Kingdom of Shadows (67 page)

‘You should lock the door if you don’t want people coming in,’ he retorted.

‘Catriona must have left it unlocked. She must have taken my tray when I was asleep,’ she said defensively. The tray had vanished, so someone else had come in and seen her without her realising they were there. She shivered.

‘Asleep! That’s what you call it!’ Neil snorted. ‘It didn’t look like sleep to me!’

‘Are you going to leave this room?’ she asked. ‘Or do I have to call for help?’ She picked up the telephone from the bedside table. It was dead.

‘It’s all right. I’m going.’ Neil moved towards the door. He glanced back at her. She was beautiful, this wild, aristocratic, rich woman, in her pale silk negligée with her bare feet and her disordered hair. And she was mad. Just as Paul Royland had said.

He took a deep breath. ‘I came up to tell you that your husband is here.’

‘Paul?’ Her face drained of colour. She put the phone down abruptly. ‘Oh God! Does he know I’m here?’

‘Not for sure; he went to Fraserburgh as we told him, but he came back and he seems convinced you are here somewhere. At the moment he is outside wandering out by the castle, but he’s sure you are around. And –’ he put his hand on the door knob – ‘he seems convinced you’re mad. I must say that on present evidence I’d be inclined to agree with him.’

In the icy darkness Paul was standing at the edge of the cliffs, his hands in his pockets, his collar pulled up around his ears. The sea was pounding on the rocks below, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Salt spray mingled with the sleet on his face, chilling his skin. He shivered. She had to be here somewhere. He turned his back on the sea and stared up at the castle in the thick darkness. The wind screamed around the old keep, howling in the crevices of the walls, flattening the dried grass and thistles into tangled mats. It was a bleak, ugly, terrifying place. What in God’s name would any sane person see in it? But then Clare wasn’t quite sane.

He dragged a rubber-covered torch out of his pocket and shone the beam up towards the granite walls. They glistened in the wet. Clare wasn’t there, nor anywhere else in the castle, so she had to be in the hotel and they were hiding her.

Making up his mind suddenly he began to stride back across the tussocky grass. Instead of following the track up to the hotel, he pushed his way between the trees and threaded his way across the shrubbery, following the powerful torch beam which showed up the needles of sleet blasting horizontally in from the sea. To the left of him in the distance the old house was in darkness.

In the cellars of the hotel, built amongst the foundations of the ruined outer walls of the castle, Jack Grant, with a spanner and an oil can, was doing battle with a twenty-year-old generator in a pool of candlelight.

Paul walked across the cobbled yard towards the range of garages and stables. One by one he pulled open the doors and peered in. None were locked. Clare’s Jaguar was in the third he looked at. He stood for a moment staring at it, then with a tight smile of triumph he walked into the garage and pulled open the car door. The key was in the ignition. Lying on the passenger seat was Casta’s chain. Picking it up he thrust it into his jacket pocket before turning towards the black bulk of the hotel and making his way silently towards the back door.

He tiptoed past the kitchen where the two girls, Catriona and Kirsty, were giggling in the candlelight as they finished the washing-up by hand, and he let himself into the corridor which ran the length of the hotel. It was empty. Walking quickly in the torch beam he let himself cautiously into the front reception hall. The fire had died to embers and the hall was deserted. He could hear the murmur of voices from the bar where Neil and Kathleen were sitting in the light of several flickering candelabra finishing their coffee. Through the half-open door he could just see Kathleen’s averted profile, outlined in silhouette by the candles behind her.

On tiptoe Paul sprinted for the staircase and made his way up to the first floor, wincing as the steps creaked loudly beneath his weight.

Upstairs the broad corridor ran the whole depth of the house from east to west. Ten doors led off it, five on each side. Paul stopped. He didn’t want to walk into the wrong door and advertise his presence. Cautiously he made his way forward. The torchlight was dimming now, throwing a pale beam on the faded tartan carpet.

He stopped and listened outside each door. All he could hear was the howl of the wind and the drumming of the hail on the window at the end of the landing.

Biting his lip he stopped, then very cautiously he gave a low whistle. He listened, then he tried again. Almost at once he heard a sharp excited bark.

It came from one of the rooms at the far end of the corridor.

