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<h2>12</h2>
<p>The last thing Jock Toner saw as he spun on the rope before his
head hit the concrete edge was a shadow rippling up the side of the
building and into the mist. He had no time to wonder about the
black shape.</p>
<p>On the other side of town, Lorna Breck saw the same shadow in a
vision so terrifying she felt her heart freeze.</p>
<p>It was so vivid she could feel the sting of ice on her face and
the bite of the wind which spun the crystals in flurries over the
top edge of the building.</p>
<p>She'd been standing on a high place, watching the lights of the
town twinkle dimly through the mist. Beside her a heavy metal frame
hung out like a gallows and thin steel wires curved round the
pulleys to disappear into the murk below.</p>
<p>"What's happening?" she heard herself ask in a voice that was
more an echo. "What's here?"</p>
<p>The words were swallowed up in the fog.</p>
<p>Lorna turned from the north-west edge, towards the pulley. Far
across town a train lumbered out of the station, a slow beat at
first, then getting faster as it picked up speed, unseen in the
distance. From a little further west, a tortured squeal like an
animal in distress came wavering over the rooftops as the crucible
of iron in the foundry tipped its white-hot load into the pan and
the strip wheels started their roll. This sound too was oddly
echoed, as if it came from within a vast chamber.</p>
<p>Something drew her feet towards the edge, close to the pulley
scaffold. She tried to pull back, unwilling to walk to the barrier
that surrounded the flat top of the building like a small
battlement wall, but the imperative over-rode her own will. A sense
of fear kindled inside her, an uneasy twist of foreboding. In her
mind she could hear the scraping sound, like whispers in the dark,
grating on the inside of her skull. It was like the sound of
scrabbling nails; hard, chitinous claws in the distance.</p>
<p>She took another step forward, then another, until she reached
the barrier. It was a small wall, on top of which was a thick low
tubular railing. Lorna shook her head, trying to deny the internal
<em>push</em> and failed. She reached both hands out and clasped
the metal. it burned cold into her palms.</p>
<p>"A dream," she finally told herself, whispering against the
wind. "This is a dream."</p>
<p>She knew it, but could not break free of it. Behind her, the
wind whistled across the prongs of the tall television aerial,
making it sing mournfully and the thin steel hawsers took up the
dirge, moaning against the winter night. It was freezing cold. The
chill stole through the skin of her hands and spread up her arms
like a frost in her blood, like sluggish river ice. She shivered
and the cold flowed across her shoulders and down into her chest.
She could feel her heart labour against it, but the cold invaded
relentlessly. Her skin felt brittle, as if it would shatter at a
touch. Her bones were like glass.</p>
<p>She leaned over the edge, willing herself not to do it, unable
to resist. She felt the creak of frozen muscles and her hands felt
as if they had become part of the frigid metal. She bent her head
and looked down.</p>
<p>The mist swirled in lethargic turbulence, tendrils of opaque
white, limned by the streetlights to a dirty orange ochre. The
hawser lines narrowed together in diminishing perspective as they
disappeared from view into the haze.</p>
<p>The shifting, amorphous form moved on the wall in a flicker of
black and raced down the face of the building, a squat, spidery
shade. The hawser twanged again, this time even more violently and
the pulley roller squealed in protest. Lorna's eyes were locked on
the turbulence below. The black reached the dim cradle. Something
shot out from its squat bulk and he heard a meaty thud and a low,
involuntary grunt.</p>
<p>Something cracked and then a shape flew off and away from the
building.</p>
<p>"No, please," Lorna tried to say. The words came out in a little
croak.</p>
<p>Then she heard the scream.</p>
<p>It came braying up the side of the building as the flailing
figure launched out from the platform. Behind him a rope whipped
like a tail. Beside her the pulleys squealed as they began to turn
and the galley began to rise. Ahead of it the black mass came
whizzing up the sheer face of the wall towards her. Ice flowed into
her brain and the whole scene assaulted her senses in a series of
stop-go frames. There was a deep, booming thud, the sound of a
bowstring, and the man's flight stopped abruptly. Even in the
