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<h2>20</h2>
<p>They found the body of Annie Eastwood in the morning while Jack
was taking his nephew to school. He'd had five hours sleep and had
needed a blistering hot shower to get him completely awake. He'd
dreamed most of the night, and when he'd awoken with a start when
the alarm had buzzed, he'd been sitting upright on the bed, arms
and shoulders goosepimpled, hands curled into tight fists. The
substance of the dream had broken up when his eyes opened but he'd
been left with a heavy aftersense of lingering gloom.</p>
<p>Julia offered him breakfast and when he told her he'd no time,
she ordered him to wait for two minutes while she put the bacon
she'd grilled for herself onto two slices of bread, wrapped them in
tin-foil and jammed them into the pocket of his long coat.</p>
<p>"You look ghastly," she said, concerned.</p>
<p>"Thanks a million," he said, unable to keep the smile from his
face. "You're great for a guy's ego."</p>
<p>"Look, you don't have to take Davy to school. I can manage."</p>
<p>"No bother. It makes sure I get out of bed."</p>
<p>"You need looking after," she said, reaching a hand up to cup
his cheek with affectionate gentleness.</p>
<p>"I'm doing fine, but now I've got to go," Jack said quickly,
breaking the moment, pulling away. Her concern was written all over
her face, and he backed away from it. He would only begin to feel
maudlin.</p>
<p>When he stopped outside the school gate, Davy leaned over from
the back seat and gave him a kiss. Jack stopped him before he got
out of the car.</p>
<p>"Did your mum tell you about staying in school all day?"</p>
<p>"Yes, uncle Jack," the boy replied gravely.</p>
<p>"And you wait for her or me to come and get you at home
time?"</p>
<p>Davy nodded again.</p>
<p>"Well you make sure you do," Jack said, keeping his voice low
and serious.</p>
<p>"I will. I'll stay in school."</p>
<p>Jack ruffled his hair and let him go. He watched as the wee boy
disappeared into a crowd of youngsters milling around in the
playground. The school had doubled the supervision at intervals and
lunch breaks. So far all the abductions - all the <em>killings</em>
-had taken place at night, in the dark. But that did not mean the
situation wouldn't change.</p>
<p>There was no problem in identifying Annie Eastwood, at least not
from the effects she'd had on her person when she died. The
difficulty in ensuring she was who her credit and library cards
said she was, lay in the fact that there was nothing left of her
face, and so much damage to the rest of her body that it wasn't
easy to determine at first glance that the mess on the rocks at the
confluence of river and estuary were in fact human.</p>
<p>Ian Ramage, the full-time custodian of the old monument on top
of the Castle Rock had been woken in the early hours of the morning
while it was still dark and damply cold, by the barking of his
scots terriers. He had the tied house by the entrance gates, one of
the oldest buildings in Levenford, older even than Cairn House. It
was said that Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned there, as had
William Wallace, the guerilla leader of the fourteenth century,
before he was dragged down beyond the border and hung, drawn and
quartered. The castle ramparts bordered the shoulders of the
two-hundred foot high basalt rock, which, like Ardmhor Rock further
down the firth, is the nubbin of a dead volcano, worn down by the
ice and winds and rain of millions of years.</p>
<p>The rock towers over the east end of Levenford, black and
massive, a hunched and looming presence which dominates the flat
land where the river flowed into the tidal salts.</p>
<p>The ill-tempered yipping of the terriers roused an equally irate
keeper from his bed in the upstairs room of the old stone house.
