A Death in the Loch (7 page)

Time stretched into eternity. I knew each step took me closer to my doom. Another twig snapped behind me and I gave a little involuntary cry. I darted behind a tree and attempted to hide. The ridiculousness was not lost on me. Tree trunks are round and I had no idea on which side my enemy waited. I pressed my back against the tree and began to slowly skirt its circumference. Fields, scattered forest and scrubby hills met my eyes. A patch of low-lying foliage to my far left moved slightly. I held my breath. A rabbit, I told myself, maybe two. There was no dangerous wildlife here. Only humans, the most dangerous creatures of all. As I watched some leaves parted and I caught sight of an ugly misshapen claw bigger than my hand.

However good my imagination it could not have conjured that. I gave a full-throated scream and bolted. Heavy footsteps thudded behind me. I did not spare the time to look back. I ran on and on. My only hope was to reach the village. My heart thudded in my chest and perspiration ran in rivulets down my back. My feet thudded against the solid compacted earth until the soles were red and sore, but I did not stop. I fled for my life. The pins from my hair scattered and I didn’t stop to pick them up. Sobs welled up in my chest. I thought of Rory. I thought of Bertram. I cursed Fitzroy. I arrived in the village looking like a madwoman.

A common well signified the beginning of the village. A few young women were loitering beside it chattering. As one they fell silent.

‘A m-m-monster,’ I stammered. ‘A creature in the forest that has no right to be. An abomination.’

‘I’ve heard Old Wifie Campbell called many things, but that’s a new one on me,’ laughed one young woman with a scarlet scarf covering her hair.

I sank down on the well steps. ‘I’m serious,’ I panted, ‘there is something out there.’

The three girls regarded me with a mixture of amusement and pity. ‘You be from the Lodge? One of them Londoners?’ asked another. She had the dark rich red hair natural to the Scotch and violet eyes. Anywhere else she would have been accounted a beauty.

‘From the Lodge, yes,’ I managed to say. I was still catching my breath.

‘That’ll be it then,’ said the third girl, who seemed to be their leader despite, or perhaps because of, the fine collection of moles she sported on her chin. ‘Easy for them that doesn’t know the countryside to get spooked.’

‘I was brought up in the country,’ I said. I fished around in my hair for remaining pins. I had an inkling of how I must look.

‘So who are you then?’ asked scarlet scarf not unkindly.

‘I’m a –’ I stumbled, what was I? ‘A maid from the Lodge brought up for the party.’

‘Aye, right,’ jumped in the red-headed girl. ‘One of them pinching jobs from the likes of us.’

‘No,’ I said weakly, though I knew they had every right to feel that way.

‘Come on, girls,’ said Moles, ‘we’ve got work to do. Unlike some.’ And they left me sitting there shaking on the well steps.

What I had taken as a pile of discarded clothing, shuffled up to me. ‘I seen it too,’ it hissed in a whisper redolent of rotting teeth and bad meat. ‘It’s a creature from hell. It’s come to take the disbelievers away. Like the priest said.’ Although the words were well-formed, the mouth that spoke them was slack on one side and spit foamed and ran down his chin. His head (I was fairly certain it was a man) was bald except for a strange translucent fuzz that stood out in the sunlight like a halo.

‘I need to find the village shop,’ I said.

‘Won’t do no good now the hell gates have opened,’ said my new friend sadly, but he pointed down the small high street.

I got to my feet and somewhat unsteadily attempted to recover what dignity I had. Really, it was unlike me to be so spooked.

I found the shop, with simple and hearty local produce decked out in front of it. The display was small, but it was winter. I entered. The normality of the wooden floor boards beneath my feet and the faint smell of flour and candles particular to small shops calmed me. An old woman got up slowly from her stool behind the desk and came forward.

‘Yes?’ she said querulously.

I explained I had a letter to post. This lady might have shaky hands and fingers knotted with arthritis, but she hefted my letter in one hand and told me what the postage would be. She then confirmed the weight with a little scale. I commended her on her skill. She smiled, showing her last few teeth. ‘Been doing this bairn, lassie, and crone,’ she said.

‘It must be interesting,’ I said. ‘People must tell you all sorts of stories.’

