through the scope on his rifle, stifled a horrified gasp as metal flashed and bright blood suddenly spurted from the old man’s neck, gushing in great, steaming jets onto the object that the other kneeling man held in his outstretched hands. The old man’s body convulsed, mouth agape in a rictus of silent agony, back arching against the restraint of his captors, but none showed him any mercy.

Within seconds, his blood had drenched his robe, his nearest captors, and the snow around him, dark crimson in the firelight, his struggles gradually diminishing, strength draining away with his blood. No more able to move than the victim still held upright by his unrelenting captors, Jimmy continued to stare in horror as blood overflowed the suppliant’s cupped hands and ran down his arms, streaming from the dark, metallic object that he finally raised in triumph as his minions at last allowed the old man’s lifeless body to crumple on the blood-drenched snow.

The stark heartlessness of it finally broke the spell and released Jimmy from his frozen horror. Outraged now, as well as appalled, he made a fumbling attempt to chamber a bullet. To his dismay, the mechanism jammed with a crunch in his quaking hands.

The sound carried almost like a gunshot. Down in the hollow, the white-robed figures stiffened, hidden faces turning to scan the surrounding trees. At a curt gesture from their leader, three of the hooded figures broke away from the circle and began heading in Jimmy’s direction, fanning out as they came. Terrified, Jimmy dropped flat and began wriggling backwards as swiftly as stealth would allow, dragging his rifle with him, praying they would not spot him. And when he reached the game trail below, he sprang upright and took to his heels like a man running for his life.

chapter six

THE BBC’s Late Night Sunday Movie ended shortly after 2A.M. It had been the 1940 black-and-white classic, “The Sea Hawk,” starring Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, and a host of others. Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod, of the Lothian and Borders Police, Edinburgh Branch, waited until all the final credits had finished rolling, immersing himself in the heroic Korngold score, then thumbed the off button on the remote control with the nostalgic reflection that the old movies still were some of the best.

Beside him on the couch, both his wife and the family cat had fallen asleep. He smiled to recall how earlier in the evening, Jane had loyally volunteered to stay up and keep him company, only to doze off during one of the romantic interludes between a sea battle and a sword fight. The large grey tabby on her lap tended to doze whenever a lap was available.

McLeod, by contrast, felt wide awake, his mind oddly restless. During the course of the evening he had sought distraction from one or the other of his several hobbies, first intending to paint the most recent of several decoy ducks – of which there were dozens perched on the boxed cornices above the sitting room windows, which at least relieved Jane of the chore of dusting them on any regular basis – then moving on to the less demanding art of origami, the Oriental pastime of decorative paper-folding.

He had learned the rudiments of origami technique from a Japanese police colleague, met when they were both participants at the FBI-sponsoredNationalAcademy in Quantico, Virginia. Since then, McLeod had gone on to become a skilled practitioner of the art. But tonight, even the challenging intricacies of origami had failed to command his attention. The coffee table was littered with thin, brightly-colored bits of rice paper he had been forced to abandon only half-finished as his distraction got the better of him. Something had been preying on his mind since teatime, without his being able to put a name to it. He was just debating whether to step out for a breath of air when the telephone rang.

Jane roused at the sound, disturbing the cat, who mewed in protest. McLeod stretched across her to snatch up the receiver in mid-ring, wondering what police crisis was about to make itself his headache at this hour. “Edinburgh 7978, McLeod here,” he said gruffly.

“Inspector McLeod?” The male voice at the other end of the line was wide-awake, despite the lateness of the hour, tending to confirm McLeod’s suspicion that this was an official call. He didn’t recognize the speaker, though. “Aye,” he growled. “Who’s this I’m speaking to?”

“This is Sergeant Callum Kirkpatrick, calling from Blairgowrie Police Station,” the voice said crisply. “You may not remember me, Inspector, but I also hail from Huntingtower Lodge, in Perth. We met briefly last year at a meeting of the general council. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Brother McLeod, but we think we may have a bit of a problem up here, and we’re needing someone of your experience to advise us on how to proceed.”

Memory jogged by Kirkpatrick’s succinct recap of their meeting, McLeod now remembered being introduced to a police sergeant of that name from Huntingtower – a nice enough chap, as he recalled: well-read and very professional, an aficionado of American cowboy films and a crack shot, both with pistol and rifle, on Tayside’s Police Olympic team.

What sent a shiver of premonition through his nerve-ends was Kirkpatrick’s appeal as a fellow-Freemason as well as a fellow-police officer. Having himself been a Mason nearly all his adult life, McLeod knew well that Kirkpatrick would not invoke the fraternal bond without good cause.

“No apologies necessary, Brother Kirkpatrick,” he said, shifting into professional mode. “Just tell me what’s happened.”

There was a pause from the other end of the line, as if Kirkpatrick were not entirely certain how to begin. Then he spoke in a rush. “We’ve got a man up here at the station, name of McArdle – works as a gamekeeper on the Baltierny estate. He swears – an’ this is going to sound daft – but he swears he’s witnessed some kind of human sacrifice up in the middle of BaltiernyForest. Black magic, he says.”

Kirkpatrick’s voice paused almost apologetically, and McLeod made himself draw a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“That is a pretty spectacular claim,” he said noncommittally, wondering if this was what had had him on edge all evening. “Have you checked out his story?” “Not yet.” Kirkpatrick sounded uncomfortable over the admission. “The area’s awfully rugged, so it really isn’t practical until first light. I ought to say here that I’d usually consider McArdle a reliable witness. He’s worked for Lord Baltierny for more than forty years, and been head gamekeeper for twenty. He’s well-respected in the town.

“When McArdle first came in, though, he was smelling strongly of spirits,” Kirkpatrick went on. “The desk officer was new to Blairgowrie, and didn’t know McArdle. He thought it was probably just the drink talking, and advised him to go home and sleep it off. But McArdle wouldnae have it – kept insisting he’d seen what he’d seen, and only took a wee drink afterwards to steady his nerves, before coming in to make a report. He got so agitated that the desk officer eventually agreed to give him a breath test.”

“And?” McLeod prompted, when the voice did not immediately continue. “Well, he didn’t even register; stone cold sober, according to the breathalyzer.”

“I see,” McLeod murmured.

“That’s when the desk man called me in,” Kirkpatrick went on. “He told me over the phone what was being claimed, and by whom, and I had McArdle repeat it twice when I got there.” He sighed.

“Inspector, I’ve known Jimmy McArdle for nearly ten years, and I don’t think he’s lying. But if he does have the right of it – if there was a black magic killing somewhere out there in his bailiwick – we’re certainly not equipped to deal with it, here in Blairgowrie. Burglars are more our speed, an’ rowdies in pubs, an’ even poachers, but not murderers – and especially not black-magic loonies. I remembered someone telling me that you were the one who generally handles cases like this on behalf of Lothian and Borders. So it seemed like a good idea to ring you up rather than risk mishandling the case.” “I can appreciate that, Sergeant,” said McLeod, “but before I go handing out advice, I could do with a bit more information. What made your man so certain that what he saw was some kind of occult ritual?”

“He says the perpetrators were all wearing white robes with hoods pulled down over their faces. He claims to have heard them muttering some kind of chant over the victim before they struck him down,” Kirkpatrick said, then added dubiously, “I suppose it could all be some kind of a hoax – a university lark or something.”

“Aye, perhaps,” McLeod said, “but I don’t think we dare make that assumption.

Your witness sounds solid. Maybe I ought to drive up to Blairgowrie myself.” “I was hoping you’d say that,” Kirkpatrick said frankly, “and I’d be mighty grateful if you would. I hate to call you out on a night like this, but – how soon could you get here?”

“I’ll try to be off within the next half hour,” McLeod said. “How are the roads?”

“There’s been a good four or five inches of snow since about eight last night, but the main roads are all passable. We’ve got four-wheel drive vehicles, once you get here, to go up to the site. Is there anything we ought to be doing in the meantime, till you arrive?”

McLeod scowled abstractedly. ‘ ‘Just try not to let the press get wind of this, until we know what we’re dealing with,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have anyone up there with homicide training?”

“Afraid not, Inspector.”

“Well, no matter. We’ll deal with that when and if it proves necessary. If your witness has his facts right,” he continued grimly, “there won’t be any need to hurry where the victim is concerned. And the perpetrators themselves will be long gone.”

He thought a moment longer. “There’s someone I’d like to bring with me, if he’s available – a psychiatrist friend of mine, with a great deal of experience in dealing with cases like this. In fact, he’s the man I call when I need an expert. I’ve worked with him many times, and value his opinion.” “If you think he can help,” said Kirkpatrick, “you’ll get no objections from me.”

“I’ve got to get in touch with him first – but that’s my problem, not yours,” said McLeod. “Either way, God willing, I should be joining you in Blairgowrie in about three hours’ time. See you then.”

With that he rang off and turned to his wife. Jane was sitting quietly on the couch, absently stroking the cat. She arched a reddish eyebrow, with an expression of long-suffering resignation.

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You have to go out. Shall I make you a flask of coffee, then?”

“Aye,” McLeod said ruefully, “I suppose you’d better.” He leaned across to give her shoulders a fond squeeze, and added broadly, “Och, you’re a braw wee trooper, Janie, my lass. I promise to make it up to you when I get home.” “That you will, Noel McLeod,” she agreed with some astrin-gency. But her dark eyes were twinkling. McLeod held her a moment longer, before releasing her with an effort. As she rose and made off towards the kitchen, the cat following expectantly at her heels, he picked up the telephone again and dialled the number for Strathmourne House.

While Inspector Noel McLeod was on the phone discussing the possibility of an occult-related homicide, Adam Sinclair was hosting a formal dinner for several dozen of his fellow patrons of the Societas Musica Escotia, a social organization dedicated to the appreciation and support of the musical arts in Scotland. It was a black tie affair, with most of the men attired in Highland dress, or at least tartan waistcoats, and all the women decked out in formal gowns, many of them also sporting colorful tartan sashes and other accessories. In the course of the long, full evening, the guests had partaken of an excellent dinner featuring such Scottish culinary delicacies as poached wild salmon, roast pheasant in oatmeal, and Creme Auld Alliance, a sweet, heady blend of heather honey, whisky, and cream.

Now they were being shepherded into the drawing room by the Society’s president for coffee and musical entertainment, the latter supplied, as was customary, by volunteers from among their own ranks. One end of the bow-fronted room had been set aside as an impromptu stage, and several of the guests busied themselves with final arrangements there as the rest filed in and began taking seats in the audience area, Adam among them.

While the last few stragglers were still getting settled, Lady Janet Fraser leaned forward in her seat and laid a slim, jewelled hand affectionately on Adam’s shoulder.

“My dear Adam, you really do throw the most excellent dinner parties!” she murmured. “True hospitality must surely count as a form of art, don’t you agree, Caroline?”

The question was addressed to the sylph-like blonde woman seated at Adam’s side. Lady Caroline Campbell responded with a flutter of long, delicately tinted lashes.

“Indeed,” she said with a roguish look in Adam’s direction, “I can’t think how you manage it. It must be very difficult with no one but Humphrey to help you with the arrangements.”

The calculated coquetry of the remark caused Adam to wince inwardly. After an evening spent in Lady Caroline’s company, he was heartily wishing that Janet had not been so determined to provide him with a partner, lovely though Lady Caroline certainly was. She had skin like fine porcelain and the figure of a ballerina, and the emeralds clasped around her milky throat were just a shade paler than the couturier gown of bottle-green velvet – and probably cost enough to re-roof the entire east wing of Strathmourne House. For all her physical beauty, however, there was a slight note of shrillness and even desperation to her laughter that told him she was forcing it for his benefit – and not simply out of a desire to please. It was a reaction he encountered all too often. He could hardly fail to be aware that he was considered a prime catch on the marriage market.

