The drug can make her sluggish in the mornings, but today she appeared fresh and vital. She’d taken a great deal of care over her outfit: a turquoise silk blouse open at the neck that perfectly offset the golden mantle of her hair, and loose-fitting black trousers. ‘That’s not a lot to go on, Glen,’ she said dubiously. ‘As far as Willie Dewar is concerned, anywhere a mile from the Horseshoe Bar is the back of beyond.’
‘He said it wasn’t in Strathclyde,’ I pointed out. ‘That rules out about half the murders and unexplained deaths in Scotland. Why don’t you go back another month and see what you come up with? It won’t be something that made the headlines. Look for the unusual and the unexplained, in out-of-the-way places.’
CHAPTER 19
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
The weight of a human heart averages between eight and ten ounces, depending whether you’re male or female. I know that because I looked it up on the internet. Put in a search for the word ‘heart’ and you will get forty million hits or thereabouts. Ancient civilisations believed that the heart dictated all human emotions. More important, the Aztecs sacrificed to their gods by cutting the still beating heart from the unfortunates they took prisoner.
I spent one of the most nauseating hours of my life studying the detail of how they did it and when my stomach settled I called Dewar back.
‘Any chance of you getting a sneaky look at the autopsy report?’
‘Maybe.’ The word emerged like a drawn-out groan of pain and I knew Dewar was telling me he’d have to call in a few of his precious markers to make it happen. ‘You know something I don’t?’
‘Maybe.’
He snorted and I hoped it was laughter. ‘It could make a difference,’ I pressed.
A low rumble let me know he was thinking it over.
‘Give me a couple of days,’ he said, and hung up.
What I needed to know was whether Shoaz Ahmad was alive or dead when his killer removed his heart. If he was alive, it made the sacrifice scenario more likely. Worse, it would make it almost certain that more than one killer was involved. The main thing I learned from the Aztecs was that it takes more than one person to tear the beating heart from a human being. But human sacrifice isn’t limited to the Americas.
Aelish’s voice beckoned and when I went through to her study I found her leaning forward with one elbow on her desk with her face so close to the screen that her features reflected the phosphorescent glow. She was frowning and chewing her bottom lip, the way she always does when she’s puzzled.
‘What do you think?’ She pointed to a single paragraph article on the screen. It was from one of those community websites every village and hamlet has these days; the ones where the minister’s sermon makes the headlines and ‘Best in Show’ is his prize bullock.
I looked over her shoulder. The headline said ‘Police Probe’, which was anodyne enough to explain why it hadn’t attracted the attention of the mainstream media. The story turned out to be anodyne, too. ‘Wigtownshire police are investigating the discovery of a body at Threave Castle’ – our eyes met as the significance of the location dawned – ‘on Friday. Anyone who has any information should telephone . . .’ It gave a number that made me none the wiser and was dated about two months earlier. Threave Castle? Roxburgh Castle? It couldn’t be a coincidence.
‘Where’s Threave Castle?’ Aelish asked.
‘I’m not certain,’ I grinned. ‘But I’d put money on it being in the back of beyond.’
By now Aelish had pulled up a route map on her computer. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘The back of beyond and then some.’ I saw the yellow line snaking diagonally away from Melrose towards the south-west, until it crossed the M74 motorway, and carried on, and on, into the wild lands of Galloway. It came to a halt near a place called Castle Douglas. Threave wasn’t even big enough to justify its own dot on the map.
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
I left early the next morning under a dense, low sky full of foreboding and menace, ignoring the call of the Capri and opting for the Range Rover. Sometimes when I’m away from home one of our friends will come and collect Aelish and take her out in the big car, but this time she insisted I take it. When I reached the turn-off for Threave two hours later I was glad she had. I’d been confused by the signs for Threave Gardens, which turned out to be the grounds of a big mansion house by a lake. I was to discover that Threave Castle had its own water feature, but it wasn’t quite so scenic.
