The Presence Page 20

  Had last night been her imagination, too? Or insanity. That morning, the door to the crypts had been bolted, just as it had always been. But she knew, if she insisted it be open, that she would find everything below just as she had seen it.

  “Eban works very hard. We’ve seen him work!” she added.

  “Thank God, I’m married,” Gina murmured. “I think I’d be scared in my castle room if it weren’t for Ryan.”

  “Great,” Ryan said. “She keeps me around because she’s scared.”

  Gina flashed him a warning stare, but Ryan just grinned.

  “Eh! If the old man starts giving you too much trouble, lass, remind him I’m around!” Thayer said, winking.

  “There you go,” Gina told Ryan.

  “Well…if worse came to worst, David and I would let Gina have the old Duncan Phyfe sofa that’s in our room,” Kevin said.

  Gina shuddered. “I don’t think I could take the activity in your room!”

  “All right, all right, the lot of you! Break up the lust fest. A few of us—” Thayer paused, glancing at Toni. “Okay, maybe it’s only me these days, but there’s no one sleeping in my room, so I’d rather not hear about the writhin’ and strainin’ going on around me, eh?”

  Gina burst out laughing. “Thayer, you could have your pick of girls! I’ve seen the way they look at you when we go in pubs and the like.”

  He shrugged.

  “You’re too picky,” she told him.

  He was thoughtful for a minute. “That I am. And I’ve decided I want an American lass.”

  “And why is that?” Toni asked him.

  He shrugged. “I like the American way. Free from the shackles of tradition, and all that rot.”

  Gina laughed. “But you were willing to go in with us on the castle?”

  “Well, in truth, that’s all changed now, hasn’t it? It seems like we’re on a borrowed pound at a roulette wheel, eh? Just trying to make back our bet.”

  “We’ll make it back,” Gina said determinedly.

  “Thanks to the largesse of our host,” David murmured, and he stared across the table at Thayer suddenly. “Hey, did you know that he’d been a cop?” he demanded.

  “How could he have known he’d been a cop?” Toni demanded. “He hadn’t even known that he’d existed.”

  “Oh, yes, right,” David said.

  “You’re starting to sound British!” Kevin told him. “Right-o, cheerio and all that!”

  David looked at him and sighed.

  “Well, when in Rome, you know,” Ryan offered.

  “But Laird MacNiall—a cop!”

  “Was a cop,” Gina said. “I wonder what he does now,” she mused, looking around at all of them.

  “Hey, don’t ask me!” Kevin said. “I didn’t know that lairds were…well, anything. I just thought they sat around being…lairds!”

  “I don’t think it works that way anymore, does it?” Toni asked Thayer, smiling.

  “Well, these days, anyone who owns enough land collects rents,” he said.

  “Does he own a lot of land?” Gina asked.

  Thayer shrugged, still looking at Toni. “The constable said that Laird MacNiall owned half the village, remember?”

  “Hmm,” Gina murmured. “So…he’s simply rich.”

  “Strange, if he has money you’d think there would be servants swarming around the family home,” David murmured.

  “And instead, no one,” Ryan mused.

  “There’s Eban Douglas!” Kevin reminded him.

  “And he’s weird!” Gina said again.

  “So we’re back where we started,” Ryan said, standing. “Gina, we should get those documents over to Jonathan’s office.”

  “We were supposed to see Laird MacNiall’s deed today, remember?” Thayer murmured. “I guess now we just have to accept that it’s legit, huh? After all, he wound up not being with us.”

  Gina sighed. “Ryan and I will go to the constable’s. I’m sure we have to fill out a police report, as well, but I imagine that, for the time, one of us giving the information and signing the report will be all that’s required.”

  “Two of us,” Ryan reminded her.

  “Two of us. The rest of you can wander. Toni, you said that you wanted to walk around the old kirk and graveyard, right?”

  David groaned. “Don’t you want me to take the documents to the constable’s office?”

  Toni stood up. “David, go shopping. And Kevin and Thayer…you can sop up some more ambience at the pub, if you like. I’m fine on my own.”

