Cumberland's Cradle

by Derek Wilson

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Lanner Castle is a forbidding gothic building on an island in tiny Loch Huich. The locals know little about its present owner, the reclusive Mr Robertson, except that he is wealthy, writes antiquarian books and owns most of the comprehensive accumulation of torture instruments in private hands. But there are those who know more about Robertson and his past - and of those people he is terrified. When a sudden series of dark omens strikes at the very heart of Lanner Castle, Robertson calls in security expert Tim Lacy to install a state-of-the-art intruder-proof system and goes into hiding. But Lacy cannot prevent the pride of the gruesome collection, Cumberland's Cradle, from being stolen. Two days later, Robertson is found fatally reunited with his property and Lacy must run head-on towards the greatest danger he has ever faced...

Release date: November 30, 2012

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 344

Sample

The boy was the first person in the village to hear the soldiers’ approach. The intermittent wailing of his nine-month-old sister and his desperate anxiety to meet her simple needs had deprived him of childhood’s right to deep sleep. His ears registered every unusual nuance of sound from beyond the holed thatch and the sacking-covered window.

He had not been listening – consciously at least – for the king’s men, though, like everyone else in the highland villages, he knew they were coming. The king and the one they called the Butcher were not content with having massacred the boy’s father and uncles along with other clan leaders in the great valley battle. They were sending troops up into the hills, slaughtering cattle, burning settlements, driving from their home the families of the freedom fighters as well as those who knew nothing of the political conflict and wished only to be left to their subsistence farming.

The boy rose from the thin layer of straw pushed into a corner of the earth-floored room, hugging his blanket around him against the cold. Three short strides took him to the window. He lifted the rough material and stood on tiptoe to peer out. Dawn was a suggestion of grey beyond the humped ridge of Old Man’s Back. The nearer ground was patterned in shades of black, outlines blurring and merging. But the boy knew every tree, every earthbank and hovel. He sensed rather than saw furtive movement; intuited rather than heard deliberately muffled sound.

Suddenly there was light. Livid flame scarred the darkness. A man stood illumined by the flaring torch he held aloft. Then there was another, and another. Rooted by fascination, shock and fear, the boy saw a line of soldiers, their hated uniforms garish with menace in the flickering brilliance. The men advanced, first slowly, then with increased momentum. Wide-eyed with terror, the boy saw first one, then another soldier hurl his blazing missile. The incendiaries arched through the blackness. Some fell harmlessly to earth; some bounced from walls and lay spluttering on the ground; but some found their targets. Within seconds the whole compound was illuminated by the yellow glow of burning thatch.

The boy heard a snapped command in the brittle English he did not understand. The troops stopped, knelt, and raised their guns. As women, children, goats, sheep and hens ran from the blazing buildings the king’s men opened fire. The next seconds were a confusion of people and animals, shrieking, bleating, blundering to and fro, falling, writhing, lying grotesquely in twisted death.

The boy turned away from the scene. He grabbed up the bundle that was his sister, and clasping her to his chest he let himself out of the back door. The distance to the boundary wall was pathwayed with shifting shadows and he stumbled over the uneven ground. He rested his burden atop the earth and stone bank just long enough to scramble over. Then he was on the move again, feet pounding the familiar path to the river.

The river. To his young mind its width and rapid movement suggested a barrier. Crossing it was all that mattered. What he would do on the other side was a distant decision. The baby, crying again, slowed him down. It seemed an age before he heard the roar of water over Blackhawk Race. He reached the bank and sank to the mossy turf. Chest heaving, arms aching, he longed to rest but dared not. His sister was shrieking her terrified protest but the boy had no time to soothe and comfort her.

He set her down in the shelter of a boulder and ran upcurrent beside the torrent. Above the rapids the river widened and shallowed before crashing over jagged rocks to the deep pools beyond. The boy knew there was one place where he could cross waist-deep, and he searched for this now. He soon found the spot with the aid of the spreading pre-dawn. For a moment only he stared out over the grey ripples on the surface of polished black. It was here that his father had taught him to swim. Then he turned back to collect the only other living member of his family.

