The occupants of the car had been silent for a short while. Each of the passengers absorbing the information they’d been told.
It was Mike who was the first to speak. “You think Dennis and John Lomond are Karl and Bruno? But why would they have hurt Autumn? The children were like brothers and sisters back then?”
Rhodri kept his tone soft. “It seems as if Dennis and John had discovered the identity of the scientist who exposed their mother, and Betsy, to the mercury when they worked for that weapons lab in the GDR. Do you recall a German couple who were found dead in a Glasgow hotel a few days before Autumn died?”
He nodded. “Yes, it was all over the news. But I tried to shield Betsy from the coverage. These depressing events have always upset her.”
Dermot spoke up. “We discovered the man who died at the hotel in Glasgow, whose name was Klaus Bauer, had worked on a top-secret government project in east Berlin before the wall came down. He went on to have a well-regarded career as a biochemist in Frankfurt. I suspect Denny Lomond hired an investigator who found out much the same as us. He would have looked at the dates, perhaps matching the details with what his mother told him when she was still alive and decided Bauer was the culprit.”
“The German man in the hotel was the scientist who poisoned Betsy?”
“I suspect so. We may even have a way of proving it. But I think Denny was fairly certain he was and was willing to act without any further proof.” Dermot caught Mike’s eye. “What exactly happened to Gretchen? Why would her sons be so set on revenge?”
Mike clasped his hands tightly in his lap. “When we were at Balloch House, she seemed to respond well to the treatment at first. I found her a very intelligent woman who had a natural gift for languages. She had her sons with her, which seemed to make her happier and more grounded than the other patients. But as time went on, her nervous symptoms worsened. Her hands trembled badly, and she hardly slept. Gretchen and the boys stayed at Balloch for longer than we did. I suppose that’s why I never knew what new identities they were given. We weren’t supposed to mix together on the outside, you see?”
“It was a wrench to part from them when we finally left. But Betsy and I bought a house in Inverness and lived there until Autumn started school, we quickly adapted to a normal life. Our daughter was about ten years old when we moved down to Glasgow. I got a job lecturing at the university. But I kept in touch with Jimmy. We spoke on the phone once a year. It was him who told me Gretchen was dead. Although she wasn’t called that by then. It was about fifteen years ago. She’d stepped in front of a high-speed train. I never told Betsy, she wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The damage to Gretchen’s nerves from the mercury poisoning must have been too severe. We weren’t able to save them all.”
Rhodri turned to face his friend. “Why have you never told me all this, Mike? Especially when Autumn died. It could have helped with the investigation. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, none of the group you coached can possibly now be considered spies. The Cold War is long gone. It’s a piece of History.”
Mike leant forward, his tone frantic. “The Cold War is over here in Britain, certainly. But as far as the Russian secret services are concerned, you are bound for life. Look what happened to the Skripals in Salisbury? Betsy and I signed a secrecy document for the KGB. We vowed never to speak a word about where Betsy had come from. I kept quiet for my wife’s sake. If the FSB find out we’ve given information to the British authorities, we could both be killed!”
Dermot wondered if this was true, or just the paranoia of two people thoroughly brainwashed by Soviet agents thirty years ago.
“The only reason I told you now is because Betsy is in danger.” Mike hung his head, cradling it in his hands. “I can only hope word doesn’t get back to Moscow that I’ve talked. Ever since Autumn died, Betsy has been jabbering increasingly about the past. I’ve been terrified she’d let something slip. I made Dr Acharya sedate her because I needed her to stop her ranting and raving.”
Rhodri turned back towards the road. He was beginning to question his friend’s grip on reality.
“Right, we’ve reached the outskirts of Inverness. I’m relying on you now, Mike, to tell me where to go.”
Mike raised his head, making an obvious effort to pull himself together. “You’ll need to take the A96 towards Nairn, then make a right turn onto the road to Culloden.”
Rhodri regarded the stunning scenery. He thought he could make out the mighty Cairngorm mountain range in the distance. But the light was rapidly fading, meaning he couldn’t be sure.
