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<h2>33</h2>
<p>Jack drove down Clydeshore Avenue towards Lorna's House at seven
on Monday morning. He'd spent the weekend alternating between there
and his sister's house, and thanks to Superintendent Cowie, he was
able to keep his promise to Davy, though all the time he'd been in
a turmoil of agitation following the death of young Gordon Pirie
and the find of the three bodies in the town hall's attic store.
When he'd suggested that O'Day might have killed himself, Lorna had
just shaken her head slowly. That, in itself, was possible, though
try as she might, she sensed nothing, but she insisted to Jack yet
again that what had killed the children in Levenford was
<em>not</em> human.</p>
<p>Despite his preoccupation, Sunday afternoon turned out to be the
best Jack had spent since the firework celebrations of Burgh
Charter Day.</p>
<p>It had been icily cold, but the skies had been clear with the
kind of pale frigid blue of deep winter. Davy had met him at
Julia's front door at eleven, bundled up in a jacket that was
several sizes too large and with a tasselled hat pulled down over
his ears. They had strolled up the full length of Cargill Farm
Road, past the old mill with its ice-locked wheel and then crossed
the fence to get beyond the trees and onto the hillside.</p>
<p>Langmuir Crags were white with snow that had drifted to five
feet in places when they arrived, panting, to the top of one of the
gentler slopes. Davy had insisted on rolling a snowball, though
Jack did most of the work until he had a thick disc a yard high,
then, with much laughter and cheers, they had sent it rolling down
the long swoop, watching it grow as it travelled. Fifty yards
downslope, the snow-wheel hit a rock and collapsed into itself in a
crump of hard-pack. Davy whooped with glee and it took some
persuasion to dissuade him from building another. They breasted the
edge of the flat plateau and trudged through the heather. Jack
lifted his nephew on to his shoulders when the snow got too deep
and they walked on over the hill and down the next depression where
Loch Murroch lay flat and iced over. Up here the wind picked up the
little shards of ice which had frozen to the heather bells and sent
them tinkling in a musical whisper over the flat white expanse of
the hill-loch. Overhead, high in the clear air, a buzzard mewed
plaintively as it wheeled on broad wings, hungry for the meals that
had tunnelled under the snow or had changed their colour to
perfectly match their surroundings.</p>
<p>Davy had spent two hours skittering and sliding on the ice. Most
of the time he was on his backside, or sliding on his front on the
clear patches where the wind had brushed the ice to polished black
smoothness.</p>
<p>The pair of them had watched as a mountain hare, greyhound-fast,
and completely white bar the twin jet spots on its long ears, came
streaking down the hill and onto the flat surface, legs blurring
and kicking up a trail of ice crystals. The animal had sped right
out into the middle of the lake, dashing past them until it hit the
slick clear surface. It had spun twice, like a character in a
cartoon, rolled, found its feet with miraculous agility, and raced
for the far side of the narrow loch. They watched until it hit the
sloping snow-bank in a puff of powdered snow and disappeared.</p>
<p>Up here, in the clear winter air far above town, the destruction
that had taken place in Levenford seemed far away. From the slopes
of the rolling plateau, the town was well hidden from view. There
was no sound but the moan of the wind through the runnels and
gulleys, the call of the bird high overhead, and the crunch of snow
underfoot.</p>
<p>Loch Murrin has a waterfall at its westermost point where it
overflows to drain down into the Langmuir Burn, a winding stream
that cuts through the soft, layered strata of ice-age deposits on
its tortuous route to the estuary. The falls were silent but for
the steady drip of water from a portcullis of icicles which dangled
from the lip, some of them waist thick and dropping twenty feet to
the iced-over pool below. Jack eased Davy down the incline next to
the falls and let the youngster break off a sword of ice. He chose
another and they fenced until their weapons shattered into
rainbow-sparkling diamonds.</p>
<p>They followed the stream down the hill until they came to
another deeper pool where Jack sat the boy down on a flat rock and
opened the sandwiches Julia had prepared for them. The walk had
given them ravenous appetites and they demolished the food in
minutes. As they sat there, Jack pointed out the dark shapes moving
in the sluggish water which was moving just enough to keep the deep
pool ice-free. Every now and then, there would be a bubbling
turbulence on the surface as a sleek shape would dart up from the
depths and turn with a flash of silver. Jack had come up here when
he was not much older than Davy was now, trudging up the slope in
winter to the redds where the salmon and sea-trout gathered to
spawn. As a youngster, he had used a loop of twine strung across a