distance, she heard the crack of muscle and tendon ripping. The
scream died abruptly. The flailing form came catapulting back in
towards the building. It tumbled and spun, obscured by the mist,
then disappeared underneath the metal platform. A sickening wet
noise crunched in the cold air.</p>
<p>And all the time, the black mass came flickering up towards
her.</p>
<p>"Oh," she heard her own voice gasp. Her nerves jittered in
panic. She tried to back away but her muscles would not unlock.</p>
<p>She could hear the hard scrabble of claws on the stone and now a
low, panting growl so deep she could feel it vibrate the bones of
her skull.</p>
<p>It came rocketing upwards, incredibly fast, as if gravity had no
effect on it. Its shape writhed and pistoned. She could not tell
how many arms or legs the thing had. It seemed to possess no true
shape at all, but it moved with frightening speed.</p>
<p>It reached the lip, just beside her. Something dark shot out and
a hooked hand, or what might conceivably have <em>been</em> a hand,
reached for the bar. It grasped it with a hard, clanging sound. The
limb, or whatever it was flexed and bunched, and the whole shape
was hauled up to squat on the edge. It was like looking into a
<em>hole</em> in the universe. There was only blackness. No sense
of solidity, nothing to break up the shape and give it depth or
real form. Even in the dream, in the terror that constricted her
throat and made her cold blood feel like ice in her veins, Lorna
knew that what she was looking at was <em>wrong</em>. Waves of
complete and utter <em>badness</em> radiated out from the nightmare
silhouette. Beside it, something white fluttered, but its lightness
cast no reflection on the thing which squatted, its foul breath
like grinding rocks in whatever it had for a throat. Something
knobbly and shapeless turned just above what could have been
hunched shoulders and two orange eyes opened, spearing her in
baleful light, the only feature on the terrifying form.</p>
<p>Lorna heard herself gasp as the eyes lunged towards her, two
malignant orbs. They were completely featureless at first, seemed
blind and mindless, then, in the centre of each, two yellow
vertical slits in the orange, opened with rasping clicks. It looked
as if the eyes were burning with hideous flame. She could feel the
heat of them and the hunger in them. She tried to loosen her hands
from the rail and run. One palm ripped free with a pain that felt
as if she'd left skin sticking to the cold metal.</p>
<p>The thing glared at her, still growling like a rabid animal.
Then it moved. There was no fluidity then. A many-jointed limb
suddenly reached out in the flick of an eye and held something
aloft. It fluttered whitely. Lorna's eyes were drawn away from the
sickening, hypnotic orbs and she saw what it held.</p>
<p>A tiny child dangled caught up in a shawl which flapped in the
wind. It made no sound at all. Its eyes were wide open and they
were dead. Lorna could feel her vision waver in shock, but even as
her knees started to give way, the thing moved again. The eyes
blinked with another strange <em>click</em> sound. It did not even
move its position.</p>
<p>Yet something black whipped out from its shapeless mass. It
grabbed her by the shoulder with ferocious strength and flipped her
off the edge of the building.</p>
<p>She tumbled over the lip, cartwheeling as she flew. Lights
flickered as she passed the windows. She hurtled beyond something
which hung below the gantry and fell in a nightmare swoop. The wind
whistled past her and forced her breath back into her lungs and she
fell and fell and fell and it seemed as if she fell forever.</p>
<p>Lorna woke with a thudding shock, incoherent with fright,
gasping for air.</p>
<p>She was still whimpering fifteen minutes later as she sat on the
overstuffed armchair close to the fire, sipping on hot tea held in
a shaky hand.</p>
<p>"What's happening to me?" she asked aloud. Her voice trailed off
into a sniffle. She reached for a paper tissue and blew her nose.
The dream was still with her, vivid in her mind, as vivid as any of
the dreams that had catapulted her out of sleep in the middle of
the night, gasping for breath and damp with the sweat of night
chills. And it had not just been at night either.</p>
<p>The visions had assaulted her at random, awake or asleep. It
made her feel as if she was at the centre of some malefic
whirlpool, at the mercy of dark undercurrents she could not
control. In the past few days, her whole life had been turned
upside down. She was scared to go to sleep, scared to stay awake.
