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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
Annie and Lewis search for the son of an old enemy, who may hold the key to ending Annie's curse. Their investigations lead back to the past, uncovering something that could destroy the most powerful people in the country. The compelling, chilling next instalment in the Annie Jackson Mysteries series… `A tense, creepy page-turner´ Ian Rankin `Spine-tinglingly thrilling with an extraordinary sense of place´ Caro Ramsay `A master storyteller at the very top of his game … mesmeric and suspenseful´ Marion Todd `The past echoing in the present. A whisper of the supernatural. Strong characters. Evocative prose … What is there not to like? Impressive´ Douglas Skelton ––––––– Two men, centuries apart, dream of being a wolf. One is burned at the stake. Another is locked in a psychiatric hospital for most of his life. And Annie Jackson is about to find out why… Vowing once again to remove herself from society, Annie is back living alone in her little cottage by the shores of a loch. But when an old enemy – now locked up in a high security hospital – comes calling, begging her to find the son that she was forced to give up at the age of seventeen, Annie is tempted out of seclusion. The missing boy holds the key to ending Annie's curse, and he may be the only chance that both she and Lewis have of real happiness. Annie and Lewis begin an investigation that takes them back to the past, a time etched in Scottish folklore, a period of history that may just be repeating itself. And what they uncover could destroy not just some of the most powerful people in the country, who will stop at nothing to protect their wealth and their secrets, but also Annie's life, and everything she holds dear… Dark, immersive, and utterly compelling, The Howling is a story of deception, betrayal, and misplaced power, and a reminder that the most public of faces can hide the darkest of hearts… ––––– `Dark, tender, human, haunting, compassionate, gripping and rooted in Scotland and its history. A triumph´ S.E. Lynes `Malone is the master of twists, turns and the unexpected´ Herald Scotland Praise for the Annie Jackson Mysteries `His biggest smash hit yet … an assured paranormal thriller in which the paranormal isn't even the scariest part…´ Herald Scotland `A creepy tale with the terrifying legend of the baobhan sith at its core´ Observer `Brilliantly creepy … a spine-tingling treat´ Daily Record `Prepare to have your marrow well and truly chilled by this deeply creepy Scottish horror … A complex and multi-layered story´ Sunday Mirror `Unsettling, multi-layered and expertly paced´ CultureFly
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The Howling
Michael J. Malone
Contents
Prologue
Andra McLean 1706
Andra McLean was there the day they killed the last wolf in Scotland.
Storied myth had it that the beast had been slaughtered by Cameron of Lochiel some thirty years earlier, and had Andra known of this date he would have been well positioned to argue the lie, for it was in his arms in 1706 that a wolf bled out from a grievous wound caused by a hunter and his hounds.
The spring before, while out gathering herbs with his twin sister, Isobel, for their mother, Jean, Andra heard the faint whimpers and whines of a pair of young animals. The sound had him in mind of their old family dog and led him to a hole in the earth within the roots of a giant oak. There, curled into each other, were a pair of wolf cubs. One was too weak to hold its head up, but the other pulled back its lips and bared its teeth in an attempt to warn him off.
‘Hey, laddie,’ Andra said in a soothing voice. ‘I won’t harm you.’ He sensed that he should keep a distance in case a parent wolf returned, smelled human and backed away. But hours later, there was still no sign of an adult animal, and Andra realised that the cubs were on their own. Knowing he would get a scolding from his mother for staying out all night, Andra nevertheless stayed to watch over them, to protect them from foxes or any other predator that might fancy an easy meal. If she was alive, surely the cubs’ mother would return soon.
The smaller cub died that night as Andra watched over them, but the other, Laddie, held fast to this world. ‘My wee, bonnie fechter,’ Andra soothed. For this little cub was indeed a fighter, and Andra was sure with the right care he would survive and grow strong enough to last the coming winter.
Over the coming weeks Andra stole away from his home and his 2chores and fed the cub – milk, at first and then he set traps for mice and other small mammals that might help a very young wolf grow. Wolves and their very existence were the subject of angry debate among crofters fearful of what the predators might do to the low numbers of their valued livestock, so Andra was certain-sure that if people heard he was helping one to live he’d be beaten, and the wolf cub taken from him and drowned.
For the next fifteen months, Laddie not only grew but thrived, and Andra continued his care as best he could. But it was over this time that Andra gradually became aware of how very different he was from everyone around him.
A difference that charged him.
A difference that enslaved him.
A difference that could get him, and everyone he loved, killed.
Chapter 1
Drew – 1979
The boy’s mind was filled with a silent scream for help. The noise at the airport was hurting everything. The rush and crush of the people around him had him crave the dark and quiet he could only find under his bed.
This was wrong. Everything was wrong. He tensed, every emotion removed from his brain, apart from fear and the word ‘no’ repeating in his mind, growing in strength and urgency with the harried hammer of his heart.
Reading his rigid disquiet, his mother hissed, ‘Not a lot of children get this kind of chance. You should be happy. We’re heading to a new life.’
‘On the other side of the world,’ his father added.
‘It will be exciting – like all those movies you love,’ his big sister said dutifully.3
But then, when they entered the cabin of the plane and he felt the drone of the engine vibrate through every part of him, it became too much.
He screamed. And screamed.
‘Iwanttogohome.’
The word ‘home’ pierced the air like a howl, and he flailed his limbs as his father struggled to control him.
