Ashes to Ashes (48 page)

Footsteps pealed through the house. Michael dragged Rebecca up the steps to the little room. She stumbled and he caught her just as the door slammed behind them. They hung onto each other, knit as snugly as they could get clothed and standing up. “And I thought you were a terrorist,” Rebecca croaked into his shoulder. “Some terrorist you are, intimidated by a gun.”

“Dinna be daft,” he replied. “What I am is terrified.”

“That makes two of us.”

The room smelled of decay, which, at the moment, suited Rebecca considerably better than lavender. The windows rattled in the force of the wind. A draft fanned her hot cheeks, sucking the warmth from them. She clutched Michael, wondering incoherently if she was going to crack his ribs, asking herself if it really mattered anyway.

The wind cried as though it wanted inside. Rebecca heard no other sound except the quick, steady beat of Michael’s heart against her ear. For a long moment that was enough.

Michael and Rebecca untangled themselves. She pulled one of the flashlights from her pocket, pattered down the steps and checked the door. “It’s locked, but the key’s still in it.”

“We’re on the wrong side,” Michael returned. He produced his own flashlight and swept its feeble beam around the room. Nothing was there but the plank floor, the lathe ceiling and the trapdoor, and four walls, each with its window as blank as an aristocrat’s monocle.

“Maybe Steve’s bringing back help… ” Rebecca began as she climbed back up the stairs, and cut herself off. Steve no longer counted. “How long will it take Eric to search the house and realize no one’s there?”

Michael threw up the sash of a window and leaned out. The beam of his light was consumed by snow-spangled darkness. A gust of wind blew his hair back from his face and curled Rebecca’s toes. “We’re proper experts at searchin’ the house. For him, fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most. We have tae be oot o’ here by then.”

“Sure,” Rebecca said stoutly, even as she thought, and if we’re not? She inhaled the cold draft that stirred the clammy, slightly rotten air of the room. Eric wasn’t going to kill them. They wouldn’t let him. “You can say ‘I told you so’ if you like.”

Michael extricated himself from the window and slammed it shut. “Because I’ve been tellin’ you a’ along he was up tae something? No, gloatin’ over you widna help; I wish I’d been dead wrong.” He tilted his head and his flashlight and considered the trapdoor. “I’ll have tae go ower the roof and try tae open a window.”

“The slate’s glazed with ice,” Rebecca protested. “You’ll fall!”

He lowered his eyes to hers. His face was as uncompromising as the basalt upon which Edinburgh Castle had stood for a millennium. “If I’m goin’ tae die, it’ll be on my own terms.”

Rebecca forced down the lump in her throat. “If you fall I’m coming after you. You won’t get away from me that easily.”

“I hope not.” Michael’s cold hand cupped her cheek, soothing the ache in her jaw. For just a moment the ice blue of his eyes melted. Then he said, “Let’s get tae it.” Tucking his flashlight into the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he climbed the ladder to the ceiling and heaved on the trap door. It flew open with a creak and a crash lost in the keening of the wind.

Rebecca frowned, visualizing the plan of the house. “Michael, wait. Elspeth’s window in the ballroom— it’s next to one of the turrets, right?”

“Right.” He clung to the ladder, looking down at her, the light of the flashlight in his sleeve pooling on the ceiling.

She waved her hand at the window across from the one he’d opened. “It’s below that window. It’s a tall one, above my head. You wouldn’t have to go onto the slates at all.”

“Her window’s open, is it? I could hang onto the sill o’ this one and get my foot into the gap at the top o’ the other.” Michael slammed the door and jumped from the ladder. He opened the sash and shone his light downward.

It’s also a sheer drop all the way to the parking area, Rebecca thought. “Three, four feet of wall between the sill of this window and the top of the other? I could do it, but your extra inches would make a difference.”

A gulf of blackness opened beyond the window, the ground so far down that its covering of snow reflected only implications of their lights. Rebecca fought down a wave of vertigo. Michael stood up, squared his shoulders, and stuffed his flashlight into his pocket. His voice was thin but firm. “Colin took me up the Buchaille Etive Mor in February. I’m no bad at scramblin’ ower ice the noo, although one o’ his nylon belayin’ ropes widna come amiss.”

Nylon, Rebecca thought. A nylon rope… . She laid her flashlight on the floor and started pulling off her shoes, her shadow dancing grotesquely on the far wall. “A rope. I’m wearing silk longjohns. Light but strong.”