forked branch to snare one of the fish by the tail before hurrying
back down the hill, watchful for old Dan Leitch the gamekeeper, on
his way home with his prize. He'd thought about those days many a
time since, not least because his own father had been a policeman
who had never raised a disapproving eyebrow about his son's
poaching of fish, and had always tucked in to the fresh salmon with
relish.</p>
<p>They watched the fish for almost an hour while Jack gave a
running commentary and answered all of Davy's questions as best he
could, before they started heading down the hill. Already the sun
was heading for the horizon, though it was still early. Halfway
down the long meander the stream, Davy began to tire and Jack
hoisted him back on his shoulders for the last two miles to the
trees.</p>
<p>Twilight was setting when he got the boy back home and after a
bath, Davy was so tired from his long romp in the fresh air that he
fell asleep on Jack's knee, halfway through a story about dungeons
and dragons. He carried the boy through to his bed and tucked him
in while Julia made coffee.</p>
<p>"You're good for him," she said when she poured cups for both of
them in the kitchen.</p>
<p>"And he's good for me," Jack said, grinning at the recollection
of rolling the boy in a drift as Davy's childish laughter pealed
across the snow.</p>
<p>"It's about time you got yourself a good woman," Julia said in
that direct sisterly way that always made Jack smile.</p>
<p>"You're one to talk," he retorted. "You've been on your own
too."</p>
<p>"Yes, but I've got Davy," she said. "You need somebody to get
you out of yourself. You've been working too hard. All work and no
play, Jack. You'll get dull."</p>
<p>"Oh, don't worry about me," he said. "In fact I'm seeing a girl
tonight."</p>
<p>Julia looked at him quizzically over the rim of her cup, so he
told her about Lorna Breck. She listened while she sipped her
coffee and let him talk, gauging his tone. Jack told her about the
girl's strange gift, and how she had been instrumental in finding
three of the bodies and the place where Neil Kennedy had been
snatched. He only talked about her in relation to the case, but his
sister had known him a long time.</p>
<p>It was what Jack did not say that made her smile.</p>
<p>He had taken Lorna to Barloan Harbour where the old canal
empties into the estuary. At one time, the canal had been a busy
waterway, but since the war it had fallen into disrepair until a
couple of years back when someone had taken the notion to open it
up as a boating marina. It was still in the early stages yet, but
the old buildings and storage yards had been converted into
chandler's shops and fancy outfitters for the modern seafarer and
there was also a neat little restaurant built into the disused
railway arches which crossed over the locks beside the basin.</p>
<p>He had asked her on a whim and had been surprised when she
readily agreed.</p>
<p>The food was French and expensive and quite superb. During it
they tried not to mention the one thing that had brought them
together, though it sat silent and invisible between them. They
talked about everything else. He discovered she'd once been almost
engaged to the son of a wealthy farmer and had broken it off when
he'd stated quite flatly that she would have to leave her work in
the local library and take over looking after the chickens and
milking cows at five in the morning.</p>
<p>"I decided there were better things to do with my life, though,
I haven't done them," she said. "Maybe I should have gone along
with it," she said with a quick laugh.</p>
<p>He noticed she'd laughed a lot during the meal. When he'd picked
her up, she still looked as almost as worn and drawn as she had the
time he'd met her in the chemist's shop, but once they passed the
burgh boundary, heading east, when the town was behind her and they
were driving through farmland close to the banks of the estuary, it
had been as if she'd walked into sunlight, although the sky was
already dark.</p>
<p>He told her a few stories from his past, some of the cases he'd
worked on, picking out a few of the funnier ones, though in fact
there were too few in his line of work. Eventually she asked about
Rae and Julie and for the first in a long time, he was able to
speak about them without the twisting ache in his belly and the
heavy weight of loss on his shoulders. He talked about his
daughter's birth, the most momentous experience of his entire life,
and how she was perfect cross between him and Rae, with his black
hair and her brown eyes. Lorna reached across the table and used
her two small hands to cover his in a gesture of understanding.</p>
<p>Finally, despite their avoidance, the matter that had brought
them together intruded.</p>
<p>"It's strange," Lorna said, still holding on to his hand. He did
not pull away. "This is the first time I've been able to think
about it without panicking. It's as if I'm safe here with you."</p>
<p>"I think it's because we're out of the town. There's an
atmosphere you can cut with a blunt knife. People are just coming
to terms with what's been happened. I'm praying that it's