Not that he blamed Janet. She had tried. She and her husband Matthew were old and treasured friends from his childhood, ideally matched in their interests and affections; and having achieved such fulfillment in her own marriage, one of the burning ambitions of Janet Fraser’s life was to help Adam find a similarly suitable bride.

But he was beginning to weary of playing Lady Caroline’s game of verbal cat and mouse. Even as he made a polite rejoinder to her most recent sally, he gave inner thanks for the music which shortly would be putting an end to conversation.

The northwest corner of the drawing room was dominated by the presence of a harpsichord that had belonged to Adam’s grandmother. It was a lovely instrument, the honey-colored wood of the sound-box overlaid in traceries of fine gold leaf. Several straight-backed chairs had been arranged in a semicircle in the space to the right of the harpsichord, each with its accompanying music stand. On the floor in the background, still shrouded by its green velvet cover, stood a Celtic harp.

A shadow fell across Adam’s shoulder. He glanced aside to find Peregrine Lovat crouching down beside him. The young artist pulled a wry face and balanced himself with one hand against the back of Adam’s chair. “Lord, Adam, I haven’t played in public since I was at school,” he groaned, easing the silk bow-tie above his elegant wing-collar. “I don’t know why 1 let Julia talk me into this!”

Adam smiled at Peregrine’s discomfiture, his gaze sweeping the room to light on a slender girlish figure in a white satin evening gown, with tartan bows at the shoulders and tartan ribbons wound through her piled tresses of rose-gold hair. Peregrine had met Julia Barrett little more than a month ago, and since then, their relationship had blossomed – yet another change from the stiff, repressed young man Adam remembered from their first encounter. “Just keep reminding yourself that this is a music appreciation society, not a convocation of critics,” he said bracingly. “Now, relax and remember you’re among friends.”

Peregrine rolled his eyes, but he went up onto the stage and sat down at the harpsichord, settling the pleats of his kilt with an unconscious nonchalance that would not have been possible two months before. A moment later Julia joined him, accompanied by her uncle, Sir Alfred Barrett, a sturdy, distinguished figure in dinner clothes rather than a kilt, with twinkling blue eyes above a flourishing silver moustache.

“Friends and colleagues,” Sir Alfred began, with mock formality, “as the senior member of our trio, I have been elected to inform you all that for our part of the program we will be performing selections from the musical notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach. Before we begin, I would like to assure you that we will make every effort to conform to the notes on the pages before us.” This droll assurance elicited a chuckle from the room at large. With a humorous salute to his friends in the audience, Sir Alfred took his seat in a chair opposite the harpsichord and gathered up his own chosen instrument: an Italian-made cello from the studio of a pupil of Stradivarius. Julia, with an oblique smile at Peregrine, remained standing at the front of the improvised stage, with only a music stand before her on which she unfolded a black-bound book of sheet music. An expectant hush settled over the company as the members of the trio poised themselves to begin.

The three songs they had chosen were among some of Adam’s favorites. The precise music-box chime of the harpsichord and the mellow notes of the cello supplied a delicate counterpoint to Julia’s lilting soprano, a voice as light and pure as a young boy’s. There was no faltering on the part of any member of the trio. When they had finished, their performance drew an enthusiastic round of applause. “Right, Janet,” said Sir Matthew Fraser, as the acclaim died down and the performers began to shift properties on stage. “Looks like it’s you and Caroline now.”

He and Adam stood up as the ladies rose, music in hands, and prepared to make their way forward. Caroline cast a pretty frown toward the stage, where Peregrine was helping Julia shift the harp into position. “I do hope that child has some experience as an accompanist,” she remarked – as much out of envy as concern, the psychiatrist in Adam suspected. “If she fails to follow the voice lead properly, it will quite spoil the effect.” “Have no fear!” Janet laughed. “I’ve heard Julia play, and I assure you, I have every confidence in her ability.”

From glancing at the music in Janet’s and Caroline’s laps, Adam knew that the two women had decided on a series of duets based on the poems of Robert Burns. But though he had a great personal fondness for the works of the great Scottish bard, he found the first song something of a disappointment. Janet, who had few illusions about the modest extent of her talents, performed quite creditably, her genuine enjoyment of the music itself lending a sparkle to her delivery. Caroline, on the other hand, seemed determined to attack the notes, pursuing the soprano line with more aggression than style. Recalling the lyrical sweetness of Julia Barrett’s clear voice, Adam grimaced at the comparison. He was just girding himself mentally to sit through the rest of the selections when he felt a light, respectful touch on his sleeve.

“Pardon the intrusion, sir,” murmured Humphrey, “but you have a telephone call.

It’s Inspector McLeod.”

Adam slipped out of the drawing room as unobtrusively as he could, wondering what could have prompted McLeod to call so late. It was well past two. Once outside, he made his way along the hall toward the library and sat down at the desk to wait for Humphrey to transfer the call. At the signal, he picked up the receiver.

“Hullo, Noel, I’m here. What’s going on?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” said McLeod’s gravelly bass. “Sorry to drag you away from your guests, but I’ve just had a damned peculiar call from a police sergeant up in Blairgowrie, name of Kirkpatrick. One of the local gamekeepers turned up at the station a few hours ago, claiming to have witnessed some kind of ritual killing, somewhere up in the woods north of the Baltierny estate.” Adam listened with growing interest as McLeod went on to supply what further details were available.

“Anyway, I told Sergeant Kirkpatrick that I’d drive up to Blairgowrie and lend a hand if I could,” McLeod concluded. “I was going to ask you to come along, but I didn’t realize you had guests. It’s odd enough that I thought you should know, but it may turn out to be nothing but a wild goose chase.” “Oh, don’t worry about the interruption,” Adam said. “In fact, on several counts, I’m very glad you called. The way things have been going recently, we can’t afford to dismiss anything at face value. I haven’t had a chance yet to tell you about the odd thing Christopher and I uncovered yesterday in Edinburgh. It looks like a pretty cold clue right now, but it would appear that our Lynx chappies were busy around this time last year.”

“Indeed?” McLeod said. “Maybe you should come up to Blairgowrie with me, then.

You could tell me about yesterday on the way.”

An outbreak of polite applause from the direction of the drawing room reminded Adam of Lady Caroline and her predatory affectations. Whatever might turn out to lie behind the gamekeeper’s story, all at once the prospect of a night drive to Blairgowrie seemed like the promise of a breath of fresh air. “As a matter of fact, that sounds like a splendid idea,” he said firmly. “My guests should be going home soon anyway. How soon can vou set here?” “Thirty to forty minutes – assuming that the roads aren’t too bad north of the bridge.”

“Fine,” said Adam. “That gives me ample time to get changed. We can take the Range Rover. Come round by the garage, and Humphrey will let you in.” With this assurance, he rang off. He relayed the necessary instructions to Humphrey over the house phone, then returned to the drawing room. Julia, Janet, and Lady Caroline were just taking their bows when he stepped through the door. Adam moved forward smoothly to meet them as they left the improvised stage. ‘ ‘My abject apologies for being obliged to miss the end of your performance, ladies,” he told them. Then, turning toward the rest of the company, he cleared his throat and called out, “Might I have your attention, please?” Pitched clear and low, his voice penetrated the furthest corners of the room. As heads swung in his direction, he spread his hands before him in a graceful gesture of regret.

“I’m sorry to interrupt this lovely recital, ladies and gentlemen, but I’m afraid something has come up that requires my professional attention. You’re all welcome to stay as long as you like. Indeed, I hope you’ll feel free to continue in my absence. At the same time, however, I must ask you to excuse me.” A murmur of disappointment greeted this announcement. As he made them a sketchy bow and retired toward the doorway, he succeeded in catching Peregrine’s eye from across the crowded room. The artist acknowledged the summons with a small nod and bent his head to speak a word of explanation in Julia’s ear. A moment later, he joined Adam outside in the hall, his hazel eyes wide with unspoken curiosity.

“I’ve just had a call from Noel McLeod,” Adam said, coming right to the point. “The Blairgowrie police have had a report from a gamekeeper who says he saw a human sacrifice out in the woods. Noel and I are driving up to Blairgowrie to check the story. It occurred to me that perhaps you might like to come along.” “A human sacrifice!” Peregrine murmured. “Good Lord, of course I’ll come, if you think I might be of some use.”

“At this point, it’s too soon to tell,” Adam replied. “Noel himself allowed that this could be a wild goose chase. But if it isn’t – if the gamekeeper’s story checks out – your particular talents could come in very handy. I ought to warn you now, though, that the evidence will be anything but pretty.” He paused expectantly, and Peregrine squared his shoulders determinedly. “If you’re trying to leave me a graceful way out, I appreciate it,” the artist said quietly. “However, you’ve given me the impression that I’m capable of some rather unique contributions to what you and Inspector McLeod do – and squeamishness is hardly a good excuse for trying to evade responsibility. That doesn’t mean I may not faint or throw up, if there’s a lot of blood – you’ll have to bear with me, on that – but any physical failing on my part won’t be for want of giving things my best effort.”

It was a statement he never would have made six weeks earlier. “Good man,” Adam said warmly. “I hope we won’t have to put your intestinal fortitude to the test. In any case, I’ll be glad to have your company. Now.” He drew himself up to his full height, his mind moving on to the practicalities of what lay ahead. “Noel’s driving up from Edinburgh, and expects to be here within the next forty minutes. That gives us both time to change into more suitable clothes – and make peace with our respective companions of the evening.” Peregrine pulled a rueful grimace. “I wasn’t thinking of Julia just now,” he admitted. “I’ll go have a word with her at once, and arrange with Sir Alfred to see her home….”

A harried half hour later, Peregrine was in the hallway of the gate lodge, tugging on heavy boots, when he heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Shrugging on his navy duffel coat over a heavy sweater, he snatched up his sketchbox and darted outside to find Adam’s blue Range Rover idling at the gateposts. The blunt profile of the man in the passenger seat belonged unmistakably to Noel McLeod, wire-rimmed aviator glasses reflecting in the outside light, moustache bristling.

Peregrine slammed the gate lodge door behind him and bounded down off the steps to scramble into the back seat on the passenger side. Adam’s medical bag was on the floor behind the driver’s seat, along with a nylon zip-bag that had POLICE stenciled on both sides. McLeod turned to greet him with a shrewd glint in his eye.

‘ ‘Welcome to the party, Mr. Lovat. Did you and your wee lassie part friends?” “More or less,” Peregrine said, stashing his sketchbox on the seat above the other bags. ‘ ‘She was disappointed, of course, but I explained that I’d been doing some forensic drawing for Adam, and that he’d asked me to come along tonight. She seemed not to mind too much.”

“That’s more than can be said for some women,” said McLeod, as they pulled away from the gate lodge. “If you ever get the chance to marry your Miss Barrett, I’d advise you to take it.”

chapter seven

THOUGH traffic had melted the snow on the road, the pavement still was slick as Adam piloted the Range Rover northward along the M90 toward Perth. The occasional lorry rumbled past in the southbound lanes, glaring headlamps thrusting cones of light into the darkness, but few vehicles were headed north. Snow began to fall again in light, wet flurries about the time they reached the junction with the A93 to Blairgowrie, rapidly degenerating into sleet. Through the steady swish and clap of the laboring windscreen-wipers, McLeod scowled ahead into the darkness.

“God, what a foul night,” he muttered. “If this keeps up, we’re going to find ourselves wading in slush, when we head out to the scene.” “You’d better hope your witness is a good enough woodsman to be able to find the scene again,” Adam said. “Otherwise, this could turn into a game of blind man’s bluff.”