He was paces away from his sister when he saw the soldier standing over the screaming bundle. Deliberately the man drew back his booted foot and swung it. The baby paused to fill her lungs then howled with pain and anger. The man laughed and muttered something in English. He swung his gun from his shoulder and pointed it at the little girl.

‘No!’ The boy sprang forward. He had covered half the ground when the explosion filled his ears. The soldier part turned, but was unbalanced when the boy’s shoulder caught him behind the knees. He staggered, throwing out his arms to steady himself. He lurched against the low boulder and fell sideways across it, his limbs flailing to grasp something. Then he tumbled without a sound into Blackhawk Race.

The boy dropped to his knees beside his sister. She was not crying now. She had nothing to cry with. Where mouth and snub nose had once been there was a hole, glistening with oozed blood.

The boy turned away. He blundered blindly along the bank, waded the river, then he ran and ran until there was no more running in him.

Darkness came early, and with it the snow. Tim and George peered through the windscreen into a maelstrom of whirling white. The hire car’s engine roared in its lowest gear and laboured up the incline.

‘Come on!’ The older man expertly varied his pressure on the accelerator and coaxed the vehicle forward. ‘How much farther, Major?’

‘Two and a half miles.’ Tim Lacy held his torch close to the Ordnance Survey map. ‘We must be on the estate already.’

The car went into a sideways drift. Gritting his teeth with concentration, George gave it more gas and steered out of the skid. ‘If there are any hills beyond this we won’t make it. I don’t know that we’ll make this one.’

‘No. When we’re over the top it’s downhill all the way to the loch. The peak’s just round this bend. You can do it, George.’

‘I hope so, Major.’ George habitually addressed Tim by the rank he had held when both men worked together in the SAS. ‘I just hope it doesn’t all turn out to be a waste of time. I’ve still got my doubts about this Robertson character.’

Tim shared his friend’s misgivings. Several years in the business of providing the technical equipment to safeguard private and public art collections worldwide had brought Lacy Security many strange clients and taken him and his colleagues into several bizarre and sometimes dangerous situations. There were hundreds of wealthy hoarders of rare and beautiful things who had excellent reasons for secrecy and were paranoid about criminals, rivals or tax authorities who might take too close an interest in their concealed treasures. Yet there was something distinctly odd about J. Robertson.

‘Contact me urgently. J. Robertson.’ That had been the first message to come through on the fax machine at Farrans Court, Tim’s Wiltshire home which was also his business headquarters. It had appeared on Christmas Eve when the office was unmanned – Tim and his family had been in America spending the festive season with his wife’s parents. By the time he returned to work on 2 January his secretary had collected a pile of faxes from J. Robertson, all equally peremptory and uncommunicative. A brief telephone conversation had added little. The voice at the other end of the line had been gruff, its tone aggressive and its message downright insulting.

‘Lacy? About bloody time! I want you to come and upgrade my security arrangements. And I do mean “upgrade”. I need the most up-to-date system available, and I need it yesterday. I’ll fax the address, together with travel and ETA details.’

Before Tim could respond the line had gone dead.

He had dismissed J. Robertson as a crank and told Sally, his secretary, to shred any more faxes that came from him. He had given the oddball no more thought for three days. Then a call from Aubrey ‘Tiger’ Maximian had changed everything. Tiger was a friend of several years’ standing. He was also PPS to the foreign secretary. After the conventional greetings Tiger had come straight to the point.

‘You’ve recently been approached by a potential client by the name of Robertson.’

‘That’s right.’ Tim responded cautiously.

‘Are you taking the job on?’

‘No. I didn’t like the sound of him. He was rude to me. That’s not the kind of treatment I respond to.’

Tiger laughed. ‘I can imagine. He’s a bit eccentric but perfectly genuine. And I can assure you, Tim, money is no object.’