over."</p>
<p>"I don't think it is. It would me a miracle. I could get on with
my life, but I don't think so. I've had a bad feeling about it,
even though I can't sense it any more. I really don't believe it's
gone."</p>
<p>She looked at him earnestly, searching his eyes.</p>
<p>"What if I'm right?"</p>
<p>He shrugged, keeping his face impassive, and trying not to show
his own budding feelings as he met her grey gaze.</p>
<p>"If you're right, then my boss has certainly blown it. He'd
already made an arse of himself, sending a fax to headquarters
telling them he had the killer. John McColl told me the other night
he'd sent the same telex to every newsroom. They had the story on
their front pages and then that poor youngster got it. The second
editions made Cowie look like a fool, which, of course he is."</p>
<p>"You'd rather be back in there, wouldn't you?"</p>
<p>"Of course I would. I'd like to think that it's gone with O'Day,
but I have to be honest. You've been right so far. If you say it's
still there, then, yes, I'd sure like to be back. My immediate
superior is as useful as a bull with udders and thick as two
planks. If you're right, I <em>should</em> be back in there."</p>
<p>He'd taken her home, travelling on the back road that went way
round the edge of Langmuir Crags, a narrow snow-banked country lane
which dipped and turned. It took an hour longer and both of them
knew he was just delaying taking Lorna back into Levenford. He came
in for a moment, checked her windows and told her to snib the door
behind him. She stood at the door as he went down the path and when
he got to the gate, he wondered if he should have kissed her. Jack
wasn't sure any more about body language. He'd been out of
circulation too long. On the way back to the farm cottage, he began
to wish that he had, and then suffered the pang of guilt for
thinking that thought. When he got there, the place was cold and
too many unwashed clothes were lying around. He put them in the
washer and absently played his guitar until the cycle was over.
When the shorts were in the tumble drier, he went to bed and slept
until six.</p>
<p>As had happened so many times in the past, when he awoke, he had
an idea of what he should be doing. It had come to him sometime as
he slept, although he could not remember dreaming. If Lorna Breck's
extra sensory perception worked better when she touched someone,
maybe it would improve if she came with him to Michael O'Day's
house, to see if there were any vibrations, or sensations that
might trigger off her second sight. It was a long shot, but his
enforced absence was already chafing. If she found nothing, no
shivery sense of premonition, then it might allay her fears, and
that would certainly quieten his own.</p>
<p>At seven, still dark and bitterly cold, he parked the car
outside the gate and pulled his collar up against the wind driving
up the firth as he walked quickly up the path.</p>
<p>There was no response to his knock. He tried again, twice, but
Lorna's now familiar voice did not call out from behind the door.
He checked round the side of the building. There was a light on in
her bedroom, though the curtains were closed tightly. There was no
sound of running water from the bathroom, which was in darkness and
for a moment Jack hesitated, wondering if she'd perhaps fallen
asleep with the light still on, then recalled she'd already told
him she was scared of closing her eyes in the dark because of the
visions that would crowd into her mind. It was early enough for her
to be still asleep and he decided against waking her. He turned
back on the path. Across town the sound of sirens wailed eerily and
the ululating sound, so early in the morning, triggered the shivery
sensation down his back. He was about to head for the gate when he
heard the faint cry from inside the house.</p>
<p>He stopped, holding his breath to listen. The wind rattled the
bare twigs on the elm tree at the side of the road and the whine of
the siren faded in the distance. Nothing happened,and he began to
think he'd imagined it, when the sound came again, faint, almost
like a moan.</p>
<p>He hurried round to the front door, crouched, and jammed two
fingers to open the flap of the letterbox. The narrow hallway was
dim, but there was a line of light from the bedroom which formed a
bar on the floor and up the wall. In that band of illumination, a
bare foot stuck out through the doorway on the floor. As soon as he
recognised it, Lorna moaned a long drawn out, quivering sound of
distress.</p>
<p>Jack banged hard on the door, rattling it on its hinges, but
there was no response from inside, except the shuddery cry. It
sounded like an animal in pain.</p>
<p>He stepped back, now suddenly worried and scared that she'd been
hurt. He was about to raise his foot and stomp his keep just below
the lock, when he stopped. She was a country girl, raised on a
farm, far from any major town. He turned, and in the darkness, felt
along the wall beside the door where he'd seen the plantpots in
daylight. He lifted the second one and his fingers found the key.