Had he been aware of how the adults around him were reacting to his terror, or had he the wherewithal to appreciate the implications this would have for the rest of his life, he might have strived for some calm, but he was too captured by the furnace of his emotions.
He was a hostage to his own horror.
His mother held a hand over his mouth to try and mute his screams. His father pinned his arms by his side. Then he was pulled from the plane.
A policeman appeared. He was to take the boy to the hospital.
Had he been able to listen in he would have heard someone say: He’s hysterical. Needs drugs. Needs to be kept away from other people. A danger to himself.
When he finally came back to himself, he realised that he was in the arms of the man in uniform and was being taken away from the only people he’d ever known: his father, his mother, his sister.
And they were walking in the opposite direction. Back towards the plane.
The only person to look back for him was his sister. Her expression was full of confusion as she slowly lifted her arm and offered a small wave. His parents, however, had the stiff necks and shoulders they wore whenever he was naughty; when they’d tell him he wasn’t really their child anyway.
And now, over forty years later, he was getting a home of his own, a house in a quiet little seaside town, he was told, and he was terrified all over again. Every time he was able, he would go to his sanctuary, on his bed, under a heavy quilt where he sought the 4special place in his mind – that wood in a glen, under the moss-draped canopy of an ancient oak.
Once there, he’d curl up and pretend he could cover his nose with his tail, like the other wolf cubs – while in his imagination he was running over hill and glen. And when he aimed his plaintive howling at the deaf stars and blind moon, he recognised the comfort and power the wolf provided – and the risks. And he heard a voice echo through his mind, wrapped in ritual and mist, carrying an ancient warning:
Ware the wolf.
Chapter 2
Annie – November 2024
Annie sighed with a deep sense of pleasure. Every time she came out here to the little curve of beach on the edge of the loch, leaned against the fallen log, felt its rough bark under her hands and looked across at the gentle climb and fall of the heathered hills around her, she couldn’t help but feel she was home.
And that she should never leave.
Which was impossible with people like her brother Lewis and adoptive mother, Mandy, around her.
At the thought of them she felt her face warm with a smile.
‘Who have you spoken to today?’ Lewis asked each time he phoned.
‘It can’t be good to be isolated like that,’ Mandy would assert.
They were right. Of course they were. But here, without another house for miles around, she had the option not to meet any other human beings – and was therefore protected from the ancient curse that plagued her by telling her when someone was about to die – and how.
And although she was mainly alone, she wasn’t that isolated – 5she was still employed at a local café, despite what happened with the young man from the lifeboat crew the year before. She’d seen Lachlan’s accident less than an hour before it happened. She’d given him a warning of sorts, but it hadn’t worked. Her warnings never did. A little foible of her curse designed to make her feel even worse: she would know about someone’s demise, and could do nothing to stop it.
There had been fall-out from Lachlan’s death. A couple of lads threw paint at her house, and the corpse of a rabbit was laid at her door. The head of the lifeboat crew was less cowardly and knocked at her door and demanded that she explain why her warning hadn’t been more explicit.
Since then, however, the bad feeling had abated, and the locals had even shown some guarded sympathy towards her following the revelations about what had become known as the Sawney Bean Murders and how close she had come to being killed – as part of an attempted sacrifice during an occult ceremony.
In her mind’s eye she saw the knife poised above her heart, and felt the fear, as if that moment was happening again. She took a slow, deep breath, reminded herself that she was safe in her sanctuary, and that the woman who had orchestrated the whole event – Sylvia Lowry-Law – was behind bars.
She stood up, slipped off her shoes and socks, shucked off her jeans and edged into the water, praying the cold shock of it would replace the heat of her fear.
The water was indeed a shock, and as she waded on, until it came to the tops of her thighs, she felt the chill of it numb her, and steal her breath. Despite this she was tempted to throw off her sweatshirt and fully immerse herself. But the cold on her legs was enough to throw the terrifying memory of her escape from certain death from her mind. She forced herself to breathe into the tight anxiety of that feeling, and when she felt the swirl in her stomach slow, she directed her attention towards the peace and serenity of her surroundings.6
The cold water lapped higher up her thighs. She shivered, stepped back, then stumbled on a rock, and with a cry she lost her balance and fell under. She immediately forced herself up and out of the water, her breath coming at her in fraught gulps.
‘Oh. My. God,’ she exclaimed.
Laughter from behind her almost had her lose her footing again. She turned and saw her brother, Lewis, grinning from the safety of the lochside.
‘What in the actual…?’
‘Shut it, Lewis,’ she said, struggling up onto dry land. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I can’t come and visit my sister when it takes my fancy?’ His grin was almost as wide as the loch.
‘Arsehole,’ she muttered. ‘I’m bloody freezing,’ she added as she brushed past him, her arms tight across her body. ‘Get my clothes, will you? I need to get inside and have a warm shower.’ And with skin and muscle throbbing as blood rushed back to her extremities, she made her way to the house.
Stepping inside she saw that Clare Corrigan, her brother’s girlfriend, was at the kitchen sink filling the kettle. She turned and smiled, clearly pleased to see Annie.
Lewis met Clare – a police officer – when Annie had gone missing, kidnapped by Sylvia Lowry-Law, just before the bodies were discovered inside the infamous Sawney Bean Cave in South Ayrshire. Once the dust had settled, Lewis and Clare started dating, and – Clare’s work commitments in the police force aside – they’d barely been apart since.
‘A wee impromptu swim, Annie?’ Clare cocked her head.