Once they were off the dual carriageway, Mike’s directions took them through a twisting sequence of country roads. Finally, Dermot swung the car onto a private lane which piloted them straight into a forest, dense with tall trees. The light was almost completely extinguished by the thick canopy of leaves towering overhead. Dermot flicked his lights to main beam which cut almost brutally through the darkness.
Mike visibly shuddered. “This is it.”
They emerged onto a sweeping frontage which was banked by immaculate, emerald green lawns. The house itself was made of a silvery granite, the windows shiny and well maintained.
Mike looked at the lettering on a sign which was positioned at the roadside. “Well I never. It’s now a hotel. I didn’t know the old place could be made to look so good.”
Dermot felt a tightness in his chest. His uneasiness was growing. The sign he’d just read didn’t augur well for poor Betsy. The hotel was called, The Highlander. The smaller script below informed him it was a part of The Lomond Group.
There were few spaces free in the car-park at the rear of the building. The men scoured the lines of vehicles for the Carlisles’ Hyundai. There it was. Parked under one of the huge trees.
Mike released the car door before Muir had the chance to secure the hand break, running over to the little hatchback with an agility that belied his age. He immediately checked the interior and boot. “Her bags have been taken out. She must have gone inside.”
Dermot caught up, resting his hand on the man’s arm. “We need to take this slowly, Mike. I think we should wait for back-up before we go any further.”
He creased his face in disbelief. “But it’s been hours already since Betsy took off. There’s no more time to lose!”
Rhodri spoke to his friend in a level, reasonable tone. “This house is now one of Denny Lomond’s hotels. DCI Bevan told us earlier that the man can’t be traced, he’s no longer in London. Do you know what this might mean?”
Mike gasped. “He might be in there with Betsy! The man who was involved in Autumn’s death!”
Dermot intervened. “We cannot be certain of that. I think we need to remain calm.”
As they were having this discussion, Mike abruptly turned his face towards the house. He stared up at a window in the top floor, under the jutting eaves of the roof. “That’s her! She’s at the window!” He began waving wildly. “I’m coming, my darling. Wait there!”
Before Dermot could do anything, Mike had made a dash for a pair of French doors at the back of the hotel. He and Rhodri set off on his heels.
They entered a ground floor room which had the appearance of a residents’ lounge. A large fireplace was flanked by cherry wood bookcases and framed prints of horses.
Mike had already navigated the chintzy furniture and emerged into the hotel’s lobby. A woman in a tartan jacket and thick make-up stepped out from behind a solid oak desk.
“Can I help you, Sir? Do you want to check in?”
“I’m looking for my wife. She arrived a few hours ago. Her name is Betsy Carlisle.”
The woman calmly returned to her computer screen. She tapped away on a keypad for far longer than was necessary.
Mike was looking around him frantically. Dermot and Rhodri stood by his side.
She shook her static hair and gave them a look of exaggerated mock sympathy. “I’m terribly sorry, Sir. Your wife has not checked in today. Perhaps she’s
having a coffee in the Culloden Bar, just along the corridor, there? I expect she was waiting for you to arrive first.”
Mike released a grunt of exasperation. “I just saw her upstairs, through the window!”
Before the woman could respond, Mike was bounding up the sweeping staircase.
“You can’t go up there, Sir! Not without having a room booked!”
Dermot brought out his warrant card, which he flashed at the receptionist by way of explanation before following the man up the stairs.
The DI took them two at a time, with Rhodri trailing behind. “Don’t lose him,” the professor puffed. “He’s the only one who knows where he’s going.”
Mike was quicker on his feet that the others would have predicted. He kept spiralling upwards until the staircase halted at a landing with a balcony. Mike only hesitated for a couple of seconds before turning left, wrenching open a fire-door and disappearing beyond.
Dermot was close enough behind to see where the man was heading. The DI could tell this wasn’t a residential part of the hotel. The corridor beyond the fire-door was narrow and cheaply carpeted. The rooms weren’t furnished with the key insert lock mechanisms you’d expect in an establishment of this calibre.