In six strides he was there. The door was locked. He thumped on it with his fist. ‘Clare! Open this door or I’ll break it down,’ he hissed. He waited. ‘Clare, did you hear me? I’ll smash this door down. I know you’re there.
Clare!
’ He banged again, louder this time.

Casta was still barking, scratching the door. Seconds later it opened. Clare, still dressed in the negligée, stood there in the flickering candlelight.

‘Go away, Paul. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to see you.’

‘I can imagine.’ Paul pushed past her into the room and closed the door, turning the key. ‘Get dressed. I’m taking you back to Airdlie.’

Clare sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘No, Paul. I’m not going with you. We’re finished. I want a divorce.’

Paul smiled. ‘A divorce? My dear, you’re not well enough to go through a divorce! You must get better first. You need me.’ He glanced down at the dog which was sitting at his feet looking uneasily from him to Clare and back and he groped in his pocket for the chain. Slipping it over Casta’s neck he pulled it up short, forcing the dog to stand behind his knee. ‘Get dressed, Clare, please. Now.’

Clare could feel the anger rising in her throat. Once she would have obeyed him without question. But not now. Now she felt only hatred and resentment as she looked at him. After what he had done to her in that lift she would never trust him again. ‘I am not going to be bullied by you any more, Paul. Please get out of here. This is my hotel. I’m staying here and so is Casta. Let her go.’ She was surprised at the strength in her voice.

Paul glanced down with a sneer, then he gave the choke chain a vicious tug. It wrenched the dog up on to her hind legs and she let out a pitiful yelp.

‘Paul!’ Clare flung herself at him, trying to get the leather handle on the chain out of his hand. ‘Let her go, you bastard! You’re strangling her!’

‘I said, get dressed.’ Paul gave Clare a push which sent her reeling across the room. ‘Get dressed now, or this damn dog will suffer, do you hear me?’ His knuckles were white on the leather loop.

Clare stared at him, her eyes blazing. ‘If you dare hurt her –’

‘What will you do?’ His voice was cold. ‘Report me to the RSPCA? Get dressed. We have a long drive.’

Clare glanced desperately at the door, but it was locked and the key was in Paul’s pocket. ‘This is crazy, Paul! I don’t understand you.’

Casta let out another pitiful whimper.

‘No, you don’t.’ Paul slackened the chain slightly. ‘And you don’t seem to realise that I’m not the crazy one, my darling. You are.’ He gave a cold smile. ‘If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to have to take you as you are. I’m sure you don’t want me to carry you through the hotel in your nightdress, and I’m sure you don’t want your parents to see you like that either. It will only reinforce their view that you are out of your mind!’

‘No, Paul, they’re not going to believe that.’ She shook her head.

‘They already do.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Get dressed, Clare. You’re wasting time.’

‘I’m not coming –’

The dog cried out in pain as Paul wrenched the choke chain tight again, lifting her almost off her feet.

‘Get dressed, Clare.’

For a moment she hesitated in anguish. One more yelp from Casta persuaded her. ‘All right, all right,’ she cried. ‘I’ll dress, but only if you let her go.’ She was so angry she was shaking.

Paul smiled but he loosened his hold on the dog slightly.

Gathering up her clothes from a chair Clare fled into the bathroom. The door with its bolt broken wouldn’t stay shut. She wedged it with a chair and stood for a moment trying to calm herself. This couldn’t be happening. Even in the lift Paul hadn’t been like this – so cold, so hostile, so hard and so full of hate. She shuddered. Quickly she began to get dressed, fumbling in her haste. She was praying that Neil would come back upstairs. He knew Paul was here. Paul couldn’t force her to leave if there was someone else there. Or had Neil told Paul where she was? Damn these men! Why couldn’t they leave her alone!

Her mind was working overtime now, trying to think of what to do. He couldn’t drag her out of the hotel by force. There were people downstairs – a lot of people. Even Paul would not dare to make a scene in front of them, so what she had to do was to get to those people and then sit down and refuse to leave.

With trembling fingers she zipped up her cords and buttoned her shirt, pulling on her thick dark blue sweater. Her boots were in the bedroom. She opened the door and with a quick glance at Paul went to put them on.

‘Pack your things,’ he said. He folded his arms with an air of resignation.