In seconds he had jammed it in the lock, twisted it, and pushed the
door open so hard it banged against the wall.</p>
<p>Lorna was lying on the floor of her bedroom. When he reached
her, his heart did a double thump when he saw her eyes, wide and
staring. She was spreadeagled with her arms drawn up at the side of
her head. They were trembling violently. A trickle of saliva
dribbled down from her half-open mouth and her whole body was
jerking in a series of violent spasms. He threw himself down beside
her and took her face in his hands, calling her name. The tremors
made his own arms shake.</p>
<p>The moan abruptly stopped and the girl began to pant, again like
an animal. Powerful heaving gasps shook her and her shoulders came
right off the floor as she fought for breath. All the while her
eyes were staring blindly.</p>
<p>He drew her up to a seated position, wondering what to do. It
looked as if she was in the middle of a fit, and if that was the
case, he should turn her on her side and make sure she didn't
swallow her tongue.</p>
<p>Just as he made to move her, she twisted violently against him
and drew a hand up to his face, as swiftly as a cat's strike. He
felt her nails rake down his cheek and he drew back, breath hissing
with the burn.</p>
<p>Lorna came half off the ground, panting like a dog. Her face
twisted savagely, though her eyes were still wide and frantic. He
caught her by the shoulder and pulled her against him. She
struggled viciously, and with such surprising strength that he was
thrown against the wall with a jarring thump.</p>
<p>Then she screamed like a cat. There were no words, just one
long, shriek which soared so high he could hear it crackle in his
ears. He moved quickly and gathered her in his arms and smothered
her with his own strength. She struggled against him, still
screeching, but he held on tight, wrapping his arms around her and
locking his muscles. He held the position for several minutes while
her screams rattled the windows in their frames and then, without
warning, without any slow trailing away, the noise stopped. Lorna
sagged in his arms like a puppet whose strings had been cut and lay
limp.</p>
<p>Jack didn't move for another few minutes, wondering whether to
carry her to her bed or take her through to the living room where
he could phone for a doctor, but then she gave a start against him.
He drew his head back to look at her. She blinked, looking dazed,
and them simply burst into tears. The sobs racked her from head to
foot. It was as if a dam had burst inside her. Huge tears welled up
and spilled down her cheeks to soak into his shirt. He held her
tightly, rocking her gently, until finally, the sobbing began to
subside. She sat still for a little while longer, then moved
against him, wiping her cheeks on his already damp shirt.</p>
<p>"You want to tell me what happened?" he asked softly.</p>
<p>She hiccupped, tried to speak, then hiccupped again in the
aftermath of her tears.</p>
<p>"It's killing again," she finally blurted thickly. She sniffed
and shivered again almost as she had done when she'd been lying
rigid on the floor.</p>
<p>"I saw it, Jack. It's not gone away. It's still here and it's
angry. I could <em>feel</em> it's hate. It showed me everything and
it knows I can see. It's killing <em>now</em>."</p>
<p>"Where?"</p>
<p>"Everywhere. I couldn't stop it. It's as if it wanted me to see
it all. I <em>know</em> it wanted that. I got up to get a drink of
water, and I saw it, right in front of me."</p>
<p>"Here?"</p>
<p>"No," she said. Her shoulders hitched as she swallowed a sob.
