1

The creak of old doors.

A murky night well into winter. The west wind had been blowing since morning, bringing dank drizzle in from the firth in dismal grey veils of rain. By six, the wind had strengthened, whipping the waves up to crash against the sheer basalt of the towering rock on the east side of the town where through the spray the lights along the castle ramparts flickered feeble and wan.

In the old centre of the town, River Street, now living up to its name, was more of an oxbow lake than the main thoroughfare, for the high tide and the higher wind had combined to back the river water up until it swelled over the quayside and flowed through the cobbled vennels and alleys to puddle under the street lights.

Just after eight, a car came slowly ploughing along the road, driver gunning the engine high and slacking off the clutch with a whine. It shoved up a bow wave which washed its way into the doorways as the car made its way slowly along to the old bridge, turned and was gone.

The water seeped and slopped under shop doors. The old co-op would be awash again, for the tenth time in two decades. Benson's off-the-hanger suits would need to be sent to the dry cleaners. The floorboards of the old Woolworth's shop would be warped and twisted and Phil McColl's boys would have a hell of a job pinning them back down on the old joists.

Levenford huddled against the wind and the rain. On River Street there were few stragglers. A couple of boys on motorbikes came ripping through the street-long puddle. They mounted the pavement when the water got too deep on the road and they almost cut the knees from Mickey Haggerty who was stepping unsteadily out of Mac's bar on the corner of Kirk Street opposite the clock tower. He stood for a moment, wet and cursing, looked down the sodden length of the street, then shrugged his shoulders and went back inside.

At the far end, just as the bikers reached the old bridge across the swollen river, the road was higher. Here, two alleys run down to the quayside. Brewery Lane is cobbled and narrow. Boat Pend is a covered alley, like an arched tunnel bored beneath the old facade of Cairn House, the town's oldest building. It stands gaunt and grey, four storeys high with a sagging, swaybacked roof covered in worn slates, and red dragon's-back ridging. The windows are narrow, hardly more than slits. Near-on thirty years ago the body of a thirteen-year-old boy had been found bound and gagged and two months dead in a back room of the old building which had been then a disused and empty third floor surgery. According to the hushed rumour that had scuttled round the playground at Strathleven School, his hair had grown to his shoulders and his fingernails were two inches long.

So the rumour went and more besides. What was true was that the curious boy who broke into the old surgery and found the rotting carcass had been so horror-stricken that he'd never been the same again. He'd spent most of those past years in the care of Barlane Hospital on the outskirts of the town, only one step down from the State Mental Hospital where they kept the really crazy folk. He'd never got over it, but the old town had moved on. There were fresh rumours and new stories to tell in the playground and the story of Cairn House moved into history, for a while.

A quarter of a century on, the wind whistled and whooped, cold enough to keep all but the foolhardy or the determined off the streets. The damp seeped through to chill to the bone and there was a bite of ice too, a sign of a bad winter to come.

On this night a figure came across the street close to the bridge just after the bikers had roared past, tyres hissing on the road. The street lamp outlined the shape of a man, huddled against the wind, staying close to the lee of the wall. He stumbled off balance as a gust of wind came shrieking up Brewery Lane and almost fell headlong, but recovered and staggered on.

He reached the dark entrance to Boat Pend, looked left and right, almost as if he was crossing the street, then moved inside. The darkness swallowed him in two steps.

At the far end of the Pend, where it gives on to a series of tight alleys and walkways, he stopped and twisted the old brass handle on a door set into the side of the building. There was a short hallway with a coatstand bedraggled with wet coats now steaming in the slight warmth. The man took off his coat and scarf and rolled his flat cap tightly enough to squeeze it into a pocket. He turned and made his way up the narrow spiral staircase until he reached the third storey. He paused for breath, then lifted an ornate knocker and rapped twice on the door. It opened almost immediately and the man stepped inside.

"All here then?" The old woman sitting at the far end of the room asked. Her small eyes squinted in the dim light of a standard lamp in the corner of the room at the back of Cairn House.

There was a low murmur of assent. There were six other people in the room, including the man who had just arrived and was now using a white handkerchief to pat the rain from behind an ear.

"Could have picked a better night," one of them mumbled and someone else agreed.

"Can't choose the night. Can't choose the time," the old woman piped up in a clear voice.

Marta Herkik was a tiny woman, almost as big across as she was tall. Her black hair was caught back in a bun so severe that her pencilled eyebrows were arched high, giving her a perpetual look of surprise. The knife-straight white line that bisected her widow's peak showed the black was not natural.

She was dressed completely in black, except for a red stone in a silver brooch pinned to her collar, reflecting the soft light like a dying eye. She sat on a high-backed chair, small, surprisingly young hands flat on the surface.

"Well. I think we should begin."

The six others shuffled themselves around the table, scraped chairs back and got seated.

"Hands please," Marta Herkik said primly. They lifted elbows and hands from the black cloth which draped the table and she grabbed an end, slowly drawing it towards her across the surface. It made a soft hissing noise, like sand in an hourglass. The little fat woman folded it neatly and dropped the cloth to the floor beside her. Behind her, the fire sputtered and the flare of light from the hearth threw the shadow of the high backed chair onto the far wall where it joined the ceiling.