‘Aye,’ Annie smiled, shivering. ‘It’s bracing. You should try it.’
‘Not without a wetsuit,’ Clare answered.
‘Mine’s a coffee,’ Annie nodded towards the kettle. ‘Give me five minutes to have a quick shower.’
Once dry and swaddled in loose, warm clothing, Annie sat cross-legged on her armchair, cradling a hot mug. As she looked at Clare 7and Lewis, she sensed charged and contradictory emotions. They kept glancing at each other, offering quick touches and smiles. Lewis was sitting forward in his seat, chin high, a poorly suppressed smile straining his lips.
Last time they’d spoken he’d talked about an old university pal, a guy called Ewan Gilmour who’d set up his own cybersecurity firm and contacted Lewis via LinkedIn to ask if he might be interested in working with him. He wanted to open a London office that would specialise in investigating online financial crime for some corporate-banking clients. It came with a six-figure salary and a London apartment. Annie had thought that if Clare wasn’t around, he’d have jumped at it. Since his old firm loosened their ties with him, he’d been looking about, keen to get back into work, but aware that his ties to the pastor who tried to kill Annie – which happened just over a year before she almost died in the cave – would follow him around for some years, putting off prospective employers. He had tried to set up some sort of private-investigations agency, but enquiries were slow in coming in and he preferred to keep busy. So, when Ewan demonstrated that he didn’t care about Lewis’s recent past, they’d had a couple of meetings – kicking the tyres sort of thing – but hadn’t yet committed to anything, as far as she knew.
‘So,’ Annie asked. ‘Turning up with no warning, no phone call?’ Always, before they visited, Lewis and Clare would let her know they were on their way. ‘Did you go for that job with Ewan?’
Lewis’s eyes showed his momentary confusion. ‘Job?’ He shook his head. ‘We’re still … That’s not why we’re here, Annie,’ he said with a half-smile.
There was excitement evident in his posture, and some nervousness. Annie noted Lewis’s hand on Clare’s knee, and then Clare’s hand strayed, more of a twitch really, to her lower abdomen.
‘Wait,’ Annie said, feeling her face brighten with a smile. ‘You’re pregnant?’
Chapter 3
Lewis – November 2024
‘How did you…?’ Lewis began.
‘Yes,’ Clare replied, and then they were all on their feet hugging, and the air was filled with excited chatter.
‘Do you know if it’s going to be a girl?’ Annie asked in a rush. But then stopped and blinked, looking at Lewis. ‘Or a boy? Have you picked a name?’ she hurried on. ‘Was it planned? When are you due?’
‘Jesus,’ Lewis said. ‘Give us a minute.’
‘I’m ten weeks,’ Clare said as she sat back down.
‘Wow.’ Annie sat too, then reached forward and playfully swiped Lewis’s arm. ‘Look at you. My brother’s going to be a dad.’
Lewis watched his sister, gauged her bright smile, and also the noticeable undercurrent of concern. Her first question – Do you know if it’s going to be a girl? – betraying her worry that their child would be a recipient of the long-running curse inherited by the female members of their family.
He looked at her pointedly, one eyebrow raised, sending her a silent message he hoped she’d understand – let them just enjoy this moment…
She responded with a barely perceptible nod. ‘Wow,’ she repeated. ‘I’m so happy for you guys.’
Cross-legged, hair still damp from her impromptu swim, Lewis couldn’t help but feel a surge of affection for his sister, and gratitude that she was still alive.
Twice in two years she’d nearly been murdered – once at the hands of the man who purported to be her lover, and then by a mad woman in an occult ceremony designed to raise a demon. God knows what that might do to a person. It was a wonder Annie was still sane, and standing, let alone looking as hale and hearty as she did right now and going for swims in the loch.9
The fact that he had also almost been murdered himself, in a deliberate car fire while trying to save Annie from the occult ceremony, he allowed to slip past his mind. The odd nightmare aside, he was fine.
As he looked at Annie, he recalled the last conversation they’d had in this very room. It was three months ago – days, probably, before Clare fell pregnant. His relationship with Clare had still felt shiny and new, even though they’d been a couple for ten months at that point. They spent every moment they could together, and he didn’t think there was a thought that spent more than a moment in his head before he told her about it, and they were yet to watch an entire movie at home without tearing each other’s clothes off. Even so it had been a surprise when Annie, with characteristic bluntness, had asked them if they planned to have children.
‘Did you just ask us if we were going to have kids?’ Lewis had said, shooting a look at Clare. She was smiling and shaking her head.
‘I know. I know,’ Annie had replied, holding her hands up. ‘You’ve only been together ten months, four days and two hours.’ She grinned. ‘Save me from the lovebirds. But I’ve been thinking…’
‘Yeah…?’
‘The curse,’ Annie said. ‘It’s awful, and it has to end. Look what it’s done to my life. And then there’s Sylvia Lowry-Law – distant cousin, need we be reminded – who was so crazed by it she tried to sacrifice me to raise a demon…’ She paused. ‘There’s no way I’m ever going to have children, and any man I meet – not that that’s likely – will just have to get used to that.’ She looked pointedly at Lewis, then Clare. ‘I hate to bring it up. Really, I do. And I know it’s insensitive this early in your relationship.’ She cocked her head and smiled fondly. ‘Which is lovely, by the way. You make my brother happy, Clare.’ She reached out and the two women held hands for a moment. Then Annie withdrew, set her shoulders and said, ‘But … there may well come a time when you will have to think about this. So … do you plan on having kids? Cos if you have a girl, it’s very likely that either her or her children will be driven mad.’10
Back in the present moment and Annie’s question still hung heavy in the air between them: Do you know if it’s going to be a girl?