  “I would like to see if we can’t find some…classier paper products for our tea and scones,” David said.

  “They’re definitely not into paper plates the way we are in the States,” Kevin agreed. “But they’ve lovely shops. Maybe we can find something.”

  “I don’t mind going with you, Toni,” Thayer said.

  “You sure?” she asked him.

  “Not at all,” he assured her.

  “Well, then…”

  “Hey! Someone remember to pay the bill!” Gina said. “And don’t take more than a couple of hours. We’ll meet at the pub at the base of the hill at four, okay?”

  They all started out in their different directions. Ryan and Gina headed west, in the direction of the village square. David and Kevin went no more than a few feet before being caught by a store window, and Thayer and Toni headed east, slightly up a hill, toward the kirk and the surrounding graveyard.

  Thayer seemed distracted. Toni set a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?” she asked him.

  He flashed her a smile. “Aye, fine, why?”

  She shook her head. “You’ve just seemed…not you, lately.”

  “Since our bubble was burst?” he asked.

  “I guess.”

  He smiled, and pointed toward the kirk. “I can give you some local history. It was begun in the twelve hundreds, and the current structure and form dates back to the fifteen hundreds. Naturally, it was built as a Catholic church, and is now a part of the Church of Scotland. It has some remarkable stained-glass windows. It also has some beautifully carved tombs on the interior—Italian artists were brought in to honor various states men, poets, knights and ladies, and so on. In the truly dour days of Cromwell, the reverend was a plucky fellow who managed to hide most of the treasures, so little was destroyed.”

  She smiled at him, impressed. “Have you seen it, then? I thought you’d never been in this area before we arrived.”

  “Never been in it in m’life, cousin. I looked it up on the Internet. They’ve actually got quite a decent Web page.”

  Toni laughed. “Great.”

  A small stone fence surrounded the kirk and the graveyard, and there was a white picket gate, which Thayer swung open for Toni.

  When they entered the kirk itself, she was awed and amazed. For such a small village, it was really phenomenal. The stained-glass windows surrounding the length of it were in blues that would have done Tiffany’s proud. Picking up a flyer at the rear as they entered, Toni read that the pulpit had been carved from a single huge oak in the 1540s, and she walked to it, marveling at the intricate lion designs that graced it.

  “Incredible workmanship, huh?” Thayer whispered to her.

  She nodded. “Gorgeous.”

  “Come see some of the MacNialls buried here,” he said.

  “I thought…” For a moment she hesitated. “I thought that they were buried in a crypt at the castle,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I’m sure some are. But come here. Look.” Pointing, he showed her a fairly modern tomb that occupied space against the western wall. “Our MacNiall’s grandfather, or a great uncle, certainly. ‘Colonel Patrick Brennan MacNiall, RAF, born April 15, 1921, died June 8, 1944, on distant shores, serving God and Country. May he fly with the angels now.’”

  “He must have died just after the D-day invasion in World War II,” Toni said. “How sad.”

  “Very. For thousands of men,” Thayer c
ommented. “Look, here’s an older one. ‘Laird Bruce Eamon MacNiall, a great protector of men and honor, born October 4, 1724, and gave his life for right and freedom, Flodden Field.’”

  “They had a tendency to be on the wrong side of a battle, huh?” Toni murmured.

  “History always decides the wrong side of a battle,” Thayer murmured.

  Toni nodded. “Quite true. And we have a tendency to romanticize many a lost cause.”

  “Shall we wander around outside? Or did you only want to look for MacNialls?” Thayer asked.

  Toni was startled, but when she looked in his eyes they seemed guileless.

  “I’d love to wander around outside.”

  “What’s your fascination with cemeteries?” he asked her, and grinned. “I did this with you in Glasgow, too, remember?”

  “The art, I think. And the poems and epitaphs.”

  “Like at the theme parks? ‘Dear old Fred, a rock fell on his head, now he’s dead, dead, dead,’ or something like that?”