The old lady gave a cackle. ‘Gossip, you mean.’ Then she peered more closely at me, ‘You’re looking a might peely-wally. That old eejit Jamie’s not been filling your head with his nonsense has here.’

‘Is he the gates of hell fellow?’ I asked.

‘Never been right since his mother dropped him on his head as a wean. Both parents deid. God-fearing twa they were. Thought the devil had got into his heid. Told yon minister could put him aright. It’s a nonsense. Poor laddie’s got mince fae brains.’

‘I suppose he did scare me,’ I admitted. ‘I got a little spooked in the woods. I thought I saw something – someone,’ I corrected myself. I gave a little laugh. ‘So silly of me.’

The old lady’s face hardened. ‘You mind and take care of yourself out there. There’s a German spy in the woods. Several of the girls and their young men have seen him.’

‘A German spy?’ I echoed in alarm.

The old lady nodded. ‘Looks funny by all accounts, and speaks guy odd. One of the foresters recognised it as German.’

‘A forester?’

‘Aye, his father was in the Royal Navy before he settled here and married a local girl. Told the lad all about his travels and the people he’d met. Sure it was a German, Connel was.’

‘I’ll be very careful,’ I promised her. I left the shop with a lighter heart. I did not believe any forester, who had probably stirred no more than ten miles from his home village, could identify the German language. And as for mad Jamie, well, I’d been as foolish as him. My last visit to the Lodge had been cataclysmic. I had not acknowledged to myself how concerned I was on returning. I was also feeling guilty about not telling the others about the letter. I gave myself a mental shake and set off with a lighter heart back to the Lodge.

My companions on my return journey were squirrels and wood pigeons. I had a most pleasant walk back. I felt no eyes on my back. The sun gave me a display of red, orange and brilliant gold as it nestled down towards the horizon ending the day in a blaze of glory.

I opened the servant’s door of the Lodge and walked straight into Rory.

‘Where the devil have you been?’ he demanded. ‘I need you to help serve dinner.’ He scowled fiercely at me and stomped off. I held on to the image of the sunset in my head and walked into the kitchen with my head held high.

Chapter Ten:

Real concerns that this may be becoming an adventure

Dinner passed uneventfully. The formerly soupy woman wore an inappropriately low gown and giggled far too much for a supposedly serious gathering. Rory was impassively professional. When I was dismissed from the room I found Merry in the kitchen washing up and singing. Jock, making himself a late-night sandwich, joined in with his usual incomprehensible nonsense. Merry turned on hearing my step. She danced away from the sink and embraced me with soapy arms.

‘I ain’t being let go. Mr Bertram said they can all go boil their heads as far as he is concerned.’

I embraced her back. ‘That’s very good news.’

Merry scowled slightly. ‘Apparently I have to stay behind the green door on account of ’Er ’Ighness is still upset with me. So you and Susan are going to have to do all the tidying, cleaning, and bed-making upstairs.’ She gave me an evil little grin. ‘So sorry.’

‘I bet you are,’ I said smiling back. I hoped this would also mean we would have less problems shielding Merry from the truth that Rory, Bertram, and I were all up to something – even if we didn’t know what it was yet.

Tomorrow would bring an early rising, and I had finished my chores, so I said my goodnights and left Merry and Jock to their work.

The little room upstairs that Merry and I shared was compact, but clean and of a higher standard than most maids enjoy. I had carried my small trunk up the servants’ stair, bumping it off each step. We had been here for less than two days but this was the first chance I had had to sort out my things. My second uniform bore deep crush marks and I hung it up by the window. I set out my own brush. I had been borrowing Merry’s till now and it didn’t have the strength of bristles to tackle my hair, which had been whipped into a mess by the Highland wind. I sat on the bed in my nightgown and gradually worked my way through the tangled tresses. By the time I was finished Merry had still not come up to bed, but I was bone weary. I snuggled down under my blankets, said my prayers, and composed myself for sleep.

I woke in the dark. My second uniform fluttered as it hung against the draughty window. Next to me Merry snored. Moonlight seeped in between the curtains. I listened hard. Nothing. I felt completely awake as if I had been shocked out of sleep, but strangely I didn’t feel alarmed. I lay still, listening. My heart beat steadily. I could only conclude that I must have been awoken by a noise my sleeping brain did not consider unusual.