“Aye, not to mention what it will do to any evidence,” McLeod agreed. After that no one said anything for a while. At Adam’s suggestion, Peregrine settled back to try to catch some sleep, McLeod also dozing in the passenger seat. Adam’s head was clear, largely unaffected by the modest amount of wine he had taken in the course of the evening’s festivities. But at the same time, he reflected ruefully that, had he known he was to be called out on an errand such as this, he would have chosen to fast rather than partake of a five-course meal. His deeper senses felt sluggish in contrast to his body’s feeling of comfortable well-being, though he reckoned he would be largely restored by the time it became really important, out at the crime scene.

The dashboard chronometer read 4:53 when he slowed coming into the outskirts of Blairgowrie. The change of speed roused McLeod from his cat-nap, and he pulled himself upright in his seat and stifled a yawn as he began looking for landmarks.

“The turn is just before we get to the town square,” he told Adam, pointing. “It’s called

Leslie Street

, and it’ll be a sharp right. There it is.” They made the turn. “Now, watch for another very narrow turning to the right – that’s it, right into

Ericht Lane

. The station’s just ahead and to the left.” Peregrine, too, stirred as they made the final turn, knuckling sleep from his eyes and settling his glasses back on his nose as he peered out to the left. Blairgowrie Police Station was a two-story Edwardian building of red brick, the front steps lit by two round lamps that imitated old gaslights. The car park, largely empty, lay on the opposite side of the lane, to their right. Adam pulled into a gap between a white police vehicle and a mud-spattered yellow jeep, its undercarriage mired with sticks and sodden leaves. All of them gave the jeep a long look as he cut the ignition.

“Do you suppose that could be the gamekeeper’s car?” Peregrine wondered aloud. “If so, it looks like it’s had a rough ride,” McLeod said. “Let’s go meet the man, and see what he has to say for himself.”

The three got out of the Range Rover and trudged across the snow-encrusted lane and up the icy steps. The station door was locked. Stamping his feet to shake loose the snow, McLeod reached over and thumbed the bell. “These smaller, outlying stations aren’t usually manned between pub closing and about six,” he explained over his shoulder. “There’re patrol cars out on the streets, of course, but – ah!”

A clank and a thud preceded the heavy door swinging inward. The man on the other side was tall and thin, with a spiky head of reddish hair above a prominent Highland nose. The epaulets on his uniform coat bore the three chevrons of a police sergeant. When he saw McLeod, his big-boned face brightened in obvious relief.

“Inspector McLeod,” he said. “Welcome to Blairgowrie. Glad to see you could make it in spite of the weather.”

“We’ve been out in worse,” said McLeod, with a significance that was not lost on Peregrine, as Kirkpatrick stood aside to admit them. “Adam, Peregrine, this is Sergeant Callum Kirkpatrick. Sergeant, this is Dr. Sinclair, the consultant I told you about over the phone, and this is his associate, Mr. Lovat. He’s something of a forensic artist.”

Kirkpatrick shook hands all around with the newcomers. “I have to say, I’m hoping I’ve called you out for nothing, gentlemen,” he said, with a dubious shake of his head. “If what my man says is true, I dinnae look forward to the next few hours.”

“Where is your man?” McLeod asked. “McArdle? Was that his name?” “Aye, he’s down in the lock-up,” Kirkpatrick said. “We weren’t holding anybody, and he was looking pretty knackered, so I told him he could bed down on a bunk in one of the cells till you got here. Want to look over his statement before I take you down?”

McLeod glanced aside at Adam, who shook his head minutely. “Let’s talk to Mr. McArdle first,” the inspector said. “We’ll see if he tells us anything different from what he told you.”

Kirkpatrick gave a quick nod of agreement. “You’re the expert here, Inspector.

Whatever you think best. Just follow me.”

Without further preamble, he ushered them out of the lobby and along an adjoining corridor to a flight of stairs leading down to the basement level. At the bottom of the stairs, a security door gave access to the station’s modest holding facility, but the door was standing open. A sturdy young constable in uniform was sitting at a desk to the right of the door, idly thumbing through a computer magazine. At the sight of Kirkpatrick, he shunted the magazine aside and stood up, his blue eyes frankly curious as he glanced beyond his superior at McLeod and his companions.

“This is PC Forsythe, who’s kindly agreed to do a spot of extra duty in order to help out,” Kirkpatrick explained. Shifting his gaze to his young subordinate, he inquired, “How’s McArdle?”

“Havin’ a bit of a kip, last I looked, Sergeant.”

“Well, go give him a shake, and tell him the authorities from Edinburgh have arrived,” said Kirkpatrick. “We’ll be along in a minute, once these gentlemen have had a chance to shed their coats. And Davie – “ “Aye, sir?”

“See if you can get that poxy vending machine in the dispensary to kick out enough cups of coffee to go around.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll do my best.”

The basement level was well-heated. Adam was not sorry to shed the weight of his sheepskin coat. He and his companions left their outdoor garments hanging in the adjacent property closet before following Kirkpatrick through another doorway into a short cell corridor. PC Forsythe met them coming in, and jerked a thumb toward the door of the first cell.

“He’s awake now, sir, and just as stroppy as before,” he told his superior.

“I’ll see about that coffee now.”

McArdle was sitting on the edge of the bunk in his stocking feet. He was a sturdy, balding man in his early fifties, with a snub nose and fierce brown eyes above a bushy brown beard. His manner, as Kirkpatrick performed the necessary introductions, was not exactly cordial. Upon learning that Adam was a physician, he pulled a glowering look and said flatly, “I dinnae have any need of a doctor. Nor does that puir man lyin’ out there in the snow! – not that anyone believes me.”

“No one wants to believe you,” McLeod said sternly, “because it’s horrible, if it’s true. But if the good sergeant didn’t have cause to believe you, he wouldn’t have called me. And if I didn’t believe the both of you – even though I’ve never even seen you before! – don’t think for a minute that wild horses could have dragged me up here on a night like this. Dr. Sinclair even left his dinner guests so he could come along.”

Somewhat subdued by McLeod’s gruff declaration, McArdle glanced sullenly at his feet.

“I suppose he’s a psychiatrist or something,” he muttered. Adam chuckled and took the straight-backed chair that Kirkpatrick handed in to him from the corridor outside, setting it deliberately in front of McArdle. Peregrine had stationed himself unobtrusively just outside the door but in full view, and McLeod was glowering near the door, playing the heavy to Adam’s more open and friendly manner.

“Why, Mr. McArdle, you’ve guessed my deep, dark secret,” Adam said lightly. “Actually, Inspector McLeod calls me in as a technical consultant in cases involving the occult, and the psychology of people who commit crimes involving the occult. Actually, I deal with suspects and victims far more than witnesses – though I have had some success helping witnesses recall more precisely what they’ve seen. I think that’s more along the lines of what he had in mind for you and me.”

McArdle unbent slightly. “Then ye dinnae think I’m out o’ my held?” “Far from it,” Adam said. He sat easily in the chair, noting with approval that Kirkpatrick had quietly slipped from the room to leave them alone with the witness. ‘ ‘On the contrary, it sounds like you’ve had the misfortune to stumble upon something very dangerous – and you can probably remember even more than what you’ve already told the sergeant. I’d like to help you do that.” As he spoke, he casually slipped a silver pocket watch out of the pocket of his trousers and gave it a cursory glance, releasing it then, so that it swung gently back and forth, seemingly idly, at the length of its chain. As intended, the gamekeeper’s gaze was drawn to it. Continuing to let the watch swing, pendulum-fashion, from his fingertips, Adam carried on in a conversational tone, gradually letting his volume drop as his unwitting subject slipped gradually under his influence.

“Now, your experience earlier this evening must have given you quite a shock, Mr. McArdle. It would have shocked anyone. I know you’ve been up most of the night. Tired as you must be, though, the important thing right now is for you to try to relax.”

McArdle’s gaze had been tracking the rhythmical swing of the watch at the end of its chain, but now he blinked and drew breath to speak, probably suspicious that he knew why Adam was doing it. Smiling slightly, Adam merely slipped the watch casually back into his pocket, never breaking the flow of the patter that was really accomplishing what was needed.

“So I want you just to take a few deep breaths and lean back against the wall, if you will,” Adam went on. “When you breathe out, try to let the breath all the way out.” He drew out the word all, so that the very cadence of the word helped to underline the instruction.

“That’s right. You’ll find that the deep breathing will help you to relax. And God knows, you need that, after what you’ve been through tonight, don’t you?” “Aye,” the man whispered.

“Take another deep breath, if you will – that’s right – and let it out slowly…. Now another…. And another…. Are you feeling more comfortable now?” McArdle nodded. “Good.

“Now, I want you to cast your mind back to what you saw in the forest. You’ll find you can remember everything clearly – but nothing that you remember will cause you distress. It will be like looking at pictures in a book. Tell me about it whenever you feel ready.”

The gamekeeper nodded his balding head, his gnarled hands resting loosely in his lap, his breathing easy.

“I suppose Callum told ye that I’m head gamekeeper fer Lord Baltierny,” he said quietly.

“He did,” Adam replied. “And that you’re one of the best around.” “Well, I like to think so.” McArdle paused to draw another deep breath. “Anyway, tonight I was walking the north woods on the Baltierny estate, just as I’ve done for nigh on forty years, when I heard some scuffling off in the distance, an’ a hoarse sort o’ cry – something between a cough and a croak.” “A deer, perhaps?”

McArdle shook his head. “Never heard a deer sound like that,” he said flatly. “Poachers, now – that was my first thought. There’s a logging road up behind where the sound came from, but no one’s meant to be up there without permission, an’ certainly not at that hour.”

“About what time do you think that was?” Adam asked. “Long about eleven, I reckon. I had my rifle with me, so I headed up the hill in the direction of the noise, to see what I could see. It was pretty dark up there, with nae moon an’ all, but I’m used to workin’ by starlight on nights like that. An’ somehow I had the feeling I oughtn’t to use my torch. A man as spends as much time in the woods as I do develops pretty good instincts, after so many years – an’ I was glad I paid attention tonight.” “Why was that?”

“They would’ve seen me!” McArdle replied. “Lucky fer me, they had fires goin’, so they couldnae see very well in th’ dark. But I’m gettin’ ahead o’ myself. I hadn’t yet gotten to the top o’ the hill when the chanting started up.” “Chanting?” Adam’s tone was merely conversational.

“I dinnae know what else to call it,” said the gamekeeper. “It was eerie – sort o’ whispery-like. I couldnae make out what they was saying, but the sound of it made the hair stand up on my heid – “ He broke off abruptly, his respiration quickening, his eyes now focused on something only he could see.

“Don’t let the memory disturb you,” Adam murmured softly, with a glance across at McLeod, who was leaning against the wall and listening avidly. “I think I know the kind of thing you’re trying to describe. You’re not in any danger now. Just take a deep breath and let out the tension along with the breath.” When the gamekeeper had relaxed a little, Adam said, “Let’s see if we can go on now. You heard chanting. It was only natural for you to be afraid. Did you run away?”

McArdle’s face stiffened in remembered indignation. “That I did not! – not then, at any rate. Whoever they were, carryin’ on like that, they were on His Lordship’s property without leave. By then, I was pretty sure they weren’t poachers – they’d hae scared away all the game for miles! – but it was my duty to see what they were about.”

“So you went to take a closer look?”

“Aye. I made my way to the top o’ the hill, quiet as I could. There was firelight showin’ through the trees, down in a hollow about a hundred yards below me. I didnae want anyone to spot me – that chanting had scared me plenty – so I kept under cover and edged close enough to take a look through the scope on my rifle. I dinnae ken what I expected to see, but it certainly wasnae the likes o’ what was going on.”