  “Not that bad!” Toni protested. “The problem is, time erodes stone, lichen sets in and they’re often difficult to read.” They were outside now. The graveyard was the kind that always fascinated, with beautiful marble funerary art and huge stones rising at awkward angles created by the passage of time. “Here’s one!” she told Thayer, rubbing the mold from the stone to read it better. “‘Justin MacClaren. Once I ran, fast and hard, had a wife, ignored the lass. I gave all strife, ne’er went to mass, and now, lonely to this grave, I am cast.’”

  “Hmm. That’s almost as bad as dear old Fred with the rock on his head,” Thayer said, making her laugh.

  “But that’s just it—they really give a little slice of life, as it was,” Toni told him and smiled. Two young women had just entered the cemetery, wandering as they were, one a pretty redhead, her friend a brunette.

  “Hello,” Toni said pleasantly. “Good afternoon.”

  “Ta!” the redhead said cheerily. “You’re American then, are you?”

  “I am,” Toni said. “Thayer is from Glasgow.”

  “I’m from Aberdeen myself, but I’ve taken a cottage here for a while,” the redhead said. “I’m Lizzie John-stone. And this is my friend, Trish Martin, up from York shire to spend her holiday with me.”

  “Lovely,” Toni murmured.

  “Ah, the English are invading again,” Thayer teased. He offered a hand to Trish first. She was very pretty, with large dark eyes, long pale hair and a beautiful peaches-and-cream complexion. He was, however, equally polite when he turned to Lizzie, who looked far more Irish with her wild red hair, spattering of freckles and bountiful smile.

  “Thayer Fraser here. And the American invader,” he added teasingly, “Toni Fraser.”

  “Ah, a couple are you then?” Lizzie said, obviously a bit disappointed.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Toni told them. “And no, we’re not a couple. We’re cousins.”

  “Ah!” The young woman looked at Thayer with renewed interest.

  Thayer smiled. It was a slightly awkward moment in which body language was too easily read. Lizzie liked Thayer. Thayer liked the blonde.

  “So you like poking around old graveyards, too?” Toni said.

  “You’d think I’d tire of them, but I never do,” Trish said. “Much more interesting than the ancient sites that everyone is all atwitter about these days! They’re nothing but rocks in the ground, while these old places…”

  “They tell stories,” Toni said.

  Trish gasped suddenly. “I know who you are! The group doing tours at the castle!”

  “Indeed!” Lizzie said.

  Thayer nudged Toni. “We’re famous!” he teased.

  “Or infamous,” she murmured beneath her breath.

  “Oh, no! There was a bit in the Edinburgh paper today…y’can buy it down at the Ioin’s place, that little newsstand-café down at the base of the hill, if you wish to see it,” Trish said. “It’s a good blurb, I believe you’d like it. Says you do a lovely little piece of drama while bringing back the past, and suggests that even locals would enjoy the fun of it. You’ll have to get the paper. I’m afraid we’ve left ours at the café.”

  Toni looked at Thayer and shrugged, a smile creasing her lips. There was pleasure and wry regret in her expression. “Thank you for telling us,” Toni said.

  “Didn’t know we had a reporter in either of the two groups we’ve taken through so far,” Thayer said.

  “Well, now,” Lizzie said, “a reporter would want to slip in unknown and unnoticed, right? Get the same treatment as everyone else, eh?”

  “Now, that sounds true enough,” Thayer agreed. “I’d thought our folks were all Americans, though. We’ve been working with a tour company that does the promotion and packaging. They just book the tours, but they’ve been targeting Americans.”

  “What? Just because we’ve grown up with the history, it means we don’t enjoy a good time?” Trish said, batting her lashes at Thayer.

  “Well, now, we all enjoy a good time, don’t we?” Thayer said, his voice soft and a little husky. Toni was glad for him. He seemed to be enjoying this flirtation with the attractive women, even if they happened to be in a cemetery.

  Toni had noticed an older woman, slightly humped over with the beginnings of osteoporosis, making her way through the crooked stones and monuments. The others noticed her, as well, and fell silent.