She tapped the front of her head. "Here."</p>
<p>"It was worse than before. Oh, it was much worse. I could see
everything. It's on the rampage and it's killing so many
people."</p>
<p>Jack held her tight, trying to calm her. Slowly, he eased her to
her feet and reached to the side where her dressing gown had
slipped to the floor. With the difficulty of long-lost practice he
helped her into it, pushing her arms into the sleeves the way one
does with a small child. He drew her to her feet, tied the cord
firmy around her waist and led her into the kitchen. He made an
instant coffee for them both, making hers thick and strong and
sweet and urged her to drink it, holding the cup to steady it in
her fluttering hands. He waited until she had finished, made her
drink another, then started to ask questions.</p>
<p>"Show me the pictures," she demanded.</p>
<p>He went through to the living room and picked the folder from
the table where he'd left it. He drew up a chair beside her and
spread them on the table, then drew her forward with his arm around
her shoulders. She slipped her hand round his waist. It was still
shaking, but warm against his side.</p>
<p>"The first one. It came down between buildings. He heard it and
looked up."</p>
<p>"Who did?"</p>
<p>"The boy. He had a white hat. Something in his hand, a bottle
maybe. I could smell cooking. He looked up and it came down so
quickly he didn't have a chance to move. It took him by the
shoulder and climbed the wall with him. He was screaming and
crying, and his feet were kicking against the wall, but it went
back up into the dark. It was playing with him. It threw him onto
the roof and then it took him by the neck and looked into his eyes
until he was dead. It was looking into <em>my</em> eyes, and it was
<em>laughing.</em>"</p>
<p>"How do you now that?"</p>
<p>Lorna turned her eyes on him. "Because I do." she said slowly.
"Because it wants me to know. I don't know why, but it does, and
it's like a disease."</p>
<p>"Did you recognise the place?" he asked.</p>
<p>She shook her head. "I could hear the gulls, and a clanking
sound.</p>
<p>And the smell of something cooking."</p>
<p>Lorna closed her eyes and actually sniffed, as if she was
scenting the air.</p>
<p>"No. It wasn't cooking. It was <em>bread.</em> Fresh bread like
my mother bakes. It was coming from a door between the two
walls."</p>
<p>Jack reached for the remainder of the folio of prints and
searched through them. He selected one and held it up. It showed a
warren of alleys down by the river.</p>
<p>"Was it there?" he asked, jabbing his finger. "There's a bakery
here."</p>
<p>She took the picture and he watched as her eyes narrowed in
concentration. She was trying to convert what she had seen in three
dimensions to the flat surface of the picture which had been taken
from several hundred feet in the air. Finally she nodded.</p>
<p>"I think so. It might have been the place."</p>
<p>He pushed his chair back from the table and got to his feet. "I
have to phone Ralph Slater," he said.</p>
<p>"Wait Jack. There's more. It hasn't stopped yet. It's angry now.
It's like it wants to kill everybody. It's like a nightmare. I was
there and I saw it take two boys, just little ones. She held her
hand out to indicate a height. This time she flicked through the
pictures herself.</p>
<p>"It's somewhere I've seen before, an old building with
scaffolding on the side. The first boy was carrying something. It
rattled. Milk bottles maybe?"</p>
<p>Jack let out a long sigh. The warnings had been in every paper
and on every screen. Yet every morning, hours before daylight,
young teenagers, boys not even in their teens, were out in the
dark, scurrying up alleys and tenement closes to deliver the town's
milk. Lorna drew out a print and this time she pointed.</p>
<p>"There. He went up there and it came down the scaffolding,
swinging from bar to bar. Oh, it's so fast. It took the boy by the
head and lifted him up and it <em>stuck</em> him up on the bar. The
other boy came round and it watched him. I could see him from up
there. It was <em>showing</em> me. I tried to call out, but it
laughed inside my head. Oh, Jack, it's filthy. It's like a
<em>sickness</em>." She leaned into him and the tears started to
trickle down her face again. There was nothing he could do to stop
them.</p>
<p>After a few moments she started again, telling him about the old
man. She did not recognise this place, nor the stairwell where
she'd seen the girl being dragged from the window. But in every
case she told how it had swung its victim upwards and held it there
until the soul fled, watching the life-light fade from the
eyes.</p>
<p>"It <em>is</em> like a disease," she said. "It's foul and it
hates everything here. It makes me feel unclean."</p>
<p>Jack made his phone call and Ralph's wife told him her husband
had been out since almost five, two hours before. He managed to get
Bobby Thomson at the station who accepted Jack's request for
urgency and relayed a radio message to the scene of crimes officer.