Lewis looked at his sister, read the happiness tinged with fear, and thought about the implications of another child in the world with this curse. Then his mind turned to the other reason for their visit.
‘Wait,’ Annie said, looking at him. ‘There’s more. What’s wrong, you guys?’
Lewis turned to Clare, unsurprised that Annie had picked up on the fact there was something else on their minds.
Clare coughed and offered Annie a weak smile. ‘It’s Sylvia Lowry-Law. She wants to talk to you.’
Chapter 4
Bernard Peters – three months earlier, August 2024
Bernard drove past the sign – Ashmoor Hospital – and down the long, straight, tree-lined drive, and saw a Victorian clock tower and high walls topped with coils of barbed wire. To his mind it was all suggestive of the power of the state – once within the confines of those ramparts you were in a different universe; and you may never get back out.
As he parked, he thought about the first time he’d met the woman he’d been asked to visit: Sylvia Lowry-Law. His grandfather had been her family lawyer, and Bernard had taken over the practice after he died. She’d previously come to his Edinburgh office, as they stored Sylvia’s family records, and she’d employed them to help with her family research. Fascinating stuff, as he recalled, about witches and curses – and twin sisters who had fought over a man, leading to one of them being burned at the stake, along with her children, Isobel and Andra. Those family lines had split, if he remembered correctly, only to converge centuries later with a young woman called Annie Jackson.11
If Bernard had known that Sylvia’s plan was to find her distant cousin and then try to murder her in an Ayrshire cave, he would not have been so willing to give her access to his firm’s archives.
Those events had happened just over a year ago, and, along with the rest of the country, he’d then followed the story as it unfolded – bodies in a cave, the arrests of prominent citizens, and appeals for the whereabouts of the missing and wanted Sylvia Lowry-Law. His heart had almost jumped out of his chest when her image appeared on his TV. He recognised her instantly. Of course, he did – few people had that directness of gaze and certainty of purpose. Then, when he heard that the police had managed to catch her on a ferry to Ireland, he’d quietly celebrated.
His first instinct was to say no to the request that he come and visit her. But, despite his distaste for her and the things she had done, he had relented. He had dealt with all kinds of unsavoury individuals over the years, and his grandfather, that wonderful and damaged man, had hammered into him that the sins a person harbours in their heart should not bar them from the services of the law.
Once through security, he was guided by a member of the nursing staff to the visiting area. He saw her immediately, sitting at a table and wearing a white polo shirt and cardigan – an outfit a well Sylvia Lowry-Law would have sneered at.
When he sat on the other side of the table, her head was down, her hair hiding her eyes, and he was relieved to see that the woman who had until recently been one of the most wanted people in the country was so visibly under the influence of drugs. That was until she lifted her head and looked him directly in the face.
‘What can I do for you, Miss Lowry-Law?’ he asked.
‘How much do you know?’ she asked under her breath.
‘Excuse me?’
She swallowed, and mumbled, ‘It never rains in here. Never.’ She leaned forward, holding his gaze with fierce directness. ‘Then it pours.’12
Sylvia sat back, hands on her lap, as if waiting for someone to serve her some tea.
Bernard shifted uncomfortably in his seat. What was going on? Was that an act or was she momentarily taken over by a form of madness?
Then she picked up faultlessly from where she left off.
‘Your grandfather was a keeper of secrets. Secrets that people will kill to protect. So, I ask again: how much do you know?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bernard replied. She was rambling, surely, not making any sense. His grandfather, keeper of what secrets?
Her eyes glazed over, and she cocked her head to the side – a jerking movement, like a wary bird. ‘Secrets upon secrets.’
‘Miss Lowry-Law, I have no idea what you are talking about. My grandfather was a lawyer. And a good one.’
‘How naïve.’ A twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth. ‘Or a good act.’
‘I’ve come a long way, Ms Lowry-Law, please let me know what you need.’
‘He told you nothing, then?’
‘I think I’ve come here under false pretences.’ He stood.
‘Sit,’ she barked.
The change in her demeanour was so sudden, so commanding, that Bernard did as he was told.
She continued in a quieter voice: ‘Your grandfather was involved with a secret group that had their fingers in some very interesting pies.’
Bernard bridled. ‘Are you saying my grandfather was involved in illegal activities? That’s outrageous. He was a pillar of the community.’
‘He was also for sale, Bernard. Or compromised. And they amount to the same thing.’ She slowly scratched the side of her face. ‘Your grandfather was neck deep with certain elements of the Order, and he was paid handsomely for it. Handsomely. He worked for them, and with them, and he therefore knew things. Recorded things. Those records have to be protected.’13
Bernard squirmed in his seat. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
Sylvia lifted an eyebrow. ‘The fact that you’ve come here to see me will already have been brought to their attention. And some sections of the Order will think you are working for me, whether you do anything for me or not. So … find those records, and carry on your grandfather’s mission. And be assured that while you work for me you are under my protection.’
‘I need protection?’ Fear squeezed at his heart
‘Speak to no one of what you find,’ Sylvia warned. ‘Only me. And be wary.’ She narrowed her eyes to convey the importance of her message. ‘They are many, and they are vigilant.’