The chassis of the Range Rover juddered as I drove along the heavily rutted dirt road through a mixture of half-wild woodland and rough pasture. It carried on for about a mile and a quarter before reaching what appeared to be a working farm. Disappointingly, there was no sign of a castle or ruins of any kind and I wondered if I’d come to the wrong place. A wooden notice directed me towards a car park, and as I turned into it I noticed one of the buildings had been turned into some kind of exhibition room. It was closed, but a sign invited people in for a taste of the castle’s history, so there was one around here somewhere. I looked for a place to pay, but only found a toilet block, which came in handy. By now, a steady drizzle – the soaking kind – was falling and I zipped my jacket up to my neck and took a look around.
A sturdy gate opened onto an ash track about five feet wide that wound between wire fences across the fields to the north. It didn’t seem to lead anywhere, but neither did anything else. I began the damp trudge along it. The gate was the first of seven, which seemed excessive, and I was in a kind of labyrinth.
The track ended beside what looked like a shallow lake, but turned out to be a wide, sluggish river that reminded me of the Norfolk Broads. In the distance, beyond the river, stood the castle; I felt that shiver again and for some reason I heard the words of Macbeth’s witches in my head. I swear I’ve never seen a more unwelcoming place, and I’ve seen plenty. The bleak, wind-scoured keep perched on a flat, reed-lined island on the eastern edge of what would once have been a plain of impenetrable wetlands. Whoever had sited his castle here knew exactly what he was doing. Water on four sides and a clear field of fire for miles. A boat, a twelve-footer with an outboard, obviously served as a ferry. Unfortunately, it was on the wrong side.
I’d been so fascinated by the castle I hadn’t noticed the sign offering passage across and access to the castle for a princely £4.50. To the right of the sign hung a bronze bell that presumably summoned the boat. The only way to find out was to ring it. A couple of minutes later a middle-aged, middle-sized man dressed in dark trousers and matching corporate fleece appeared on the far bank. He clambered into the boat and manoeuvred it expertly out of its mooring and across the fifty feet that separated us. When he reached the snort jetty he used the engine’s power to keep his craft steady against it as I climbed in. His name tag said he was called Craig and he worked for Historic Scotland. We said hello, and without another word he turned the boat to make the return journey.
We steered between a couple of red-and-white poles that presumably identified the deep water channel between the jetty and the island, and beyond the downstream one I spotted a treacherous-looking tree root that showed why they were needed. The river turned out to be the Dee – but not the famous one – and we were about a mile and a half from the sea.
‘We don’t get many visitors when the weather’s like this,’ Craig explained, ignoring the rain and keeping his eyes on the river. It wasn’t much of a boat trip, but he took his job seriously, taking his time and pointing out the odd, nondescript brown bird that I would never have spotted. ‘Reed warblers. Summer visitors. Like you.’
‘Not much of a summer,’ I said, only half-joking. Global warming is fine by me, but the key word is warming. I’ve been warmer in November. Craig sounded as if he’d be a valuable source of information so I got straight to the point. ‘They tell me a body was found here a couple of months ago.’
He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Aye.’
‘Maybe you could show me where it was found?’
&nb
sp; ‘Aye, maybe I could at that.’
Sensing Craig was a man of few words, I kept my other questions to myself for now. He throttled back on the outboard and let the boat glide gently into the mooring, then steadied it for me as I climbed out. ‘Just head on up to the hut over there.’ He pointed to a path through the reeds. ‘Get yourself a ticket from Joe and take a look around. I’ll find you when I’ve finished my tea.’
Joe turned out to be a plump guy with an outrageous comb-over who took my money without a word and handed me a ticket. The hut was little bigger than a garden shed and had a counter stacked with guidebooks. Behind it, Joe barely had room to turn round, and I wondered how he and Craig passed the long empty hours in their little shelter. The conversations must have been riveting.
I took my first close look at Threave Castle.