Even in the dim light, the table shone and reflected the faces of the people seated around it, all eyes fixed on Marta Herkik. It was smooth as glass from years of polishing, and it was old.

It had six legs carved into the shape of arms, so well crafted that the individual veins followed the grain of dark hardwood, ending in hands clenched into knuckles. The tabletop surface was a masterpiece of marquetry. On the border, six inches in from the end nypmhs and fauns cavorted in writhing, sensuous tangles, then beyond that was a circle, inlaid in white veneer cut so expertly there was no visible seam or join, a circle of tightly packed angular letters that almost resembled script but was not. Beyond that, in black, a smaller circle which spelled the alphabet in odd, slanted lettering. Between the circles, close to Marta Herkik's edge, in similar black wood, the word YEAH was cut in the same style. Opposite, just in front of William Simpson, the man who was last into the room, a single word. NAY.

And in the centre, in a red wood almost the colour of new blood, an inlaid star of five points gleamed.

Close to the woman, a large book, leather bound and faded with age, lay closed.

"I think we're ready," Marta Herkik said.

She opened the book, using one finger to turn the pages until she found the right one. Each of them could see one passage had been marked off in black ink.

"Tonight, it is a special thing we do. We go further than we have gone before, because this is the time. We seek the guidance of the great one, who will open to us the future, to bring for some, a heart's desire, to others the knowledge that is also the power."

She leaned over the book and began to read, though none of the others understood any of the words. The woman's voice came in odd conjunctions of hard consonants, flat vowels. She intoned the unmusical chant, turning the page when she reached the bottom and carried on for several minutes. Finally her voice trailed away. She lifted the book without closing it and laid it on a small table just within arms reach. From her bag on her lap she drew a leather wallet which she snapped open and produced a set of large cards. Without looking she shuffled them swiftly, shaking the cards together. Every few seconds, she leaned forward and asked one of the group to touch the pack, each in turn, anti clockwise. They waited until she had finished.

"The second part," the old woman said, sliding her eyes across theirs. She put the pack on the centre of the table, face down.

"As before, each take three. They are your own keys."

Janet Robinson stretched out a tentative hand, used two outspread fingers to pinch a wad of cards and with her other hand, took three. each of them did the same. When they had all done so, Marta Herkik spoke up again.

"Keep these with you now. Do not look at the faces, for they are your hidden fortune. Put them away and hold them to you."

Annie Eastwood and the other woman looked at each other. This was something different. The tarot cards were old, the writhing black patterns on the backs worn with use. Annie almost turned hers over to see what she had drawn, but Janet picked hers up and put them in her own bag. Annie did the same. Each of the men put them in an inside pocket, wondering why they'd been asked to do this. William Simpson pulled back the lapel, made to slide the cards inside and glanced down at the nearest face. It showed a man suspended on a rope, and that surprised him. When Marta Herkik had dealt his cards before, it had been a different set. Then, the man had been dangling by one foot, the other crossed over. This one was a black etching of the Hanged Man. But the picture showed a rotting skeletal figure dangling from a gibbet on which perched five black crows. Eye sockets glared blindly above grinning teeth.

Marta Herkik broke the small silence. "Do as I do, now," she said and everyone leaned forward. They all had their reasons.

The small woman reached into a black bag on her lap and brought out something which she raised, then placed slowly in the centre of the pentagon forming the heart of the star. All eyes followed the movement. She drew her hands away and a translucent stone remained, so clear it could have been made of glass, almost perfectly round, though not quite, showing it had been formed from natural rock crystal. In its depths, only three inches away from the smooth surface, yet because of the odd perspective within the curved stone it seemed far away, a small almond-shaped flaw caught the light and shone it back. Like the stone in the old woman's brooch, it gleamed like an eye.

Marta Herkik held her fingertips on the crystal dome. The others reached, some eagerly, some more hesitant, until they all touched.

There was a long moment of complete silence, then the woman spoke, this time very softly.

"We are gathered here to be granted the gift of sight and the gift of knowledge. We seek to know the un-knowable, to see the unseen, to go beyond the beyond. Open your minds and your hearts, because they are the channels. Empty your minds and let the power flow."

On the woman's right side, Annie Eastwood, short brown hair still damp from the rain, felt a tremor under her hands, so soft she thought she might have imagined it, so slight it could have been the tiny pulse in the skin of her fingers.

She held her breath and waited. This was her fourth visit to Marta Herkik's back parlour. A divorcee for fourteen years, her seventeen-year-old daughter Angela had gone out, against her mother's wishes, to a disco in Lochend, seven miles along the road on the south end of Loch Corran. She hadn't come home that night. Her boyfriend had borrowed his father's car and had taken Angela and his friend and girlfriend for a drive up the Shore Road past Linnvale where the scars of the summer's forest fire had left a black carpet of desolation. Not far past the turn-off, the car had gone out of control, hit a tree-stump and rolled. Angela had been thrown out of the car and tumbled fifty feet through the air to hit a solitary old oak tree a few yards in from the roadside. Almost every bone in her body had been smashed on impact. She had died instantly.

Annie Eastwood wanted to speak to her daughter. She had to know she was safe and happy. And most of all, she wanted her to know she was sorry.