  Toni stepped back, realizing that although they stood among weathered markers that might have been about for hundreds of years, there were new plaques around, as well.

  The woman was heading their way with a bundle of flowers.

  “I believe we’re intruding,” she murmured. Thayer took her elbow, and they edged farther out of the way. They remained silent with respect, rather than make an obvious departure that might be loud and distracting.

  The old woman was followed by a younger couple, a slightly balding man and an attractive, slender woman of about forty-five.

  “Afternoon,” the man said, nodding to them. The old woman ignored them, but the man’s wife offered them a pleasant smile.

  The old woman bent down with her flowers, and said her prayer by the grave. Then she rose slowly, using a headstone to help herself up, and turned, ac knowledging that they were there.

  Toni noticed that the woman’s eyes, a faded blue set in the time-worn creases of her face, seemed to fasten right upon her.

  “Yer from the castle,” she said. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact.

  Toni and Thayer nodded. Despite the interruption, they were still basking in the pleasure of having heard about such a good review of the tour. But as those faded blue eyes assessed her, Toni felt a sure stirring of unease.

  The woman pointed a long bony finger at Toni.

  “Y’know it, don’t ye?”

  “Pardon?” Toni murmured.

  “There’s greater trouble ahead, eh? They’ve found the lady, missing all those years. Disturbed the past! Dug up a ghost. And they wonder wot’s goin’ on in that forest! He killed once, and set her in the ground. Now she’s dug up. He’ll kill again, and again, and again. We’ve known that he roamed here all these years. Aye, that we have! Roamed his castle and the woods, betrayed and seeking his vengeance. Now he’s risen, and he seeks it about the countryside. You!” Her finger shook in Toni’s direction. “You know it! Know that he is up and about, wakened and furious! You know it! Bruce MacNiall is up and about, and killin’. And if ye tread upon the past any longer, y’ll be the lass in the water. Aye, y’ll be the lass in the water!”

  12

  Bruce arrived at Darrow’s office not long after noon, surprised by the urgency and excitement in the message the man had left on his cell phone.

  It was quite a mystery, since Daniel hadn’t left any details about why he was concerned that Bruce come in. And though Bruce should have accompanied the group into town, gone straight to the office of records as planned and shown them the deed, there really
seemed little urgency to do so anymore. They had accepted the fact that he indeed owned the castle.

  And Darrow’s message had been just too intriguing.

  Tillingham was one of those places where, most often, death came naturally, and to the aged. The surrounding countryside, at the base of the Highlands, was rich farmland. Those who hadn’t made their way into larger cities or towns earned their living by producing some of the finest wool, dairy products and beef available. For the most part, they loved their corner of the earth, the land and a way of life that was almost ancient, yet far better than what it had been in centuries of servitude and strife.

  Bruce owned large tracts of land and a number of the buildings in town where merchants sold their wares, but his holdings hadn’t all been inherited. An education in the States at UCLA had taught him a great deal about the American stock market, and he had gambled—for that’s what he considered it—well over the years. Even in hard times, he’d had luck with getting in and getting out. Still, his father had ingrained in him a certain tradition. Heredity—and the return of Charles II to the throne of England—had made them lairds. That meant a responsibility to the village of Tillingham.

  There was another factor, of course. The area was home. He loved it. There were still thatched-roof houses that served as cafés and shops, apartments and single-dwelling residences. The farmland wasn’t far from the center and the castle sat atop a hill as it had for centuries. Whatever the history associated with the place, good and bad, it was his.

  Darrow’s facility was on the square, near the constable’s office and the beautiful old medieval building that housed the records and licensing bureaus, among other legal offices. When he had decided to hurry on down to see Daniel Darrow, he had refrained from mentioning that he’d be near the group, intrigued to see the medical examiner on his own.

  Rowenna, Darrow’s secretary, greeted him pleasantly, and with a little sparkle to her eyes. “He’s agog with excitement!” Rowenna told Bruce, rising to lead him into the mortuary room, where Darrow tended to the dead of Tillingham and the surrounding areas. “He hasn’t even told me what’s got him so excited,” she said.