Even from a hundred yards it had an angry, forbidding quality, as if the stern, unbending will of its master still pervaded its walls. How did I know he was stern and unbending? Because this was a fortress built by a man who had enemies – and powerful enemies at that. When he had placed it in this wild, hostile environment, where the cries of gull and curlew reminded you of the calls of lost souls, he was telling those enemies to come and get him if they dared. The square tower rose from the grassy sward like a single blackened tooth in the mouth of a pantomime crone. Fifty feet of rain-slick stone the colour of damp ashes. I couldn’t see any windows, but a symmetrical pattern of blockholes encircled the crown that might have been the settings for some kind of fighting platform. At thirty paces across it was no Tower of London or Edinburgh Castle, but it held a fearsome menace that neither could match. The remains of a curtain wall a dozen feet high surrounded the base, with a ruined tower at one corner, and the remains of a second at another. As I circled the outside of the castle, I could see that the fourth flank faced directly onto the Dee on the far side of the island from where I’d landed. An indent in the grass showed that the river had once lapped right up to the walls.
I looked towards the hut, hoping to see Craig, but he was nowhere in sight. There were questions I needed to ask. Something told me this was an island of the dead, but where had its latest victim been found? The sparse paragraph on the community website had provided no clue. Given the inaccessibility of the place, the most likely location was in the river, or on the bank, which meant I was wasting my time. It was pointless speculating, so I wandered to the front of the keep where a modern wooden stairway gave access to the entrance, a hospitable fifteen feet above ground level. On the way, I was drawn to the interior of the round tower. It looked as if it originally had at least three levels, and at each of them was what I first thought was an arrow slit in the shape of an elongated cross. It was only when I studied it with an old soldier’s eyes that I realised I was wrong. I didn’t know what age Threave was, but the tower had been built at a time when the old ways were changing. The ‘arrow slit’ was actually designed for some kind of primitive medieval artillery piece and the cross configuration would have given it a perfect field of fire to sweep the open ground towards the river crossing. I pulled myself up to get a better view and a bolt of pain shot through my right hand. When I studied it, blood welled gently from a small cut in the palm. More warily, I reached up and ran my hand over the lip of the slit feeling for whatever it was that had cut me. At first I couldn’t find it. Then my fingers closed on something small and irregularly shaped. Not glass. I took it down and studied it curiously. It was a soldier. A toy soldier.
CHAPTER 20
The little figure stood just over an inch tall, with a flat, oval base that still retained a residue of Chateau Savage A positive on the sharp-edged metal. A voice in my head whispered ‘You’ve never seen the inside of a shop’. The weight of it said lead, or some compound that contained lead, and the rough finish said amateur, but the stance was classic. The little warrior stood with his legs apart, his left arm slightly forward at waist level and with his right arm raised to bring the curved sword he clutched in his fist down upon some invisible enemy. He was wearing white trousers, a red jacket and some sort of white helmet. I looked at him again, wondering, before I slipped him in my jacket pocket and continued my exploration.
Threave Castle turned out to be even more forbidding from the inside than out and when I stepped through the doorway I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. The walls were massively thick, maybe five or six feet, and the entrance opened onto a cavernous, windowless space which had once been split by a wooden floor at the level where I stood. Below me, twenty feet to my right, appeared to be an enormous pile of rubble. A stone walkway with a metal safety rail led around the wall above the rubble to a stairway, which in turn disappeared into a darkened entrance in the far corner. I followed the walkway, taking it slowly and allowing my eyesight to adjust to the gloom. Not that there was much to see, just grey stonework rising to form a huge vaulted ceiling that an architect would no doubt have found fascinating but which did nothing for me. When I reached the section above the rubble I glanced downwards . . . and froze.