To Annie's right Derek Elliot felt the shiver in the crystal and a half-smile formed on his face. He didn't really believe in all this hocus-pocus, he told himself. But he was curious. He was also young and he was ambitious. He'd failed his law degree four years before, but had talked old Harry Fitzpatrick at Levenax Estate Agents to take him on and he'd diligently worked his way into a junior partnership, though that meant doing all of the work while Harry played golf. In the past few months, Derek had been doing little private deals on the side, deals that would have made the old man throw a fit, had he known, but he did not know and Derek Elliot wanted to move on and up. He wanted Marta Herkik to tell him when. All he needed was a hint. Maybe a sign.

Next to him, Mickey O'Day had the look of a man who wants everyone to think he is on top. He was in his mid thirties and sported a loud tie and a louder checked sports jacket on which he'd pinned a carnation which clashed jarringly. Mickey was on his way out of the dark side of a bad run of luck. He still owed a small fortune to Carrick's bookie's shop. Mickey was a great believer in luck and that lady had written him a dear John. Eddie Carrick had sent his two boys along to the Castlegate Bar to leave a message . It was blunt and to the point: The old fella wanted his money by the weekend. Mickey didn't have it. He needed some help to get luck back on his side, just enough to make a favourite fall, to give an outsider a spurt, to get Eddie Carrick's big lads off his back. That was when he'd heard about Marta Herkik, and then his luck had started to change. Mickey felt the shiver under his fingers and gave a small smile that nobody else noticed. Maybe tonight, just maybe, lady luck would really smile on him and get him out from under, once and for all, put him back on top where he belonged.

Almost opposite Marta Herkik, William Simpson shivered in response to the tiny tremor under his own fingers.

He shouldn't be here. He knew that, and still he'd come. Exactly why he had come, he could not say, not to anyone. He was looking for something. Simpson was minister of Castlebank Church, preaching to less than a hundred souls every Sunday, most of them women, most of them old, and that part of his life was empty and hollow and as dry as the cellar beneath the crypt. More than anyone else in the room, he needed to believe in a life after death. And he needed that more than anything.

On his right, still going round the table anti-clockwise, Janet Robinson, a thin, nervous woman with short fair hair and nervous eyes behind wide lensed glasses. She was apprehensive, for a reason she could not name. She had been here before and listened to Marta Herkik's piping voice, as she interpreted the tarot, but this was the first time she had sat with her fingers on the polished stone. Janet was a typist at the police station on College Way, a shy, timid woman. Her mother, a large, big busted, big voiced woman who had loomed like a shadow over her all her life had died suddenly of a massive stroke in the summer of the year. Janet Robinson had been left with nothing to fill that vacuum. She didn't know what to do. Her mother had organised everything, every part of her life. For most of that life Janet had been afraid of her anger, had hated her dominance, but had succumbed until there was nothing much left of her own self. Now she wasn't sure what she wanted. But she knew she needed to lay her mother's memory to rest.

The last man at the table was Edward Tomlin who sat with eyes fixed on the fingers sitting lightly on top of the shining stone. He was in his late thirties, slim and tense. He was a little bit frightened, though he did not know why. Tomlin was the caretaker in Castlebank shipyard which had been the biggest industry in Levenford until the fifties when things had begun to go sour. Now he was in charge of a shell of rusting sheds and hangars, mouldering machinery and weed-filled slipways. His job was no job at all, for there was nothing to repair, or clean. He spent his time making sure the teenagers of the town were kept from using the old sheds as drinking dens, and to make sure the younger children stayed safely outside the wrought iron gates. The yard had died a long time ago, though one small section, close to the distillery, had been fenced off and it was there that the only heavy engineering took place, a stripped-down operation building spidery rig-sections for the North Sea oilfields. Occasionally Eddie Tomlin would stroll past the chain-link, listening to the harsh metal sounds, and hanker for the days when his father had been welding foreman, and when the big gates would open on a Saturday to spill the grimy men out into the street for Saturday football matches. More often he'd unlock the old tool room and open the box where he kept some of the things he'd collected over the years. In the quiet of the afternoon, he'd strip off his overalls and dress up in silk.

Marta Herkik pressed her small, smooth hand onto the glass. She gave a small smile of satisfaction when she felt the tiny tremor, and sensed the heightened perception of the people around the table. The rain beat a steady rap on the window, sounding like a backwash of sand on the shore and the wind moaned down the chimney, flaring the coals to brightness in stuttering breaths.

"Here we are gathered," she said in a low voice, almost a mutter. In in her east European accent it sounded like gattered. "To make contact, yes? With those gone before us beyond the beyond. We each have the reasons. I am here to guide you and my guide will lead me through. May we bring to them peace and may they give peace to us."

All eyes were fixed on the little woman's face. The stone on her shoulder winked red.

"We channel ourselves, our inner selves, together and through the crystal. A radio beam if you prefer it, sending our thoughts to the faraway, yes?"

They all nodded, slowly, like infants responding to a teacher.

"We begin now, please," Marta said with a little nod. Under her fingers the tremor had become a vibration, slow and steady.

The woman closed her eyes and brought her eyebrows down as far as the pull of her tightly-held hair would allow.

