Shot Through The Heart (Supernature Book 1) (16 page)

Jumping on the bike, his foot slipped on the pedal as he tried to power off. He steadied himself and took it more slowly, grinding the gears. It was in a high gear and it took him a while to get back up to speed.

The dog closed on him, racing on the grass alongside the road. Mark felt that the wind was pushing him backwards. He changed up to the highest gear, feeling the burn in his thighs and the back of his throat, putting some distance between himself and the animal.

He glanced back, it stared straight at him, green eyes aglow. The wind worsened, buffeting him with a gust that almost knocked him off the bike.

The loch on the left-hand side turned back into a river and he cut off to the right, heading through Badanloch Lodge. He was tempted to seek refuge in the buildings but feared no-one being in and having to get back up to speed or being cornered.

He decided to continue on.

The dog was almost on him. Standing on the pedals, he pushed on. There were sheep on the road ahead, but he slowed down in time to weave through them, losing crucial momentum. He hoped the dog would get caught among the sheep.

A ram hurtled towards him from out of nowhere. Mark swerved the bike, the thin wheels trundling over the rough grass onto the verge. The ram looked to the side, seeing the dog before scuttling off in the opposite direction.

Mark seized the opportunity to put some distance between himself and the dog. He heard a yelp from behind and briefly turned to spot the dog run away, its tail between its legs. He stood on the pedals again, eager to get back to the hotel and safety - if he could get up to his room and bolt the door behind him, maybe he'd be okay.

Powering along, he kept glancing behind him. There was no sign of the dog. He slowed as he entered the village past the long row of buildings that led down to the lakeside, catching his breath. The blacksmith waved as he passed.

At the hotel, Mark got off his bike, heavily out of breath and drenched in sweat. He'd packed light and didn't have many other shirts - he might have to investigate the hotel's washing facilities. He wheeled the bike inside the hotel, folding it and locking it to the post in the sanctity of the storage room.

"Mr Campbell," called a voice as he shut the door behind him. He looked over. Harris. He hadn't seen him for a few days.

Mark powered over to the reception desk, the surge of adrenalin still flooding his veins. "What is it?" he asked with a smile.

"A note came for you," said Harris. He handed Mark an elaborate envelope - classic stationery.

Mark nodded thanks at Harris and tore open the envelope. He couldn't work out who it was from - he thought only Sarah had the address. He couldn't remember if Buffy did. Maybe Kay? His heart raced as he fumbled to unfold the paper.

It was from Elizabeth, cordially inviting him to dinner the following evening.

"Watch that one," said Harris.

"What one?" asked Mark, scowling.

"Lady Ruthven," said Harris. "She's a notorious predator." His eyes darted up and down Mark. "She's always on the look-out for a nice young man like yourself."

Mark blushed as he struggled for the words. "How do you know it's from her?" he asked.

Harris smiled. "Her manservant dropped the note off," he said. "It doesn't take a detective to work it out."

Mark let out a deep sigh as he started up the stairs, heading towards his bedroom and his work, figuring out how he could avoid being the prey of a notorious predator.

Mark walked slowly to the bar, hoping that John might be in. His legs were full of lactic acid from the dog chase. They had practically locked by the time he'd stopped working. He should have had a shower when he got back, but hadn't bothered, instead losing himself in his work. He'd got through four hours of solid writing, only stopping because his stomach was rumbling.

He was disappointed to see that John wasn't in, and neither was Adam, though it wasn't exactly a disappointment. The blacksmith sat at the far side of the room, wading through a heavy Sunday broadsheet. The male students were in - Mark decided there and then to give them his own nickname - the Lost Boys. He had been a fan of the film when he was growing up, and it just seemed to fit. They looked like such a bunch of idiots - sitting in the hotel bar, like they owned the place. If there had been a pool table, they'd have been around it, sizing up anyone else who dared come near it.

The one he'd fought with grinned at him, causing Mark to swallow hard. The dinner invite from Elizabeth stuck in his head. She was another he'd avoided, though for different reasons. Predator, indeed.