Again he stopped short, and Adam glanced briefly at McLeod and Peregrine. The inspector looked grim, the blue eyes dark behind his aviator lenses, and Peregrine’s face, above the bulky knit of his Arran sweater, was several shades paler.

“What did you see?” Adam urged.

McArdle shivered slightly. “There must’ve been about a dozen of ‘em,” he muttered, “all muffled up in long white robes with hoods, almost like they was monks or something. One was standin’ in the middle with his arms in the air, an’ the rest was marchin’ round in a circle – widdershins, ye ken?” “I know the term. Go on.”

“Well, then they stopped all of a sudden, an’ I noticed there was this other mannie, inside the circle by this big, flat rock. He wasnae standing, though; that’s why I didnae see him at first. He was crouched down like he was sick or something – only, then I saw his hands was tied behind him. That’s when I really knew it was somethin’ queer goin’ on!”

“What happened then?” Adam said. His voice was almost a whisper. “The one standin’ in the middle went over to the one with his hands tied, an’ he kneeled down too. He had somethin’ in his hands – maybe a bowl or somethin’, I couldnae see – an’ he held it out to t’other man. But then one o’ t’other men in the circle gave a sort o’ howl and rushed forward. I think he coshed the one mannie in the heid. An’ then metal flashed – a wee knife o’ some kind, I think – an’ there was blood spurtin’ everywhere!”

McArdle paused to swallow. The sound was startling in the taut silence. “The man wi’ the tied hands kicked an’ struggled, but they wouldnae even let him fall over,” McArdle whispered. “His – blood just kept pourin’ all over the thing that t’other man had in his hands – frae his neck, I think. When they finally let him fall, I – know he was dead.”

Adam had not taken his eyes from his subject for some time now.

“What did you do then?” he said in a neutral voice.

The gamekeeper’s face worked, and he gave his head a shake. “I – I didnae tell the sergeant before, but it was nae branch breakin’ that made me light out o’ there. I was outraged at what they’d done, and I wouldhae shot at ‘em, if I could. But my rifle jammed when I tried to chamber a round – made a noise like a bloody cannon going off! I didnae stop to see if those geezers in the hoods heard it. I just took to my heels. I didnae stop till I got back to my jeep!”

He was breathing hard by the time he came to the end of his narrative, and Adam leaned across to lay a hand lightly on his shoulder.

“Steady, Jimmy,” he murmured soothingly. “You’re in no danger now. Just sit back and catch your breath. Close your eyes, if you want. You deserve a rest. You have nothing more to worry about just now.”

The gamekeeper subsided, even when Adam took his hand away, but his expression still was troubled.

“They killed that man right before my eyes,” he mumbled. “I should hae done something sooner – “ “There was nothing you could have done,” Adam said firmly. “I want you to remember that, and believe it. By the time you realized what was happening, the deed was done. You did well to get away and inform the police.”

“But they didnae believe me – “

“They believed you enough to send for Inspector McLeod and me,” Adam replied firmly. “As I told you before, it was a case of not wanting to believe that such a thing could happen here in Blairgowrie. It was nothing to do with you, personally. And no one blames you for what happened.” Seeing that his assertion had had the desired calming effect, Adam shifted back to his earlier line of questioning.

“Now. Can you remember where you saw this killing take place?” he asked.

McArdle nodded.

“Do you think you could lead us there?”

“Aye.” The man’s voice carried the strong ring of confidence.

“Good,” said Adam. “Then that’s just what we’ll do, as soon as it comes light. You’ll lead us to the hill you spoke of, and we’ll see what we can find. Until then,” he continued, “I’d like you to close your eyes and try to get some rest.” He reinforced the suggestion with one firm hand on McArdle’s shoulder, the other one passing lightly over eyes already closing in relieved response. “Lie back and go to sleep,” he said, easing him back, with McLeod’s help, to lie placidly on the bunk. “Relax and sleep deep, with no disturbing dreams, and awake when I call you by name, feeling rested and refreshed.” A moment longer his hand remained over the reclining man’s eyes, making sure his subject was truly and deeply asleep. Then he straightened and glanced up at McLeod, motioning for him to step outside the cell with Peregrine. “Well, I’m afraid I’m convinced,” he said quietly.

McLeod nodded grimly. “So am I.”

“But, how can you be sure he didn’t make it up?” Peregrine asked, hushed. Adam raised a patient eyebrow. “For one thing, the man’s no occultist. He wouldn’t have had the knowledge necessary to invent a story like that, even assuming he had the inclination to do so. As it is, you saw how agitated he became, when he was describing the murder itself. It was almost enough to snap him out of trance.

“And I have no doubt that he was in a trance, and that he was telling the truth – at least as he perceived it. He even told us about wanting to shoot the perpetrators, and being stopped because the rifle jammed – which it sounds like he didn’t even tell Kirk-patrick.”

“But, a human sacrifice, Adam – “ Peregrine’s face was pale. “If that really is what he saw, what does it mean?”

“It means, laddie, that someone or other has set some very dangerous plans in motion,” McLeod said darkly. “And we’d better do our level best to find out who they are and what their objectives may be, before any of us gets much older.” He stole another glance at the snoring McArdle and shook his head. “I suppose I’d better pass the word to Kirkpatrick. Wherever this investigation may lead before we’re through, it begins here in Kirkpatrick’s jurisdiction, and he’d better be the one to organize the official expedition of inquiry.”

chapter eight

SOME of Scotland’s prime ski areas lie north of Blairgowrie – the Spittal of Glenshee, then Devil’s Elbow, halfway to Braemar, famous for its summer Highland games – but the two vehicles that left from Blairgowrie Police Station shortly after 7 a.m. would not be going that far. Kirkpatrick led the way in the white police Land Rover, with Jimmy McArdle directing from the passenger seat and two additional police officers sitting in the back, hand-picked by Kirkpatrick from the ranks of the men on the morning shift. Adam’s blue Range Rover followed close behind, his two passengers silent in the pre-dawn darkness, each alone with his own thoughts.

This early, the snowy landscape north of Blairgowrie was patched with heavy pockets of ground fog. With luck, they would be heading off-road just about at first light. It was heavy going now, though, and Adam had to concentrate all his attention on the road ahead. For the first fifteen miles of the drive to Baltierny, there were moments when he completely lost sight of Kirkpatrick’s Land Rover, forging out in front of them like a hound leading the hunt. The simile had an ominous ring, to Adam’s way of thinking. They had not yet identified their quarry, but after hearing the gamekeeper’s story firsthand, he did not doubt that they were on the trail of something dark and deadly. He did not want to let himself jump to the premature assumption that the Lodge of the Lynx was behind it, but the possibility was not illogical, given recent evidence of a Lynx resurgence. Or perhaps he was becoming paranoid. “I hope this bloody fog lifts before we get where we’re going,” McLeod grumbled, craning forward to keep track of the twin red taillights bobbing along ahead of them. “If it doesn’t, I’ll be surprised if McArdle can even find the Baltierny turn-off – let alone a body in the woods.”

But by the time they reached the junction with a “B” road and turned riant, the mists had beeun to lift, showing fugitive glimpses of clear sky overhead. The road offered a dismal ribbon of soft grey slush – happily, free of ice – but the evergreens flanking it carried heavy festoons of white, and snow still covered the ground on the open spaces and drifted deep in the hollows. The “B” road was a single lane, with turn-outs every quarter mile, but they carried on without meeting anyone for another seven or eight miles until they came to an unpaved track branching off into the woods on their left. A hundred yards or so beyond, both vehicles pulled up before a chain-link gate set between the end-posts of a barbed wire fence, with a mud-clogged cattle-grid set into the ground before it.

The gate was secured by a padlocked length of heavy chain. Hunched deep in the warmth of his parka and blowing on his fingers to keep them warm, McArdle scrambled out of the police Land Rover to open the padlock with a key from the ring on his belt. He hauled the gate aside to let the two vehicles through, then made a move to secure it again, but McLeod stuck his head out the window as they passed through.

“Better just leave it, Mr. McArdle. If we have to call for additional personnel, I want the way left open so they can get in.”

McArdle scowled slightly, but did as he was told. Once he was back in the Land Rover, the two parties set off again. The forest track was narrow and winding, little more than an ongoing pair of muddy ruts cutting through the trees, though the base was solid. They went past several opportunities to turn off, proceeding for nearly two miles before the police vehicle slowed and then pulled to the right into a muddy turn-out just about long enough for two cars. High ground rose to either side, and as Adam pulled in close behind the police Rover, he caught sight of a footpath snaking off up the slope to their right, little more than a game trail.

The two vehicles disgorged their occupants, who spent the next five minutes pulling on snow boots and donning heavy coats and hats and gloves. As they gathered at the foot of the path, Peregrine noticed that one of the constables had a camera slung over one shoulder, and all three of the Blairgowrie officers were packing pistols.

McLeod had armed himself as well. Peregrine had watched him pull the familiar Browning Hi-Power out of the zipper bag behind the seat, slap a magazine into the butt, and tuck the weapon into the waistband of his trousers before zipping up his black anorak. Adam, he guessed, carried more esoteric protection inside his sheepskin coat. Peregrine himself was armed with his sketchbox. “You’re quite sure this is the place. Jimmy?” Kirkpatrick said. The gamekeeper bristled slightly. “Just you remember that I’ve been patrolling these woods for more years than you’ve been alive, Callum Kirkpatrick!” he said. “It’s the right place, just you wait an’ see. The dell I told you about is round the back o’ this rise. Just follow me, and watch yer step.” The lower levels of the path were wet and slushy. All around them, the woods were sibilant with the moist drip and trickle of melting snow. The sound rasped at Peregrine’s nerves as he struggled after Adam and McLeod up the miry trail, with his sketchbox banging against his side. A cold knot of dread began tightening somewhere in the center of his chest, but he forced himself to press on in tight-lipped silence.

Had he known it, his feelings of foreboding were shared in full measure by Adam. That inner tension continued to grow with every step. This was by no means the first time that he and McLeod had been obliged to confront the aftermath of a death by violence, but rarely had he experienced so sharp a premonition that this crime was to prove personally significant.

As the party advanced over the crest of the hill, the sun broke through the wintry haze of lifting fog. Below them, on the north face of the hill, stood a rough circle of oak trees, their leafless branches creaking stiffly in the lightly moving air, and in the center – McLeod stopped short in his tracks with a muttered imprecation. Kirkpatrick swore softly under his breath. Adam went very still. In the middle of the circle of trees, sprawled face-down on a bier of melting snow, lay the limp, greyish figure of a man. Even at this distance, a dark stain of red could be seen surrounding the upper half of the body. “All right, Sergeant,” McLeod said quietly, when he had drawn a deep breath. “This is your jurisdiction, so you call the shots, but I do believe we’re going to need a Serious Crime Team.”

“Aye. That, and an ambulance,” Kirkpatrick agreed soberly. “Mr. Heriot!”

“Sir?” The constable with the camera moved a step closer. ‘ ‘Leave the camera with me, then get back to the car and radio back to base,” said Kirkpatrick. “Tell ‘em what we’ve found, tell ‘em what we need, and get somebody to ring Perth for a police pathologist and the other necessary personnel.”

“Aye, sir.”

Heriot handed over the camera, then withdrew smartly. McLeod watched him go with some misgivings.

“Pity there isn’t any way to scramble the call,” he remarked, “but I suppose the nearest telephone is – what, an hour or so away?”

At Kirkpatrick’s confirming nod, McLeod sighed.

“Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. Still, we’ll be lucky if we don’t have half the press in Scotland down on us by noon. Before that happens, however, I suggest we go in carefully and take a closer look, get some preliminary photos, just in case there are any clues that will be lost as the snow melts.” “Right, Inspector. Mr. Jamison?” Kirkpatrick glanced at the other waiting constable. “I’ll ask you to work your way around the clearing to the left. Watch for footprints, and keep clear if you find any. Also, McArdle said there’s a logging road on the other side of the hill – which may be how the perpetrators got in and out, since they didn’t come through that locked gate. See what you can find there, especially tire tracks.”