Down at the library, she'd find herself jumping at imagined
shadows. Even during the day, the narrow aisles between the old
victorian bookshelves were dim, claustrophobic and threatening
alleys where the narrow cones from the overhead lights could not
banish the gloom. She would find herself looking over her own
shoulder, jumping at every rustle in the silence, and since the day
she'd seen the shape in the reflection of the shop window, she
hadn't dared to go down to the basement. A pile of books which
still had to be catalogued and covered in dust-proof plastic were
still piled up behind her desk. Keith Conran, the head librarian
had asked her several times when she was planning to get the work
done and Lorna had made excuses. The library basement, two levels
below the adult section, and cluttered with old newspaper files and
even narrower walkways between metal shelving was dusty and dry and
lightless. Every time Lorna thought of going down there, she
pictured the slam of the door at the top of the narrow wooden
stairway and the sudden blackness as the light clicked off. And in
that imaginary scene, she would hear the scuttling claws of
something even blacker than the blind dark snuffling and grunting
its way towards her, getting ready to focus those appalling eyes on
her.</p>
<p>It was only just after seven at night. Lorna hadn't meant to
fall asleep on the couch, but she'd been exhausted. Her body was
aching and her joints protesting. It felt as if she was picking up
a virus, but she knew it was just lack of sleep, lack of
<em>real</em> sleep.</p>
<p>The aftershock of the dreams jittered through her, making her
hands shake so much she needed both of them to hold the cup.
Finally she gave up and put it down on the kerb by the fireplace
then held herself there, arms around her knees, holding herself
tight, rocking slowly, as if the movement would ease the fear and
bring her comfort. It did not help.</p>
<p>It had been almost two weeks since the first episode. That was
how she had begun to think of them. <em>Episodes</em>. They were
happenings. Occurrences.</p>
<p>They were <em>visitations.</em></p>
<p>She hadn't written the first one down, though she could remember
exactly when it had happened. It was before the night Gemma had
asked her to come to the party.</p>
<p>There had been another episide, before the hellish vision of the
fire. They had been in the old Bridge Hotel with some of Gemma's
friends. They were all older than Lorna, but her cousin had been
looking out for her during the past couple of months since she'd
come down to start her job in the library, not long after she'd
finished with James Blair. Working in the library didn't give a
girl much of a chance to meet new people, and Gemma had made sure
she at least got out into company.</p>
<p>It was that night, after she'd come home and had her shower,
that she'd had the next dream. She hadn't seen <em>it</em> then.
Not the way she'd seen the shape since.</p>
<p>But in the dream she'd felt the presence and it had frightened
her so badly she'd woken up unable even to breathe. She hadn't
known what was happening. All she'd seen were the seven people
around the table and then <em>things</em> had started to move and
inside her head she'd heard the voice, scrapy as the claws on the
side of the building in the other vision, telling her to
<em>behold</em>. She had seen the old woman rise into the air,
while the walls had sweated and the books had slammed from their
shelves, sensed the terror in the other people who had fled from
something they could not understand, but could sense with a
primitive instinct.</p>
<p>The next time - and she <em>had</em> written this one in her
diary - had been three days later when she was working down in the
basement, sorting out the files. Keith had gone out for lunch while
she had stayed to finish off.</p>
<p>The vision had hit her so hard that she'd fallen backwards
against a stack of newspapers and had slid to the floor, blind to
everything in the cellar while the dust had swirled up in a cloud
and she was <em>outside</em>.</p>
<p>The baby had been in its pram. The door to the veranda was
almost closed. Just one chink of light escaped the heavy curtains.
She had heard the child's light snuffling breath. Overhead stars
twinkled in the night air. Down to the left, the shriek of the
forge was loud and she could see the glow heat through the holes on
the side of the metal-framed building. Across town, where the
night-shift worked on the rig-construction, in the shipyard's
engine room, something clanked several times, ringing flatly across
the river. Three swans had come flying downstream, all in line,
only feet above their reflections, ghostly images whooping through
the air to disappear quickly from view.</p>
<p>The baby had coughed, then let out a little cry.</p>
<p>And the shadow had come racing down the wall with astonishing
speed. It hit the pram with a thump which would have capsized it
but for the close confines of the veranda balcony. It seemed to
<em>flow</em> over it, almost hiding it from sight, then drew back.
She heard clearly the ripping sound as the harness parted. The baby
screeched, high and wavering and it was gone, its thin little cry
disappearing upwards, as the black shape scuttled in a diagonal to
the far corner while she had stood watching from some vantage point
- and she had no idea where she'd been standing - watching
soundlessly, unable to scream a warning, unable to call for
help.</p>
<p>Then, two days later, she'd seen the fire, and that was most
shocking of all.</p>
<p>Because when that vision had assailed her she had <em>known</em>
it was true.</p>
<p>She'd been staring into the tea-leaves, and she'd focussed
herself as she'd done before and suddenly she had <em>seen</em> the
whole thing. It hadn't been like a memory, or a mental picture.