Mike was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn,” Dermot muttered under his breath. He stalked the corridor quietly, listening for any sound. Finally, when he was about half way along, he heard a deep voice resonating behind one of the doors. He then discerned a high-pitched yelp, which he assumed must be Betsy.
He knew the protocol was to await the back-up team which was currently heading towards their location from Inverness, but Dermot also knew Mike and Betsy were in danger. He could hear an unfamiliar man’s voice rumbling within the room.
The Carlisles were most definitely not alone.
Chapter 39
Mike burst into the room, closing the door behind him. Betsy was seated on the edge of a single bed which was made up with plain, white cotton sheets. She exclaimed at his sudden arrival. Her bags were placed neatly under the small window in the eaves.
“Betsy, thank goodness. Are you okay?”
She opened her mouth to reply. Before she could utter a word, a squat, bald man stepped out of the en-suite bathroom.
“Ah, Mike. I thought you might turn up sooner or later.” Denny Lomond glanced over the shoulder of their visitor. “Are you alone?”
Instinct told Mike to avoid informing this man of Dermot and Rhodri’s presence in the building. “Of course I am. I’ve come to take my wife home. I’d hardly let the police know about this place.”
Denny smiled. “I don’t think Betsy wants to leave just yet, do you? She was perfectly happy to come and join me here when I called her. Happy even.”
Mike gave his wife a puzzled look. “Betsy?”
“Well, you wouldn’t agree to bring me back here, even when I begged you to.” She gazed up at Lomond, a dreamy expression on her face. “Don’t you recognise him? It’s Karl. Gretchen’s boy.”
Mike felt his blood run cold. “Yes, I do recognise him.”
“What’s the matter, Mike? I thought you’d enjoy a nice reunion? This is the room that Betsy had when she was a patient here, do you remember that? The views out over the forest are stunning. Mum, Bruno and I were just two rooms down. It was rather cosy, wasn’t it?”
“Where is your mum now?” Betsy asked innocently. “I’d love to see her again.” Her eyes misted over with tears.
Denny leant down and took her hands. “She passed away, I’m afraid. A long time back now.”
The tears escaped, sliding down Betsy’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t. It was all over the news. Jimmy knew about it. He came to pay his respects.” Denny flashed Mike an accusing look. “You could have come to the funeral if someone had told you.”
Mike felt the anger surge up inside him, settling in his throat like a knot. “What did you do to Autumn?”
Betsy looked across at her husband, confusion clouding her features. “What are you talking about?”
He reached out and grabbed Denny by the arm, dragging him to his feet. “He knows! What did you and your thug of a brother do to our little girl?”
Denny shook him off. “You shouldn’t have done that, old man. I’m sorry about Autumn. I thought she’d want to help us, but she didn’t appreciate our methods.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. “She would never have countenanced murder.”
“No, I misjudged her on that score. I’d followed her career for years. I wasn’t ever likely to forget that name, and those flaming red locks. She’d been a sister to Bruno and I. That’s why I thought she’d help.”
“You wanted revenge against Klaus Bauer.”
Realisation was beginning to dawn on Betsy. “Professor Bauer. We worked for him in Berlin.”
Denny turned towards her. “And he poisoned you in the process. You and all the others, including my mother.” He scratched irritably at the side of his face, Mike noticed he’d drawn blood. “You never suffered like she did. Mum used to cry out at night, terrified by the dreams and hallucinations. We had to hold her until she eventually went back to sleep. It was like Bauer had sentenced her to a living torture. No wonder she was so desperate to end the torment that she allowed herself to be shredded to pieces on a train track.” He looked at Mike with feverish, red-rimmed eyes. “There was barely enough left of her for Bruno and me to bury, did you know that?”
“I tried to help Gretchen. We all did. Autumn was innocent, a victim just like you, why hurt her, why?”