The young constable nodded and headed off in the direction his superior had indicated, and Kirkpatrick turned back to his Edinburgh counterpart. “Anything else you can think of, Inspector?” he asked.

McLeod shook his head. “Let’s have a closer look.”

At Kirkpatrick’s gesture of invitation, McLeod carefully moved out across the untrampled ground toward the edge of the trees. Kirkpatrick followed, taking pains to tread in McLeod’s footprints, and Adam followed directly behind him. Peregrine shadowed Adam, himself shadowed by McArdle, reluctant to go any closer yet drawn by something he could not name. Even from the edge of the clearing, the scene was as disturbing as Adam had warned him it might be. The dead man was lying face-down, his white-clad body resting partway on a smooth, flat rock that was iced over with spilt blood. He appeared to be naked under the thin, blood-stained white robe he wore. His feet and legs showed bare below the robe’s mud-bedraggled hem, and his hands had been bound tightly behind his back with a fine crimson cord. His head was very bloody, the grey hair matted stiff over an ominous depression in the back of the skull. “I told ‘em, so I did,” McArdle muttered hoarsely to Peregrine. “They thought I was making it up – as if anybody would make up something like this!” Peregrine wasn’t listening. They had reached the ring of ancient oaks now, Sergeant Kirkpatrick snapping an occasional photograph, and as Peregrine gazed down at the fading circle in the snow, traced out with dirty-grey remnants of ash, a black sense of violence struck out at him with the sudden, unforeseen force of a physical blow.

All at once he found himself breathing in the charnel stench of spilt blood, mixed with the sickly sweet reek of incense that somehow was not quite – right. In the same instant, he caught a residual backlash of terror, resonating outward from the dead presence of the victim.

Suddenly the clearing was full of ghosts – a gathering of semi-transparent images superimposed over the solid forms of McLeod and Kirkpatrick. Transfixed with horror, Peregrine counted a baker’s dozen of robed figures treading their death march in the snow around the fallen figure in their midst. And as he looked on, knowledge of the dead man’s identity struck him like a fist in the pit of his stomach.

The revelation was so abrupt and so painful that he gasped aloud and staggered backwards, clutching blindly at the nearest branch to keep from falling. Alerted by the gasp, Adam glanced back to see the young artist staggering against the trunk of one of the palisade oaks, his face nearly as white as the snow, his hazel eyes dilated behind his glasses.

Adam made a brisk lunge to his side and caught him before he could fall. “Steady on, I’ve got you,” he said in a low voice, gripping the younger man’s shoulders with strong hands and searching his eyes. “I can see that it isn’t just the blood. Take a deep breath and relax, and tell me what you’re seeing. Mr. McArdle, can you give him a little privacy, please?” As McArdle moved off, murmuring uneasily under his breath, Peregrine gulped air and shut his eyes tight, trying to obey. For a moment he neither moved nor spoke. Then he managed a deep breath and exhaled with a shudder, making a visible effort to pull himself together.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” he muttered in a constricted undervoice. “I’ve just realized who it is, lying dead there in the clearing. It’s your friend – the old fellow from the bookshop.”

“Randall?” Adam mouthed the name more than he said it, his senses reeling at the disclosure. He shot a swift, involuntary glance over his shoulder, at the unwitting McLeod still approaching the frozen body, then felt the young artist sway slightly against the strength of his support.

“Easy!” he murmured, returning his attention to Peregrine. “You aren’t going to faint on me, are vou?”

Peregrine gave a negative shake of the head and drew himself up. “Don’t worry about me,” he said thickly. “I’ll be all right in a few seconds.” He gave Adam a queasy look and added, “I could be wrong, Adam. I hope so.” Adam made himself draw a careful breath and let it out. Unfortunately, he had no doubt that Peregrine was telling the truth.

“I know you do,” he said softly, “but you can’t help what you see. Whatever has happened, the blames belongs to those who committed the crime. Now wait here. I’d better warn Noel.”

Peregrine’s face was still blanched with shock, but he managed a careful nod. Steeling himself, Adam released him and moved off to overtake McLeod and Kirkpatrick down in the hollow. The two policemen were crouching on either side of the body, McLeod on the left and Kirkpatrick on the right, heads bent intently as they made note of the obvious wounds and the sergeant took more photos. From McLeod’s air of professional detachment, Adam could tell that he had not yet recognized the dead man.

As Adam drew nearer, he could see for himself the bloody abrasions on the back of the head, indicating that the dead man had been struck more than once from behind. The sheer volume of blood, however, was owing to a deep gash in the jugular area below the right ear.

Wordlessly Adam knelt across from McLeod, checking the body for vital signs, as a matter of formal medical convention. He shifted his weight, then carefully lifted and turned the head just enough to get a clear view of the dead man’s profile.

A single fleeting glance was enough to confirm the truth of Peregrine’s visionary revelation. Adam closed his eyes for a brief instant, forcing a host of hard questions to the back of his mind as he braced himself to deliver the necessary pronouncement.

“Dear God, I know this man,” he murmured, choosing his words for Kirkpatrick’s benefit, as well as to prepare McLeod. “So do you, Noel.” He reinforced the warning with a look. McLeod’s blue gaze sharpened in surprised acknowledgment. He leaned forward, peering down at the half-averted face cradled between Adam’s supporting hands, then sat back on his haunches with a heavy jolt.

“Jesus,” he croaked. “It’s Randall!”

Kirkpatrick’s mouth opened as if to speak, but then he took a look at McLeod’s face and abruptly subsided. Gently Adam lowered Randall’s head to the ground and gingerly reached inside the breast of his coat for a handkerchief to wipe the traces of blood from his fingertips. After a moment’s stunned silence, McLeod picked himself jerkily up off the ground and eased himself back onto the edge of the flat stone, pulling off his glasses with one hand and knuckling his forehead in grey-faced bewilderment.

“Sorry,” he muttered gruffly. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.” Adam clasped him briefly by the shoulder, then rose and beckoned to Kirkpatrick to join him a few feet away.

‘ ‘I suppose one of us had better give you a formal identification,” he said bleakly, leaving McLeod to his grief for a few minutes. “The victim’s name is Randall Stewart. He is – was – an antiquarian bookseller in Edinburgh.” “Edinburgh?” said Kirkpatrick. “Christ, what’s he doing up here?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said flatly, “though I can’t imagine it was his choice.” His voice sounded leaden in his own ears. “Randall was a widower. There’s one daughter. Her name’s Miranda. They lived together in a house in Mayfield….” Shaking his head, Kirkpatrick somberly noted down the information Adam dictated concerning Randall Stewart’s full name, address, occupation, and family. He stared down at his notebook for a moment, blowing on stiff fingers to warm them, then gave a small exclamation of discovery and glanced back at the body. “Randall Stewart – I’ve just been thinking the name sounded familiar. He was a Masonic historian, wasn’t he?”

“That’s correct,” Adam replied. “He’d been doing a series of articles on the Craft lately, for several different newspapers. You might have seen a rather controversial letter of his recently, in the Times. He’d made it a crusade to defend Freemasonry as an institution – “ His voice broke off abruptly.

“You’re not thinking that he might have been murdered on account of his Masonic writings?” Kirkpatrick said.

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think at this stage,” Adam replied. “In his personal life, Randall Stewart was quiet and scholarly – not the sort of man who generally makes enemies. But he was also a man of principle. It isn’t inconceivable that he might have drawn hostile attention to himself through his writing.”

“Aye,” Kirkpatrick agreed, “but it does seem drastic.” He cocked his head at Adam. “I don’t suppose you’re one of his Lodge brothers, are you, Dr. Sinclair?

or Inspector McLeod’s?”

Adam managed a dour smile, for he did share a Lodge with both McLeod and Randall, though not a Masonic one.

“No, I’m not a member of the Craft, Sergeant, though I certainly honor and respect it. My father and grandfather both were Master Masons.” “Ah, well then, you’re at least aware that controversies have always surrounded our Brotherhood. Unfortunately, we’ve had a few notable scandals in recent years – accusations of corruption and the like. But that’s the dirty work of a few isolated individuals. It has nothing to do with the real intentions of the whole organization.”

“Which is precisely the point that Randall was trying to make with his articles and his letters to the papers,” Adam said. He sighed. “All organizations, including the organized churches, are human institutions, even if inspired by God. And so long as humans form and run them, some few will be tempted to misuse the privileges of selective membership.”

A stir of movement from the opposite side of the clearing signalled the return of Constable Jamison from his reconnaissance tour of the area. “I couldnae find anything of use, Sergeant,” he called down from the edge of the trees. “There is a road down yonder, but it’s worse’n a pig’s mud-wallow, an’ the snow’s meltin’ everything down tae mush. Cars were down there, all right, but there’s naught of a clear tire tread or footprint.”

Kirkpatrick rolled his eyes in gloomy resignation.

“All right, then,” he called back to his young subordinate. “Go on back tae the car an’ get yourself thawed out – an’ send up Mr. Heriot to relieve me. We’ll stand by in shifts, until the SCI lads get here.”

He waved the younger man on with a sweep of his hand, then turned back to Adam, flexing his shoulders as if to shrug off the damp chill of their surroundings. McLeod was on his feet again, and looking somewhat recovered. “You gentlemen might as well head back too,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’ll be several hours before reinforcements can get here. Take McArdle and your Mr. Lovat with you. We’ve got coffee in the Land Rover. Have Mr. Jamison give you some. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

The comment was directed mainly at McLeod. The inspector roused himself with an effort, looking every one of his fifty-two years.

“That reminds me of something else that needs doing,” he said grimly. “Where is Mr. Lovat?”

“Right here!” called a light voice.

They turned to see Peregrine still standing beside one of the encircling oak trees, but with sketch pad and pencil already in his hands. McArdle was watching curiously from several feet away. The young artist still looked more than a little white about the mouth, but his expression was one of dogged resolution – and exasperation that the gamekeeper was hovering so close. “I figured you’d want my services eventually,” he said, with a fair show of bravado, “so I thought I’d get a start before my hands got too numb to draw. I’ll need another fifteen or twenty minutes, but you needn’t wait on my account.”

“You’re sure?” Adam asked.

Peregrine shrugged and returned to his sketching, though Adam noticed that he still shied away from looking too directly at Randall Stewart’s body. “Yes, go on. The sergeant will be here for a while, and then PC Heriot. I’ll be along when I’ve finished.”

chapter nine

MCARDLE forged on ahead alone, glad enough to be quit of the spectacle in the ring of oaks now that he was vindicated, and no doubt eager to regain the relative warmth of a car. Adam and a still shattered McLeod followed more slowly, Adam casting a last, thoughtful glance back at Peregrine before they topped the rise of the hilltop and started down, losing the artist from further view.

That Peregrine had already begun his sketching, obviously intending to open himself voluntarily to the visions that had nearly floored him when he first came upon the scene, was the one heartening event in a morning blighted by tragedy. Badly as Adam wanted the information Peregrine might be able to supply, he had not been prepared to ask that of him. Peregrine’s earlier impressions had been devastating, far more powerful and overwhelming than anything he had yet experienced since coming under Adam’s tutelage; and past experience had shown that the young artist would not willingly refuse anything that he thought Adam might require.

But apparently Peregrine had already decided to bear the strain of any further psychic recall, and felt confident enough to brave it alone. It spoke much of his personal courage, as well as his growing commitment to the cause Adam and his colleagues served. From that, at least, Adam took comfort. In the meantime, with McArdle ranging farther and farther ahead, circumstances at last permitted a few words in private with McLeod. Weighing up all the questions that were clamoring in his own mind, Adam gave the inspector a sidelong glance. McLeod caught his look and scowled, his brow as black as a thundercloud.