He gave a deep sigh and left, heading to the dining room. He could do with a night off the booze, though he remembered he had a few bottles of quality wine upstairs.

In the dining room, the young Polish woman that helped Harris was fussing around the Swedish girls. He made eye contact and then made his way to a seat by the window.

The Scandinavians reminded him that he hadn't seen Adam since Friday night. He'd avoided him, getting drunk in Inverness and then taking a trip to Kinbrace on his own. Adam was such an acquired taste that he figured it to be for the best.

As he waited, he got his notebook out and drew a mind map of his progress, something that his counsellor had taught him to do when faced with a panic attack. It got all his thoughts out quickly and let him tackle them in an organised way, rather than one-by-one. While he quickly managed to tick a lot off, he was surprised by how much of the stuff he'd jotted down related to either Lady Elizabeth Ruthven, or the supernatural, predominantly the dog.

He'd come to think of the incident with the dog in a humorous light - just a few days earlier and he had been stroking the beast. Now he was running away from it, scared to death. There was something about it that he couldn't quite put his finger on - it was unusually large, much bigger than most dogs he'd ever seen, even deerhounds or wolfhounds. Being chased like that hadn't been a good thing - previously, the animal had kept a watching distance, but that felt like an escalation.

The Swedes left the room and the waitress came over. Mark ordered the pizza and a pint of water, deciding to keep off the booze.

When she left, he gave a deep sigh. He closed his eyes, tossing his glasses onto the table. He felt exhausted - the cycle had taken a lot out of him, much more than he realised. He knew that he should have taken in carbs earlier and the lactic acid would be penitence for it.

He put his glasses back on and glanced out of the window.

Someone was looking at him.

He got to his feet, putting his head right against the window. It was dark out there and he screwed his eyes up, desperately trying to focus.

Hidden under the branches of a tree was a female figure, green eyes peering at him.

It was Kay.

He was sure it was Kay. Mark blinked his eyes in disbelief - the figure disappeared behind the tree. He cupped his hands on the window, desperate to get a better view.
 

A dog ran away from the tree, heading for the car park at the back, its green eyes glancing back at him.

"Are you okay, sir?"

Mark turned around. The waitress had returned with his glass of water. He swallowed hard. "Thanks," he said. "Can I take the pizza to my room?"

He'd lost his appetite, instead deciding to lose himself in a bottle of wine.

Mark woke up early the next morning, his head throbbing.

He got up immediately and headed straight to the bathroom, pouring himself a glass of water and downing it in one. There were two bottles of wine in the sink, half-filled with water. Force of habit from his domestic recycling habit.

He'd had a nightmare about Kay. It was Monday morning and a week since anyone had seen or heard from her. He'd been pushing her disappearance to the back of his mind and he was starting to worry about her. Until now, he'd been typically selfish and focused on his own problems.

Except that he'd seen her.

He was sure it was her standing by the tree. How could it have been? Why was she there? What was she doing?

The previous night, one-and-a-half bottles of wine to the good, he'd decided that he'd been seeing things, his brain matching patterns that weren't there. Now, in the cold light of day, he was starting to reconsider whether it had been her.

He went back through with another glass of water and sat down on the bed, the pillows drunkenly cast aside on the floor. He collected his mobile and noticed a single bar of reception. He dialled Kay's number.

Straight to voicemail.

His arm was covered in goosebumps. He had to solve the mystery of her disappearance. He struggled to come up with anything resembling a coherent plan, his thoughts slow through the fug of hangover. If he could keep Adam busy with something, he could get on with looking for Kay. The only way to prove that it hadn't been her would be to find her.

He sat down at the desk and sifted through the notes he'd purloined from her room, noticing a few scribbles in the corner of a page, which gave the vaguest suggestion that she was heading up to Wick.

Adam had a car. Mark had found a use for him other than photography.

He pulled the phone out again and dialled another number.

"Police Scotland, Highland and Islands," came the gruff male voice, the clatter of a call centre in the background. "Jim speaking."

Mark swallowed. "Hello," he said, his voice an octave deeper than it should have been. "I might be reporting a missing person."