The dogs were shoulder to shoulder at the window, feet on the sill,
noses smearing the glass. They were barking furiously, ears
pointing forward.</p>
<p>"Right, you two, hush up," Ian snapped. The bitches stopped
immediately, heads turned round towards him before swinging back to
stare out of the glass into the dark.</p>
<p>At this early hour of a freezing morning, it was unlikely that
any youngster had sneaked in through the gates, but Ian Ramage took
his job seriously, though with more than a little ill will that
day. He pulled on trousers and sweater over his thick pyjamas,
wrapped himself in a worn duffel coat, grabbed his flashlight and
then snapped his fingers at the dogs. They bounded from the window
and followed him out onto the flagstone paths, their nails
scrabbling on the cold slate.</p>
<p>Ian Ramage went down to the gate at the arched entrance. It was
ajar, though only by an inch or so. Normally the keeper locked it
at night, but in the winter, he usually relaxed the rule because so
few people visited the ancient monument in bad weather. The dogs
snuffled around the posts, then , moving together, went back
towards the house, passed by the corner, still shoulder to
shoulder, and scrambled up the first flight of stairs, yapping
angrily. The keeper followed on, grumbling all the while.</p>
<p>There is exactly one stone step cut into the rock for every day
in the year. It took Ian fifteen minutes to get to the top where
the basalt rose to a rounded dome topped by a flagpole and four
ancient cannon facing outwards to the points of the compass. The
balustrade wall snaked over the shoulder, twenty feet down from the
summit. The dogs scampered down towards the dyke and simultaneously
leapt up onto the flat top, each aggressively barking down into the
dark below. Breathless, Ian followed them down and leaned on the
wall, his eyes following the direction of their noses. Below him,
down in the distance, he could hear the gurgle and splash of the
water on the stones, like far off conversation. He angled the
powerful torch below the wall, but the beam was diffracted by the
rising mist. There was nothing to be seen and no point in going all
the way down to the rocky shoreline in the dark. He went back to
his bed.</p>
<p>Four hours later he was explaining to a uniformed policeman what
had happened.</p>
<p>The body was discovered by Geordie Buist. Though it was well out
of season, he'd taken his spinning rod round the dark pathway at
the base of the rock to haul out a few sea-trout which were
starting their spawning run up-river. He'd lifted a two pounder
from the water after his third cast and had scrambled up the rocks
to hide it in the lea of one of the forty-foot boulders which had
calved from the cliff. The silver fish, dead from a blow to the
head, but still shivering and twitching, he stashed in a corner
where the rock butted up against another. He turned, reached up to
the stone side for balance, and his searching fingers grasped hold
of a cold hand.</p>
<p>The sheer fright sent him staggering backwards to crack his head
against the basalt with a sickening thud and he landed in a dazed
heap where he lay for fully five minutes before his head cleared
enough to let him get to his feet again. Very cautiously he felt
his way in the dark until he came to the spot where he'd stood
before. He fished his cigarette lighter out of his pocket, and with
a shaky hand, flicked it alight and held it up.</p>
<p>The claw-like hand hooked down from above his head. The yellow
light reflected back from trails of liquid running down the flat
side of the stone. Two thick and shiny braids of what looked like
twisted rope dangled from further up. Geordie held the lighter up
higher and saw an eye staring at him from a pulpy mass above him.
At first he thought it was an animal, because he could see a row of
clenched teeth, more than a human ever showed, stretching back into
the mass. Then he saw the thin string of pearls around the bloodied
neck and he realised what he'd found.</p>
<p>Geordie Buist was a tough young man. He'd had his share of fist
fights. He could gut and clean a rabbit or a fish or gralloch a
poached deer with hardly a thought. But when the dead and broken
face of the woman, her one impossibly protruding eye glaring from
the red mess registered on his consciousness, Geordie got such a
fright that his bladder simply opened and hot piss gushed down the
inside of his thigh. He stood there, frozen, hand up-raised, for
several stunned minutes, unaware of the warm flow down his jeans,
until an eddy of wind snuffed out the flame of the lighter. The
darkness which descended was complete. Geordie gave a gasp of
alarm. The thought of being stuck in the dark with the grotesque,
broken thing, was too much for him to cope with. Whimpering all the
way, he bolted out of the space between the big rocks, scrambled up
to the path, and ran, non stop round the track at the base of the
cliff until he came to the road. It took him twenty minutes to get
to the police station and a further fifteen before the desk
sergeant could get him to calm down enough to piece together
sufficient information from the incoherent, almost hysterical
babbling to realise what the ashen-faced young man was trying to
say.</p>
<p>The police patrol who were sent to investigate found Geordie's
rod and line along with the poached sea-trout, but they were too
busy that night to do more than give him a verbal warning. The
following day, Sergeant Bobby Thomson enjoyed the fish grilled and
smothered in a fine hollandaise sauce. One of the policemen at the
scene was Gordon Pirie, the young recruit who had made tea for Jack
Fallon the night before. When he'd shone his beam on what lay on
the rocks, he staggered back, slipped on the rocks and retched so
violently and painfully that he thought he was going to pass out,
and once he'd finished, he began to cry like a baby and couldn't
stop.</p>
<p>Annie Eastwood was formally identified by Dr Bell, her own
general practitioner who recognised her appendectomy and
hysterectomy scars and the small port-wine birthmark close to her
hip.</p>
<p>But for these distinguishing marks, identification could have
taken several days, because the fall from the castle ramparts,
almost two hundred feet straight down, had broken almost every bone
in the woman's body. The left side of her face had been stoved
right in, crushing both cheek-bone and jaw. On the right, all of
the skin and muscle had been torn back to the ear, giving the face
a dog-like gape. As she'd bounced from one rock to another, her
scalp had been torn off from forehead to crown and flung, like a
bloody wig, ten feet from where the body sprawled upside down.