She'd been <em>there</em>. That had been the worst of it. She had
been able to see it, to hear it. And to smell it.</p>
<p>The voices around her had faded. The last thing she'd heard was
Gemma telling Mrs McCluskie to hush and then there had been a
<em>click</em> inside her head, as if some little bubble had popped
in a vein and the picture had come rushing up at her and she had
gone swooping into it.</p>
<p>She had been standing in the corner of the room.</p>
<p>The man was slouched in a corner seat, feet stuck out in front
of him, one crossed over the other. She could even see the hole in
his carpet slipper. A newspaper was tented over his face as if he'd
fallen asleep reading it. Beside him, a coal shifted in the grate
and sent a small glow out from the hearth. As she watched, the side
light beside the man's chair flickered then went dim. It was as if
it was being lacquered with some filmy substance, layer upon layer
which just caused the light to fade. It happened so smoothly and
swiftly that at first Lorna was not aware of it. For a second she
could see the orange glow of the filament then it winked out. The
gentle radiance in the hearth was swallowed up in the darkness and
then she heard the scraping sound coming from where the fireglow
had been. There was the smell of smoke and soot and suddenly she
was aware of something <em>else</em> in the room. It was pitch
dark, but she could sense the presence of a <em>shape</em>.</p>
<p>The scene flicked again and she was in a small bedroom. From the
other room there was a thudding sound. A man coughed or gagged and
the sound stopped instantly. Tendrils of smoke came crawling in
under the door. Two small boys were sleeping in bunks. The
tousle-headed one on the top had his arm hanging down, fingers
slack. In the cot, the baby was stirring. It rolled over and
clumsily got to its feet, eyes closed, dummy hanging from the
corner of its mouth. Sleepily the tiny girl struggled for balance
as its feet sank down into the mattress. She had fair, downy hair.
The smoke was coming thicker under the door. The baby coughed. The
dummy flew out of its mouth and her eyes opened. The little girl
looked straight into Lorna's eyes and held both hands up, mutely
appealing to be carried.</p>
<p>Lorna couldn't move. Behind her, the door grew hot and the smoke
filled the room. The baby coughed again. One of the boys turned in
his sleep as the fumes thickened. Fire was roaring next door. Lorna
tried to call to the babies to wake up, but again, she was
dumb.</p>
<p>Then the door splintered open. Sizzling sparks exploded inwards.
Something came past her so quickly the eye couldn't follow it.
There was a high baby cry and then the window crashed outwards. One
of the boys awoke with a start, screamed, and then a huge gout of
flame, sucked in by the draught from the open window blasted into
the room. The boy's scream rose glassily. The smell of burning
flesh assaulted her nose and then Lorna was elsewhere. She was on
some dark place all alone and she could hear a small voice singing
a song from childhood. The words were very familiar. They kept
repeating themselves and then Lorna had been back in Gemma's house.
Agnes McCann had been staring at her and Lorna realised the voice
had been her own. Agnes McCann had a blank look on her face and
suddenly Lorna <em>knew</em>. The smell of sizzling fat and
scorched skin and hair was thick at the back of her throat and she
was looking at a women whose children were dead and she was more
frightened than she had ever been in her life.</p>
<p>Now she was still scared, but she was scared for herself.</p>
<p>"There's something wrong," she mumbled, chin still on her knees,
body drawn in tight. "I think I'm going mad."</p>
<p>But she knew she was <em>not</em> going mad.</p>
<p>She had read the reports. She had seen the news on television.