Michael stared. “What?”

“Tights. If you stretch them out toe to toe they’d make a kind of a rope. Better than nothing.” Her socks followed her shoes to the floor. She unbuckled her belt and ripped open the zipper of her jeans.

Michael’s teeth flashed in a delighted grin, as much at her impromptu strip-tease, no doubt, as at her suggestion. He did a precise about face and considered her shadow instead of her person. “Only you’d be wearin’ tights and socks together. Have you been that cold, then?”

“Yow,” exclaimed Rebecca, dumping her jeans and peeling herself out of the silk. She broke out in gooseflesh. “I’m that cold now.”

His back shook with a laugh. She threw the now limply snaky garment at him and scrambled back into her jeans. “There. Tie yourself a mountaineer’s knot that would make Colin proud.”

“I hope I’ll have a chance tae tell him aboot it.”

“With suitable embellishments,” added Rebecca drily, tying her shoes.

“No, lass, nae time for embellishments.” He made a loop in one leg of the material and draped it beneath his arms. “Sorry, Phil.” He drove his foot through the bottom pane of glass in the window. It fell tinkling into oblivion. Michael tied the ankle of the other silk leg through the empty panel, around the thick wooden frame of the window. “There. That’ll help, psychologically at the least. If I can get that window open far enough I’ll slip oot o’ the bowline— the loop— and into the room. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Rebecca. She didn’t add, if Elspeth doesn’t slam her window on you. But she was much more frightened of Elspeth’s great-grandson and his nasty little gun. Michael sat on the windowsill, one leg outside, one inside. Rebecca knelt, clasped the makeshift rope near its knot on the window sash and held her flashlight poised. He looked down and winced.

Her mind burped and words spilled from her tongue. “Michael, what were you and Colin going to do with the money you brought back?”

His eyes glazed. “Noo?”

“Now.”

“We wanted tae buy property. I thought if I saved my salary— and if something valuable fell into my lap… . “He grimaced and plunged on, “Colin didna ken that. He’d be right ashamed o’ me if he did.”

“That’s why you were saving the clippings about fire-bombed houses?”

“We hoped the estate agent in London could get damaged property on the cheap. But neither o’ us had a mind tae set those fires, or tae thank the yobbos who’ve been doin’ it. They’re livin’ in the wrong century. Economic power, that’s what it’s on aboot the day.”

“So the bit about Arabs… .”

“The last time I was in Harrod’s the prices were in Saudi rials as well as pounds.” Michael clasped the back of her neck, pulling her face to his. “Property. Land. A bit o’ the Auld Sod. A’ right?”

“All right,” she laughed. “Sorry.”

His cold lips landed a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Then he was gone. His hands flexed on the windowsill. The strip of silk tightened. Rebecca braced herself inside, one hand clenched on the straining knot, the other holding the flashlight pointed out and down. The wind whipped her hair, bits of ice stung her face. Her lungs burned; she realized she was holding her breath. The top of Michael’s head was a dark splotch, his elongated body splayed against the pale wall. The bubble of light around him appeared deceptively substantial against the encroaching dark. He stretched. Rebecca felt her lips move, “In manus tuas Domine… ”

Michael’s hands disappeared. The strip of cloth jerked and the window creaked. From below, as if from the bottom of a well, came a sliding crash and a thud. Rebecca leaned farther over the sill. He wasn’t there. The nylon loop swung wildly in the wind. The ballroom window stood open.

The wood beneath her knees bucked. With a silly grin Rebecca fell back into the room— he was all right, he was inside. She untied the ridiculous pseudo rope and closed the window. The door opened. “Rebecca!”

She catapulted down the stairs and into Michael’s arms. His shirt was cold, his face felt like marble, but his eyes blazed with triumph. He shut the door and locked it. “We’ve got him the noo. Come on.”

They crept into the ballroom. The fire had subsided into glowing embers; the central portion of the room shimmered with diluted orange light while the shadows in the corners shifted like deep water. Michael handed her the poker, whispering, “You’re nae too squeamish tae use this on him, are you?”

“Don’t be daft. If I can get the drop on him he’ll see stars.”

Michael nodded approvingly. “Good. Find yourself something tae throw, something that’ll make muckle noise but that’s no valuable.”

“Got it,” Rebecca replied. Michael turned off the flashlight. She tiptoed toward the end of the room to the right of the main stairway, he faded into the shadows on the left. As he passed the corner of the fireplace there was a scrape of metal against brick. Good God, had he taken the claymore? It wasn’t even sharp. It was heavy, though.