Robbie Cattanach found four fractures of the spine and three
compounded breaks in the left thigh alone. Her pelvis had sheared
off three inches in from the hip-joint and a sharp edge of rock had
opened her belly like a zip fastener and spilled everything in
glistening ropes down into the void between the two huge
stones.</p>
<p>One eye was missing and was never found. Somebody surmised that
one of the rats that inhabited the nooks and crannies and fed on
carrion from the shoreline must have eaten it. Two fingers and a
thumb of the dead woman's left hand were later found further up on
the rock, jammed in a small crevice, ripped off in the violence of
her passing. One of them bore a ring set with amethyst stones.</p>
<p>The missing fingers were collected and used for prints. Later in
the afternoon, Jack Fallon learned that Annie Eastwood had also
been in Cairn House on the night that Marta Herkik had died.</p>
<p>Elsa Quinn, the only one of the women in the distillery who
remembered seeing a stranger in the building the night before, was
questioned again. The vague description of the woman's green coat
was helpful. When shown a picture taken from Annie Eastwood's
house, it jogged Elsa's memory just enough.</p>
<p>"That's who it was," she told John McColl. "I never recognised
her at the time. It's Angie Eastwood's mother. Angie used to work
on the same line as me. But she died. It was a car crash about a
year ago. It was terrible. We all went to the funeral, and that's
where I saw her mother."</p>
<p>"You're sure?"</p>
<p>"I am now. I had a terrible headache last night, so I didn't
really look. I remembered thinking there was something familiar
about her, but I couldn't place the face."</p>
<p>"And where was she standing?"</p>
<p>"Beside the lift on the fourth floor," Elsa said.</p>
<p>Jack brought John McColl and Ralph Slater into his office and
closed the door.</p>
<p>"I want her house turned over," he said when they were both
seated. "This is the first real tie-in we have to everything."</p>
<p>"You don't think she killed the girl?" John asked.</p>
<p>"Christ knows!" Jack said sharply. "No. Probably not. But she
was there at the same time, and she was in the Herkik place. She's
topped herself, or been thrown off the top of the castle. One way
or another, she's in the middle of the whole mess. Get round there
and give her place a spin, and send a squad round to Janet
Robinson's place. I'm looking for anything at all. Books, diaries,
letters, the lot. We have to know why she was at Cairn House and
what was going on there. That's the crux of the matter."</p>
<p>"Anything else?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Have you found this O'Day yet?"</p>
<p>"No. He's been gone for the last few days, according to his
landlady."</p>
<p>"Keep looking. Get a warrant and turn him over as well. I'm fed
up pussyfooting about."</p>
<p>John went out and Jack turned to Ralph.</p>
<p>"This is getting out of hand. What can you tell me?"</p>
<p>"Nothing you don't already know. Looks like Eastwood jumped. She
could have been pushed. According to the keeper there was some
disturbance between four and five this morning. His dogs started
barking. He had a check around, but didn't see a thing. If she'd
been taken up there and thrown off, there would probably have been
a lot of noise. Ramage says he didn't hear anything."</p>
<p>Jack brought his hands up and ran his fingers backwards through
his hair.</p>
<p>"I just don't understand it. You get a killing or an abduction -
and these kids are dead believe me - and then a suicide. Everybody
so far, except Jock Toner, was at the seance in Herkik's room."</p>
<p>"You reckon that's what it was?"</p>
<p>"Sure. I've got it on good authority. The Eastwood woman is the
only one we can definitely place at the scene of one snatch when it
happened. We don't know who she was with, if she was with anybody,
but I don't think she could have taken that girl out of the lift on
her own and hauled her up the shaft. No. We're looking for a strong
bastard. A <em>crazy</em> strong bastard."</p>
<p>"So we've got a tie-in Jack. But I don't see where that gets us.