The old woman dead in Cairn House; the baby missing from it's pram
in Latta Court. The babies and their father dead in the fire.</p>
<p>One of these things she'd seen as it was happening, as if it
were being shown to her for her disgust and someone else's
pleasure. It was as if something was able to look into her mind and
show her the most terrifying, most sickening scenes it could
find.</p>
<p>Yet two of these things had happened days <em>after</em> Lorna
had dreamed them. She did not know what to do about that.</p>
<p>And worse. She'd seen the other baby, the one torn from its
mother's arms in the alley down by the river. And this time she'd
seen again the moving shadow which scuttled up and down walls and
turned sickening orange eyes upon her, drowning her in their
malevolent focus.</p>
<p>She'd seen the same thing on top of the high building where
she'd never been, not physically, not in <em>real</em> life. She'd
seen it clamber and flow up the sheer concrete side and pause only
to snatch at a man and throw him to his death and then it had
paused again to show her something, to take pleasure out of
displaying what it held in a hand that was blacker than night.</p>
<p>Lorna Breck by now did not truly think she was going mad, but
she knew that if the dreadful visions continued, then she surely
would.</p>
<p>She had stumbled into something. Some part of her mind, some
tiny crack somewhere, had opened up and was giving her glimpses of
such monstrous malignancy, such shocking malevolence that she was
unable to comprehend them.</p>
<p>Something inside her had opened a door into the future. Whether
or not the shadowed, scuttling thing she could see in her dreams
was real, she did not know, though something told her that despite
the impossibility of it, there was <em>something</em> that
scuttered and climbed and snatched and killed. She had seen three
things, three terrible things, and they had all happened. They had
all come to pass.</p>
<p>Now she had seen two more things.</p>
<p>Lorna Breck was frightened to go to sleep, scared to stay awake.
And she dreaded what she might hear if she turned on her radio, or
opened a newspaper.</p>
<p>She did not want to hear of another death. She did not want to
learn of a man hanging from a rope on the side of a tower block.
She did not want to be appraised of yet another baby missing.</p>
<p>But she knew she would. In one or two or three days, she would
learn it and she would be sickened by the horror of it and the
sheer helplessness she felt.</p>
<p>She felt as if she wanted to lock her doors and play music so
loud it blotted out every thought, but even then, she knew, that
would do no good at all.</p>
<p>As she sat there, still trembling, feeling the heat of the fire
on her arms and legs and a terrible chill in her heart, Lorna Breck
came to a decision. She would wait until she knew for certain that
what she'd seen had actually <em>happened</em>, though she prayed
to God that they would not. And if they did, she would have to
speak to someone about it. She'd read the name in the newspaper.
Lorna eased herself to her feet and took the phone book from the
drawer on the sideboard and riffled through it until she found the
number she wanted.</p>
<hr />
<p>Jack Fallon picked David up just before nine and drove him to
school. Julia was blocked up with the cold which had been building
up for the past couple of days, and greeted him, still in her
dressing gown, bleary eyed and raw-nosed. Davy was ready with his
schoolbag slung from a shoulder and a Thunderbirds lunch box. He
was as chirpy as a robin, in stark contrast to his mother.</p>
<p>The heater was on full blast and the boy helped wipe the
condensation from the screen, talking the whole time.</p>
<p>"Can we go up the hills again, Uncle Jack?"</p>
<p>"If I can get away."</p>
<p>"If it snows, can we take the sledge up?"</p>
<p>"Sure."</p>
<p>"You fell off last time. You hurt your head."</p>
<p>"And it was sore. I scraped my face in the snow, 'cause I was
holding on to you with both hands. Next time we'll find a place
where the snow's thicker and there are no stones underneath."</p>
<p>At the school, he promised the boy he'd try to get off at the
weekend, though he knew it was far from likely. Taking the Davy up
beyond the trees and over the hills to the rugged Langmuir rock
face would do everybody some good. It gave the boy fresh air and
time to scamper and explore. It gave Julia a break from looking
after him on her own and it gave Jack some time to be with the only
family he had left. He would have loved to say he <em>would</em> be
able to take Davy out on the Saturday, but the previous night, Jack
had got the call and all hell had broken loose. He'd been out until
four in the morning and had managed less than four hours sleep when
he'd got home and was feeling blasted. It was going to be another
long day and the weekend was going to be wall-to-wall
heartache.</p>
<p>Davy waved from the gate at Crossburn School, a little figure in
a pom-pom hat pulled way down over his ears and a woolly scarf
wound round his neck a couple of times then tucked into the front
of a padded jacket. He turned and disappeared into a melee of small
bodies. Jack did a five point reverse turn on the narrow avenue and
headed down to the station, eyes grainy and feeling as if he could
have used another ten hours sleep.</p>
<p>Blair Bryden, who edited the Gazette, a tall, thin man with
thick glasses and close cropped hair, apprehended him on the
steps.</p>
<p>"Hold on Jack," he called, catching up with him and taking him
by the arm.</p>
<p>"You don't want to go in there."</p>
<p>"You're right, I don't." Jack said wearily, "But that's what
they pay me for."</p>
<p>"No. What I meant is that everybody and his auntie from the
dailies is waiting for you. Cowie won't say a dickie bird. He's
going to feed you to the vultures."</p>
<p>"I've been there before. There's not a bone they haven't
picked," Jack countered amiably.</p>
<p>"Also, it's my press day," Blair added with a deprecating
grin.</p>
<p>"Oh, I get it. Alright. Come on."</p>
<p>He took him by the arm and led him round to the van park behind
the station and led him in through the back door. One of the young
constables nodded to both of them, a quizzical look in his eye.</p>
<p>"Mr Cowie wants to see you right away sir," he announced.</p>
<p>"Soon as I can Gordon," Jack said and hustled the local editor
along the corridor into an interview room.</p>
<p>"Right. Ten minutes, then I have to go and talk to them all.