Footsteps. Again Rebecca couldn’t tell which staircase. If Eric came up the back stairs, as he had before, he’d unlock the door and discover them gone. But she’d used up every profane expression she knew. She thrust her hand into the first box she came to and found a Toby jug. It was fairly valuable, but not so much so as her life.

A movement pricked the corner of her eye, the sway of a long skirt, shadow sketched on twilight, trailing lavender. Light steps glided across the floor. Elspeth, no, don’t warn him!

Eric stood at the top of the main staircase, the dazzling light in his hand glancing off a picture frame here and a vase there. He’d heard something, or maybe felt something, and he knew he wasn’t alone. But the brightness of his light obliterated firelight and shadow equally, streaking the room with undiscerning black and white. The steps stopped, the suggestion of a skirt vanished, but the lavender lingered, clogging Rebecca’s nostrils.

Eric started across the room, his steps cautious, his light circling like a spotlight at a Hollywood premiere. Rebecca huddled behind a love seat, her knuckles white on the poker, the ceramic jug trembling in her other hand. The light struck the wall above her hiding place, making the shadow in which she crouched even thicker.

Ghostly fabric brushed her back and she bit her lip. No, I won’t let you scare me into jumping up. No.

A thump. Once again a tiny head peered down on her, its butterscotch and white fur clearly defined. Eric’s steps stopped. The cat turned, its eyes gold in the light, and a low rumbling hiss emanated from his throat.

Another thump as Darnley leaped to the floor. Rebecca flattened herself against the floorboards and peered beneath the love seat. Just beyond its legs, festooned with swags of dust, she could see four paws braced in front of a pair of loafers. The loafers took a step backward.

Dust swirled into her face, spurting away from a print made by an invisible foot. Rebecca laid down the poker and suffocated her mouth and nose to keep herself from sneezing. Her mind was emitting little puffs of smoke so tangible she was afraid Eric would see them wafting wraithlike through the firelight. He’s handicapped by holding the gun and the flashlight both, she thought. If I throw the jug— no, if he’s looking at the cat he’ll see me, he’ll probably start shooting, wait until he turns.

To her hyper-extended senses the quick scrape from the opposite wall sounded like a three-car pile up. The light swung around, the loafers turned. Now! Rebecca grabbed the poker and vaulted up, striking her kneecap against the leg of the love seat. She hurled the jug as hard as she could.

From somewhere in the black well of the staircase came the horrendous crash of antique Staffordshire. The light zoomed through the darkness, flaring in each succeeding window, as Eric whirled and took several running steps toward the stairs.

In her mind’s eye, like the after image of a lightning flash, Rebecca saw standing beside the love seat an old man holding the arm of a long-skirted woman. Yes, they’d both been protecting the house, but for different reasons. Mother and son stared at each other, opposing forces locked in time.

Rebecca leaped to her feet, poker at the ready. Her knee shrieked in pain and buckled. She fell on one arm of the love-seat. Darnley bounded up beside her, tail like a bottle brush, whiskers quivering.

At the top of the stairs Eric spun around. His light struck Rebecca full in the face, blinding her. Still she clutched the poker, her other arm across her face. Dive! Every muscle in her body contracted. She plunged from light into oblivion. Fire rent the night and an explosion ricocheted through her head. Somewhere, six or seven miles away, glass shattered.

She bounced and jackknifed violently toward the back of the couch. Light struck her— this time he wouldn’t miss… .

The light winked out, whisking away from her. A shout rang through the room, echoed, reformed. “Cruachan!” Rebecca scrambled up the arm of the love seat. Michael leaped from the side of the room. He brandished the claymore before him, its blade a brilliant streak of reflected light.

Eric swore viciously, realizing his momentum wasn’t great enough. Gun and spot were still aimed to Michael’s left when the sword connected. The sound of the blow was muffled by Eric’s gasp of pain. Light gyrated madly across the room and with a shattering crash the spot went out.

Rebecca blinked, straining through the abrupt orange gloom. Darnley clawed frantically up her thigh. Eric’s face was twisted in rage and indignation. One arm dangled limply at his side, the other was raising his gun. Michael was bringing the claymore up in an arc from the floor, struggling to set it swinging again. His expression, terrified rage, would’ve sent the closest redcoat racing for the English border.