Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (31 page)

188

'So that's two dead and two missing,' Vale summed up, once everyone had regained some approximation of composure.

'Not to mention no way of phoning for help,' Rory added.

'Never mind phoning,' said Ger. 'Let's get the fuck ootta here and we can tell the polis at Auchterbuie.'

'You can't,' Rory informed him. 'All the vehicles have been sabotaged and there's no way of crossing the river anyway because the bridge has been destroyed.' Rory looked at Baxter by way of acknowledgement, or maybe even apology. Baxter was neutral in response. It was no time for I-told-you-so. 'So not only can't we escape or call for help, help would be a long time getting here.'

'How long before anyone's likely to notice the bridge and raise the alarm?'

Parlabane asked.

'Julia the housekeeper and the other domestics live in Auchterbuie,' said Alison. 'They're usually in by seven.'

'Shit. So whoever's out there has at least until then to do what they came here for.'

'They?'

'Well, I hardly think this is the work of one person, however deranged,' said Parlabane. 'If it was, he wouldnae be announcing his intentions by lobbing corpses through the window and feeding us
chef parmigiana
. He'd be picking us off one by one with maximum stealth. Besides, what's going on here must have taken planning and coordination. Your average psycho doesn't wake up one morning and say to himself, I think I'll lay lone siege to a Highland mansion tonight.'

'Jack's right,' said Vale. 'We're looking at above-average psychos, plural, but psychos nonetheless. Whoever it is took out transport and communications, then let us know most blatantly that we were under siege. The first part demonstrates tactical efficiency, which is worrying, but it's the second part that's really bothering me.'

'How so?' asked Rory.

'The second part is a luxury afforded by the first. They know we can't go anywhere, so they're willingly giving up the element of surprise, giving us a chance to dig in.'

'And why's that scarier than them just coming in and killing us all without warning?'

'Because, one, it suggests they're confident nothing we do will make a difference, but more terrifyingly, two, it means they
want
resistance. They're not here to shoot fish in a barrel. These bastards want some sport.'

'Why don't we kill our
selves
then,' Parlabane suggested. That would fucking show them.'

189

'Yes, thank you for that, Jack. Always good to know you can be relied upon for constructive suggestions.'

'Sport?' Emily asked, as disgusted as she was incredulous. 'Are you serious?'

'I'm not saying it's the purpose of the exercise, just a by-product. The purpose of the exercise can be seen on the dining-room table.'

'But why?' she asked, then turned to look at Parlabane, who didn't believe he was being paranoid in thinking there was a hint of accusation about it.

'Jesus, why is it that whenever there's homicidal psychopaths on the loose, people automatically assume it must have something to do with me?'

'I'm sorry, I wasn't. . . '

'It could be as much to do with the place,' suggested Alison quietly, eyeing Sir Lachlan with what looked like apology.

'This place?' Emily asked.

'It's been a nutter magnet for centuries.'

'Alison,' Sir Lachlan protested.

'I'm sorry, sir, but there's things these people ought to know. Even the ancient names for the area refer to blood-letting. It's been host to massacres, human sacrifices, summary executions and occult rites.'

'To say nothing of very dodgy Seventies prog-rock,' Ger added. 'Stormcrow.'

'Stormcrow?' asked Parlabane. 'That was
this
place? Jeez, it really has witnessed some atrocities. And Magnus Willcraft, then, too? The Crowley wannabe?'

'That's right,' Alison said.

'It doesn't mean there's any kind of bloody--' Sir Lachlan began explosively, then bit his lip and swallowed, calming himself. 'There's no curse,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'And I don't believe in such things.'

'Me neither,' Alison told him. 'But there's obviously something that draws headbangers to this place more consistently than it draws tourists. I'm just saying if a bunch of people were to get slaughtered here, it wouldn't be the first time.'

'I don't think history's going to help us, however we interpret it,' interrupted Vale. 'First things first. We need to inform the others of the situation - significantly poor Joanna - and get everyone together. Then we need to secure this place to whatever extent we can. Sir Lachlan, what do you have in the way of weapons?'