“Even in my darkest dreams, I never would have imagined this,” he muttered, “that one of our own Hunting Lodge should have been butchered like a sheep, and none of us any the wiser until it was all over!”

He set his teeth almost savagely in his lower lip and shoolc his head. “It’s true I was uneasy all yesterday evening – but I never once suspected the cause. Not even when Kirkpatrick phoned.”

“That’s no fault of yours,” Adam said. “Christopher and Victoria were with me up at the house, and none of us had any intimations of trouble.” “That’s what I don’t understand,” McLeod said. “Randall was one of us – a trained occultist. He had the resources to put out an astral distress call. Why didn’t he?”

“I suspect he was heavily drugged,” Adam said. “That would have prevented it. His murderers probably would have kept him unconscious as long as it was practical to do so. From the gamekeeper’s testimony and the physical evidence, it’s clear that Randall’s death was intended as a ritual sacrifice. That being the case, the killers wouldn’t have taken any chances that something might go awry.”

“The bloody bastardsl” McLeod spat out the word as if it tasted of bile. When he turned to Adam, his blue eyes were smouldering.

“Who the hell were they, Adam? Even if Randall was too drugged to cry for help, a killing like that should have generated some shock waves of its own. Why didn’t we sense that?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said bleakly. “It’s possible that the killers themselves were unskilled personnel, simply acting out a prescribed sequence of motions without actually raising any power. It’s equally possible that they knew precisely what they were doing, and were competent enough to shield their work while it was in progress. We can’t know at this point. There simply isn’t enough evidence to go on.”

“But why Randall!” McLeod persisted.

“That’s what I’ve been asking myself ever since we found him,” Adam said grimly.

“So far, I haven’t found a satisfactory answer. But this much I’m sure of:

Randall was not chosen at random. On the contrary, he was carefully selected by someone who went to a lot of trouble to lure him away from the protection of his family and friends.”

“Lure him away?” McLeod stopped and stared. “Are you saying you have a theory about all this?”

“A theory, yes,” Adam said, “though it’s only now occurred to me. I was with Randall on Saturday – I’d taken Peregrine round so that Randall could meet him. Just before we left, Randall mentioned that he was planning to go across to Stirling on the Sunday to do an estate appraisal on a collection of rare books. Now it makes me wonder if the whole thing could have been the setup for a kidnapping.”

“Well, at least that’s some kind of lead,” McLeod said bitterly. “We certainly haven’t got a bloody lot else to go on. I’ll put a couple of my men on it as soon as I get back to Edinburgh. God knows poor Randall wasn’t much for keeping written records, though,” he added with a dour shake of his head. “But maybe Miranda will remember the name and the address of the supposed collector – assuming that the shock of this whole sorry affair doesn’t prove too much for her.”

“Which reminds me that someone ought to go to her, before she hears the news from strangers,” Adam said. “Christopher or Victoria would be ideal, if I can reach them. I don’t suppose you brought along that rather handy cellular phone?” “Aye. But the Houstons might not be able to get there in time, if they have to drive down from Kinross,” McLeod said. “Let me send Jane. I’ve got to call her anyway. Once she hears what’s happened, she’ll know what to do.” Constable Heriot passed them just before they arrived back at the cars, heading back up to the crime scene, and they found Jamison huddled in the driver’s seat of the Land Rover, talking earnestly to someone over the radio and making notes. McArdle was sitting in the back seat nursing a Styrofoam cup of coffee, looking tired and morose.

“You go ahead and make your call,” Adam murmured, waving McLeod on toward their own vehicle. “I’ll see if I can get us some coffee. We drank all yours on the way up.”

McLeod gave a grunt and continued on to the car, simply collapsing onto the passenger seat for nearly a full minute before bestirring himself enough to pull the portable phone from his zipper bag behind the seat. Jane answered almost immediately, but he kept his conversation brief and purposefully vague; times like this made him all too aware that a portable phone did not constitute a secure line.

Jane wept when he told her there had been an accident, and that Randall Stewart was dead, but promised to go immediately to be with Miranda. McLeod, in turn, promised to give her more details when he got home, though he warned her that he might be quite late. If Jane remembered his side of the original conversation with Kirkpatrick, she might put two and two together and guess something of what had happened, but he knew he could trust her not to alarm Miranda needlessly. Best that someone else tell her how her father had died – though he wished desperately that no one had to tell her at all.

Afterwards, suddenly weary almost beyond telling, he revved up the engine so he could run the heater for a few minutes – the Range Rover’s leather seats were like ice – then leaned back over the front seat to return the phone and his pistol to the zipper bag. Gradually, by holding his hands directly over two heater vents, he began to regain a little feeling in his fingers – though not in his soul.

After a little while, Adam returned with two steaming Styro-foam cups and the news that the first reinforcements could be expected within the hour. As they sipped at what McLeod declared was the worst coffee he had ever tasted, Kirkpatrick returned, raising a hand to the two of them as he trudged past to his own vehicle, but Peregrine was not with him. When a full half hour had passed since leaving the scene of the murder, with still no sign of Peregrine, both Adam and McLeod began to worry.

“He’s been out there a long time,” McLeod said, irritation masking his concern as he glanced at his watch. “You don’t suppose our young Mr. Lovat has taken on more than he can handle, do you?”

Adam grimaced. “If he isn’t back in another five minutes, I’ll go and check. I thought he was up to it – but maybe not.”

Just then, Peregrine himself emerged from the trees at the foot of the path, looking pale and drained, but also triumphant. He was stumbling from fatigue, his sketchbox dragging at his arm as if it were weighted down with bricks, but he waved them back when McLeod’s car door opened, slogging doggedly across the remaining snow to wrench open the back door of the Range Rover and practically tumble inside. After slamming the door closed, he hugged the sketchbox to his chest and seemed to collapse back against the seat, closing his eyes briefly. “I think the first drawings will satisfy any forensic curiosity, Inspector,” he said huskily. “Then there are a couple more….”

His voice trailed away, and he seemed about to nod off from exhaustion. After an alarmed glance at McLeod, Adam whipped off one glove and delved inside his sheepskin coat for the small silver flask he usually carried with him on outdoor excursions. He unstoppered it with a deft twist and proffered it to Peregrine with a gesture that brooked no refusal.

“Here. Take a good, stiff swig,” he ordered.

Meekly Peregrine accepted the flask and raised it to his lips in shaking hands. The first swallow made him gasp, but it also brought a measure of color back to his white face.

“Now take another,” Adam said. “That’s right. Feeling any better?”

Peregrine nodded rather breathlessly and handed the flask back to Adam. “I’ll be all right,” he said in a little stronger voice. “I’ve stowed all the sketches away in my box. The ones that are for your eyes only are on the bottom. I wasn’t sure whether I’d have to run a gamut of curious policemen. And I thought you’d never get McArdle out of there.”

Adam returned the flask to his pocket and reached to take the sketchbox from Peregrine. As the artist sat forward to watch, elbows propped on the backs of both front seats, Adam opened the sketchbox on the console between him and McLeod and lifted out the drawings one by one.

The first few sketches were the proper forensic studies Peregrine had promised, reproducing the murder scene from several angles with the clinical exactitude of photographs. Adam’s long mouth tightened as he glanced over them in passing, but when he came to the last two sketches, his dark eyes widened in shock and dismay.

The first of these showed Randall on his knees, pinioned from behind in the midst of several white-robed men whose faces were hidden within deep, cowled hoods. One of them knelt before Randall with head bowed, his back to the sketch’s vantage point, holding something out to him that was shielded behind the man’s body – probably the bowl or whatever McArdle had seen. More of the white-robed men formed a circle around them, just inside where the ring of ash had delineated the working area, but all the faces except Randall’s were heavily obscured as if by a thick black fog, in malevolent contrast to the crisp detail of the rest of the picture.

Such shielding by itself was enough to confirm that Randall’s slayers had been accomplished black adepts. But what drew Adam’s gaze like a magnet, even more than the look of dawning horror on Randall’s face, was the suggestion that each of the robed men wore a medallion around his neck and a ring on his hand – both items trademarks of the Lodge of the Lynx.

Peregrine’s remaining drawing confirmed Adam’s suspicions, and also brought home the full horror of the killing as even the previous one had not. Peregrine was getting too good at this. The look of mortal anguish that he had captured on Randall’s face was something Adam hoped never to see or even imagine again. It was a closer study of Randall and his actual slayer, just before the death-blow, the ringed hand of the latter clenched purposefully about the handle of what proved, on closer scrutiny, to be a surgeon’s scalpel, poised beside Randall’s right ear. The man’s left hand – and others’ hands – wrenched the victim’s head back brutally to expose the throat. The angle was wrong to see what was on the medallion around the killer’s neck, but the ring on his third finger showed the intaglio image of a lynx head.

Beside him, McLeod made a noise at the back of his throat like the warning growl of a bull mastiff.

“So,” he managed to mutter. “The Lodge of the Lynx rears its ugly head again. “I suppose this is their idea of revenge for what happened at Urquhart Castle.” “I wonder,” Adam said slowly. With difficulty, he forced his gaze away from the look on Randall’s face, back to the hand holding the scalpel. “What’s to wonder at?” McLeod’s roughened voice held a note of incredulity.

“It’s their calling card, plain and simple.”

“Yes, but revenge can hardly have been the motive,” Adam replied, wrenching himself back to a more detached perspective – as if that were possible, after this. “Randall wasn’t involved – even indirectly – in any of the events that eventually took the three of us into that confrontation by Loch Ness. Without that association, there’s simply no reason why the Lodge of the Lynx should have connected him with us.”

“But, our names were in most of the newspaper accounts – mine, at least,” McLeod said. “If the Lodge of the Lynx started looking into our backgrounds, someone might well have found out that Randall was a close acquaintance of ours – “ “In which case, it’s even more unlikely that they would have murdered him by way of retribution,” Adam said sharply. “Think, Noel. If our opposite numbers now know enough about us to guess how and why we came to interfere in their affairs, why should they bother with Randall at all, when we are more obvious targets? Besides, if they were merely interested in taking a life for a life, there are far easier and more mundane ways of killing off an adversary than going to the trouble of setting up a ritual murder.

“But they did set up a ritual murder – which means that the ritual itself was the important thing. Had they guessed for an instant that Randall was one of us,” he concluded, “they never would have touched him, for fear of alerting the rest of us. That makes me believe that they didn’t know.” “And Randall – God rest his soul – wasn’t about to do anything that would give himself away – or us,” McLeod said somberly, “even if it cost him his life.” “Even if he had any choice in the matter,” Adam amended. “I’ll bet you money, marbles, or chalk that the post mortem will show a high concentration of mind-altering drugs in his system. If the gods were kind, he was never really aware of what was happening to him.”

His shudder, as he covered the last sketch with the previous one, suggested that he did not believe that. Peregrine certainly did not. As he, too, shivered, hugging his arms across his chest against a chill that had nothing to do with the cold, Peregrine thought he had all too clear an idea of what had happened to Randall Stewart.

“As for who, specifically, was responsible,” Adam went on more strongly, gesturing toward the sketch that now lay on the top, “the fact that Peregrine wasn’t able to see anything but blurs for the faces in the circle strongly suggests that there was at least one adept present with powers that might well rival the best we ourselves could muster. Whoever that individual may be, he’s sufficiently master of his craft to cloak his work even from the eyes of those who know what to look for.”

Assailed by sudden doubt, Peregrine blinked and glanced at the two older men.