We still haven't found any of the bodies yet. Not any of the
kids."</p>
<p>"We will."</p>
<p>There were too many things to do at once. Around noon, Jack was
tempted to capitulate and call in for some extra help, despite his
superior's objections. He couldn't put off reporting to
Superintendent Cowie.</p>
<p>"I've had the press baying at my heels all morning," his
superior barked as soon as Jack opened the office door. Cowie was
sitting back in a high-backed swivel chair, both hands drumming on
his empty blotter.</p>
<p>Jack held up a thick folder. "I've got everything so far. So far
all the suicides can be traced to the Herkik killing. I believe
they are also involved in the abductions."</p>
<p>"Nonsense," Cowie snorted. "You think this is some sort of
kidnap ring? In Levenford?"</p>
<p>"Stranger things have happened. Everything is pointing that
way."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Because they're all involved in some kind of devil
worship."</p>
<p>Cowie's eyebrows almost disappeared over the top of his thinning
scalp.</p>
<p>"And you want me to announce that to the press?"</p>
<p>"Not necessarily, but they're going to want something."</p>
<p>"I have to tell you, Chief Inspector, this is not looking good
and I'm losing patience."</p>
<p>Jack said nothing.</p>
<p>"So what do you intend to do about it? I don't see any real
progress. You're making us look like fools"</p>
<p>"Actually I'm hoping to pick up someone who may be
involved."</p>
<p>"Oh?"</p>
<p>"Yes. His name is Michael O'Day. You'll have heard of him."</p>
<p>Cowie shook his head.</p>
<p>"That's a surprise. An informant of mine said he gave you the
information four days ago. O'Day was seen leaving Cairn House at
the estimated time of Marta Herkik's death."</p>
<p>The superintendent gave another small shake of his head. His
face was beginning to colour.</p>
<p>"Yes. He's been missing from his home for two days. Shame. Maybe
we could have wrapped this up before wee Carol Howard was
killed."</p>
<p>"What are you trying to suggest?"</p>
<p>"I'm not trying to suggest anything. I'm just pointing out that
I'm not making anybody look a fool," Jack said, unable to keep the
weary contempt from his tone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a
murder investigation to run."</p>
<p>He stood up and left, closing the door behind him before the
superintendent burst a blood vessel.</p>
<p>Just as he got to his office, the phone gave a single ring. Jack
lifted the receiver, listened for a moment, then answered
briefly.</p>
<p>He went down the two flights of stairs to the front office. As
soon as he got there, the waiting pressmen pounced. He held up his
hands and told them to back off for a second while he spoke to the
desk sergeant. Andy Toye was sitting in the waiting room. Jack told
one of the uniformed men to take him upstairs. Just as he did so,
Lorna Breck came walking in through the front door, between a woman
and a man in uniform.</p>
<p>"Damn," Jack said under his breath. He leaned across to the desk
sergeant and told him to get the girl into the interview room as
quickly and as quietly as possible. He turned back to the gaggle of
reporters, using his hands to usher them away from the desk. The
police officers walked right past them, and nobody seemed to notice
the girl. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack got a brief impression
of Lorna Breck's pale face turned towards him and then she was
gone.</p>
<p>"Come on Chief," the thin man from the Express entreated. "We've
had nothing since this morning." Somebody flashed a camera and Jack
pointed a finger at the photographer.</p>
<p>"If that thing goes off once more in here, you're all out. No
kidding."</p>
<p>The cameraman shrugged apologetically.</p>
<p>"Okay, follow me," he said, resignedly. He led them through a
corridor and into one of the larger rooms near the cells which was
used for briefings. There were a few plastic chairs set in uneven
rows. The group of pressmen jostled for a seat. Jack stood with his
back against the wall and took out a notebook.</p>
<p>"Statement first. Questions next," he announced brusquely, then
checked his notes before beginning.</p>
<p>"We are investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. It
happened late last night in Castlebank Distillery. Witnesses say
she became trapped in an elevator. By the time rescue services
arrived, she could not be found. We are treating the case as
abduction, possibly murder."</p>
<p>"That's the fourth in two weeks," somebody bawled from the
back.</p>
<p>"I'm afraid it is. Our investigations are continuing."</p>
<p>"Is there a link."</p>
<p>Jack paused. "That's a possibility we are looking into. I can't
say anything further than that."</p>
<p>"And you've got another suicide today?" the same voice
asked.</p>
<p>"Possible suicide. The body of a middle aged woman was
discovered on the rocks on the west side of the castle in the early
hours of the morning. She had injuries consistent with a fall. A
post mortem is taking place at the moment. A report will be made to
the fiscal and there's a possibility of a fatal accident inquiry
later. We should have more details sometime today."</p>
<p>"So what's happening here?"</p>
<p>"What's happening is that we are very concerned at recent
events." Jack did not enjoy using bland public relations speech,
but he knew that one wrong word would catch the headlines. What was
happening in Levenford was hitting the front pages of the national
press too often. "If I can use this opportunity to re-issue our
earlier warnings to parents to ensure that their children are not
left unaccompanied after dark. I would also recommend that for the
time being, no woman should be out on her own."</p>
<p>Blair Bryden from the Gazette was sitting quietly close to the
wall, writing in his notebook. Beside him another reporter piped
up.</p>
<p>"None of the abductees have been found. All of them so far have
been children, if you include the girl. Looks like there's some
sort of pattern, wouldn't you agree?"</p>
<p>"We are investigating the possibility," Jack said. A pattern was
building up inside Jack's mind, It was becoming clearer - and yet
also more confused - by the minute.</p>
<p>"You mean a serial killer?"</p>
<p>Jack paused and took a breath. He could see the headlines
already.</p>
<p>"You know we don't like to speculate. I'm sure you will draw
your own conclusions, but yes, that is one line of inquiry."</p>
<p>He swept his eyes across the group of reporters. The
photographer at the back flashed his camera blindingly. Jack
blinked.</p>
<p>"Right, that's it," he snapped.</p>
<p>"Sorry chief. It was an accident," The cameraman piped up.</p>
<p>"Apology accepted. Press statement over," Jack said bluntly.