‘Friend of yours, is he?’

‘Let’s just say we would be very grateful if you gave Mr Robertson the benefit of your professional services.’

‘Is that the royal “we”?’

‘Ministerial.’

‘Which means the Tower of London if I refuse?’

‘Could be.’ The young politician chuckled. ‘It could also mean a few rungs up the honours system ladder if you agree.’

‘You know what I think about titles.’

‘OK, I’m not bribing you. Just trying to dispose of your misgivings. Robertson lives on his estate in the Highlands. Wiring up his castle will be quite a big job, and profitable. It would also oblige some of my associates who have friendly relations with him. As I see it, Tim, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from taking on this commission.’

‘Let me get this straight: there’s a Scottish laird who thinks he can act the grand seigneur with all and sundry, and when it doesn’t work he gets some of his grouse-shooting chums in high places to exert pressure. I don’t care for that kind of neo-feudalism.’

There was a thoughtful pause at the other end of the line. Then Tiger said, ‘Look, the fact is my boss recommended you as the best in the business. If you turn Robertson down—’

‘So what it comes down to is saving ministerial face?’

‘If you like. Will you do it?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Tim, I’m only inviting you to do yourself a bit of good.’ There was a trace of anxiety in Maximian’s voice now.

‘I’ll have a look at our schedules and see if we can fit your chum in.’ Tim almost heard his friend wince at the word ‘chum’.

‘I’ll leave it with you then. Now it’s about time I thrashed you at squash again. When are you coming up to town?’ The conversation had drifted into social chat.

So here Tim was, at the end of January, with his head of installations and right-hand man George Martin, struggling through a Scottish blizzard. The weather had deteriorated steadily since late morning, when they had stepped off the shuttle at Edinburgh’s Turnhouse airport. They had planned to fly to Inverness, but the field there had been closed on meteorological advice. Light rain had accompanied them most of the way northwards, and had turned to sleet as they climbed over a thousand feet beyond Aviemore. By Inverness it was snowing convincingly, flurries overtaking the car as it headed westwards along narrowing roads into the glens. The omens, Tim reflected, were not good.

George exhaled a long sigh of relief as the ground levelled out beneath the car’s wheels. He brought the powerful saloon gently to a halt. ‘Quick breather,’ he said, rubbing his eyes, then stretching his arms. ‘We ought to have hired a four-wheel drive.’

‘We shan’t need the car once we get to the village. If it weren’t for the snow we’d be able to see the lights already. Somewhere down there is Loch Huich, with Lanner Castle on an island in the middle and Briachan on the shore facing it.’

‘And a warm welcome from Mr Robertson?’

‘I wouldn’t swear to that – but he’s rich enough to own a couple of thousand acres of grouse moor, so he should be able to run to a comfortable bed and a decent meal.’

‘Well, I’m certainly ready for both.’

George settled himself again behind the wheel, let in the clutch and accelerated cautiously. As the car gathered momentum down the slope, Tim folded the map. He opened the glove compartment to put it and the torch inside, when suddenly he was thrown forward, the safety belt taut across his chest.

‘What the …!’ George jabbed the footbrake and the saloon went into a skid on the white surface. George plied the steering wheel to the right, then quickly to the left. He jerked the gear into first to let the engine slow the car. Still it rolled forward, so he turned it gently towards a snow-covered bank and applied the brake just before impact. With a jolt the vehicle crunched its nearside wing into camouflaged hedge and bracken.

Without a word George jumped out and started running and slithering back along the road.

Tim grabbed the torch and manoeuvred across to clamber out of the driver’s side. ‘What is it? George? What’s the matter?’ He caught up with his friend twenty metres behind the car.

‘They must be up here, just beyond where the skid marks start! Can you shine the torch this way, Major?’

They found the point where the car’s tracks began to slew across the road, then followed the straight tyre marks back up the hill. ‘They must be about. They can’t be any further back.’ George peered intently into the circle of light.

