Chapter Ten
Outside a coach roared into life, driving out of the parking lot and away from the old hall. Inside peace descended. One man was left in the building. He stood in the bedroom where Andrew MacIntyre had been born. He didn’t care about the MacIntyres or Scotland. What he cared about was on the other side of the bedroom door. He looked at his watch. Any minute now.
On the other side of the door and eight hundred years before that day Kerry stood, brow furrowed as she made her decision.
The doorway waited as silent as the two people either side of it. Neither of them paid attention to the rough stones that served as both the archway between two rooms and two times. The stones hummed quietly with an energy that was barely perceptible unless you pressed your ear to them.
Taken from an ancient stone circle many centuries before, the individual pieces that made up the doorway had been hewn from a piece of solid rock in an age long forgotten. Back in those ancient days the stone circle had contained a magic all of its own. It had faded over time but a little still remained in the stones that made up the doorway into Andrew MacIntyre’s bedroom.
Not all the stone from the ancient circle ended up in the old hall of course. It had spread around the highlands. Some had made its way to MacCleod castle, used there by laborers with no idea of the power held within the rock. Two stones became part of the window frame in the east tower, the very window from which Kerry fell a week before she stood in MacIntyre hall. A week earlier and yet also hundreds of years in the future.
In the bedroom the man took a step forward, glancing down again at his watch. He had been told in no uncertain terms when she would arrive. She was late. He tutted quietly to himself. Was it possible that he had been lied to?
The two men had been convincing enough. Kerry would walk through that doorway at exactly five past nine. All he had to do was grab her when she did, take her home where she belonged. Back by his side. Sure, he would have to punish her for what she’d done but he wouldn’t be cruel, just firm. She would learn her lesson and then they would both put it behind them and get on with their lives.
He didn’t give much thought to the two men who had appeared on his doorstep with the offer he’d been unable to refuse.
They had worn identical black suits and when he answered the younger of the two smiled in such a cold manner he recoiled from him.
The older one spoke. “Edward Rawcliffe?”
“I haven’t seen her.” He had already prepared his defense. He might have watched her fall from the tower at MacCleod castle but no one else had witnessed it. After glancing out the window and seeing no sign of her body, he’d left immediately. He was home the same day, staying there ever since. “I’ve already had uniform here asking about her and I’m telling you what I told them, I haven’t seen her since we broke up.”
“We know,” the older man said, not smiling as he took a step forward. “We are not connected to the police. We work for…another party. May we come in for a moment?”
“No.”
They were already inside, sitting on the sofa in the lounge as if they owned the place. The older of the two continued. “My name is Mr. Kite and this is Mr. Wint. We have an offer to make you.”
“Get out of my house this minute or I call the police.”
“Go ahead. I’m sure they’d be delighted to know all about you watching your ex-partner fall from a castle window to her death.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You needn’t worry. We have no interest in informing the police in what should remain, for many reasons, an entirely private affair. Kerry did not die in the fall. Would you like to know where she is?”
“What? She’s not dead?”
“Alive and well.”
“So where is she?”
“Twelfth century Scotland.”
Edward barked out a laugh. “Of course she is. Darning kilts and eating haggis, I bet?”
The younger man spoke for the first time. “Kilts were not invented until the sixteenth century.”
The older man waved him into silence. “Now is not the time to give the man a history lesson.”
Edward tapped his foot impatiently. “Come on, this is a joke, isn’t it?”
“I assure you we are deadly serious, Mr. Rawcliffe. We would like to make you a most generous offer and we ask only one thing in return.”
“What? What kind of offer?”
They didn’t tell him straight away of course. Instead they went on for ages about determinism and causality and fixed times in space and all kinds of things he didn’t understand. He nodded along until they finally got to the point.