'I've got two vertical-barrel shotguns, but I can't for the life of me find any ammo. Been looking all afternoon.'

'With respect, sir,' said Ger, 'would it be possible Lady Jane's hidden it?

'Cause if you can think where she might have stashed it. . . '

'My wife?' Sir Lachlan almost laughed. 'You think she wouldn't trust me with a gun. Little you know us, Gerard, little you know us.'

190

'I don't doubt the ammo's been removed,' said Vale, 'but not by your wife. Any other weapons?'

'Just the swords.'

'What swords?'

'On the walls. The rapiers and the claymores up the. . . ' Sir Lachlan took a few steps forward, staring up the staircase. Every head turned to follow his line of sight. The claymores that had hung criss-crossed on the walls around the reception hall were absent, only the single painted targe in the centre remaining. 'How could I not notice they were gone? I've been buzzing about like a blue-arsed fly, serving drinks and waiting tables while some interloper's. . . Oh no.' Sir Lachlan's gaze finally settled on the glass cabinet at head-height on the half-landing, ominously empty. Parlabane vaguely remembered noticing that there was nothing in it when he passed on his way down to dinner, but couldn't recall for sure what had been in it the last time, and assumed whatever it was must be away for cleaning.

'Oh good God,' Sir Lachlan said.

'What was in the case?'

'Rapiers. Kept behind glass because if you leaned on one it would cut you to the bone before you even felt the pain of it breaking the skin. The claymores were the real thing too, but these were what you'd call battle-ready. Stone sharpened once a year to keep them that way. A family tradition, dating back to times when the McKinleys had to be ready to defend themselves.'

'Is the targe serviceable?' Vale asked.

'Couldn't tell you. It's a reproduction. Wood doesn't keep like steel.'

'Probably why they left it. Still, better than nothing. Do we have knives?' he enquired of Ger, who nodded and took off for the kitchen, Alison following. Hers looked less a gesture of faithful comradeship than a belief that alongside him was the safest place to be. Outside of Vale, Parlabane reckoned she was probably right.

'Jack, you and Sir Lachlan go down to the snooker room.'

'Just Lachlan, please. I hardly think it's the time to observe formalities.'

'As you wish. Donald, you and I will go and break the bad news to Joanna. Emily, Rory, you two go and get Kathy and Elizabeth. Together. Nobody goes anywhere alone. Then we all meet back here ASAP, got it?'

'That Vale chap knows what he's about, doesn't he?' Sir Lachlan said, leading Parlabane down an enclosed stairwell at the south-west end of the main ground-floor corridor. 'Do you know much about him, or have you just met on the weekend?'

'We go way back. It's a long story.'

191

'Did I hear someone in the bar say he was a photographer?' he asked, with open surprise.

'That's right. Why?'

'He hasn't always been, surely.'

'Not vocationally, no.'

'I don't mean to pry. It's just, I'd have said he has a look of the services about him.'

Parlabane said nothing. No matter what the circumstances, it was Vale's call whether he wanted to divulge anything about his past, and on this trip it would have posed awkward questions had anyone found out that these days he made his money as a security consultant.

'It's something I'm seldom wrong about. I was in the army myself, you see. That's why I laughed at Ger thinking my wife wouldn't trust me with a gun.'

'You saw active service?'

'The Falklands.' He stopped on the stairs and pulled up his shirt and waistcoat to reveal a scarred indentation on the right side of his midriff. 'Argie bullet took the ends off two ribs. I still get the odd. . . well, it's not a twinge, just a sort of memory of the pain. Never felt pain like it. Comes back every time I see that woman,' he added with a bitter smile.

'Long as we're having that
Jaws
moment,' Parlabane said, and pulled up his own shirt to show Sir Lachlan the three inch scar above his navel. 'Assassin's blade. And I sure felt the pain again when you started talking about those rapiers. This was just a sharpened steel ruler.'

'Goodness, how. . . vulgar. What kind of thug uses something so crude?'

'The kind who isn't allowed access to proper knives.'

'A prisoner? What were you doing there, an interview?'

'Six months.'