Tim said, ‘What exactly are we looking for?’

The older man turned to him, snow flecking his head and shoulders. ‘The kids – three of them. You must have seen them. They were in the middle of the road. I couldn’t have missed them. Let’s look over here, along the side.’

For almost ten minutes the two men worked their way back and forward across the road and along thirty or forty metres of its length. They saw nothing but the steadily filling imprint of wheels in the even white surface.

Back in the car George shook his head. Tim had seldom seen him so shaken. ‘They were there, Major. I swear it. Three kids in ragged clothes. About nine or ten years of age. Just standing there, holding hands and looking straight at me.’

‘It’s the snow, George. It can play all sorts of tricks on you.’

‘I suppose so.’ George did not sound convinced. ‘But they were so real!’

‘Well, they’re not real now. If there had been anyone here we’d have found some trace. Come on, the sooner we get a couple of whiskies inside you the better.’

George restarted the engine, extricated the car from the bank and took it down the hill in a low gear. The two men travelled in silence, George trying to convince himself that he had been hallucinating, Tim wondering why, when he had looked up immediately before the skid, he had seen, or thought he had seen just for a fraction of a second, three small figures in the road.

The bar of the Briachan Inn was warm, brightly lit and reassuring. It was also surprisingly well populated for the time of day. Two strongly built men in working clothes stood at the counter, and a couple of tables at the far side of the room were occupied.

‘You made it, then?’ The open-faced young woman behind the bar smiled at the newcomers.

‘It sounds as though we were expected.’ Tim eased himself on to a tall stool.

‘Oh, aye. You’ll be the two gentlemen from London. The castle always tell us when guests are expected. You’ll be wanting something to warm you.’

Tim took out his wallet. ‘You couldn’t be more right. Two doubles, please.’

‘You can put away your money, Mr Lacy.’ She turned to the row of optics behind her. ‘This round is on Angus Logan.’ She nodded towards the taller of the two standing men. ‘He wagered me not ten minutes since that you wouldn’t get here today.’

Tim accepted his glass and tilted it towards his benefactor. ‘Thank you … Angus.’

The man nodded and offered the faintest of smiles. He wore a cap set far back on his thick, curling black hair, and his rugged features suggested several years of sculpture by sun and wind. ‘You did well to be over Beanlaich Hill in this weather. What are you driving?’

George told him the make and model of the car.

Angus looked scornful. ‘Looks as though I’ll be towing you out with one of my trucks, then – unless you’ve a mind to stay several weeks.’

‘What’s your line of business, Angus?’ Tim enquired.

‘Construction. We’re building a new road. Were it not for the snow you’d have seen our camp as you came down the hill.’

‘And a terrible eyesore it is, too,’ the barmaid interposed.

‘Come on, Mary, don’t start that old fight again.’ Angus’s companion – a younger, fair-haired man – spoke the words lightly, but the glances exchanged across the bar suggested to Tim that feelings ran deep.

‘Who wants a new road here?’ he asked.

‘No one!’ The shout came from a corner of the room.

Tim and George turned to see two young women in anoraks hunched over their beer glasses and glaring at the road-builders with looks that could have burned holes in hardened steel.

‘Thus spake the great unwashed,’ Angus retorted contemptuously. ‘Students with nothing better to do than make nuisances of themselves.’

‘There’s a new hydro-electric plant to be built downriver from the loch.’ Again it was the other man who intervened. ‘We’ve to put a road through to take all the heavy construction traffic. It’ll cut straight across to the A862 and Inverness.’

Angus, still scowling at the protestors, added, ‘It’ll keep lorries away from the village here, and the new dam will provide cheap power, as well as encouraging business to come to the region, thus creating jobs. Those are the facts. It’s best you should hear the truth before others start bending your ears with lies and rumours. Wherever there’s progress you’ll always find Luddites and banner-waving protestors.’