Somebody protested, but Jack turned towards the door. Most of the
gang followed him out, still firing off questions, but he ignored
them. He turned right, went through the swing doors and headed
along the corridor when a voice came from behind him.</p>
<p>"Thanks for the call Jack."</p>
<p>He turned. Blair Bryden, a slim figure in a long raincoat, had
followed him through. Every policeman in the station knew the local
editor. He was the only one who would have got beyond the door.</p>
<p>"Oh, damn," Jack breathed. He stopped and leaned against the
wall."</p>
<p>"Sorry Blair. I forgot, pure and simple. I didn't get finished
'til very late, or very early. I can't even remember what time it
was. My eyes were falling out."</p>
<p>Blair shrugged.</p>
<p>"No problem. I managed to get plenty last night. Local knowledge
helps. But there are one or two things that stick in my mind,
thanks to my local knowledge."</p>
<p>Jack raised his eyebrows.</p>
<p>"Like why you've hauled a spey-wife in on the act?"</p>
<p>"Eh?" Jack asked blankly.</p>
<p>"Lorna Breck. Two of your uniforms brought her in. You had her
hustled away before anybody could see her. You must have forgotten
I did a story on her only three weeks ago. The fire on Murroch
Road, remember?"</p>
<p>"Oh. Right."</p>
<p>"And Professor Toye was sitting out there this morning."</p>
<p>"You know him?"</p>
<p>"Sure I know him. He was involved in the Linnvale affair. I'm
just surprised that none of the others did."</p>
<p>"Well, that gives me a problem, Blair. I can't tell you at the
moment."</p>
<p>"But I can make a couple of guesses on my own."</p>
<p>"Go ahead."</p>
<p>"Andrew Toye is head of paranormal studies. That's the tie in to
old Marta Herkik. She was some sort of psychic, which everybody
knows. It's the professor's line of work."</p>
<p>"Go on."</p>
<p>"Lorna Breck. Five or six people heard her make some sort of
prediction on the night of the fire. And it turned out she was bang
on the money. So my guess is that she's been called in because you
haven't a clue."</p>
<p>"It's not quite that," Jack said. "I'd prefer if you kept this
to yourself, at least for the moment."</p>
<p>"You know you'll have to do better than that," Blair said.
"They're both fair game, because I saw them, and as you said, we
can draw our own conclusions. Furthermore, I don't think anything I
could write about either of them would jeopardise the
investigation."</p>
<p>"But it could be wrong," Jack stated.</p>
<p>Blair laughed.</p>
<p>"There's always that possibility. Now you, on the other hand,
could put me right."</p>
<p>Jack let out a long sigh. Blair was still smiling agreeably, and
Jack couldn't help but return it.</p>
<p>"Alright. You want a deal."</p>
<p>"That I do, chief."</p>
<p>"Fine. I'll give you a couple of things right now, which you can
feed to the nationals. You keep the professor and Lorna Breck out
of print until Friday, and then you get first refusal on anything I
can tell you."</p>
<p>Blair cocked his head to the side, weighing the options. There
were no options. He could write a speculative piece and wire it up
to the daily papers and have nothing but hear-say on Friday when
the Gazette hit the streets.</p>
<p>"Done," he said quickly.</p>
<p>Jack hauled his notebook out again.</p>
<p>"Names," he said briskly. "I'll have them confirmed later today,
so don't send them out until then. Ann Eastwood. You'll have
something on her already. Her daughter was killed in that accident
up on the Corran Shore Road about a year back."</p>
<p>Blair nodded, filing it away. He'd written that story as
well.</p>
<p>Jack gave her address. He threw in Edward Tomlin. There was
nothing to lose.</p>
<p>"So what's the connection?"</p>
<p>"Consider the fact that Tomlin poisoned himself last Friday. Now
look at the dates of recent suicides and then check out what else
has been happening on or around those dates."</p>
<p>Blair closed his eyes for a few moments, then the smile came
back to his face.</p>
<p>"You mean they're tied in to this?"</p>
<p>"That's a possibility we are considering at the moment," Jack
said, using the same tone he'd had at the press call. Blair laughed
out loud.</p>
<p>"And you think there might be a connection then to Marta
Herkik."</p>
<p>"This is under investigation," Jack responded blandly.</p>
<p>"That's why you've got Andy Toye. What the hell's going on here?