Chapter 5
Bernard – August 2024
Bernard was so full of Sylvia’s presence and strange warning that he walked back through the unit’s security area largely unaware of anything around him. But then he recognised the voice of someone who was speaking to a guard, and he was pulled from his thoughts.
‘Matthew?’ Bernard said as he stopped.
The man who turned, and looked right through him as if he wasn’t there, was his step-father. It hadn’t been that long since he’d last seen Matthew Pierce – six months or thereabouts – but his hair seemed darker, his freshly shaved face was possibly a little leaner, and he was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and navy tie – clothing that Bernard had never seen Pierce wear before. Nevertheless, it was him.
But such was the blank stare he received back from the man, Bernard began to doubt himself. Then, to compound that doubt, the man strode off, head high, as if Bernard and his strange interruption was of no account to him. He was quickly through a set of doors and out of Bernard’s sight.14
‘Excuse me.’ Bernard approached the member of staff at the security desk. ‘That man who just walked through those doors. The one with the dark suit on? Do you know who he is?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ the man behind the desk replied. ‘I can’t divulge that kind of information.’
In the car park Bernard unlocked his vehicle and took a seat, gripping the hard plastic of the steering wheel as if it might moor him in the present moment – the moment he’d been ignored by his step-father was that surreal. That was Pierce, he was sure of it. And if it was, why did he look through him as if he wasn’t there? And who was he here to visit?
Whenever he’d seen Pierce previously, over the last few years anyway, he always had a day or two’s growth on his chin, and always wore black jeans, a black polo shirt, and if the weather was inclement, a black leather jacket. Bernard had joked to Mrs Torrans, his grandfather’s legal assistant, that it was almost like a uniform. To see Pierce in a suit was strange, to say the least. He’d never managed to work out the man’s age, and Pierce wasn’t for telling. Those who knew the family told him that he was younger than Bernard’s mother when they married, after the death of Bernard’s biological father. So, at a guess, he must have been in his late sixties. but he moved with the vigour of a man half his age.
Key in the ignition, he turned it and fired up the engine. But he didn’t drive away. He would wait until his step-father came back out and simply ask him why he was here.
His heart pounded harder at the thought.
Pierce always made him feel nervous. And inadequate. And if he was being honest, a little bit frightened. He’d never actually hurt Bernard, never raised a hand to him, but he always managed to convey a sense of threat with a raised eyebrow and a long, cold stare.
An event that had occurred not long after his mother died marked their time together, and made Bernard ever wary of the man. Bernard had recently reached his tenth birthday, and they were out walking in the woods alone near an estate they sometimes 15holidayed in. They heard some thrashing in the undergrowth, and his step-father strode over, bent down, and picked up a rabbit.
‘Some fox likely attacked it, but it managed to get away.’
Pierce then turned to face Bernard, as if he didn’t want him to miss a thing, and wordlessly, eyes fixed on Bernard’s the whole time, gave a sharp tug and snapped the poor beast’s neck. Then he casually threw it back into the bushes.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, hands back in his pockets as he strode back towards Bernard, ‘a man has to do the hard thing.’
The callousness of that stayed with Bernard, and he never again felt quite safe in Pierce’s company.
The look in his eyes as he’d killed the rabbit replayed in Bernard’s mind now.
Why was Pierce here?
Pulse a heavy thud in his neck, palms sweating, those words of his step-father’s from all those years ago played over and over in his mind:
Sometimes a man has to do the hard thing.
From where he was sitting, he could see the main entrance. He sat waiting, his gaze fixed on it for something like half an hour. Periodically someone arrived and went inside. And a few people left. Each time the door opened, Bernard’s heart lurched and he steeled himself.
At last, a woman exited, closely followed by a man in a suit with dark hair.
It was him.
Before Bernard could change his mind, he pulled the key from the ignition and jumped out of the car. He half ran, half walked to the man he knew as Matthew Pierce.
‘Matthew,’ he said as he neared the man in the suit. ‘What are you doing here?’
Pierce raised an eyebrow. Studied him. ‘Bernard,’ he said. At least he wasn’t ignoring him now.
Emboldened, Bernard asked again, ‘Why are you here? And why 16did you ignore me inside? And what are you doing wearing this ridiculous suit?’
Pierce stepped closer, bending slightly, and it occurred to Bernard how different in appearance they were. His step-father was tall and muscular, while he was just above average height with a slim build.
‘Listen carefully, Bernard. I will say this once, and never again. You didn’t see me here today. I was never here.’ His eyes drilled into Bernard’s. ‘I was not here.’
An alarm sounded somewhere in the large building behind them, and Bernard noticed an immediate shift in his step-father’s eyes. It was as if he was expecting to hear it. His head dipped slightly. Just for a moment. It was almost imperceptible, but Bernard had spent most of his life studying this man, and he read it instantly.
Then Pierce recovered and was back in control.
The sound of the alarm grew and grew, becoming louder and louder.
Pierce walked past Bernard without another word.
Bernard rushed to catch up with him. ‘That alarm,’ he said. ‘What did you do?’
‘For your own good, Bernard,’ Pierce replied out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes an icy blue, ‘you never saw me.’
Chapter 6
Bernard – August 2024
More than a little perturbed, Bernard drove back to Edinburgh. His thoughts worked on a loop, constantly playing back images of his step-father. In reception. At the door. In the car park. Ignoring Bernard, and then warning him.
It just didn’t make any sense.