I'll give you another fifteen minutes start and you can fax their
offices and make a bob or two."</p>
<p>Blair winked. The two men had known each other a long time. He
drew out a spiral notebook, put it flat on the table, clicked his
pen and looked up at Jack, his eyes pale and magnified behind the
lenses.</p>
<p>"Is it a serial thing?"</p>
<p>"Don't know."</p>
<p>"Opinion?"</p>
<p>"Not attributable, but it looks that way. Two kids gone. We have
to believe the worst, either that or it's somebody with an
overblown maternal instinct who wants to adopt in bulk, but I don't
subscribe to that theory. Not when the second mother is up in
intensive care. It wasn't looking good at five this morning. I'm
not expecting miracles."</p>
<p>"You'll have to rule Simpson out on this one," Blair stated.</p>
<p>"Best alibi in the world. He's on a marble slab."</p>
<p>"And how about the Doyle baby?"</p>
<p>"Two ways. Either it <em>was</em> Simpson, and he was a right
evil bastard if there ever was one, and there's something to link
him with Latta Court." Jack paused. "That is definitely off the
record. I mean it."</p>
<p>"Don't worry. We never spoke."</p>
<p>"Good man. As I say, it's a fifty-fifty at the moment. My
instinct is that Simpson was <em>not</em> involved."</p>
<p>"Which means we have a serial snatcher."</p>
<p>"I reckon so. No serious violence in the first, but a lot on the
second. I don't think it's a copy-cat."</p>
<p>"Are you looking for a woman?"</p>
<p>"Possible, but not probable. Maybe somebody who's just lost a
baby. Maybe a nutter who can't have any. Or maybe just a
nutter."</p>
<p>"This Campbell woman? Where is she."</p>
<p>"Intensive care in Lochend. She won't make it."</p>
<p>"The father?"</p>
<p>"Sedated himself to the gills last night. We only got word on
the baby this morning when he finally remembered. Useless
bastard."</p>
<p>Blair nodded. "I know the family."</p>
<p>He looked at his neat shorthand notes.</p>
<p>"Any connection with the Herkik killing?"</p>
<p>"God, I hope not. I'm still up to the armpits on that one.
Simpson was my best shot and I missed him by a hair."</p>
<p>"So what else can you tell me?"</p>
<p>"That's about it. All we have at the moment are some screams in
Cobble Walk. One of the old fellows upstairs heard a woman
shouting, but there's plenty of that after a rough night in the
Castlegate. She was found an hour later, close to ten o'clock,
nearly frozen stiff. Bad head injuries. No sign of the baby."</p>
<p>He put a hand up to his forehead. "We've had door to door all
night. Neighbours, relatives. I'm hoping for a lead today. Nobody
can steal two kids and <em>not</em> leave some trail," he said.</p>
<p>There was a small pause, then Jack looked at the other man. "Can
they?" he asked.</p>
<p>"How about the other hanging?" Blair asked.</p>
<p>"You've got me there," Jack admitted. "What other hanging?"</p>
<p>"Up at Loch view. I just heard it on police band. Somebody found
dangling from the side of the building."</p>
<p>"Christ," Jack breathed. "That's all I need. You sure?"</p>
<p>"Course. I got a call two minutes later from a cousin of mine.
She lives in the next block. Got a bird's eye view. I thought you'd
have heard."</p>
<p>Blair snapped his notebook shut.</p>
<p>"I'm glad I got you then. Thanks for the few minutes grace."</p>
<p>"Any time," Jack added. "By the way, I thought you did a fair
piece last week. I never knew all that about Cairn House."</p>
<p>"It's amazing what you find when you look back the old numbers.