Blood sacrifice?"</p>
<p>Blair was surprisingly quick on the uptake.</p>
<p>"No comment. And I don't want to read a word of speculation
about that, or the deal's off."</p>
<p>"Don't worry," Blair promised. He scribbled something in his
notebook, then looked up at Jack. "Jesus," he breathed.</p>
<p>Blair Bryden must have spent the whole day bobbing and weaving
around Levenford that day. Every paper from broadsheet to tabloid
splashed his story on the front pages on the following morning.</p>
<p>The operations room was empty when Jack brought Andy Toye along.
The professor, a slight figure in glasses looked around the walls
which were plastered with blow-up street maps of the town and
cross-hatched diagrams with names handwritten in bold capitals
beside photographs of the deceased.</p>
<p>"This is where it all happens?" Andrew asked.</p>
<p>"All, or nothing. We do a lot of talking in here. The rest of
the time is spent knocking doors, or knocking our heads against
brick walls."</p>
<p>"I'm not sure I can really help you," Andy admitted. He'd
managed to find a cup of coffee from somewhere and had brought it
along from the side room where he'd waited. He sipped it
noisily.</p>
<p>"Neither me," Jack agreed, "But we'll never know until we try.
John McColl will take you round to the Herkik place. It'll still be
in a bit of a mess, but there might me something you'll notice that
we've overlooked. I'm going on the assumption that there was a
group of people there that night and they've got themselves
involved in something. I don't know what it is, but if we can find
out, then it'll be a great help."</p>
<p>He looked down at Andy, who was finishing the last of his
coffee. "At least, that's what I hope."</p>
<p>The professor walked across to a wall chart and scanned the
names and dates.</p>
<p>"The first child went missing almost a week after this alleged
seance. Then the minister commits suicide. After that, the other
baby is taken and his mother killed, followed by the attempted
suicide of Mr Tomlin."</p>
<p>"Actual suicide now. He's dead."</p>
<p>"Then the boy goes missing, followed immediately by the woman in
the river. Almost immediately, you have the girl taken from the
distillery and another suicide within hours."</p>
<p>"All of them connected to the Herkik incident, according to
forensics."</p>
<p>"For the life of me I can't see what's been going on. There's no
occult sect I know of who've been involved in serial killings. Not
in this country anyway."</p>
<p>"All I want is for you to have a look around. We've found tarot
cards in the possession of all the suicides so far. They match the
ones in Cairn House. That can't be a coincidence."</p>
<p>"No, but the abductions could be. Close involvement with the
occult has been known to cause psychotic or schizophrenic symptoms
in clearly documented cases. It's possible there was some sort of
mass hysteria that is not linked to any of the abductions."</p>
<p>"But Janet Robinson's bag was found at the place we believe Neil
Kennedy went missing, and Ann Eastwood was seen, as near as we can
tell, in Castlebank Distillery only minutes before Carol Howard was
taken. That's no coincidence."</p>
<p>Andy nodded in agreement.</p>
<p>"Well, I don't mind having a look, as long as you don't expect
too much. He pulled out a small leather-bound pad and began to copy
some of the information from the chart. Just then, John McColl came
into the operations room.</p>
<p>"We can stroll round now, if you like," he said. Andy snapped
the book closed. He gave Jack a little smile and went off with the
sergeant.</p>
<p>Jack had called Ralph Slater in for the interview with Lorna
Breck. She was sitting in the bare room, pale and slight, hands
gripped on her black bag. A woman constable who was with her rose
when the two men went in and closed the door behind her when she
left.</p>
<p>The girl's eyes widened in recognition when Jack sat in front of
her.</p>
<p>"I don't know why I've been brought here," she blurted out.</p>
<p>"We'll try to make it as quick as possible," Jack said. He had
told Ralph nothing in detail about the girl. "We just want to ask a
few questions. Some of the things you told me yesterday are a bit
puzzling."</p>
<p>"Am I under arrest?"</p>
<p>"No. Not at all," Jack replied, as lightly as he could. To
himself he thought that she very well might be later on, depending
on how the interview went.</p>
<p>He slotted a cartridge into the recorder, gave his, Ralph's and
Lorna's name, stated the time, and left it running.</p>
<p>"What's that for?" she asked.</p>
<p>"Just to make sure we don't miss anything," Ralph said,
following Jack's lead.</p>
<p>"Right. Just relax," Jack told her. "I'll ask one or two
questions, and you answer them as fully as possible."</p>
<p>"What do you know about Marta Herkik?"</p>
<p>"Who?"</p>
<p>"You don't know her?"</p>
<p>"I hardly know anybody," the girl said, eyes wide, slightly
puzzled. "I've only lived here since August."</p>
<p>"And you've never met her?"</p>
<p>"No," she said. "I don't know who she is."</p>
<p>"Don't you read the local papers?" Ralph interrupted.</p>
<p>"Sometimes, but it's not my town yet. I don't know who's who,
and Levenford's a lot bigger than what I'm used to."</p>
<p>"Do any of these names mean anything to you? Jack ran down his