Ralph called him back within two minutes.</p>
<p>"Christ almighty, Chief. We need you down here."</p>
<p>"No time to chat, Ralph. Drop what you're doing and get round to
Christie's bakery."</p>
<p>"How did you know?" Ralph asked incredulously. "I'm just back
from there. Listen Jack, the shit's hitting the fan down here. It's
a fucking slaughterhouse. There's a baker missing from Christie's
place. His boss heard him screaming outside the bakehouse. He's
gone, but the walls are covered with blood. Next we get a bloody
milk-float driver telling me he's lost two of his lads. They went
up the alley by the Ship Institute."</p>
<p>Jack closed his eyes, picturing the place. The alley was exactly
where Lorna had pointed out on the grainy print.</p>
<p>"No sign?"</p>
<p>Nothing but broken milk-bottles. No blood, nothing."</p>
<p>"Anything else?"</p>
<p>"We've just had a report of a girl gone missing round on Swan
Street. I've just sent a squad car round there."</p>
<p>"Well, there's another one. I don't know where it is, but
there's another old man gone. It took him at the back of a
building. Somewhere with railings, like a back court. I don't know
exactly where, but I reckon it's in the centre of the town."</p>
<p>"Jesus, Jack, I've got my hands full down here," Ralph bawled
down the phone. He sounded helpless.</p>
<p>"And anyway, how the hell do you know? How did you know about
the bakery?"</p>
<p>"You'd never believe me," Jack said. "Listen. Hold on down
there. I'm coming in."</p>
<p>"Cowie won't like it."</p>
<p>"Cowie can shove it up his arse," Jack retorted vehemently.</p>
<p>Back in the kitchen, he told Lorna he'd have to go. She looked
up at him, the disappointment evident in her eyes.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, but I really should. Ralph is down at the bakery.
You were right, of course."</p>
<p>Lorna nodded dumbly. "I know," she finally said. "I wish I
didn't have this thing. I wish it was somebody else." She stood up
and came towards him and put her hands on his hips. Without
thinking he drew her forward by the shoulders. She tilted her head
and without thinking, he kissed her gently on the lips. She tasted
of woman and sweet coffee.</p>
<p>As soon as he did so, she jerked back as if she'd been scalded.
For an instant Jack was taken aback, completely wrong footed. Her
hands suddenly gripped the side if his shirt and her fingernails
dug into the skin just below his ribs. Her eyes were huge and
suddenly terrified.</p>
<p>"No," she gasped.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," Jack stuttered. "I didn't mean to.."</p>
<p>"No," she repeated. "It's not..oh Jack. It's you. I can
<em>feel</em> it."</p>
<p>He tried to take a step back, but she held on desperately,
shaking her head, her face a picture of shock and dismay.</p>
<p>"It's you it wants. It knows about you, and it wants you."</p>
<p>"Me?" he asked stupidly.</p>
<p>"I can sense it. The thing's in my head. It knows you're the man
who understands what it is. It knows you've been hunting it, and
it's coming after you."</p>
<p>He laughed, though he knew it sounded shallow and forced. Cold
fingers began to scrabble their way up his spine.</p>
<p>"Well," he said,"It'll have to be a big mean bastard then. I've
been around a long time."</p>
<p>"No, I mean it Jack. Please be careful."</p>
<p>He pulled back, but she leaned against him, as if she'd lost
strength, then raised her hand to the back of his head and pressed
him against her. This time she kissed him properly, forcing her
mouth against his with a kind of hungry desperation. Jack could do
nothing except respond, though his mind was awhirl. They stayed
together for a long moment.</p>
<p>Finally he pulled back. She was looking up at him and her eyes
were filling with tears again, making them huge and lustrous.</p>
<p>"Promise me you'll be careful," she said quietly, holding him
tight.</p>
<p>He promised.</p>
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