"We come to seek the help of he who holds the power," she intoned, almost singing. It sounded to Mickey O'Day just like a bad piece of acting in an old movie, but even Mickey could feel the odd tension which seemed to twist from one to another in the circle around the table. There was an odd tingle of expectancy.

"We seek the knowledge, and answers to our questions. We seek the guidance from beyond to assist us," Marta crooned.

"We are empty vessels into which can flow the knowledge and the power to see beyond. Come to us now, and answer our call. Bring us the knowledge and the sign."

She took a deep breath.

Under their fingers, the smooth crystal trembled in a sudden hard vibration, strong enough to make it rattle on the table-top. Janet Robinson made a small noise, more an intake of breath. Edward Tomlin felt his heart give a double-jump.

"I ask it now," Marta went on as if nothing had happened. Their fingers felt the thrum of resonance through the clear stone. "We call you now to come to us."

The rattle got louder, more urgent. Derek Elliot could see the flaw inside the crystal between his fingers. The movement was causing it to flicker and dance like a candle-flame. Without warning, the movement stopped and a heavy silence followed. Annie Eastwood looked at the little woman, but Marta's eyes were fixed on the stone.

Then, again without warning, it moved.

There was no hesitation. It slid across the table to stop just in front of Marta Herkik. It made hardly a sound as it glided across the polished surface to plant itself right on top of the inlaid word Yea.

She smiled, just a twitch of her lips.

"Spirit," she said. "You have chosen to be with us, to journey from the far place. If we ask, will you answer?"

The crystal dome remained where it sat, right at the edge of the inlaid word. There was another momentary silence, then it began to shake again, just enough to drum on the polished wood.

"Very good. We shall now begin," the old woman piped.

"The spirit is with us. I feel his presence and so shall you. Welcome him to yourselves."

As soon as she said that, the fire flared then dimmed theatrically, and then, very slowly the light on the lamp on the old dresser by the wall, faded to red. The draught from the chimney swirled around the room. each of them felt it. The hairs on Derek Elliot's knuckles stood on end, and Janet Robinson felt the skin between her shoulderblades pucker and crawl. The cold wind eddied from one to the other. William Simpson felt it waft through him, shivering him deep inside. Annie Eastwood drew in her breath, feeling the cold air spread into her lungs. It was as if the atmosphere had changed, suddenly tense and frigid, as if the wind moaning down the chimney has snaked right into their bones.

Marta raised her head and scanned the faces around the table. "Which will be first."

They all looked at her, then at each other, none wishing to make a move.

"Hurry now," Marta urged abruptly. "There is no time."

"Give me a number," Mickey O'Day blurted. What he really wanted was a name. A winning name.

"Give me a lucky number."

The stone trembled again. Very slowly, it slid across the table, hovered in front of the Nay sign, then glided silently to stop briefly in front of Derek Elliot, sped diagonally across to tremble before Janet Robinson and then changed direction to flit down and stop between Marta Herkik and Annie Eastwood. As it moved their arms reached or drew back, still with their fingers on the stone.

"Six." Mickey said, spelling out the letters. "That's what it said, unless one of you's pushing the damn thing."

Marta shot him a look which conveyed irritation and commanded silence.

"Just checking," Mickey said with a grin. Already, in his mind, he was leaning on the railing at Ayr racetrack. Tomorrow, he knew, the going would be soft. There were fourteen runners. With the ease of the habitual gambler, he ran through the numbers. Red Crystal, a three year old untested colt was among the bar runners at 33-1 in the day's major race. It was coming out of trap six. Mickey had hoarded his last win, though still in well over his head in credit bets. There were a few places who would take a ten or twenty, and if he spread his money around, it wouldn't attract attention. He smiled to himself, hearing in his mind the roar of the crowd at the post as his horse came through. Number six. Red Crystal. He looked down at the stone under his hands and saw the tiny flaw catch the light. Another sign. Another omen. For the first time in months he felt absolutely sure that his luck was going to dazzle him.

"That'll do nicely," he murmured, strangely certain. Maybe, he thought, it would come up with a few more.

"Someone else with a question?" Marta asked.

Janet Robinson looked up, then dropped her eyes back to her hand.

"Yes, dear?" Marta encouraged. "Don't be afraid. Ask what you want to know."

For a moment, Janet was nonplussed. She didn't know what she wanted to know. She was trying to formulate a question when Annie Eastwood blurted: "My daughter. Is she safe? I mean...." Annie looked straight at Marta.

"Is she happy? I have to tell her something. I didn't get the chance. I mean..." The words came out in a tumble. Before she could say more, the crystal moved so abruptly that Janet Robinson let out a little gasp.

It slid in a series of straight-line glides halting precisely in front of the letters, its edge on the middle ring, jerking back and forth spasmodically. As it moved, the six people who had come to Marta Herkik's backstairs apartment silently mouthed the letters. Abruptly, the crystal came to a halt, in the dead centre of the table.

"Angela". It was a whisper which was almost a gasp. Even in the dimness of the room, Janet Robinson could see the slackness in Annie Eastwood's face. The blood just seemed to drain away to below the collarline of her blouse. "That's her name."

A shiver went through their fingers again. This time there was no hesitation. The glass sped over the surface, pecking at a letter, diving off at a tangent, stabbing at another, coming back briefly to the centre to mark a pause...sometimes.

