4
Alex Simpson of the Northern Constabulary pulled out of the Muir of Ord police station and started the drive back. He was tired to the bone, but there was an electric ball of energy in his gut that pushed him on. He had changed out of his uniform, naturally, but he had pocketed his notebook. It lay on the passenger’s seat next to him almost radiating weight and importance.
He pulled into the small driveway of his small cottage and let himself in, going straight into his back study and sliding the elastic band off the cover of the black notebook. He thumbed to the last page of writing. He studied it for a few moments and then turned to the wall map. It showed all of Scotland, took up most of the wall, and had cost a fair penny. Today it would be working for him.
For the first time in several months he had managed to get some time alone on one of the office computers, where he could access the NC’s intranet. Until today, he had been unable to peruse Scotland’s crime and misdemeanor reports for anything that looked-well, suspicious. Suspicious to him, that is. And finally he had found something. Missing livestock, even killed and mangled livestock, was no novelty in the highlands, but that, coupled with a 27 percent bump in area crime, and a 300 percent rise in unnatural deaths in the last nine months-that was suspicious and worth sticking on the map.
Running his eyes over the blue pins already spread across the wall, he started to put red pins into the map around the Highlands Council area. Seven sheep reported missing and remains found on the farm of Robert Corbet near Kildonan. With no information on where the animals were found or known to be missing from, he stuck three pins around the farmstead. Two cattle killed and found near the farm of Mactire at Braemore-two pins. Nineteen more reports in the last four months-a couple dozen more red pins.
Next, violent crimes and robberies. A couple hundred of these, in black pins. It took the better part of an hour to mark them all. Next, suicides. Perhaps the most depressing. And again, far more common than one would hope in rural Scotland. In the last six months, forty. Fifteen minutes later forty more pins, these ones yellow, stuck in the map.
It was certainly painting a picture. Stepping back, he looked at the nebulous whole of incidents spread pretty much at random- except for a massive cluster of pins to the northeast, in Caithness. It was a sparsely populated area, which made the number of crimes even more remarkable. The haze of red, black, and yellow-at least half of the yellow pins-were clustered there, around a mountain called Morven, which had a bright-blue pin sticking in it. Alarm bells rang in his head.
He phoned his associate and asked him to come over. It was important. His associate was also a member of the Highland Constabulary and the only man in the world besides his father- who was now very old and of diminishing faculties-whom he could speak to about these matters.
He put the kettle on and had just made a pot of tea when his associate knocked on the door and let himself in, walking straight through to the kitchen.
“Ah, tea,” he said. “The drink of the English, of my people- right? What have you got to show me?”
Alex took him through and showed him the map on the wall and briefly explained the pins.
“Then it is clear,” his associate said gravely. “You must go and investigate. Make sure you go fully equipped. It could be anything- remember that cellar full of hobgoblins we found?”
“I must go? But you’re coming with me?”
“No, I must go south. I may already be too late. But call me if you really need my assistance. I don’t think you shall.”
And that settled it. He had four more days until his break, but he might be able to move that up. He would have to call the sergeant tonight.
And he would have to get an early start.
CHAPTER TWO
The Sleeping Knights
1
Eight Years Before . . .
At seven thirty a.m. the clock radio dragged Daniel Tully out of a deep sleep. Just another ordinary day. Ordinary and dreadful.
No, today was different-something happened today. It was his birthday. This woke him up. He turned off the radio alarm and climbed out of bed. Hunting around his room, he searched for the cleanest and least-wrinkled shirt and trousers he could find and put them on. Then he pulled his school jumper over them and went downstairs.
He was the only one awake, as usual, and the kitchen table- where he had once seen presents piled on top of each other several years earlier-was empty. He wandered into the living room and saw nothing on the small dining table either. He went back to the kitchen, kicking his feet.
He put some bread in the toaster and started making coffee.
Wrinkling his nose at the earthy smell as he spooned the raw, dirt-coloured grounds into the percolator, he vowed once more to never drink coffee as long as he lived. He flicked the power button on, wondering if his mum would think about him when she drank it and if she would remember what today was. Maybe he’d get some extra presents out of guilt. It was possible, but unlikely.
He ate his toast and looked out of the kitchen window into the tiny sliver of a garden. It was still quite dark. He didn’t like this time of year-he had to go to school in the dark, and also come home in the dark.
It’s not fair, he thought. And then, because he could and he knew it’d make him feel better, he said the words out loud. “It’s not fair.”
He wondered what sort of day it was going to be. And then, with a flash of dread, he realised that today was also the field trip. He also realised that he hadn’t handed in his permission slip.
He went into the hall and rummaged around on the side table. It must be here-he remembered seeing it. Yes, stuck underneath a strata of bills and junk mail was the blue, wrinkled permission slip with a blank space where his mum’s signature should be. He hurried back into the kitchen and looked at the clock on the oven. He had about five minutes. Plucking a pen from the mug on the counter, he rushed back upstairs and stood in front of his mother’s door and listened. He could hear faint breathing. He gently knocked on the door, which was open slightly.
“Mum?” he said.
There was no reply.
“Mum?” he said, louder.
There was a very muffled and tired moan. “Whuh ’zit?”
“Mum, I need your signature on something for school. There’s a class trip today.”
Silence.
“Mum?”
“L’ve it d’nstairs. Uh’ll sign it when uh get up.”
Daniel stood quietly for a moment. He needed the signature now, not later. He thought about the first of the two options now before him. He really didn’t want to go into the bedroom and try to persuade his mother to sign the slip now. He would probably have to actually push the pen into her hand and if he didn’t handle it right, there would be a “scene.” Also, he was starting to think that there was someone lying next to her.
No, it was far easier to do the second thing. He hurried back downstairs and put the slip on the kitchen counter, then uncapped the pen he was holding. He looked at the paper for a second and then exhaled. In a quick, confident burst of motion, he wrote his mother’s name in a suitably grown-up and illegible manner: Elaine Tully. He regarded the slip. Not his best work perhaps, but it would do. The trick was not in trying to make it look exactly like her real signature, but in making it confident.
He folded up the paper and put it in his pocket. No, he reflected, the real trick isn’t the signature-it’s in making all the teachers believe that you were the sort of boy who would never even think about faking his mum’s signature. And that meant, as so many things in life, keeping your head down.
He picked up his school bag, fished out his gym clothes (wouldn’t need those), and thought about signatures and permission slips. Where did they all go? What happened to them? Were they all put in a file somewhere? Did anyone really check them?