mental list, reeling off the names of the four suicides. The girl
reacted to Simpson's name. She'd heard it or read it, then she
recalled the story about the minister's bizarre hanging.</p>
<p>"But you never met him. Never spoke to him?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>He gave her the names of the three children and the teenager who
had gone missing. She recognised the first three, having read of
them and heard their names on television. The fourth drew a
blank.</p>
<p>"Now you told me that you <em>see</em> things."</p>
<p>"That's right. I don't know why, and it's making me ill. I saw
those babies and the wee boy, but I didn't know who they were until
I heard their names on the news."</p>
<p>Can you tell me when this first happened?"</p>
<p>"It was the night of the fire, I think,"she said in a small
voice "though I'd been getting bad dreams before that." Clearly
even thinking about it caused her some distress. Her big grey eyes
opened wide, and both men could see she was putting herself back,
remembering what had happened. She ran through the whole story for
them.</p>
<p>"And this was the first time?" Ralph asked. The girl nodded, but
then she stopped.</p>
<p>"Yes. No." Her brow creased into a frown. "It was the first time
when I was <em>awake</em>. But before that, I told you, I'd been
having terrible nightmares."</p>
<p>Jack didn't really want to know about nightmares. He'd had
plenty of his own. They were not the kind of things people wanted
to share, but he decided to go along with it in the hope that she
might let something slip.</p>
<p>"Before the fire, I kept waking up. I didn't think about it
until now." She closed her eyes and the could see her trying to
concentrate.</p>
<p>"They started before the fire. I couldn't understand them. I
just felt there was something after me all the time. I couldn't
really see it, but it was always there."</p>
<p>She opened her eyes.</p>
<p>"And there was another one. Weeks ago. I don't know what it was.
But there was a room of people, all sitting round a table. I
couldn't hear what they were saying, but then the room went dark
and there was a lot of screaming, people running, chairs being
knocked over. I don't know what was happening, but it felt as if
something awful was there in the room. The old woman was lifted
into the air and then she was smashed down onto the floor. There
was a terrible smell. I've smelt it again."</p>
<p>Jack recalled the throat-catching stench on the inside of the
lift shaft.</p>
<p>"Smell?"</p>
<p>"Yes, like something rotten," she said, mouth turned down in
distaste. "Like sickness. Just awful, I think."</p>
<p>Jack eased her away from the dreams. They were getting them
nowhere, and Ralph was fidgeting, wondering what this was all
about.</p>
<p>"Now you told me you'd <em>seen</em> something when I first met
you on River Street."</p>
<p>"Yes. I don't know what happened. I looked into the shop window
and everything went hazy. I saw the thing coming out of the dark.
You can't see it properly. It moves too fast and the light doesn't
show it. It came down and hit the woman and stole her baby."</p>
<p>"And that was definitely on the day in River Street?" Jack asked
carefully.</p>
<p>"Yes. It was dreadful."</p>
<p>"That causes me a problem," Jack said. "Because that happened on
the Tuesday afternoon."</p>
<p>Lorna looked at him, puzzled.</p>
<p>"And the abduction of Kelly Campbell didn't take place until the
following day."</p>
<p>"I know that," Lorna said, suddenly quite definite, almost
defiant.</p>
<p>"That's what I've been trying to tell you, but you won't
listen."</p>
<p>She looked straight at Jack. "I don't know if I see the things
<em>before</em> they happen or afterwards."</p>
<p>"And last night, when you phoned?"</p>
<p>"It was happening <em>then</em>. I could feel it. The thing came
down from the dark. It was banging on the roof and then it was
inside and she couldn't see it, but she could sense it, and then
the smell came and it scared her. Then it reached down and took her
by the hair and pulled her up. It had her by the shoulder and there
was blood coming down. The pain was terrible. She couldn't bear
it." The girl's voice got higher and louder as she went on at
speed.</p>
<p>"How do you know she couldn't bear it?"</p>
<p>"Because when I see it, I'm in two places at once. I can see it
happening, but I can see it from <em>inside</em> too. When it was
happening to the girl. It was happening to <em>me</em>."</p>
<p>She shrugged her shoulder quickly, letting the edge of her coat
slide off. Underneath she was wearing a woollen sweater with a neat
turtle neck. She pulled it down to the left, exposing a pale
shoulder.</p>
<p>"Jesus," Ralph mouthed.</p>
<p>There was no mistaking the bruises on the back and front. It
looked as if the girl had been grabbed violently and squeezed
brutally.</p>
<p>"Who did that to you?" Ralph asked.</p>
<p>"It's not a who. It's something I don't know. But if it doesn't
stop, I think it's going to kill me." When she said that, Lorna
looked once again straight into Jack's eyes. There was no mistaking
that what she was saying, as far as she was concerned, was the real
truth.</p>
<p>It took the two policemen another hour to get the rest of the
story. On each of the nights in question, Lorna had not been alone.
