'But Beth's obsession was now Eliot. He and his unseen world had become her world. There was nothing anyone could do. She was old enough to make her own choices.
'We did not know a great deal about Beth before this time, save the fact that she was generally regarded as something of a loner. Very withdrawn. Maybe shy or perhaps even a little disturbed. The worst kind of girl for Eliot to become entangled with. If she had been more outgoing, more independent perhaps, and sure of her own mind, none of this may have happened. She may not have allowed herself to have been led.
'And again we tried to reason with our friend and again he refused to listen. His work had reached what he called "a significant stage" to which Beth was vital. And she was out there at his cottage, living with him, when one of the student papers got hold of Banquet for the Damned. An exposé of his use of drugs in the sixties circulated. Mescaline experimentation may have been nothing more than an affectation of his youth, but no one seemed ready to think so now the girl was in the picture. Things were very tense here.
'He only broke his silence at the end of the semester, to deliver a long-overdue paper at Cambridge. Harry and I travelled down with a coachful of the students, who still thought him "cool". Quite touching really, but the silence on the coach's return journey was absolute.
'His paper was billed as a discussion of Scottish witchcraft as a cultural phenomenon in pre-Reformation belief systems. But instead of delivering the expected paper, Eliot revealed the rather dramatic findings of his paranormal group's work.
'He was laughed off the stage.
'He claimed to have made some manner of direct contact with a notorious coven, and its unwholesome familiar, from the sixteenth century. He suggested the most preposterous ideas about their existing influence in St Andrews. He claimed a tradition of ghostly sightings and unexplained events was the direct result of their continuing manifestations. Tape recordings of Ben and Beth speaking as go-betweens were played during the seminar.
'I'll never understand what tempted him to play those recordings. Did he have no idea as to how people would react? I think Harry and I both realised then just how far removed he'd become from reality. One couldn't help pitying him.
'Still, Eliot was lucky in one respect. Bloody lucky the police never made inquiries. The voices of the students were awful. And as for the other sounds that one could hear in the background… Well, they were rather more disturbing.
'Eliot was furious with the reaction. I suppose it took him back to the personal attacks from critics he endured over Banquet for the Damned. But who could blame his audience? People had gathered from all over the country to hear him speak about witchcraft in a historical context, and here he was spouting the most ridiculous claptrap about the existence of spirits in St Andrews, before shocking his audience with those recordings.
'He disgraced himself. And the university. On his return to St Andrews, his position was cut right back to a rather tenuous consultancy role. There was only one year left on his contract and it was generally believed he would go once this period had concluded. He was finished. Ruined. And he brought it all upon himself.
'His drinking worsened after Cambridge. He was never the same again. And there was little more we could establish as to what exactly he was doing with Beth and Ben out at the cottage now. All three of them had withdrawn from any outside contact. It was at this point that Harry and I decided to intervene more forcibly than in any of our previous attempts. It was hard to imagine the situation worsening since the time of the paranormal society, but it was. Now, even we came to believe that students were in danger. Grave danger.
'As a last resort, we thought that what remained of our former friendship could be used to make him see reason. As Hebdomidar, I also have a responsibility for student welfare, and had a right to investigate his relationship with Ben while the young man was still matriculated as a student here. So, we visited his home.
'In Harry's car, we drove out past Knoxville and parked on the lane outside of the property he rented. I remember it being an especially cold night, but the sky was beautiful. Very clear and star-bright, with a three-quarter moon over the hills. From the road, we had a good view of the lawn and the front of the cottage. And what we saw, the moment we were out of the car, was reason for immediate concern. The place looked derelict. The state of disrepair we'd observed earlier that winter had worsened. Several tree branches had fallen against the side of the house and damaged the roof. The yard was overgrown, and the front path was completely lost under the weeds and leaf mould.
'As for the house, there wasn't a single light on inside. Nothing beyond the roof and gables could be seen in any detail. We paused in the lane and began to wonder if Eliot even lived there anymore. It used to be such a beautiful place. The last Rector owned the cottage until his passing, and bequeathed the property to the Divinity faculty. It was the sort of home that asked for log fires, a busy kitchen, and the sound of children's voices. But not anymore. Eliot had done something to it. Harry was always impatient with any talk of the supernatural, but I remember something came over me as I stood looking at the cottage. Maybe it was just an instinct, or a notion created by the dark and these signs of dilapidation. But I can remember thinking this was more than just physical decline. If I'm not mistaken, Harry felt it too. It was the manner in which the building had developed a new character. An atmosphere, if you like. A stillness emanated from the property. It was unnatural. And it was compounded by a sudden drop in temperature when one neared the fence and front gate. You felt it. It actually became colder.
'And after what we discovered inside, neither of us has been out there again.
'This dreadful mess was another symbol of Eliot's ingratitude to us and his utter foolishness with the young, impressionable people in his charge. We were so angry at the time. Mixed with our fear was our anger. This made us shake off the chill and commit ourselves to going inside.
'What was Eliot's excuse? He was well educated. Privileged. His parents had left him a large private income. He could have chosen politics, academia. Anything for his talents. He'd been blessed with a certain kind of genius and had every material facility to support it. And yet he had chosen to drift around the world like some rootless youth, experimenting with opiates and flirting with religious cults. Slowly extinguishing his wits. This terrible building was the result of one man's criminal waste of time and ability. I remember what Harry said to me then. That we had given Eliot the greatest chance a man could have. A second chance. And it was true. In return, he'd made fools of us. We suffered as a direct result of his behaviour. Our association with him was well known, and Harry had lobbied hard to bring him to the university in the first place. And here we were outside the pitiful remains of Eliot's second chance.
'It was then I realised, we had come to say goodbye to him. Once and for all. He had sabotaged everything. It was his choice to sink.
'His phone had been cut off for weeks, so we'd been unable to announce ourselves in the normal manner, and our knocking on the door had gone unanswered. We hardly expected the police to drive by, but it took us some time to gather the courage to break in. Secretly, I braced myself for the worst.
'It seemed unlikely, but if Eliot was inside there would certainly be a dreadful scene. That I could deal with, but it was the notion of finding something much worse that worried me. Something involving Ben and Beth.
'Quite by accident, before we chose a window to break, Harry tried the handle of the front door. And to our utter surprise, we found the door to be unlocked.
'Our relief at not having to smash glass was brief, though. Nothing could have prepared us for what we found inside. Remember, with the front door closed, not a single sound could be heard from the outside of the building. Everything was still. We were in the middle of a late cold snap. There wasn't even a breath of wind in the air.