As the traffic built and buildings began to mass as he neared the 17city, he craved some distraction, and turned on the car radio – just in time to hear the news.
War in the Middle East.
Politicians lying.
A life-or-death warning for Floridians in the path of a hurricane.
Then there was a burst of dramatic music. ‘Just in,’ the newscaster said, her voice thrumming with excitement. ‘Mass murderer Sylvia Lowry-Law is fighting for her life in Ashmoor Hospital, according to reports. There is so far no official comment from staff at the high-security institution, but sources say Ms Lowry-Law collapsed shortly after a visit from her lawyer.’
Bernard got such a fright at the news he got too close to the car in front of him. Heart a clamour, he corrected the car again, and waved apologetically at the driver he’d almost collided with.
He was still shaking with shock several minutes later, and realised he needed to stop off somewhere and get his thoughts into order, so he pulled over outside a local coffee shop, ordered a coffee and a pastry and took a seat. It was only when the hot, bitter liquid hit his tongue that he became aware how dry his mouth was.
Lowry-Law fighting for her life?
And that was after he and Pierce had visited Ashmoor.
Just what was going on? He could make no sense of it at all. He sat for a long while sipping at his drink and chewing through the pastry. At last he looked at his watch and realised that he needed to get going. His mind was so full, he’d lost track of the time.
When he finally walked into the reception area back at the office, he saw Mrs Torrans behind her desk.
‘Shouldn’t you be at home by now?’ he asked her. ‘It’s five-thirty.’
She was on her feet and came round to his side of the desk. ‘I … I had some things to do. Are you okay, Bernard? You look very pale.’
‘I’m fine. You should go home.’
‘You should know that your step-father was here,’ she said. ‘You just missed him.’
‘Pierce?’ Bernard’s mouth went dry. ‘What did he want? Did he say?’18
Joan humphed. ‘Man of mystery that one.’ She sat down, something clearly on her mind.
‘What is it, Joan?’ he asked.
She shook her head, and he noticed that her bottom lip was trembling.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry, Bernard. I’ve always tried to remain neutral when it comes to your family, but with Matthew Pierce, I can’t. I’ve never liked that man. Never.’
This was the most Joan had ever said about his step-father, or any of his family for that matter. Her only topic of conversation around him was work, and occasionally, the weather when she was feeling a little more garrulous.
‘So what did Pierce want?’ Bernard asked again.
‘No idea. He stormed past me and went into the old man’s office. Shouted through for the password to his computer. But I pretended I didn’t know it.’ She looked pleased with herself at that. ‘He would have taken the thing away, but it’s padlocked to the floor, as you know, and I pretended I didn’t have the key for it.’ She made a sign of the cross. ‘Please forgive me for lying, but I just don’t trust that man.’
Bernard Peters Senior’s former office was the largest space in the apartment. It had large windows and a set of French doors that opened onto a little courtyard garden – overgrown now – an oak desk almost wide enough to play table tennis on, and walls lined with bookcases that were filled with leather-bound volumes of legal case files. The room was so redolent with the old man, that Bernard couldn’t enter without a heavy sense of grief so great that he still used his own, much more modest, office across the hallway.
His grandfather had had his laptop padlocked to the desk after a series of break-ins. The data held there had been regularly saved to a secure server, but as he explained to his grandson, he was a ‘belts and braces’ kind of fellow.
‘Pierce made no mention of what he was looking for on the computer?’ Bernard asked her.19
‘None,’ she sniffed. ‘But there was a lot of noise coming from your grandfather’s office. Lots of banging. Things getting thrown around, and … I tried to tidy up as best I could…’ She began to cry.
Bernard reached towards her and held her hand until her upset passed.
Once her tears had subsided, he asked, ‘You’re okay?’
She managed a nod while pulling a white handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbing her eyes.
‘No idea at all what he may have been looking for?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Bernard, the man pushes all rational thought from my head.’
‘I’ll, eh … I’ll go and have a look, will I?’
Bernard made his way along the corridor to his grandfather’s office. Warily, he pushed the door open and looked inside.
It was dusk, so he switched the overhead light on and saw that many of the large leather-bound volumes that once filled the upper shelving of the bookcases around the room were on the floor.
‘What the hell?’ Bernard began as he stepped inside the room. ‘Why would he…?’
Joan appeared at his side. ‘I put the ones back on the shelves that I could reach.’
Then Bernard noticed a large painting he’d loved as a boy had been moved from its position above the fireplace and was now propped against a wall. It showed a Highland stag, antlers wide, head thrown back as it roared a silent warning to any trespassing young bucks. Looking at the pale oblong on the wall where it had always hung, it occurred to him what his step-father had been doing.
‘He thinks Grandpa had a hidden safe.’ He scanned the room once again. ‘But what on earth does he think the old man had locked up – and why does he want it so much he would trash the place?’
Chapter 7
Bernard – August 2024
Once Joan had left for the day, Bernard moved behind the big desk and sat in his grandfather’s chair. Feeling the plush leather, he slowly moved the chair from side to side, taking in the scope of the room and its contents, and trying to place himself in his grandfather’s head.
After all, he knew the old man as well as anyone. Or so he thought. But, at the end of his life, the old man had made some cryptic comments that led Bernard to think that all was not what it had seemed. And now Lowry-Law’s words sounded in his mind: Your grandfather was a keeper of secrets.
A thought occurred to him – was that what Pierce was searching for? Secrets? But what secrets? And why? What was Pierce’s interest in that protected knowledge?