She had a small diary in her bag which she brought out and referred
to. Twice she'd been out with a friend from the library. Jack asked
her where she'd been the night before and she told them she'd been
baby-sitting for her cousin Gemma. He didn't bother taking notes.
It was all on tape. He's check out her alibis as a matter of course
but something told him they'd stand up.</p>
<p>Ralph arranged a car to take the girl home and when she'd gone,
both men went back to the operations room.</p>
<p>"We should have brought her in here," Ralph said. "If she's
telling the truth, she should be running this show. We could do
with a psychic on this one."</p>
<p>Andy Toye was still in the flat in Cairn House when Jack got
there. He'd pulled up a chair and was hunched over the round table
which was still scarred and still scabbed with dried blood. In
front of him was a large book with dull leather bindings. Beside it
was the little notebook he'd used at the station.</p>
<p>He looked up when Jack came in and pointed to a seat, without
saying a word. Jack sat beside him.</p>
<p>"This is the Goetia. Crowley's publication," he said.
"Fascinating stuff."</p>
<p>"I'll take your word for it. That was lying on the floor beside
the kerb. Some of the pages were torn out.."</p>
<p>"Yes. I saw them." Andy shoved his glasses up on top of his head
and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.</p>
<p>"I don't think they were trying to raise ghosts," he said. "The
<em>Goetia</em> is quite well known. I've spent the last hour
trying to find a match for the names on the wall." He looked up and
pointed with his pen. The blood had dried to a brown ochre, the
letters smeared on the old plaster.</p>
<p>"I was told they could have two meanings."</p>
<p>"Yes," Andy said. "Heteros from the Greek. It means an other, or
the other. And Etheros suggests ethereal, or intangible. Or it
could mean something else. I only noticed it a moment ago when I
was looking at my notes. It could simply be the initials of the
people who've been involved."</p>
<p>He went down the list, reading them off. "Herkik. Simpson.
Tomlin. Robinson. Eastwood. If that's the case, there are two
missing."</p>
<p>"We're looking for somebody called O'Day. He was seen in the
vicinity on the night."</p>
<p>Andy grinned. "Then all you need is someone whose name begins
with an <em>E</em>."</p>
<p>"You reckon?"</p>
<p>The professor shrugged. "I don't know. It's only an idea, and it
could be completely wrong. On the other hand, anything could be
possible. I really don't know what was happening here. From the
tarot cards and the ouija board, it could simply have been a
fortune-telling session, but it may be that they went beyond that.
The <em>Goetia</em> gives detailed instructions on how to raise
spirits. It could have been some half-baked idea like that, and it
could have gone wrong."</p>
<p>"Like how?"</p>
<p>"Like mass hysteria. Psychosis. Something like that."</p>
<p>"And the spirit angle?"</p>
<p>"Crowley believed it. Plenty of others have believed it too. But
there's no real up-to-date documentation."</p>
<p>"And what do you think?"</p>
<p>"In this world, anything's possible."</p>
<p>Jack shook his head. " I'd rather it was ghosts than some
human."</p>
<p>"Easier to catch a human," Andy ventured. He snapped the book
shut, and rose from the table.</p>
<p>"Where next?"</p>
<p>"There's a girl I'd like you to meet."</p>
<p>Lorna Breck showed the bruises. She was sitting in the small
front room of her house on Clydeshore Avenue. The road had been
slick with ice on the way and Andy had held, white-knuckled, to the
dashboard as the car slithered and waltzed down the hill.</p>
<p>"It happened before," she said in her soft voice. "When I saw
the boy. They faded next day, but I remembered the pain."</p>
<p>"And this happens when you're asleep?" Andy was examining the
dull marks on the girl's skin.</p>
<p>"Sometimes. But also during the day. I can't tell whether it's
before or after."</p>
<p>"Has this ever happened before?:"</p>
<p>She shook her head. "Never. I used to read tea-leaves, but just
for fun. Sometimes I would get a feeling about somebody. Just a
tingly sensation. But then, on the night of the fire, I could
<em>see</em> it happen. It was terrible."</p>
<p>She pulled her sweater back over her bare shoulder. To Jack, she
looked even younger than she had when he'd met her at the chemist's
shop. It had come as a surprise when she'd told him she was twenty
seven years old.</p>
<p>"I've seen pictures of <em>stigmata</em> before," Andy said.
"It's believed to happen in cases of trauma, mind over matter, if
you like. The power of the mind is sufficiently strong to create
the haematoma marks on the skin."</p>
<p>"But I don't want any of this," the girl said, eyes wide and
suddenly glistening. "I just want it to stop."</p>
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