Dark. It spelled.

Then: Cold.

Then: Sore It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. cold-dark-cold-pain o help o help oh no oh oh oh motherpleasehelpmemother.

Annie Eastwood squeaked, whether in fright or in pain, none of them knew. She jerked back and her hand flew from the crystal. A noise like a brisk handclap smacked the air and Marta Herkik's five other visitors felt their own hands thrown from the polished stone. The old woman's hand was the last on the surface. Another small noise, like an electrical contact sparked under her fingers and her own hand was thrown upwards. It looked as if she had touched something hot.

"What?" she exclaimed, to no one in particular.

Just as the word was out, the crystal dome began to move again. It edged, of its own volition over to the NAY sign then back to the centre, then it was off again, flitting in a glowing blur, collecting its letters with each instant stop before it flicked to the next, criss-crossing the table in diagonal flashes.

TREEOSH it spelled out. Then otheres then ehorset. Between each clump of letters, it paused and quivered. They all watched, mouths agape. Annie Eastwood's hands were shaking, balled into fists just under her chin, as if she was preparing to ward off the smooth polished hemisphere if it suddenly leapt at her. Mickey O'Day was sitting right back in his seat, staring at the stone as if it were a snake. Edward Tomlin, opposite him had a knuckle jammed into his mouth, as if he were afraid he might make a sound. Marta Herkik 's own face had sagged, as if even she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Then William Simpson, opposite her said: "It's our initials. They're all anagrams."

As soon as he said that, the stone rattled hard on the table top, then went completely still.

"It was only our initials," he said. "But how did it do that?"

Without pausing, he shoved his chair back and bent to look under the table. He disappeared from view completely. Unconsciously Janet Robinson crossed her legs in an automatic movement as soon as his head bowed under the edge of the table. Five seconds later, he came back up again.

"There's nothing there. I don't understand this."

He looked across the table to where Marta Herkik still sat, slack jawed, the hand that had been resting on the stone up close to her face, palm outwards.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

Annie Eastwood made another little squeaking sound. She looked as if she might have a heart attack. Nobody else noticed.

"Come on. Tell me."

Everybody turned to Marta. The old woman's mouth opened, then, very slowly it closed again. Just as slowly, she closed her eyes and quite gracefully drew her head back until the tight bun was pressed against the high back of the chair. Her small reddened lips pursed and a frown of concentration knotted her pencilled eyebrows into a tight cupid's bow. She drew in a long breath through her nose, as if she was sniffing the air, expelled it the same way and drew in again, deep and slow. The hand that had been held up close to her face slowly dropped to her lap. The six people watched in silence. The woman's steady breathing continued for several moments, each breath longer than the last, each inhalation drawn out so slowly it seemed to take an age to reach its turning point.

Finally, Marta Herkik's head began to slump forward. She gave a little moan, hardly louder than the sound of her breathing had been, then that noise stopped dead. The rapping on the window pane faded to nothing and the whistle of the wind down the chimney died away and the silence expanded. There was no movement, not the blink of an eye nor the twitch of a lip. The very air of the room seemed to be taught with a sudden expectancy.

"Donuts."

Derek Elliot visibly jerked back in a start of surprise. Janet Robinson's eyes blinked rapidly three times.

Marta Herkik's head swung up and her eyes snapped open, staring straight into the smooth stone in the centre of the table. Her lips had not moved, but the voice had come from her.

"Donuts," she said again. " Hot. Icing. Sugar."

Still the woman's red lips were motionless. Her teeth seemed to be gritted together.

The voice which they heard was not a woman's voice, not the tones of an old woman, not the strong east European accent that Marta Herkik still maintained almost forty years after she had fled the Hungarian revolution and come to live with her brother in Levenford, just south of the highland line.

"Make me some hot donuts, mummy," the voice piped up in the clear, sing-song cadence of a small girl.

Beside the old woman, Annie Eastwood's face went through a startling metamorphosis. She stiffened, as if all the muscles in her cheeks and neck had gone into a bunching spasm, then, almost instantaneously, as if strings holding them sight had been cut, they sagged, giving her the vacuous look of someone in shock. Her eyes rolled upwards, the brown irises almost disappearing behind her eyelids. Even in the dim light of the embers it was clear that her face had gone sickly pale.

"They're my favourites mummy," the child's voice sang out.

Annie shuddered as if struck and the muscles of her face unslackened themselves in a galvanic jerk. She gave a little moan, very like the sound Marta Herkik had made. Her eyes flicked to the left. The old woman was sitting dead still, gaze fixed emptily on the curved crystal under her fingers.

"Angela?" Annie Eastwood's question was hushed. The tremble in her breath was audible. Everyone else stared at her. No-one else spoke.

"Angie?" she said again, this time louder. In her mind a cruel playback ran its scenes in flick-flick motion. It had been Angie's fourth birthday, six months after Crawford Eastwood had packed a suitcase and disappeared, without leaving so much as a note on the mantelpiece, leaving her to bring up the baby on her own, leaving her, she later discovered, for a nineteen-year-old girl who had babysat on the nights Annie had been kept late stocktaking, while Crawford had been spending what little extra money they'd had down in the County Bar. She'd had to work hard then, scraping and scratching to keep little Angie dressed and fed. There had been no money for birthday presents that year, not with the lawyer's fees and all, and she'd been too busy just trying to keep the house going at all to buy a birthday cake.