“Maybe it was me,” he whispered bleakly. “Maybe I didn’t know what to look for.” “Oh, you knew what to look for,” Adam said, collecting the rest of the drawings and returning them all to the box. “You couldn’t have drawn these last two, if you hadn’t known exactly what you were about.” He tapped the lid of the box for emphasis. “No, we’re dealing with professionals here. And I do not like their profession!”

This bald statement produced the stunned silence that Adam had intended. Only after several taut seconds did McLeod clear his throat. “All right. We’re somewhat agreed on the generalities of the who – and the how is all too clear. What I still want to know is whyl Why Randall?” Adam sighed and shook his head, gazing out sightlessly at the virgin snow beyond his window, trying not to see Randall’s face.

“I wish I could answer that,” he said quietly. “If we discount the revenge motive, it follows that he must have been chosen because there was something else about him that made him a suitable victim for – whatever his murderers intended to do. If we only knew more about that intent – beyond the mere performance of a ritual murder or sacrifice – we might be in a position to guess why Randall should have been targeted. As it is – “ When he did not finish his sentence, Peregrine glanced from Adam to McLeod and back again in some uneasiness.

“So, where do we go from here?”

“Dear God, I wish I knew,” Adam said, visibly pulling himself back to practicalities. “The fact that the murder weapon was a scalpel might suggest the involvement of someone in the medical profession. But that’s all it is – a suggestion. Literally anyone can buy a scalpel. Without any more information to go on, we might as well be looking for the proverbial needle in a field full of haystacks.”

Never before had Peregrine heard him so impatient with himself. After another uncomfortable silence, McLeod sighed heavily and folded his arms across his chest.

“Well, I suppose it could be worse,” he muttered. “There’s still the post mortem to come, and the forensic reports. Any one of those could turn us up a lead.” Adam lifted his head. His dark eyes held a sharp glint that Peregrine was at a loss to interpret. But before the older man could speak, there was a tap at McLeod’s window. As he thumbed the electric window control to lower it a crack, PC Jamison bent to speak to him.

“Beg pardon, Inspector, but the SCI team are on their way in,” he said. “They’ve just passed the gate, and advise that they’ve been picked up and tailed by some media people. Sergeant Kirkpatrick thought you ought tae know, sir.” McLeod drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders with the belligerent air of a wrestler about to grapple with an opponent known to be particularly difficult and prone to dirty tricks.

“Thanks for the warning, Mr. Jamison,” he said with a nod. “Tell the sergeant not to worry himself. If he’ll deal with the SCI team, I’ll see what can be done to hold the press at bay.”

When Jamison had sketched him a salute and withdrawn, McLeod grimaced and zipped up his jacket before starting to pull on his gloves.

“Well, time for all of us to start acting like professionals again. This is the sort of case the press love. Kirkpatrick’s men will know to keen their mouths shut, but I think I’ll have a word with that gamekeeper. The news hounds could have a field day, if they get him talking.”

As he got out of the car, slamming the door purposefully, Peregrine took off his glasses and gave the lenses a rub with his handkerchief. He glanced at Adam thoughtfully before putting them on again, trying to assume the professionalism McLeod had called for.

“How long does it usually take to get back the reports Inspector McLeod mentioned?”

Adam shrugged, glancing distractedly in the rearview mirror for sign of the expected police and press.

“Three or four days to a week, depending on how many other cases are awaiting the attention of the police pathologist. We’ll do all we can to speed the process, of course, but – ah, here’s our reinforcements.” As the first of the police vehicles pulled in close behind them, Peregrine turned to gaze out the back window at them, then returned his attention thoughtfully to Adam, who was pulling on his gloves and preparing to get out of the car.

“Adam, I know this is maybe a bit off the track,” he ventured, “but you did mention it last night. We’re not that far from Balmoral. Do you think we still ought to go take a look at that tower that got damaged by lightning – once we’re finished here?”

Adam sighed and nodded. “Probably we should. But frankly, I don’t think any of us is in any fit state to make the extra trip. That errand can be deferred for another few days. Right now, it’s more important that I get home. There’s Miranda to comfort – possibly in the professional capacity Noel so rightly reminded us of – and there are other people I need to get in touch with – mutual associates who have to be told what’s happened.”

“Like the Houstons?” Peregrine asked.

“Among others,” Adam said grimly. “Even if Randall hadn’t been the victim, all of this confirms that the Lodge of the Lynx is definitely on the move again. And if they have tumbled to the fact that we’re onto them, and knew that Randall was one of us, then it’s important for everyone to be on their guard. In either case, I have no doubt we’re seeing only the beginning of what may turn out to be a very dangerous affair.”

chapter ten

IT was mid-afternoon before McLeod judged that they were at last free to leave Baltierny. He and Adam trekked back up to the murder site with Kirkpatrick when the ambulance finally arrived at mid-afternoon to take the body away, but Peregrine elected to remain in the car, having seen as much of mayhem as he thought he could stomach for one day. Up at the site, Adam and McLeod took over from the attendants to bring down the stretcher bearing all that mortally remained of Randall Stewart, zipped in a black plastic body bag. Back at the ambulance, they gave him into the attendants’ keeping. Following standard procedures, the body would be transported to the morgue at the Perth Royal Infirmary, where the post mortem and other forensic examinations would be carried out. Adam judged that it was likely to be at least a week before the body could be released to the family for burial. As the attendants slid the stretcher through the open back doors of the ambulance, he searched his memory for a few private words of farewell, drawing on the imagery of the Gael, so beloved of the man so cruelly slain:

The compassing of the great God be upon you, Randall, my friend –

the peace of God,

the peace of Christ,

the peace of Spirit.

May Michael shield you in the shade of his wing,

to bring vou swiftly home to the court of the Chief of Chiefs, to shield you home unto the Three of surpassing love…. No one spoke much on the way back to Strathmourne. Adam and McLeod seemed to have withdrawn into private worlds of their own grief, and Peregrine sat huddled in a weary heap in the back seat, conscious of a dispiriting sense of isolation. Not having known Randall Stewart well himself, he could onlv speculate about what Adam and McLeod might be thinking as they headed home through the gloom of a dreary November twilight. After a while his own exhaustion got the better of him, and he drifted into uneasy sleep.

He roused some time later, jarred awake as the Range Rover pulled up at what he soon realized was the rear gate to Strathmourne. Adam let him out at the gate lodge with an abruptness that would have seemed almost like a dismissal, had not Peregrine recognized the grieving preoccupation that lay behind the brevity. Painfully conscious of his own inability to help, he watched despondently until the car’s taillights had disappeared into the darkness.

His forlorn demeanor was not lost on McLeod, who glanced across appraisingly at Adam as they pulled away.

“I’m not sure he understands as much as you think he does about all of this, Adam,” he said quietly. “And if you really do have it in mind to bring him into the Hunt, it isn’t going to help to leave him guessing.” “Don’t you think I know that?” Adam’s normally mellow voice held a harsh note of fatigue. “With Randall gone, we need Peregrine more than ever – and I know this was tough on him today. But explanations are going to have to wait for a better time. Right now, I have more pressing responsibilities to attend to.” “I could stay and lend a hand – if you’d allow yourself the indulgence,” McLeod said.

Adam shook his head. “Thank you, but no. You have your work to do as well, and you’re going to need your rest if you’re to do it effectively. As Master of the Hunt, it’s up to me to contact the other members of the Hunting Lodge and acquaint them with the tragedy that has occurred. If I can’t offer them answers, at least I must offer them whatever comfort I can….”

Back at the gate lodge, Peregrine paused in its tiny vestibule to shrug himself out of his outer clothes before trudging through to the kitchen. He went through the motions of putting the kettle on to boil, then collapsed in the nearest available chair trying not to think, finally bending to unlace his boots with fingers that trembled with fatigue.

Earlier that day, he had come close to cursing the faculty of vision that had made him the involuntary witness to a brutal murder. A part of him still cringed at the memory of what lay in his sketchbox – left in Adam’s car, he suddenly realized, though the morning would be soon enough to retrieve it. But as disturbing and even sickening as the experience had been, his revulsion had since been tempered by the reflection that his skills still had given them information they might not otherwise have obtained concerning the circumstances of Randall Stewart’s death. Looking back over his actions and behavior, he scolded himself mentally for nearly letting his squeamishness get the better of him. He only hoped he hadn’t done anything to shake Adam’s faith in his commitment – for he realized that, for good or ill, he was committed. He just wished that he could think of something constructive to do. Eventually, too tired to continue trying to puzzle it out, he turned off the kettle without bothering to make tea and collapsed into bed. Most blessedly, he did not dream.

He awoke an hour later than usual the next morning, feeling reasonably well-rested and a little distanced from it all. Shaking off the lingering stiffness of fatigue, he managed to shower, shave, and dress without quite engaging his brain, only really starting to wake up as he ducked out onto the front porch to collect his morning edition of The Independent. When he flicked it open, the main headline brought back all the horror of the previous day in a rush, and proclaimed an angle on Randall Stewart’s death that had never even occurred to him.

Satanic Slaying on Scottish Hunting Estate the front page screamed, in bold black letters a full inch high. And in smaller type, but no less black: A Masonic Murder?

Taken completely aback, Peregrine blinked at the lurid headlines, then dropped his eyes to skim hastily over the article below. The accompanying photograph showed only a long shot of the circle of trees, with police lines stretched across the snow and anoraked police officers moving behind it, but the author of the piece had taken ghoulish relish in painting a more lurid verbal picture of the murder scene. The article was rendered even more sensationalist by its dark suggestions that Randall Stewart’s death demonstrated a clear connection between Freemasonry and the practice of black magic.

What he read was enough to send Peregrine darting back indoors for his coat and his car keys. His Morris Minor was parked in the garage at the rear of the gate lodge, where he had left it Sunday night, and he backed out swiftly and sent the little car shooting up the drive in a spray of water and gravel. A few minutes later he screeched to a halt at the door to the west wing and bailed out, tucking the offending newspaper under his arm. His agitated tug at the bellpull produced a grave and somewhat surprised looking Humphrey. “I don’t suppose he’s expecting me,” Peregrine said rather breathlessly, ‘ ‘but do you think I might have a word with Sir Adam? “

Adam was standing at the bay window of the breakfast room when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching along the corridor outside. The quick, impetuous tread proclaimed his caller’s identity at once. Before Peregrine could even knock, Adam turned away from the window and called softly, “Come in, Peregrine.” The doorknob turned with a rattle, and the young artist all but tumbled into the room, brandishing a furled newspaper in one hand.

“Good morning,” Adam said drily, a mirthless smile plucking at the corners of his long mouth. “I gather that The Independent shares the same, rather fanciful Masonic slant on the Baltierny murder as both The Times and The Scotsman.” This arid observation brought Peregrine up short. He took a deep breath and nodded mutely, his gaze flickering sideways to the two other newspapers spread out on the dining table amid the Spartan remains of a largely uneaten breakfast. “I was just about to send Humphrey down to the village to see what the other dailies had to offer,” Adam continued, “but it looks as if we can safely concur that all the major journals are in agreement over the motives underlying Randall Stewart’s death.”

Peregrine found his tongue, his tone indignant.

“Adam, how can they get away with this kind of cheap sensationalism? I mean, just because the Masons choose to practice their rites in private, that’s no reason to assume they’re dabbling in Satanism. There’s no proof whatsoever to support these allegations. It’s all a bag of moonshine!” “You know that, and so do I,” Adam said with a shrug. “But restraint doesn’t sell newspapers.”

Peregrine scowled and tossed his paper on top of one of Adam’s. “Isn’t there anything you can do to set the record straight?”