She hesitated, then she obeyed him, putting her nightdress and spare clothes into the overnight bag she had brought up from the car, and tossing her cosmetics purse and washing things after them. Paul picked up the bag. He was still holding Casta’s chain very short.

‘Are you ready now?’ he asked politely.

She nodded. Gathering up her coat she turned to the door. ‘You’ll have to unlock it, won’t you?’ she said coldly.

Paul took the coat out of her arms. ‘Put it on,’ he said. ‘It’s cold out there.’

Somehow she forced herself to obey him, biting back the retort which had nearly escaped her lips and at once he opened the door. The landing was deserted.

They walked quickly the length of it and then on down the stairs, the dog padding at Paul’s heels, subdued, not understanding the undercurrent of hatred in the air.

The hall was still empty; the sound of quiet talk and laughter came from the bar. The door was now closed.

Clare glanced at Paul. She took a deep breath and turned towards it, but he had anticipated her move. He caught her arm and pulled her violently against him. ‘One sound and I’ll put my hand over your mouth. I mean it, Clare. You are coming with me.’ With a hard push he propelled her into the passage which led to the back of the building.

As he hustled her at a run past the kitchens and out into the yard she realised for the first time just how immensely strong he was. She tried to stop and duck free of his hands but he kept hold of her easily. He pulled open the garage and dragging open the car door he threw her case into the back and pulled the seat forward so the dog could jump in after it, then he pushed Clare into the passenger seat and slammed the door on her.

She grappled desperately for the door handle but Paul was already round the side of the car and in the driving seat. He slammed the central locking home. ‘Sit still, or I’ll throw Casta out!’

Clare subsided in her seat, helpless. She was seething with anger and not a little afraid now. ‘What is the point of all this, Paul?’

He slammed the car into reverse and backed out of the garage into the yard, then he turned and drove fast around the side of the hotel. The powerful headlights lit up a wall of heavy sleet as the windscreen wipers cut arcs in the mushy crystals on the glass.

‘The point is, my darling, to get you home.’ The car surged towards the long narrow drive. He smiled across at her for a second in the darkness. ‘Before you do any more harm to yourself or to anyone else!’

23

Neil stood up and wandered over to the window. Lifting the curtain he peered out into the sleet. Paul’s hired car was still standing on the gravel in front of the hotel. He glanced at his watch and frowned. The man had been outside for over an hour now.

Turning back to Kathleen who was sitting at the bar, he put his glass down beside her. ‘Get the landlord to give me another, Kath, when he comes up from the cellar. I’m just going upstairs for a minute.’

‘Keeping an eye on the beautiful Clare?’ Kathleen couldn’t keep the acid out of her voice.

Neil frowned. ‘I might just make sure she’s all right, yes. Her husband has been here for rather a long time.’

‘He’s probably fallen over the cliff, like you said.’ Kathleen smiled.

‘Here’s hoping.’ As he spoke there was a distant roar of life from the generator. The lights came on, dimmed, then flared brightly again, flooding the room with harsh colour after the subtlety of the candlelight.

Neil ran upstairs and made his way along the corridor. Clare’s door was ajar. Cautiously he pushed it open and peered in. The room was empty, her belongings gone. He walked in and stared round. He could still smell the faintest trace of her perfume on the air. The candle was still alight by the bed. He walked over and extinguished it between finger and thumb. Had Paul found her or had she run away? He stared round. There was no trace of her, no forgotten shoes, no sign of the dog. Apart from the disturbed bed there was no sign that she had ever been there.

He walked thoughtfully back downstairs. Jack was alone in the bar. ‘Mrs Royland’s gone, Jack. She’s taken all her stuff.’

‘Aye. I saw them leave about twenty minutes ago.’ Jack was draping a dish cloth over the beer handles on the bar. ‘When I went up to the kitchen for a spanner.’

‘She was with her husband?’ Neil frowned.

‘Aye. All lovey-dovey they were too. They didn’t look as if there had ever been anything wrong. He had his arms around her and rushed her out through the rain to her car. So much for hiding it! I think our Clare was spinning a bit of a yarn about her husband.’

‘God!’ Neil slammed his fists into his pockets. ‘And I trusted her. I believed her! To think, I nearly told her our plans for the meeting. I would have, if she hadn’t been such an arrogant, toffey-nosed bitch!’