"Yes - well, she reacted well enough this time, but what about the next?" Peregrine wanted to know. "Clearly, she can't be privy to the details of our work, but there will be times when I'm in danger. I accept that danger - and I suppose I accepted it for her, unbeknownst to either of us, when I asked her to marry me - but it's hardly fair to keep her totally in the dark."
"No, but it isn't fair to frighten her needlessly, either," Adam replied. "There are dangers to our work, but I might even go so far as to say it's more 'difficult' than 'dangerous,' in the vast majority of cases - rather like more conventional police work, wouldn't you agree, Noel?"
McLeod gave a nod, catching Peregrine's glance in the rearview mirror. "He's right, son. Certainly, a conventional police officer faces danger - there are occasional fatalities - but a lot more of the work is about solving problems, finding out answers, helping people. How did I hear someone put it? 'Stretches of routine punctuated by instants of sheer terror.' The work of the Hunting Lodge is little different in that respect, except that the work is rarely routine."
"I'd have to agree with that" Peregrine said. "Still - Noel, do you and Jane ever talk about your work as a member of the Hunting Lodge?''
"Not in so many words," McLeod said with a tiny smile. "We worked that one out while you were still in short trousers."
"But she does know all about your special abilities, and how you use them?"
"I wouldn't say she knows all about them," McLeod said. "She knows the breadth of my - shall we say, 'hospitality'? And she knows that my writ as an officer of the law extends beyond the limits of the conventional legal system. If we decline to discuss the details, it's by common consent."
Peregrine contemplated this disclosure in silence. After staring out the window for several minutes, he asked, "How did it come about? - that she became aware of your gifts, I mean. Did you just decide one day to tell her?"
"Hardly as simple as that," McLeod said with a snort. "No, as it happened, it came as a revelation to us both."
Peregrine had never before ventured to ask how McLeod had originally become involved in the Hunting Lodge, so he listened avidly as the older man continued speaking of his own accord.
"It was a good twenty years ago. I'd just recently been promoted to detective sergeant, and was called out early one morning to investigate a burglary at a small country house museum, just this side of Dunbar. In fact, it was a lot like that place that had the Hepburn Sword stolen from it, just before you met Adam." Peregrine shifted to lean slightly forward between the two front seats as McLeod went on.
"Among the items reported stolen was a silver cross set with cairngorms, which had been handed over as part of the museum grant when old Sir Andrew Cockburn died, back in the early sixties. When I arrived at the crime scene, one of the curators told me the cross had been gifted to one of Sir Andrew's ancestors by Mary Queen of Scots herself - which made it a family heirloom beyond price.
"The job itself had been carried out by a team of professionals," McLeod continued. "No fingerprints, no wanton vandalism - just a clean sweep of everything worth taking. Burglaries like that don't leave the police with much to go on. When I drove back to Edinburgh that afternoon, I wasn't very sanguine about recovering any of the artifacts that had been stolen. Then, when I went to bed that night, I had a curious dream.
"I woke up - or thought I'd woken up - to the sound of somebody knocking at the front door. When I went downstairs to see who it was, I found an elderly white-haired gentleman standing outside on the step. He introduced himself as Sir Andrew Cockburn, and informed me that he could lead me to the crooks. He asked me very politely if he could come in, and without stopping to think, I said yes. The next thing I remember is waking up in the office of a priest who shall remain nameless, with my wife holding my hand."
At Peregrine's gasp, McLeod glanced back over his shoulder with a grin.
"Turns out, I'd been taken over by the spirit of old Cockburn himself," he continued reminiscently. "As keeper of the family cross, he'd developed an affinity with it over the years. With that affinity to guide him, he knew where the cross was to be found after the robbery, even if he didn't know who'd taken it. All he needed was the right person to use as a medium."
"You," said Peregrine.
"Me," McLeod agreed. He gave a short laugh. "Jane would be the first to tell you that it scared the hell out of her when she realized that the person sitting across from her at breakfast wasn't actually me. Oh, he promptly introduced himself, and assured her that I was in no danger, but he kept repeating that he had to give a message to someone in authority."
He grinned. "Fortunately, Jane was quick to realize that he didn't mean my police superiors - it would have been the end of my career. She also rightly surmised that this probably wasn't something that would make the minister of our kirk too happy."
"I should say not," Peregrine murmured, spellbound.
"Anyway, she rang a lady friend who'd dabbled in seances and the like, and the lady friend referred her to a local Anglo-Catholic priest who was sympathetic to such occurrences and understood exactly what happened and why. He verified that the possession wasn't satanic or anything like that, then brought me safely out of my trance, after taking down the information that my 'tenant,' Sir Andrew, had to impart.
"And that information led to the successful retrieval of the cross and a number of other items from the robbery. I wasn't to learn until much later that the good father - who's dead now, God rest him, though he later became a bishop - was a member of the same Hunting Lodge as Philippa Sinclair.'' Adam's mother. As far as Peregrine was concerned, this single revelation supplied the answers to many hitherto tantalizing questions.
"I can see why you and Jane wouldn't have many secrets from one another," he said after a moment. "But doesn't she worry about you?''
He shrugged. "A cop's life can be dangerous; she knew that when she married me. I don't suppose that adding an extra dimension to my jurisdiction increases the danger all that much; after all, we do have astral tools for astral enforcement."
"Am I really supposed to reassure Julia by telling her thatT' Peregrine said.
"Of course not," Adam said, finally joining the discussion. "But don't sell Julia short. Beneath that fetchingly girlish exterior beats a heart of true steel - a quality for which you may have cause to be thankful one day."
"So I shouldn't tell her any more?" Peregrine asked.
"I'd keep it on a need-to-know basis," Adam replied. "You'll know when more or less information is appropriate. In the meantime, I see the signs coming up for Dumbarton. Where's this hospital, Noel?"
"Actually, it's in Alexandria, a few miles past Dumbarton," the inspector replied, scanning the signs ahead. "The police mortuary is at Vale of Leven Hospital. Shout out when you see a sign. I know the central Glasgow area pretty well, but a lot of this is new out here."
They whisked past the outskirts of Dumbarton, with its stone-built houses and crowstepped roofs, arriving at Vale of Leven Hospital with minutes to spare. The police mortuary was housed in a separate building from the main hospital, clearly signposted, and they parked adjacent to its entrance. They were met in the lobby by a young man in plain clothes who introduced himself as Detective Angus Murray, from L-Division of the Strathclyde Police. After giving McLeod's credentials a cursory inspection, Murray led them along a dimly lit corridor and through a glass-panelled door into a small room functionally furnished as a staff lounge.