I've got nearly two hundred years of history gathering dust in the
back office. I thought I'd write a book on it some day. Like a
ghost story."</p>
<p>"Stick to facts Blair. They're much scarier. Anyway, I've got to
run. Better brief myself on this other matter before I meet your
friends."</p>
<p>"No friends of mine," Blair said with a wide grin. "They're the
opposition. And by the way, you look like hell."</p>
<p>"Thanks a million," Jack said without rancour. Blair left the
way he had come in and Jack went in the opposite direction,
pondering whether to see Cowie first, or get a briefing from
CID.</p>
<p>In the event, the Superintendent waylaid him on the way to the
muster room and held his own office door open, inviting Jack
inside. There was no way he could avoid it.</p>
<p>"Another fine mess," he started.</p>
<p>"So I believe."</p>
<p>"And what are we going to tell that pack at the front
office."</p>
<p>"The truth basically," Jack suggested. "Either that or we could
field them to headquarters, but that would get their backs up, and
we might want them on our side."</p>
<p>"I thought you might have been in earlier," Cowie snorted,
changing tack.</p>
<p>"If I thought you wanted a zombie, then I would have. But I
thought it would be better if I got a couple of hours sleep. I
worked out a rota for inquiries. Slater and McColl have been
co-ordinating through the night."</p>
<p>"What about the other matter?"</p>
<p>Jack saw the look on the other man's face. It told him the
Superintendent thought he had a card to play.</p>
<p>"You mean up at Loch View?"</p>
<p>Cowie couldn't conceal his surprise and annoyance. He nodded
abruptly.</p>
<p>"Have to wait for the full works on that one." He took a stab in
the dark. "I think it's an accident."</p>
<p>"Too many accidents. Too many co-incidences."</p>
<p>"Oh, I think we have to separate the co-incidences out."</p>
<p>"Well, I think there's enough going on for us to handle. We're
going to need better co-ordination on this."</p>
<p>"You'll want to handle the press statement then?"</p>
<p>Cowie looked as if he'd rather kiss a snake. He was not backward
about spouting to the media whenever there was good personal public
relations to be harvested, but when, as they say in Levenford, the
ball is on the slates, when there were two babies missing, a
minister with a history hanged in glorious multichrome, a mother
dying in intensive care, and a Hungarian medium battered to death
in her own home, there was little to say except the usual police
standby: Enquiries are continuing.</p>
<p>That would not be good for the image. Cowie declined the
offer.</p>
<p>"No. You're the man leading the operation," he said coolly. "For
the time being."</p>
<p>Jack did not miss the nuance.</p>
<p>"Right, I'd better get a quick briefing and then get about the
business."</p>
<p>He found John McColl in the room adjacent to his office. Craig
Campbell was sitting opposite. Smoking a cigarette, looking
ashen-faced and red eyed. He gave the impression of a man who still
had a way to go before he sobered up. Jack beckoned the sergeant
into the office.</p>
<p>"How's it going with him?"</p>
<p>"He hasn't much of a clue. He's a drunk and a waster. I knew the
girl. Friend of my daughter. Nice wee thing."</p>
<p>"And what about the Loch View situation?"</p>
<p>"Oh, you heard?" Jack nodded.</p>
<p>"Early word is that it's an accident. A scaffolder fell off a
gantry."</p>
<p>"Fell or jumped?"</p>
<p>"Looks like a fall. It's not a hanging. The rope was snagged
around his leg. Hit his head off the side of the building. The
place is a mess. I've two men knocking doors, but so far nobody's
any the wiser. I called the fire brigade and Sorley Fitzpatrick's
men got him down half an hour ago. Robbie Cattenach is doing the
post mortem."</p>
<p>"OK. Any other news?"</p>
<p>"Levenford General tell me the girl's in a bad way. They don't
expect her to last the hour."</p>
<p>"Oh, great," Jack said. "Now two murders. Two abductions. A
suicide and an accident."</p>
<p>"Not forgetting the fire up at Murroch Road."</p>
<p>"Oh yes. We can't forget that. Life is one big picnic."</p>
<p>Jack spent twenty minutes fielding questions in the conference
room. The boys from the press were an unruly bunch, but they didn't
give him as hard a time as he'd had in the past. There was little
he could tell them to help them speculate. He stuck to the facts
and refused to let himself be drawn to conclusions. There were
enough simple facts anyway to let them go off feeling satisfied.