And little Angie had understood, even at four years old. She'd put her arms around her mother's neck when Annie had tried, bitterly and heart-achingly, to explain that there would be a cake at Christmas, and presents too, but - oh god I'm sorry honeybun - I've nothing for you now.

"Don't worry mummy," she'd piped up, hugging hard, trying to make the hurt go away. She'd known, even at the age of four, she'd known.

"Make me some donuts instead. Make me hot donuts with icing and sugar. They're my favourites."

And Annie had got the flour and butter and moulded the donuts into rings, woman and small girl in the old high-ceilinged kitchen that she hadn't paid the mortgage on for four months and that was really why there hadn't been any cake or presents for a wee girl. They'd dropped the doughy rings into the deep fat and listened to their spat and sizzle and she'd spooned the thick icing sugar on, letting it drip like sweet wax while they were still hot. They'd stuck four tiny blue candles on one of them and both of them had sung happy birthday, little Angie singing happy birthday dear ME while tears had clouded Annie's eyes.

That had been fourteen years ago. On that day, Annie had promised her baby there would be Christmas presents under the tree, and she'd promised herself too, that no matter what, she'd make a home for the two of them, come what may. And thirteen years after that, Angie had been catapulted out of a car and had broken all her bones and Annie hadn't even been given the chance to say goodbye.

The sound of the child's voice had brought that all back in one tidal wave of remembrance that swamped Annie Eastwood and dragged her under.

"Don't worry mummy. I'm a good girl," the voice cut through to the drowning woman and dragged her back. Her fingers tried to hook on to the smooth crystal dome, instinctively seeking purchase.

"Angie!" she managed to say again.

"Yes mother." This time, the tone was still that of a girl, but now a young woman rather than a child. Annie recognized it at once.

"Where..." Annie started. "Where are you."

"I'm here mother. It's dark here. And cold. It';s very cold and I can't get warm. I'm lost mother."

"But..."

All eyes except Marta Herkik's were now fixed on Annie Eastwood. No-one else spoke. William Simpson's mouth was set in a circle, as if he was sucking an invisible stick of rock. Janet Robinson's jaw had sagged down until it was almost on her chest.

"I'm all alone mother," the young woman's voice wailed. There was a panicky edge to it, a jagged ridge of fear. Marta Herkik's lips didn't move. Her mouth was still partly open. A pulse beat visibly in her neck under her chin, but her lips were motionless. Yet there was no doubt that the voice was coming from her.

"Angie. Angela!" Annie cried out. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"I have messages for people, mother. I have to tell them."

"But Angie, wait!" the woman blurted, panicky, like a caller expecting the phone to be hung up.

Then the voice changed yet again. Marta Herkik's head came down in a slow nod. Her hands dropped equally slowly, and planted themselves on the table, one on either side of the YEA sign.

"A message. From the harbinger," this new voice said. It had no accent at all. The words came out flat, like footfalls. It had no gender, no age. Marta Herkik raised her head and they could see the reflections of the small flaw in the crystal reflected in her eyes, like two smouldering points deep inside the wide pupils.

"A message for all of you. Hm? From the other whom you have called."

The old woman's jaw twitched, as if she was fighting back the words, biting back the words, but still her lips didn't move.

"A small payment for the summons. A little quid-pro-quo, hm? You all want the future, all of you, and you shall have a future."

"What's the old bugger going on about," Mickey O'Day breathed. His eyes left Marta Herkik's rictus and flicked bout the room, looking for something that would tell him this was a recording. But the nerves rippling under the skin of his neck, like creeping fingers told him this was a vain hope.

"Ah, the gambling man. A lucky number. The number of all luck. It is six, the number of my master's master."

The short sentences came out in hard bites.

"Yea. It is six, and so shall ye know it. It is six times six times six. Test your luck, man of chance. Test the luck of the game."

The old woman's head swivelled a fraction to the left.

"And you. Man of the Cloth."

Now the voice deepened. "Shall I sing you a song? A hymn perhaps. Suffer little children. It would be better for thee, that a millstone be put around thy neck than corrupt one of these, my little ones. One of his little ones. More than one. You wear the millstone well."

"What the devil?" William Simpson almost chocked on the rush of words. "How dare you...I'll..I'll"

But the old woman's head had turned away from him, veering further to the left. The burning glint flared brighter.

"Mother's here, my dear. Watching over you, day and night, just as I shall guide you in the night."

Janet Robinson shrank back.

"Oh don't fidget. And close your mouth, or the wind will change and you'll stay like that, stupid girl. And remember. I'm watching you, all the time. I know everything."

Janet's expression of fright changed immediately to a slack look of pure horror. She gave a strangled little coughing cry and then her mouth closed like a trap.

Marta's head continued its swing.

"Open the box," the voice came. Edward Tomlin was locked in her gaze. "The secret box behind closed doors, the pandora's box of all your deeds."

Tomlin shrank back, his eyes showing the fear of a man who knows his secret will be told. He held up a hand to ward off the words.

"If only they knew. The things that you do. With the locks. And the box. And the doors."