I turned over and tried to get back to sleep, but sleep was as far away as the moon that shone down on me. I sighed. ‘Merry,’ I whispered. ‘Merry?’ My only response was a snore. I tried again a little louder. And then again. It became clear that short of taking her bodily by the shoulders and shaking her Merry was not going to be roused.

I got out of bed. There was no way I was going back to sleep without going to see what was or was not happening in the Lodge. I decided not to take a candle, but to trust in my knowledge of the Lodge and the moonlight.

The last time I had wandered through the dark at this Lodge on a previous and fraught visit I had been so careful and concerned about where I might or might not go. But having spent a year as a Lady’s Companion I found it difficult to go back to the subservient ways of a maid.
[7]

I headed straight for the centre of the house. All seemed in order. I knew Rory would have locked up the Lodge with great care. I climbed the main staircase as quietly as I could, listening out at every step. I was almost at the top when I smelt something. Perfume. Then I heard a low girlish giggle. I had heard nothing more than the usual goings-on that occur on a weekly basis in the best houses in the land. No wonder I hadn’t been frightened by the sound that awoke me. Could anything be more innocuous? And immoral …

That Miss Flowers’s morals were lower than her décolletage did not surprise me. That any of the men at the Lodge would fall for such a woman surprised me. A serious meeting was taking place and someone was – and then it struck me. Miss Flowers would have access to not only all the notes from the meetings, but also whatever other papers the government man had brought with him. Could someone be using the silly girl to get an inside advantage on whatever deal was under discussion?

What if the letter had not been a silly love note, but papers of importance disguised by overpowering male cologne. Had I been played for a fool?

My heart plummeted. I might already have let something vital slip through my fingers because of my personal integrity. I mentally cursed Fitzroy. I knew he only interested himself in things that concerned affairs of the nation. Usually our nation in relation to others. He would have had no qualms in opening the letter, reading it and resealing it. Or even confronting the sender.

The latter was clearly not my role, but the giggling was something he would expect me to investigate and report back to him on. Or rather he would want to know who was conducting themselves with less than the proper discretion. Another giggle floated through the air. I had to follow it. I took a deep breath and for once hoped my late father, the Rev. Martins, was not watching over me. I continued to ascend the stairs.

I reached the landing in ten swift steps. The floorboards creaked alarmingly under my feet. The latest giggle was cut off mid-stream. Instinctively I slipped into the shadow of the large curtained window. I held my breath and waited. Unfortunate thoughts ran through my mind.

I strained my ears, but I could hear no worried whispered conversation. I was too far away to hear. Dare I brave creeping along the upstairs passageway? I would in all likelihood be able to pinpoint whose bedroom the noises were emanating from. Every fibre of my being revolted. I waited several more heartbeats in the hope Miss Flowers would send her beau to check if anyone was on the prowl. I felt safe in the folds of my curtain. I could spy who it was and then go back to bed.

No one came. I would have to investigate. I left the safety of the curtains and began to make my way along the eastern corridor. There was little cover to conceal myself should someone hear me and come to challenge me, but the gas lamps were on their lowest setting. There were certainly some shadows darker than others and it was between these that I attempted to dodge.

After the moonlit staircase my eyes were having trouble adjusting to the dark. I held my head cocked on one side as I attempted to listen at the bedroom doors. I felt a sudden sharp pain in my shins and a fluttering of something fell about my face. I put up my arms to protect myself and soon found myself intertwined with a large aspidistra. I managed to steady the stand with my foot and after a brief impromptu waltz with the giant leafy thing I got it back on its pedestal. Once it was back in position the loudest sound was my breathing.

The thought of how Merry would have reacted to this silly scene made laughter bubble up inside me. The more I tried to suppress the more the chuckles pushed at me from within. I was becoming hysterical. I dug my nails into my palm until I felt wet beneath them. I scolded myself internally, ‘this really will not do’, but I sounded so like my mother in my own head that I was forced to stuff my fist into my mouth to stop any sound escaping.