“Not in the short term,” Adam replied. “In the long run, I hope we’ll be fortunate enough to catch up with the real conspirators behind this.” He kept his tone cool and level, but inside his mind and soul were still in turmoil after the shared pain of the previous long night. Wrenching his thoughts away from the remembrance of it, he took a closer look at Peregrine’s pale, intense face and asked, “Have you had anything to eat yet this morning?” The young artist shook his head.

“In that case,” Adam said, sitting down and reaching for the phone, ‘ ‘allow me to have Humphrey bring you up some more toast and a fresh pot of tea. You can be eating while I telephone Noel to see if there’ve been any further developments since we parted company last night.”

For an instant Peregrine was tempted to protest, but Adam was already issuing the necessary instructions to Humphrey. As he shifted to an outside line and set about tracking down McLeod, Peregrine slid into his customary seat opposite Adam and settled back to wait, as an afterthought snagging a slice of toast from the silver rack in the center of the table.

As Adam had hoped, McLeod was in his office at police headquarters. The inspector picked up almost immediately, after leaving Adam on hold for only a few seconds.

“Oh, aye, I’ve seen the bloody papers,” he growled, in response to Adam’s inquiry. “If you haven’t caught any of the television coverage this morning, it’s well nigh as bad – except they’re talking about governmental corruption and conspiracy instead of black magic. Which is to say that none of ‘em knows anything at all. Not that I’m sure we’re that much the wiser, as matters stand at the moment.”

“Then there’s been no progress?”

“None whatsoever – unless you count going round in circles. To make matters worse, I’ve bee ordered up to Perth for the day to liaise with their investigators. They’ve set up a press interview for five o’clock this afternoon. I just hope to God we’ve turned up something useful by then. Otherwise, the media are going to go on feeding the rumor-mill.”

He sighed gustily. “In the meantime, I’m sending a couple of men over to Randall’s bookshop to see if they can turn up anything useful there. I wish I thought they’d be likely to find Randall’s appointment diary lying around on a countertop somewhere, but I’d be willing to bet Randall had it with him in his car – wherever that is just now. We’re looking for it, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Have you had any chance to talk with Miranda yet?” Adam asked. “No, she’s still more or less in shock. Jane brought her home to our house last night, after a couple of jackals from one of the tabloids showed up on the doorstep at Mayfield Terrace. She knew by then that there’d been no accident, that her father’d been murdered – the police came by to make official notification, late in the afternoon – but neither she nor Jane had any of the details. The poor lass was really distraught after that, so Jane called in our family physician to give her a sedative. She was still sleeping when I left this morning. I didn’t have the heart to wake her.”

“So Miranda is still at your house?” Adam asked, mentally applauding McLeod’s redoubtable wife.

“Aye. Her aunt’s coming down from Aberdeen on the train this afternoon to fetch Miranda away with her till the funeral – whenever that is. In the meantime, it seemed a good idea to keep her safely out of harm’s way. And at least if she’s asleep, she can’t grieve.”

Adam glanced at his wristwatch. The dial read twenty past eight, a tacit reminder that he himself had had fewer than five hours’ sleep since arriving back at Strathmourne the previous evening. As Humphrey entered with fresh tea and toast for Peregrine, Adam flexed his aching shoulders and tried to put his weariness out of mind, for there remained much to be done. “Very well. I’ve got rounds at the hospital starting at ten – and I missed them yesterday, so I can’t skip today – but once I’ve finished there, perhaps it would be a good idea for me to drive round to your house and see Miranda myself.”

“I know that’s going to involve spreading yourself pretty thin,” McLeod said frankly, “but I think a visit from you would help more than just about anything, right now.”

“Let’s consider it settled then,” Adam said. “If you speak to Jane before I do, tell her I’ll phone before I leave Jordanburn, to let her know I’m on my way.” “Right you are,” said McLeod. “Good God, would you believe I’ve got in-coming calls waiting on two different lines? They’re probably all press hounds, too. I’d better ring off, but I’ll try to get back to you later this afternoon.”

“Right you are. Thanks, Noel.”

As the connection went dead, Adam replaced the telephone receiver distractedly and turned back to Peregrine, who had listened wide-eyed to Adam’s half of the conversation.

“Well, duty is calling from Edinburgh, I’m afraid,” he said with a grimace. “I’m going to have to leave you to your own devices just now, while I get ready to leave.”

Hastily Peregrine swallowed his mouthful of toast and washed it down with a swig of tea.

“Would you like me to come with you?” he inquired huskily. “Not today,” Adam said, with the ghostly flicker of a smile. “I seem to recall you’re supposed to be working on a portrait of Edinburgh’s former provost.”

“It could wait – “

“No, it can’t,” Adam said firmly. “Whatever else happens, I’m still a psychiatrist with patients to attend to, and you’re still an artist with commissions to fulfill. Don’t worry,” he added drily. “When I need you – and I assure you, I shall again, as soon as some of the immediate dust has settled – you’ll hear about it soon enough.”

This reassurance left Peregrine sufficiently relieved that he was able to settle down and do proper justice to Humphrey’s tea and toast, readily accepting the offer of a proper cooked breakfast when the butler came in to inquire, after Adam had headed upstairs to change. As he tucked into a bowl of steaming porridge, rich with honey and cream, the aroma of bacon sizzling in the kitchen reminded him just how long it had been since the stale sandwiches of the afternoon before.

He had wolfed down the porridge and was halfway through a plateful of bacon and scrambled eggs when Adam poked his head in to say good-bye before heading out to his car. The sight of Peregrine devouring his meal with such obvious relish elicited a smile and a “thumbs-up” sign from the Master of Strathmourne, and a further sense of well-being on the part of Peregrine.

As Adam’s footsteps receded, Peregrine decided that when he had finished – perhaps another egg and a couple more rashers – he probably would be ready to tackle the former Provost of Edinburgh again. Actually, the portrait was going rather well.

Outside, since the Range Rover was still covered in mud from its run to Baltierny, Adam slid behind the wheel of a more dashing member of his stable of motorcars – a sleek, dark blue Jaguar XJS. The roads were slick with rain, but inbound traffic was relatively light. He arrived at the hospital in good time to carry out his routine rounds, covering up his own preoccupation with a proficiency born of long practice. Fortunately, all his regular patients were in stable condition, there were few new admissions, and his covey of student doctors managed to restrain their curiosity about the day before. One of the tabloid correspondents had recognized Adam at the crime scene, and mentioned him by name in the accompanying story.

By a little past noon Adam was finished, free to pass on to the matters that had been standing paramount in his mind all morning. He caught a quick lunch, because he knew he had to eat, put in the promised call to Jane McLeod, then delayed only long enough to sign out before hailing a taxi to drive him out to the McLeod’s comfortable house in Ormidale Terrace. Jane opened the door before he had the chance to knock. With a swift glance after the departing cab, she drew Adam inside and closed the door firmly behind him. The click of the automatic snib-lock sounded loud in the vestibule as Adam bent to give his red-headed hostess a fond kiss on the cheek. “So, have you been repelling journalists again?” he asked. “Thank God, no,” Jane said, with a militant sparkle in her eyes. “Fortunately they don’t seem to have rumbled us so far. But I must confess you gave me a bit of a turn just now, when you arrived in a Black Maria. I was expecting you to be driving one of your own cars.”

Adam paused in the act of shrugging off his topcoat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it might be as well to keep things inconspicuous. Did you take me for an agent of the press?”

“Something like that,” said Jane. “But never mind. Here, let me take that for you and I’ll hang it up.”

Together they moved through from the vestibule into the front hall.

“How’s Miranda?” Adam asked.

Jane made a waggling motion with one hand. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. I got her to eat some soup a little while ago, but she’s still awfully shaky. It didn’t help,” she added with a grimace, “that she got up and wandered downstairs around mid-morning. I didn’t hear her until she’d already gone through into the sitting room, and by then it was too late. Noel had thrown away today’s newspaper before he left for work, but I hadn’t had a chance to empty the bin.”

“So she at least saw the headlines,” Adam said grimly. “I know we couldn’t have kept it from her indefinitely,” Jane said with a sigh, “but I would have liked the chance to prepare her a little. Now that you’re here, perhaps you’ll be able to ease her mind.”

“I shall certainly try to do that,” Adam replied. “Where is she just now?”

“Upstairs in the spare bedroom,” Jane said. “Come along and I’ll show you in.” Miranda Stewart was sitting up in a big, old-fashioned brass bed, the lacy coverlet pulled up under her chin. She started slightly at Adam’s entrance, then relaxed when she saw who it was. With her white face and big, dark-shadowed eyes, she looked more like a chilled linnet than Peregrine’s gypsy dancer. Adam sat down in the bedside chair and took her small nervous hands in his own strong, sure clasp.

“Hello, Miranda,” he said gently. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your father. He will be sorely missed. He was as good and upright a man as it has ever been my privilege to know.”

Miranda’s pale face twitched slightly. “That’s not what the papers are saying.” “No,” Adam agreed steadily. “But what the papers say is an irrelevance to anyone who knew your father personally. Don’t do yourself any further injury by dwelling on slanders written in ignorance. Reflect instead on the assurance that, where your father’s life and reputation are concerned, there are at least as many other people out there committed to restoring the balance of truth.” “But none of this makes any sense at all,” Miranda said in a small, tight voice. “Why would anyone go to such lengths to kill my father, when he never knowingly hurt anyone in his entire life?”

“At this point we can only guess,” Adam said, “but that situation is bound to change, as the evidence accumulates. At the moment, the police would like to find out as much as possible about the circumstances surrounding your father’s trip to Stirling. Can you remember if he mentioned the name of the person who contacted him about doing the appraisal in the first place?” Miranda sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think he ever said. But – “ “But what?” Adam prompted.

“I – think,” Miranda said uncertainly, “that it was someone he’d met before.”

“A friend, you mean?” Adam cocked his head to one side. “No-o-o.” Miranda frowned as she thought. “Just an acquaintance,” she decided, though she still sounded somewhat unsure.

“What makes you say that?” Adam asked quietly.

“The way Papa spoke on the telephone.” Encouraged by Adam’s attentive silence, she went on. “We were together in the shop on Thursday afternoon. About an hour before closing time, the telephone rang. I was up on the ladder doing some stocktaking, so Papa answered it. After he’d identified himself, he said, Oh yes, of course I remember.”

Her brow furrowed as she tried to recapture the exact words. “Then he said, Indeed, it was – a very good conference – or something very like that. I remember thinking that it had to be one of Papa’s business colleagues on the line. I just wish now that I’d bothered to ask him who it was – “ As her voice quavered and broke, and tears welled in the dark eyes, Adam pressed her hand in comfort and gave her an encouraging smile. “You have no reason to blame yourself,” he said firmly. “On the contrary, this is a very valuable piece of information you’ve just given me.” “It is?”

“Indeed,” Adam said. “Don’t you see how it gives the police a solid lead to investigate? Inspector McLeod is going to be very proud of you….” Adam left Miranda in a considerably brighter frame of mind than he had found her. Downstairs in the sitting room, he found Jane serving tea to a slender, sweet-faced woman whose resemblance to Randall Stewart was so marked that Adam knew at once she must be Miranda’s aunt, even before Jane performed the necessary introductions.

Miriam MacLellan accepted his condolences with stoical composure and expressed a touching gratitude for his concern over her niece. After offering his professional recommendations over Miranda’s future peace of mind, Adam asked Jane to call him a taxi, satisfied that Randall’s daughter would be in good hands. Jane accompanied him to the door when the taxi arrived. “Thank you again for coming,” she said in a low voice. “It was my pleasure,” Adam said. “Incidentally, when do you next expect to hear from Noel?”

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Adept 02 – The Lodge of the Lynx – Kurtz, Katherine

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Katherine Kurtz – Adept 02 – The Lodge of the Lynx

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