It came out in a sing-song rhyme. A grating, sneering little ditty.

Marta Herkik's blazing eyes left him speechless. Her head snapped to the right she glared at Derek Elliot.

"Ah, an ambitious man. A man with plans. With other people's money, hm? A takeover? I accept your invitation to join the company. A welcome opening. In management no less. Too many cooks. Of the books. Success to all."

The voice stopped.

Everybody stared at the old woman, their faces frozen in expressions of fright or distress or outright shock.

There was a silence for almost a minute, while Marta Herkik began to breath heavily again, each intake rasping, as if her throat was constricted, as if she was fighting for air.

Her fingers pressed down on the polished wood of the inlaid table, curved, and the knuckles stood white as she forced the tips down hard until her nails were pointed straight at the shiny surface. Then she drew her hands back, digging her nails in. There was a faint scraping sound at first, then as the hands drew towards her, a screech as the painted nails dug under the surface. Edward Tomlin saw a little corkscrew of veneer spiral upwards from under the end of her middle finger. Behind it, where her hands had moved, eight, almost parallel lines were gouged into the wood, ploughed furrows with jagged edges. Even as he watched he saw the long fingernail snap backwards right from the little half-moon quick at the base of the nail, with an audible click. Blood welled out from where it stuck out like a bird's beak and flowed into the lengthening groove. The old woman 's expression did not change. She appeared to be grinning, but without humour. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth. Her eyes caught the flicker of light from the stone, but they looked blind.

Just as her fingers reached the middle circle, the stone began to move again, following a similar stuttering pattern to the previous zig-zag darting. Only Michael O'Day saw the movement. The rest of them watched aghast as Marta Herkik's fingers tore at the table.

"I think I've had enough," William Simpson snapped. He shoved his chair back from the table. "I don't know what on earth is going on here, but I'm leaving."

He pushed himself to his feet and took a step backwards. Edward Tomlin's chair caught on the edge of a carpet and began to tilt. He stood up, eyes still fixed on the little stream of blood which was slowly oozing down its groove to the pentangle at the centre of the table. The path of the smooth stone had crossed over the trickle and had smeared a glistening pattern on its travels, a little thick blob where it had stopped at a letter and spun.

Marta Herkik breathed out violently, a cold hiss of air, strong as the gust of wind that had blasted out from the fireplace, but this time much colder. Even William Simpson, standing away from the table felt it on his face. The cold invaded him again, made him shudder. The temperature of the room plummeted instantly. From the wall behind the woman's twisted shape, a ripping noise, like fine cloth torn apart, zipped down from the ceiling. A line of the heavy brocaded wallpaper simply peeled off the wall and flopped, snakelike to the floor. Droplets of water beaded on the bare plaster where it had been pasted to the wall. Another rip and a parallel section unseamed and oozed wetly to pool beside the kerb.

The old woman's head was thrown back and her eyes rolled. The stone slowly swivelled in the centre of the table. Edward Tomlin's chair teetered, then crashed to the floor. The noise was enough to distract Janet Robinson and Annie Eastwood. They forced themselves back from the table, shivering with fright and the sudden glacial cold. Derek Elliot followed with a jerky movement as if he was afraid to be left behind. Michael O'Day was rivetted on the lines of blood on the table. Cold fingers of revulsion and fascinated fear were trailing up and down his spine. The short hairs on the back of his neck were rippling in unison. they felt as if they were trying to crawl upwards.

Simpson reached the door, snatched at the handle and pulled it open. He turned to say something else and the door slammed shut with a loud clatter. He yelled in a strangely high-pitched voice as his hand, still on the handle, was twisted round in a sudden snap, wrenching his wrist. At the same moment, the fire flared and the flaw in the stone caught the light like a fanned ember. Marta Herkik's fingers were now dug into the wood at the end of the table. Her neck was arched back so far that her chin was pointing to the ceiling. She gave a strangled gasp.

Closest to her, Edward Tomlin heard a creaking noise. It reminded him of a branch bent to breaking point. Beads of sweat on the old woman's brow trickled down towards her ears.

"Somebody help her," he shouted. "She's having a fit or something."

"Help nothing," Derek Elliot. "She's nothing but an old faker. I'm getting out of here." But the young man in the smart blue suit did not sound as if he believed a word of what he said.

He reached beyond William Simpson who was still shaking his hand and grabbed the doorhandle. He twisted it with some force and hauled. Nothing happened.

"Bloody thing's stuck. Another trick," he said from behind clenched teeth. He braced himself and heaved.

There was a noise of wood splintering and the door opened an inch. Elliot grunted with effort.

On the table the stone started spinning, although only Michael O'Day saw it. Marta Herkik's head was bent so far now over the back of the seat that the bun on the top of her head was almost down at shoulder lever. She was groaning now, rasping like an animal. Annie Eastwood took a step toward her, paused, then took two steps back. Her eyes moved to the old woman's fingers, stuck in the wood. Blood was flowing from the ends of them. All the nails were twisted off their cuticle beds.

"Oh, she's..." Annie began. In her head she could still hear her daughter's pitiful plea. Her mind was a turmoil, and she could feel her knees shudder as if they were about to give under her weight.