Mary glared at him. ‘That’s enough of that, Angus. You know the rule. If you want to drink here you leave your feuding outside.’ She turned to his companion. ‘Take him away, Alan, before I do him a mischief.’

The younger man drained his glass and buttoned his donkey jacket. ‘Aye. Come along, Angus. It’s time we were away back to the camp. Enjoy your stay, Mr Lacy, Mr Martin. Good-day, Mary.’ He steered his friend towards the door.

The silence that followed was almost tangible. At last Tim said, ‘I suppose we should be moving, too. I believe we have to phone for the castle boat to collect us.’

‘You’ll not be going across today, Mr Lacy.’ Mary stood the glass she had been polishing on the shelf and turned to him with her frank smile.

‘But, as you said, they’re expecting us.’

‘They were expecting you more than an hour since – in daylight. There’s no travelling to and fro after dark.’

‘But, surely …’ Tim looked closely at the girl, wondering if she was playing some kind of straightfaced Highland joke. ‘It’s no more than a couple of hundred metres of open water. Even in this weather—’

‘Oh, the weather has nothing to do with it. Mr Robertson allows no one on or off the island after dark. And with those dogs of his let loose he’d be a fool who’d try to land.’

Tim frowned. Robertson’s detailed instructions had mentioned nothing about arriving before sundown. In all his peremptory faxes he had repeatedly stressed urgency, demanding that Lacy Security get to work as soon as possible. Now, when he and George had travelled six hundred miles and braved a raging blizzard, Tim was in no mood to be suddenly kept waiting. ‘I think I’d better have a word with Mr Robertson.’

Mary shrugged. She waved to the far end of the bar where there were two telephones on a shelf. ‘It’s the green one – direct line to the castle.’

Tim made the call. After only two rings the receiver at the other end was picked up.

‘Lanner Castle.’

‘May I speak to Mr Robertson, please?’

‘You must be Mr Lacy.’ The voice was rough and definitely not Scottish.

‘That’s right. Now, if I might speak—’

‘Mr Robertson will be pleased to know that you have arrived safely. He can’t come to the phone at the moment. He’ll see you as soon as you arrive in the morning.’

‘In the morning! But—’

‘The boat will be there at eight-fifty on the dot. Meanwhile Tam McFadden and his daughter will look after you very well. Until tomorrow, Mr Lacy.’

The line went dead.

Mary’s knowing smile said ‘I told you so’.

Tim shrugged. ‘It seems we must accept your hospitality.’

‘There are worse fates.’ Her laugh was a coloratura trill. ‘Will I show you to your rooms? I could introduce you to the other castle guests –’ she nodded towards the four remaining occupants of the bar – ‘but you’ll meet them at dinner. For now you’ll be wanting to freshen up – and we must get your car into the garage before it’s buried in snow.’

Any annoyance Tim had felt at his client’s offhand treatment was soothed away by a long wallow in a deep bath full of hot water and the calming decor of a surprisingly well-appointed room.

It was just after six-thirty when, in answer to a tap at the door, Tim let his colleague in. ‘Hi, George, how are you feeling?’

‘All the better for a bit of a kip, Major. Still can’t get that business on the road out of my mind though. Those kids looked so … solid. I could’ve sworn … Oh well, I suppose that’s the thing about hallucinations – they seem real.’ He perched on the end of the bed. ‘What d’you make of the situation here, Major?’

‘Whoever this Robertson character is, he’s certainly slipped into the role of Lord of the Glens. Obviously folk round here dance to his tune.’

‘What about all this business of no one being allowed to go to the island after dark and having the place patrolled by dogs? Either he’s got some incredibly valuable stuff there or he’s paranoid about security.’

‘Or both! He wouldn’t be the first collector we’ve come across who’s obsessed with the fear that someone’s going to steal his treasures.’

‘Have you any idea what those treasures are? What does he collect?’

Tim shrugged. ‘Not a clue. I’ve asked around a bit over the last couple of weeks. None of the top dealers or auctioneers has heard of Robertson – not under that name, anyway.’