The rubble wasn’t rubble. It was a beehive-shaped construction of haphazardly mortared stone, as if whoever had built it had taken no pride in what he was doing, or hadn’t been given the time to do the job properly. At the top of the hive, just below the level where I stood, a round hole allowed just enough light into the interior for me to make out the huddled human figure lying on the dirt floor, and the dull gleam of sightless eyes staring back at me. For a moment my entire nervous system shut down. I’d come here in search of a dead man. Now one was lying in front of my eyes. Christ, I was shaking. It was impossible to see how he’d died, but one thing was certain: his killer could still be on the island. Hell, he was probably still in the castle. Warily, I checked out the entrance in the wall. A spiral stairway disappeared upwards into the pitch black. I listened for a moment. No sound except the silken whistle of the wind through a thousand cracks and crevices. Think. What if he isn’t dead? What if he’s lying down there dying by degrees? I risked another look. He hadn’t moved. I could just make out the shadow of a beard against the deathly grey of his face. Raise the alarm? But that would take time and maybe I didn’t have any. There was only one answer. I had to go down into that stinking, claustrophobic black hole and do what I could for him. I reached for the railing.
‘That’ll be the castle jail then.’ Craig would never know how close he came to death. I was a millisecond from launching a straight-fingered jab that would have crushed his larynx and drowned him in his own blood.
‘You’re looking a wee bit pale, but Tam has that effect on folk.’ He came to stand beside me, peering down into the pit below. ‘We’ve had him for years but he’s always good for a laugh. Getting a wee bit ragged at the edges these days, though.’
My mind still whirling, I followed his gaze, looking harder at my corpse. He was lifeless, that’s for sure. Pale, waxen features and empty, staring eyes, with lank, shoulder-length hair and the full beard I’d spotted earlier. What I hadn’t recognised was the medieval prisoner’s sack-cloth and the fact that at one time or another some rodent had made a meal of his nose. The ‘dead’ man was a lifelike dummy, artfully positioned to add shock value to a place that had plenty of it already.
‘They say the Red Douglas threw his enemies down there and just left them to rot,’ Craig added cheerfully. ‘It was a toss up whether you died of thirst or starvation. They found the wee lass down there.’ At first I didn’t register the words. For some reason I’d always assumed the victim would be a male. I peered into the dark void trying to imagine a second set of waxen features beside Tam’s. ‘Horrible it was.’
‘It must have been.’ I decided to let him tell the story in his own time.
‘We didn’t know she was there till she started glowing in the dark, you see.’
I stared at him.
‘Aye. Whoever put her in the jail stuck her away in thon corner. The police reckoned she must have been there for months. Mummif
ied, they said.’
‘And you didn’t notice?’
He shrugged apologetically. ‘There might’ve been a bit of a smell, but there often is down here. They thought she must’ve fallen in, see.’ He leaned over the parapet as if he was trying to get a better view of Tam. ‘Overbalanced. I told them it couldn’t have happened that way, but it was another three weeks before they came back asking all their questions and talking about foul play.’
‘That much excitement and it didn’t even make the news?’
He laughed. ‘Not much makes the news down here. Is that what you are, a reporter?’
‘Not me,’ I said evenly. ‘But I’m looking for someone who’s gone missing. A girl. I thought . . . maybe . . . Did the police say how she died? It’s a strange place to murder someone.’
‘They asked plenty of questions, but they never told us anything. Treated every one of us as if we were suspects.’ He grimaced as if he found the memory physically painful.
‘And they never identified her? I’ll have to talk to the cops then.’ I took out my wallet and showed him the picture of Aelish I always carry. ‘Ever see her?’
He shook his head again. ‘Not around here, but I wouldn’t mind if I did. She’s not our lass, though. That was one thing the police did say. She was dark. Dark-skinned, dark-haired. Dark. Not blonde.’
Dark-haired and dark-skinned. But for the timing, it could have been Gurya Ali’s broken body in that bleak cell where Tam lay, undisturbed by the living or the dead. I was more certain than ever that she had been taken by the same person who had killed Shoaz Ahmad and who, all my instincts told me, had also killed this girl. But if Threave Castle had a message for me I was too deaf to hear it. We were surrounded by a sort of darkness, but not the darkness of the night. It was as though the very stones were protecting something, or someone. I looked around. ‘If only these walls could talk.’
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