Derek Elliot heaved on the door and swung it open, helped by William Simpson who managed to hook his undamaged hand round the edge of the heavy wood. There was another creak, then it slammed back against the wall with enough force to shiver the floor.

"Would you look at that?" Michael O'Day said, in a voice that held both fear and wonderment. Janet Robinson and Edward Tomlin couldn't help but look.

The glowing hemisphere of polished stone was whirling on the centre of the table. Tiny splashes of blood were flicked up and out in a catherine-wheel spray. Marta Herkik sounded as though she was choking, yet nobody made a move to help her. In the flick of an eye, the whirling piece of quartz shot from the table and hit the stone fireplace behind the twisted woman with a noise like gunfire. Shards of crystal exploded outwards. One of them clipped Mickey O'Day on the cheek. Another raked Janet Robinson's calf.

But it was Marta Herkik who took the force of it. Her whole body stiffened, as if she'd been hit by a hammer, then her head whipped up and forward. The whole of the top of her head was crowned with sparkling pieces of glassy splinters. Blood simply drenched her hair.

William Simpson leapt through the doorway with Derek Elliot clawing at his jacket to get in front. Edward Tomlin almost knocked Annie Eastwood sprawling in his rush to get out. His shoulder hit the door-jamb and he spun, tumbled down three stairs before the turn and almost knocked himself out when his chin connected with the low sill of the stairwell window. Annie Eastwood's heel broke as she tripped over the sprawled man. Janet Robinson's didn't. She missed her footing, planted a high heel in Tomlin's groin and didn't even hear his squeal as the little metal edge punctured the fabric of his trousers and almost punched a hole in his left testicle. By the time she got to the bottom of the stairs she was almost gabbling in fright. Michael O'Day saw none of this. His eyes were rivetted on the awful sight of Marta Herkik's head swinging up with its hair caked in blood.

One of the shards that had exploded out from the fireplace when the crystal had shattered was embedded in her forehead. that jagged shard, the biggest of them all, had contained the flaw at the centre of the stone.

Now it gleamed and sparked like a third eye in the middle of the old woman's forehead. Her own eyes were rolled right back, still wide open, until only the blind whites glared out blindly.

Her head continued to swing forward and her mouth moved in a series of spastic jerks.

Michael backed away eyes wide, feeling his own breath catch in his throat.

The old woman started to say something, but all that came out was a rattle. Her hands came up from the table, dripping blood. They flexed in front of her blind eyes, like ragged talons.

He started to say something, but the words wouldn't come. A nerve jumped under his knee and he thought for a moment he was going to fall to the floor, leaving him alone with the apparition still seated in the chair.

Then Marta Herkik started to laugh, but it was not the high, piping laugh of the old woman who had read his tarot cards only the week before.

This was a gruff, barking laugh. It sounded more animal than human. It started low, almost a growl, and quickly rose to a stuttering bark, like foxes in a dark wood. The woman's mouth was wide open. Her false teeth slipped out, bounced on her podgy chest and rattled to the table. The laugh continued and Michael O'Day couldn't move. The nightmare screech soared higher and higher, like a laugh on a speeded-up record, until it became the chittering of stoats in a gorse bush, then it stopped abruptly. As soon as it did, old Marta Herkik's body arched backwards. There was a thin snapping sound as her legs pushed out. Her back curved and her head was thrown back in a sudden spasm.

Then she began to rise straight up from the chair, limbs spreadeagled, hands drooling blood. He watched aghast, paralysed. The woman's body reached the level of the high lintel on the fireplace and continued straight up. A hand scraped the wall. It moved, jittering, and smeared a line of blood on the bare piece where the paper had unseamed itself. The other hand stretched out, made contact with the bare plaster and scrabbled against it. Michael O'Day saw the smears become letters, the letters become words. Still nine, maybe ten feet in the air, and completely horizontal, her face pointing at the ceiling, the old woman's form began to spin slowly. It was so alien, so preposterous, that Michael O'Day felt a cold terror grip at the base of his belly. The spinning motion stopped and the woman coughed sickly, as if she was choking and something crashed in the corner. His eyes flicked to the shadows where the walls joined just as a vase came hurtling from the gloom towards him. He didn't have time to move, but it missed him by a whisker, the wind of its passing riffling his black Irish curls. Beside it, a line of old books came whirring out, propelled by an invisible force, bulleting out into the room, slamming against the table, against the cabinet on the far side, pages fluttering and ripping. Above, one of the lightbulbs in the three branched light imploded and a shower of tiny glass splinters rained down to the floor.

Michael's muscles unlocked. Enormous gratitude for the power of motion flooded him. he backed away towards the door, still unable to pull his eyes away from the woman who floated, fat legs stuck out awkwardly from her drooping black skirt, close to the ceiling.

Then she dropped. It was as if a rope had been cut. She came straight without a sound. Her head slammed against the stone edge with a soft crumping sound and her left arm was thrown forward into the red embers.

Michael turned and ran. He took the stairs three at a time, carooming off the walls of the staircase on the way down. He barged out through the doorway, almost tripped on something lying on the wet pavement and kicked it for three yards before he realised it was his coat. Without thinking, he snatched it up and ran through the rain across River Street and up Yard Vennel as the lightning flickered and the thunder rolled up the firth towards Levenford.