‘Hm.’ George scratched his cropped iron-grey hair. ‘The closer you get to it the worse it smells. You know what I reckon?’

‘Let me guess. You suspect that when we finally get across to Lanner Castle, we’re going to find it stuffed to the battlements with stolen art.’

‘Is that such a funny idea?’ George went on the defensive. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of missing masterpieces – paintings, sculptures and suchlike, stolen from galleries and private collections all over the world. They have simply disappeared. They’ve got to be somewhere. Why shouldn’t some of them be here, in one of the most remote and secure castles in the British Isles?’

‘I’m not laughing, George. I don’t think it’s a funny idea at all. The same thought occurred to me as soon as this Robertson character got in touch with us. That was one reason I wasn’t keen to accept his business.’

‘So what changed your mind?’

‘I found it difficult to believe that a leading member of the cabinet was close friends with a major international art thief.’

‘You’ve got more faith in the government than I have, then,’ George grunted.

Tim laughed. ‘I’m not a hardened old cynic like you, George – not yet, anyway. Come on, let’s go down and meet our fellow guests. Perhaps they’ll be able to tell us something about the reclusive Mr Robertson.’

‘I can tell you something else about him.’ George paused with his hand on the door handle. ‘I had to go down to the car a few minutes ago. I prefer to keep my tools by me.’

Tim smiled. ‘Now who’s being paranoid?’

‘Yes, well … Anyway, they’ve got a surprisingly large garage built on at the back, and Robertson uses half of it for his vehicles – a smart Merc, a powerful four-wheel-drive job and a run-of-the-mill saloon that I suppose they use for the shopping.’

‘What’s so surprising about that? He must keep his transport on the mainland somewhere – there’s no way across to the island.’

‘What’s surprising, Major, is that the castle cars are all behind a really tough steel grille, and Robertson’s got a surveillance camera in there, which obviously feeds back to a screen on the island.’

‘Seems he hasn’t left much for us to do. Well, doubtless all will be revealed tomorrow. Right now, I’m ready for grub.’

They found the bar under the supervision of a slight, sixtyish man with George Robey eyebrows, who introduced himself as Tam McFadden. ‘Is everything to your satisfaction, gentlemen?’ His accent was stronger than his daughter’s.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Tim assured him. ‘I imagine you get a lot of business from castle visitors who inadvertently miss the ferry.’

The proprietor nodded. ‘Mr Robertson is very strict on that score. But we also have the overflow from his business conferences. He can only sleep a dozen or so in the castle. The rest come to us.’

‘What line of business are these people in?’ Tim asked casually.

Tam McFadden pushed their drinks across the bar. ‘They don’t say and I don’t ask.’

A slight frown brought the heavy eyebrows together and indicated that the subject was closed. He turned towards the couple who had just entered from the internal doorway. ‘Good evening, Andrea.’

Tim and George saw a young man and woman who looked rather exotic for such homely surroundings. The mid-twenties young lady might have walked straight off the front page of Harper’s or Vogue. Her dark hair was an explosion of curls that glistered in the bar’s soft light. Her strong features were so exquisitely made up that they appeared untouched by human artistry. She wore an Arran sweater over tight scarlet trousers. Her companion was very tall, black and elegant. He appeared to glide rather than step into the room, so that no untoward crease marred the suit of light-grey check that he wore with a magenta roll-necked jumper.

Tam made the introductions. ‘Mr Lacy, Mr Martin, meet Miss Robertson and Mr Azikwe.’

‘Miss Robertson?’ Tim queried as he shook her hand. ‘Does that mean …?’

‘That I’m daughter of the manor?’ Andrea’s grey-green eyes sparkled in a smile. ‘I’m afraid so. You see, even I can’t get to the castle after closing time. So, you’re not being discriminated against.’

‘Do you come home very often?’

‘Oh, I don’t think of the castle as home. My father chooses to shut himself away up here, but I live and work in London. I do. . .