"Might be?" asked Jim. "I'd like to remind you that wasting our time is a criminal offence."

Mark wished he'd thought this through before dialling. "I don't know if she's missing," he said. "She hasn't been seen in a week and her parents haven't heard from her."

"I need your personal details first, sir," said Jim.

Mark gave his name and address, then added his date of birth and mobile number at Jim's request.

"Is this your girlfriend or wife, sir?" asked Jim.

"No," said Mark. "God no. No, she works for me."

Jim gave a deep sigh - Mark's fear that he was wasting his time was rising. "Her name, sir?" he asked.

"Kay McGregor," said Mark.

"One moment, sir," said Jim. There was the sound of typing at the other end of the screen. "Where did she disappear from?"

"Ruthven in Sutherland," said Mark.

"Right," said Jim. "I know the place well." More tapping away. "Nothing turning up, sir. Can you give me a description of her?"

Mark trotted out the details, now repeated so many times.
 

"Who was the last person to see her?" asked Jim.

Mark swallowed. "The hotel manager at the Ruthven Arms," he said, "and a German couple. I think they've now gone home, though."

"I see," said Jim. "And no-one's seen her since?"

Mark thought long and hard. "No," he eventually said.

"Did she have a car?" asked Jim.

"She did," said Mark, "a Fiesta. It's gone."

"Now we're getting somewhere," said Jim. "Reg number?"

Mark gave it.

"Right, sir," said Jim. "I'll give you a crime number if you've got a piece of paper to hand?"

Mark scribbled down a five figured number. "What next?" he asked.

"I need to get some local officers allocated to this," said Jim. "They may or may not be in touch."

Mark sat and listened to the dial tone for a few seconds, staring into space, before hanging up. He shook his head - it couldn't have been her.

He got up with the intention of finding Adam, pleased that he'd finally done the right thing.

Mark showed Adam the way to the church at the back of eleven. There was a thick mist in the air, sending a shiver up Mark's spine. The area of window he'd cleared away the previous morning was already encrusted with a layer of mud - he rubbed it again to allow Adam to click away.

Adam took over, circling the church and taking hundreds of shots. Mark appreciated his enthusiasm as a photographer - he was getting down and dirty, kneeling and rolling around to get the most dynamic views of the building. His three-quarter-length army surplus trousers were caked in mud in ten minutes.

He was still irritating the living hell out of Mark, though. The man just could not keep his mouth shut for longer than ten seconds, and when it opened, a steady stream of half-true nonsense spewed out. Trudging away from the church to get a longer view, Mark hoped to avoid conversation. Adam continued shooting, getting himself stuck deep into nettles.

Mark got out his phone and dialled. "Mrs McGregor?" he asked.

"Aye?"

"It's Mark Campbell. I'm just checking in to see if there's been any news on Kay."

Mrs McGregor sighed down the line. "I've no' heard from her, son," she said. "I told you before, she'll no turn up for ages."

"I'm just worried," said Mark. He figured that mentioning to anyone that he'd seen Kay turn into a dog wouldn't help matters.

"Aye, well dinnae be," said Mrs McGregor. "My lassie will turn up when she wants to."

"You've heard nothing from her?" asked Mark.

"No!" shouted Mrs McGregor. "Look, son, I need to go make my mum's breakfast, okay? She's no' well, and she's more of a worry to me than that daughter of mine."

The line clicked dead.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't doubt the evidence of his senses, and he knew what he saw.

Mark looked at the church, distracting himself by comparing it with its cousin in the village, and thought about everyone who mentioned supernatural happenings in the area. Maybe the devil worship led to paranormal behaviour.

Maybe not.

The ruined building would be a good metaphor to use in one of the many unwritten chapters. Mark got his notebook out and scribbled some ideas down - the locals were Catholic and their religion had been battered down, much like the church.

The insinuation from the minister seemed to be the locals had torched the building, rather than some freak event. He couldn't understand why the locals would attack a Catholic church. They were God-fearing people - to destroy a place of worship was an extreme action. The Protestant church, while it was in decay for modern reasons, had been built after the destruction of the Catholic one and had flourished.