As Bernard had grown older, he had become aware of the acrimony between his grandfather and his step-father, and had often wondered what the source of it was, and why Pierce continued to stay in contact after Bernard’s mother died when the two of them clearly didn’t get on. Did he feel a responsibility towards Bernard? If he did, he hid it well.
Through his own work as a lawyer, he had come to understand that people were motivated by a short list of things – sex, money and power.
The first was out with the death of his mother, so that left money and power.
As far as he had been aware the old man didn’t have much of the latter, and it was only after the reading of the will when his grandfather died that Bernard realised he’d had money.
And lots of it.
Growing up, and living and working with his grandfather, Bernard hadn’t given much thought to any possible wealth the old 21man might have accrued. There was the business, of course, and the office he currently sat in, which he knew must be worth a fair bit, being situated in such a prestigious part of the city, but as far as he allowed himself to consider such things – that was it.
When he was invited by the executor of his grandfather’s will, an official from Coutts, to hear what he had been left, he was utterly stunned.
There were cash assets and properties all over Edinburgh and the Borders to the tune of almost ten million pounds.
How had a modest lawyer amassed such wealth?
He was back in that hospital room with Sylvia Lowry-Law, and listening to her quiet urgings.
Neck deep.
The Order.
Paid handsomely.
No, he thought, as this new possible reality collided with the version of his grandfather he had built up in his mind. Had that colossus of few words, a stern expression and soft hands been someone else entirely his whole life? Was that where all of that money had come from – this secret society? This ‘Order’? He felt the disappointment and betrayal sting. There were millions. What exactly had Bernard Peters Senior done to earn all of that?
The need to work out who the old man really had been began to grow, alongside the certainty that he must uncover what exactly those secrets were that Sylvia Lowry-Law had spoken about, and which his step-father seemed so keen to find.
Chapter 8
Annie – November 2024
Annie couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She stared at Clare:
‘Sylvia Lowry-Law? She wants to talk to me?’22
And in her imagination the woman loomed over her, a small flask of poison in one hand, a long, curved knife in the other – and the spectre of the Baobhan Sith, the Highland legend Lowry-Law had hoped to raise with Annie’s blood – looming behind her.
Annie was aware of a churn in her stomach and held a trembling hand there, hoping the warmth would soothe it. She crossed her arms, held herself tight. ‘How can she even be allowed to make that request? She tried to kill me.’
‘Sorry, Annie, but I have to ask.’ Clare sighed, bit her bottom lip. ‘You’ve heard the phrase “the law is an ass”? Well in this case that goes double. As you know, Lowry-Law’s lawyers have put forward a defence of insanity – why else would she try to raise an actual demon?’ Clare performed a shrug laden with irony. ‘While we know she knew exactly what she was doing, such a defence has weight. It means there will be no trial. Saving the system a lot of cash. And saving you, by the way, the experience of appearing in court…’
‘Silver lining,’ Annie interjected, knowing all that a trial might entail – the feeding frenzy of the press, and quite possibly being on every television screen, laptop and mobile phone on the planet. She exhaled sharply, momentarily overwhelmed at the prospect. ‘I take it the media is all over this?’ she asked, looking at Lewis.
He nodded in reply, his face dark with concern for her. ‘You’d think they’d tire of talking about you. For once I’m glad you’re actually out of the way of everyone, up here. You haven’t had anyone track you down yet?’
Annie shook her head. ‘It was the same with the Bodies in the Glen case. Journalists – professional and amateur –prowling the area. But I get warned by a friend – the café owner – to stay away when they’re nearby. And…’ She looked around her little home. ‘I don’t know, it’s like the spirits, or the energies, or whatever it is that makes this a haven for me, seem able to deflect prying eyes from seeing my wee house.’ Annie thought for a moment. Sat back in her chair. ‘What is Sylvia after?’23
Clare tipped her chin at Annie. ‘I take it you heard she was seriously ill?’
‘Lowry-Law?’ Annie asked. ‘No. And she survived? Shame that.’
‘God, you really are living in a media blackout,’ Clare said, as if envious. ‘She’s claiming, at least privately, to the hospital authorities, that some old foes – whoever they are – tried to kill her.’
‘Really? And what’s the official explanation?’
‘That she had a heart attack. And it was all pretty natural, taking into account her age and the extreme stress she’s been under.’
Annie paused and looked out of the window at the loch. Then she turned back to Clare.
‘So why exactly does she want to talk to me? No need to sweeten the pill, Clare.’
‘We found some humans remains in the Sawney Bean Cave that we’ve been unable to identify. We reckon there are those of another three people – men whose families don’t know for sure they are dead.’
‘And let me guess,’ Annie said. ‘She can’t pass up a chance to exert some power over the situation, so before she’ll give any names to those poor families, she wants to talk to me.’
‘Correct,’ Clare replied.
‘Any idea what she wants to talk to me about?’
‘She said it was something to do with the curse. And ending it once and for all.’
Chapter 9
Annie – November 2024
Much as Annie pretended to Clare and Lewis that she had to think about it, the moment Clare asked, she knew she would pay a visit to the woman who tried to kill her.
But she delayed giving Clare an answer, giving herself some breathing space before she did what she knew was required.24
‘Let me know by the end of the week, will you?’ Clare asked, and then after more hugs and offers of congratulations about the baby, she and Lewis departed for home.
The minute they were out the door, Annie had her laptop out and was googling the secure unit in England where Lowry-Law was being held.