Sir Lachlan held open the fire-door at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as he did so, Parlabane could hear the clack of snooker balls being racked and the low bass of a quiet remark followed by laughter. It was a testament to the steadfast structure that no sound from above could penetrate down here, not even the crash of a seven-foot window having a decapitated corpse hurled through it. Such insulation made his perspective right then like looking through a window in time, even if the aperture only looked out upon the world of half an hour ago. They had no idea. Here were two men having a post-prandial game of snooker, probably finishing off that bottle Rory had suggested Toby take with him, a pleasant end to a memorably diverting day. This was how it should have been. Parlabane wished he could join them in their time-bubble, adrift from the main flow of the continuum, but instead he had to pop it, wake them from their dream lest they be murdered in their slumber.

192

Oh well, at least coming from him there'd be no repeat of Rory and Baxter's back-and-forth shite as to whether it was another elaborate hoax. He was the last person anyone would believe to be complicit in any UML-sponsored shenanigans. The matter of how to broach the issue was nonetheless problematic, to say the least. He'd never forget telling the then greenhorned lawyer, Nicole Carrow, over an otherwise civil cup of tea (and after apologising for necessarily breaking into her flat), that a failed attempt had already been made on her life and that a team of professional killers were outside waiting to get it right next time. It felt worse than telling an entire orphanage of under-sevens that there was no Santa Claus.

Tact and sensitivity were considerations, certainly, but time was of the essence. Hmm. All those who didn't indulge in inadvertent cannibalism this evening take a step forward. Max, Toby, not so fast.

Maybe not.

'You know, this part of the building dates back to the Fifteenth Century,'

Sir Lachlan said, tapping a white wall affectionately with his knuckles. 'It's basement level now, because of the way the hall and the gardens have been built up, but there used to be grand rooms with windows to the south. You still get natural light in the games room, though. The landscaper and the architect I hired for the renovation worked wonders, and now there's these marvellous skylights that sit in between flower beds at ground level.'

The older man clearly wished he was back in the world of half an hour ago too, filling in a visitor on the history of this place he was so proud of. The only history Parlabane could think about was Alison's allusions to the multiple acts of slaughter that had taken place here, and whatever essence a vicarious connoisseur of human evil such as Willcraft had sought to distil from it. Like Alison, Parlabane didn't believe in curses, but he didn't much believe in coincidence either.

As they ventured along the corridor, he could see further into the games room. Toby was bent over the table, spotting the black, then gave the frame of reds a shake before lifting the triangle, which was when he noticed the new arrivals. He placed the frame upright behind the reds, presumably a signal for Max not to break yet, and stepped away from the table.

'Jack, Sir Lachlan. Just in time for a game of doubles. You can toss a coin and the loser gets me for a team-mate. How was dessert?'

'Dessert's off,' Parlabane said.

'Is something up?'

Parlabane stood in the doorway, surveying the games room, this sanctuary of innocence, appropriately festooned with playthings. The full-size snooker table dominated, but there was room also to accommodate a tennis table, bookcases and a sideboard bearing chess sets and board games. He'd have 193

expected to see a hooded light suspended above the baize, but instead the room was illuminated by wall lamps and a few ceiling spots, the ceiling itself being distinguished by the two huge latticed-glass panels Sir Lachlan had modestly described as skylights. With near-midnight darkness above, they appeared merely as black rectangles, and Parlabane reckoned he might not have noticed them at all but for Sir Lachlan having made mention of them and for the fact that a man came crashing through the one above the snooker table just as they were about to enter the room.

Max stepped back in reflex and caught the edge of the tennis table around the top of his thighs, which sent him tumbling backwards upon the bluepainted wood. Toby also managed to trip himself in fright, having been in the process of turning away from the table when his attention was rapidly dragged back there. Tripping over his feet, he landed on his bottom on the floor in a squatting position, looking up at the figure who had landed, upright, on the green baize.

He was dressed in dark grey, streaked-camouflage battle fatigues, heavy boots on his feet, his face an intense snarl of aggression. He looked late thirties, maybe early forties: tall, muscular, fit, formidable. And in either hand he held glinting swords that Parlabane now recognised as having been in the glass cabinet that morning.