Jack wondered how they'd feel when their newsdesks told them the
local man had beaten them to the punch.</p>
<p>Robbie Cattenach did not take long to pronounce Jock Toner dead.
For a start, his body was frozen stone hard as it twirled in the
slight breeze, like a trussed fly on a spider's web. His eyes were
open and iced over and his body was almost completely devoid of
blood. The slick down the side of the building and the red
ice-slide on the concrete paving testified to what had happened. At
the slab, the young pathologist hardly needed the cutters to
determine the cause of death. The crater on the top of the dead
man's head was enough to give him the picture. He estimated the
force which Toner's skull had connected with the top edge of the
window and came to a conclusion after he'd gone through a series of
exhaustive tests which showed there had been no sudden stroke, no
heart attack.</p>
<p>Later in the afternoon, he by-passed the normal channels.</p>
<p>"I thought you'd like to know," Robbie's voice blared tinnily
from the earpiece, "in my view it wasn't an accident. Ralph Slater
gave me a rough description of how the body was positioned, though
I'll have a clearer idea once I see the pictures."</p>
<p>"An idea of what?"</p>
<p>"If it wasn't an accident, we've got a jumper or he was pushed.
I think he was pushed, and that gives you another murder."</p>
<p>Jack's heart sank. He let the words sink in, then the questions
marshalled themselves.</p>
<p>"That's the last thing I need. I'm hoping you're wrong. What
gives you the idea."</p>
<p>"Angle of concussion strike. If he'd fallen straight down, he
might just have hit the lower edge of the window sill, but probably
not. There was some wind, but not enough to have much effect on
fifteen stone dropping forty feet."</p>
<p>"Go on," Jack urged.</p>
<p>"And he hit the top edge, probably at more than thirty miles an
hour coming in at an angle with a last minute jerk. I believe he
must have gone right out from the building and come back again in
an arc, travelling fast. The gantry must have been moving at the
time, so the swing and the upward motion combined when he hit. Took
the top of his head off. I've got almost total frontal damage, but
nothing on brain-stem. It's rare, but not impossible. His body
functions continued for some time."</p>
<p>"Explain that."</p>
<p>"His heart kept beating, at least for a while. He was upside
down, unconscious, certainly brain-dead to all intents and
purposes, and gravity would have combined to account for the loss
of blood. I estimate he'd lost nearly eight pints. That's almost
the total body supply."</p>
<p>"If the lift was going up at the time," Jack began.</p>
<p>"Somebody started the motor," Robbie finished. "I don't think he
would have started it himself. Pointless really. No," he added
emphatically. "I think the fellow was thrown off."</p>
<p>Jack thought about that for a moment. He had no reason to doubt
Robbie Cattanach. The man was straight as a die, and certainly as
good as any pathologist Jack had dealt with in the past. If it was
murder, then there had to be a reason for it. Something else nagged
at him and he chased it for a moment before catching the thought.
It was a pattern. Not a clear one, not even a logical one. But if
it was murder, then it was the second case involving a block of
high flats. That might have been the only connection, but it was
there. Even then, in Jack's mind, the separate incidents were not
all conjoined. The only two which were almost certainly part of the
one case were the missing babies, but the feeling that there was a
connection, something important about the two incidents involving
high places, struck a discordant note.</p>
<p>"Oh and another thing," Robbie said, diverting Jack's mind.
"There were traces of blood on him."</p>
<p>"And all over the ground as far as I've heard."</p>
<p>"Yes. But there were drops of congealed blood on his cheek and
his shoulder. I've done a cross match. They weren't his. Toner was
0 positive. This blood was Rhesus negative. It came from somebody
else."</p>
<p>"His killer?"</p>
<p>"You're the detective," Robbie said and Jack laughed. "I'll be
doing further tests. Maybe I can give you more of a clue later
on."</p>
<p>"I'd appreciate any clue right now," Jack said with a drawn out
sigh.</p>
<p>Two abductions. Possibly three murders. A suicide.</p>
<p>Not a bad score, Jack thought, for just over a week. So far the
only clue had led to one suspect who he'd found bloated and hanging
in the cellar under the church. The rest of the inquiries had drawn
nothing but more questions. There were no answers.</p>
<p>What Jack Fallon did not know was that there was another suicide
in Levenford that day.</p>
<p>And the strange thing about it was that the man who had taken
his own life, was not dead.</p>
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