The first link that came up did not make for comfortable reading:
‘Hospital where notorious patients are detained is so under-staffed that patients aren’t safe.’
The piece went on:
‘Ashmoor Hospital in Northumberland, which holds four hundred patients, is one of the UK’s three high-security mental-health hospitals and holds the most mentally unwell patients in the country.’
Lowry-Law would fit right in there, thought Annie.
Next morning – after a night of worrying what it might be like, coming face to face with her nemesis – she phoned Clare.
‘How are you feeling?’ Annie asked. ‘Morning sickness?’
‘Thankfully, no,’ Clare replied. ‘I actually feel great.’ And Annie could hear a smile in her voice.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said without further preamble. ‘I’ll speak to that woman.’
Chapter 10
Annie – three weeks later, November 2024
Clare turned off the main road at a simple sign indicating the location of a National Health Service site, and they sailed down a smooth drive banked on either side by tall, leafy trees.
This isn’t too bad, thought Annie, as she looked out from the passenger seat. But then the road curved to the right and a building that had surely featured in a horror movie loomed ahead.25
Ashmoor.
Lewis was in the backseat, and Annie could see him react to the place in the rear-view mirror – arms crossed and eyebrows set low.
‘I’ll be alright, Lewis,’ she said.
He nodded, but Annie knew he probably wouldn’t manage a smile until they were finished, back in the car and on the way north.
The building was surrounded by high, red-brick walls topped with razor wire. A forest of metal poles branched with cameras aimed in every conceivable direction, and beyond that, gouging a leaden sky, a Victorian clocktower. To Annie’s mind the clock face was there to remind the denizens of this place that this was what had been taken from them: time.
A low whistle from Lewis. ‘Whoa. Imagine being driven up here, knowing this was going to be where you would be held for evermore.’
‘There’s around four hundred people here, Lewis. Not all of them are murderers. Some of them are just poor souls who never got a break.’
‘Right,’ Lewis replied, sounding unconvinced.
They stopped at a gate that Annie guessed must have been around twenty feet high. Clare opened her car window and spoke to the intercom positioned there. A loud buzzing noise, and the gate slid open.
Clare edged the car forward and as the gate slid shut behind them Annie felt a charge of fear, as if she might be stuck inside these walls for the rest of her life.
‘You okay?’ Clare asked. ‘It’s not too late to back out, you know. Everyone would understand.’
Annie shook her head. ‘I’m not okay, to be honest, but there are people who don’t know what happened to their loved ones. If I can help them it might make up for the people that this curse of mine can’t help.’
‘You’re being too harsh on yourself,’ Lewis said.
It was an old and recycled conversation: Annie blaming herself 26for the pain that her curse was unable to ease for those who came into her orbit that she knew were about to die. Lewis saying she shouldn’t bear that responsibility.
Clare parked the car, and Annie clapped her hands, released her seatbelt, and mustering courage from somewhere, she said, ‘Right, let’s get this over with.’
Outside the car, Lewis gave Annie a hug, and another chance to back out. Which she refused. Then Annie and Clare walked towards the visitors’ entrance and were admitted into a reception area.
Blank-faced, white-shirted staff took Annie through their security and identification process, after which she was given a visitor pass on a lanyard. Her hand stilled for a moment before she accepted it. With a charge of fear, it occurred to her that a mix-up was always possible. Humans make errors, right? What if a mistake was made and she ended up being locked up for days, or weeks, before someone spotted the wrong person was locked in a cell?
The warmth from Clare’s hand on her forearm pulled her from her mental doom scroll. She smiled her thanks.
‘Wait here,’ another blank-faced man told her.
Moments later four other staff members congregated around them, like a protective cohort: two men who looked like they lifted heavy weights every spare moment, and two women who could barely hide their curiosity. Furtive glances under fringes. Tentative smiles.
They knew who she was.
‘Okay,’ one of the men said at some silent signal, and they all began walking.
With a fresh charge of trepidation Annie fell into step.
Heavy footfall echoed along long corridors. Harsh electric light overhead. Walls painted in industrial vanilla, and doors in a mis-match of grey, and everything so similar that Annie wondered how anyone might find their way back out again. Despite the brightness 27of the light, it felt as if the walls and the ceiling were closing in on her, almost touching her head and shoulders.
Her murmurs had been strangely silent, but then a door on her right set off their discordant song. She stopped and turned to stare at the door. Her murmurs built, and Annie was sure whoever was behind it would die soon. Very soon. She saw a toothbrush. The end sharpened. And pools of blood.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. And the man guiding them to wherever they were going turned to her. Dread was a deadweight in her mind.
‘Yes?’ he said, his face so blank it was as if all notion of a personality had been cast aside with his street clothes at the front gate.
‘There’s a man in that room.’ She pointed at the door that had set off the murmuring. ‘I take it all possible methods of suicide are withheld?’
A question pushed itself into the blandness of his eyes. ‘How did you know it was a…?’ Then a flash of realisation. ‘Oh. You’re that woman,’ he said. Nodded. ‘We’ll be extra careful with…’ Another nod in the direction of the door.
At this her murmurs sounded a low cackle, as if the possibility of a successful intervention was laughable.
Annie caught a look between Clare and one of the team of nurses. An admonition. As if she was saying she thought there would be more secrecy around this visit. Which gave Annie a wry smile. Humans and secrets. The jungle drums and the gossips would always have their way.