Denny walked over to the small window, gazing out over the grounds, now blanketed by darkness, a starless night. “I didn’t want to. I sought Autumn out over a year ago. We met a few times at her cottage in East Sussex, we drank at the pub together. I wasn’t sure if she would remember us, but she did, just about. I spent hours persuading her we needed to bring Bauer to justice. It had taken me two years of private detective work to track him down. Now I had a plan. But I needed Autumn to get close to the family, to gain their trust, so I could inflict the same horror on them that they’d inflicted on us. I wanted to infect their whole family with mercury, even the grandchildren. But I needed to gain access to their home, to put it in the water system perhaps. I was going to get Autumn to crew the flights to Frankfurt, infiltrate their lives over several months. Whatever it took.”
Mike shook his head. “Autumn wouldn’t have gone along with it. We brought her up to be kind, law-abiding.”
“That was the problem.” He sighed heavily. “Autumn came to work with me at Lomond Airlines after I told her the full story of how Klaus Bauer’s negligence had ruined the lives of both our mothers. When she knew, she was determined to help me bring Bauer to justice. But Autumn wanted it to be legal. She wanted us to find evidence to bring him to trial – back in his native Germany she hoped.”
“You had other plans.”
Betsy was listening to these words in growing horror. “What are you saying, Karl?”
“If my wife Kelly was still alive and I still had something to live for, I might have gone along with Autumn’s plan. To be honest, I was tempted for a while. We spent a lot of time together and I remembered how close we were back here. How we only had each other. But Bruno wasn’t happy with how things were going. It was him who’d tracked Autumn down for me. He’d been watching her for years, following her, keeping tabs on her. He thought he was doing me a favour. In reality, I think he was obsessed.”
Betsy placed her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear it!”
“Bruno got tired of waiting. He persuaded me it was time to take action. We’d been talking about it for too long. He thought Bauer might cark it before we ever got our revenge. So, we came up with the idea of the online competition. It was remarkably easy to set up. Within a couple of weeks, the Bauers were safely installed in one of my own hotels.”
“In Glasgow?”
�
�That’s right. At least one of us needed to have an alibi, so I sent Bruno. He’d got hold of a bottle of mercury on the dark net, had it sent direct to the Berkley. There’s no way he would’ve got that through security and onto a plane.” Denny laughed.
“What the hell was he planning to do with it? Hasn’t that stuff done enough damage?” Mike had sidled across the room to sit on the bed beside his wife, taking her hand.
“Bruno got a key to their room from the manager, who does anything I ask him to. My brother sat on the end of their bed until the sound of his breathing must have woken them up. He wanted to savour every moment. They were terrified. You’ll be gratified to know that Bruno made them suffer. He told them exactly what Klaus’s negligence and arrogance had resulted in. Then he got out the vial. He told them he was going to pour it down their throats, then he was going to track down every single member of their family and do the same to them. I’m sure he had every intention of doing just that, but suddenly Klaus started gasping and clutching at his chest. He died in minutes. His wife was curled up in a ball on the bed, whimpering. Bruno left her there. He warned her not to move until morning or he’d come back in and kill her, too. It seems the shock stopped her heart some time later, because by morning, she was dead, alongside her husband. Fortunate, really. Bruno never even had to touch them.”
Betsy was dry retching. “How did that help anyone?”
Denny chuckled. “That’s exactly what your daughter said, when she found out. She read about the couple’s death on the news. She knew I was somehow behind it. We argued about it at work. Autumn said she was going to the police. Well, we couldn’t have that, could we?”
Mike leapt up and grabbed for him. “You didn’t have to kill her, you bastard!”
Denny shoved him to the ground. “Actually, Mike. I’m inclined to agree. I was preparing to talk Autumn around. It wasn’t like we’d strangled the old pair with our bare hands. It would have been tough for the police to make a cast-iron case against us. But Bruno took the initiative onto himself. He’d already been casing out her flat. He knew a way in through the old dear’s place on the floor below. She always left her kitchen window open. The silly bint had Autumn’s key in a pot by the front door. In fact, he’d used it to slip in there before. He liked to watch her sleeping.”
The Eye in the Dark Page 17
