I did laugh then. “Babe, that’s the absolute last thing you have to worry about.” I hugged him to my chest, and pressed a kiss to his temple, not caring that Dalziel was in the room. “This is a solid plan to give you a watertight alibi. Let’s roll with it. Although…” I glanced at Baxter. “…I’m puzzled how you think we’re going to manage to sneak into Ritzy’s to accomplish this. I’ve less trouble trusting you can fake the security footage.”
“Not an issue,” Dalziel assured us smoothly. “The cellar here will double up as one of the corridors at the night club. Now I know you’re on board, we’ll get it all set up to replicate Ritzy’s as closely as possible, not that much needs to be visible with the camera angles.”
“You’ve got a cellar?”
He smirked. “I’m a three hundred year old vampire. Of course I have a cellar.”
His remark broke the tension in the room and we all chuckled, Charley uneasily, but then again, it was his life on the line. All we had to do was put our trust in Baxter. It seemed simple, but it was one hell of an ask. Or maybe I should shelve my deep mistrust of vampires for a hot minute, and allow they would want to take care of one of their own. I was simply a handy way of ensuring that. This wasn’t about me.
With the discussion over, we were free for the remainder of the night, and the following day. Baxter admitted she’d need to sleep during the day, but she would work with Dalziel’s team, whoever they were, to get the cellar prepared for the following night. “We’ll start shooting as soon as it gets dark, to give us plenty of time to get it right,” she said. “You boys amuse yourselves, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow at sunset.”
Thus dismissed, we decided to head outside. Eleanor produced a rather voluminous coat for Charley, then said she was off to bed herself, and to use the French doors in the room with the billiard table to come and go. “Dalziel won’t lock you out, and it will be busy here overnight, so don’t worry about anyone breaking in. Just ensure the doors are pulled shut when you leave. I don’t want any local wildlife dumb enough to risk life and limb by entering a vampire’s lair to come to a sticky end.” She grinned at us, and gave a cheery wave over her shoulder as she sauntered off along the corridor to the main staircase.
It was freezing outside, literally. The previous night’s snowfall had turned to ice, creating a crunchy crystal carpet over the lawn. I turned to Charley, my hands stuffed deep into my pockets, and asked, “Where shall we go?”
He gave me a tremulous smile. “I found some stuff, in the library, when you were out the other night. I think Dalziel has lived here a long time, on and off. I fancy exploring, to see if we can turn up anything that supports my theory.”
“Which is?”
Charley jerked his chin across the grass, and we began walking side by side in the direction he indicated. “I could be wrong, but I’m wondering if the house, or the oldest part, is somehow connected to his human life. And if that’s correct, then I thought perhaps he wanted to be nearby to his family, or what’s left of them.” He hunched inside his borrowed coat and made a dismissive sound. “I’m probably being dumb.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t like you implying you’re thick, because you’re not.” I frowned at him, intrigued. “What do you know of his family? I thought that was you?”
“Guess it is now, but I meant when he was alive. You know, before he was turned. He had a wife and kids.”
“You found documentary evidence of that?” Now I was surprised.
“God no! He told me. It sounds bloody sad. All of his kids died before they were three years old.”
My mind raced. “How many is all of them?”
“Three.” He disappeared further inside the coat. “I don’t know their names or any dates or anything much, but I wanted to look.” He halted, and kicked at a random stone in front of us. “He was turned in 1721. That blows my mind, Luc. My dad, my biological father, is over three hundred years old. How do I wrap my brain around that? Thinking of him as a man, with a wife and kids, might make him seem more, I dunno, real, I guess.”
We walked until the lawn ran out and the pine forest began. Under the protection of the evergreens, the snow was merely a harsh frost, the ground glistening where the canopy thinned in places. It was much darker, but of course, the low light didn’t bother either of us. The occasional frantic skitter of a small creature made its way to my ears, but otherwise the only sounds were our booted footsteps. Charley appeared to have a destination in mind, but he didn’t hurry, keeping a steady pace in the freezing night air. Finally he deviated to the left by several degrees, and moments later we were back out from under the tree line and facing a low stone wall.
“It’s still here,” Charley whispered, pointing a raised finger at the assortment of tumbledown stone buildings that were scattered around the ground on the far side of the wall. He turned to me, his eyes glittering excitedly. “This was on one of the maps I found of the area. I think the building at the back was the chapel. There might be something to prove my feeling was right.”
From a quick glance, I very much doubted the chapel would have a sound roof, let alone anything to confirm Charley’s suspicions about Dalziel, but I couldn’t bear to rain on his parade. It wasn’t as if we had anything better to do with our time, so exploring we would go.
28
CHARLEY
The gatein the wall was elderly, but intact, and only squealed a bit as I swung it open. The ground on the other side was uneven, but it appeared someone had tried to trim back the worst of the grass and brambles to keep a path open around the buildings. They were all one storey, small and rough-looking, with tiny windows, usually just one, and a chimney at one end. They were forlorn, left to rot in this corner of Lanarkshire, and for some reason it made me sad. A cluster of half a dozen were arranged in a vague square around a patch of bare ground, in the centre of which was another pile of stones, maybe the base of something. I gave Luc a quizzical look. “What d’you think this was?”
His brows furrowed as he eyed the heap from all angles. “Couldn’t really say. There’s not enough left to make a sensible guess. Reckon they used the stones to repair other things.” He nudged my arm. “Look, behind that clump of trees. That one looks properly thatched.”
A row of pines and another wall had partly obscured a further set of houses. Three of these were in much better repair than the rest, with complete thatched roofs and doors that fitted. I bent down to peer through the window of the nearest house, surprised to find there were no missing panes of glass. It was dark inside, but I could make out a stone floor, and not much else.
“I’m going to try the handle.”
Ignoring Luc’s protestation, I wrapped my hand in the cuff of my coat, pressed down on the simple iron latch, and pushed. The hinges creaked but the door opened smoothly enough. I sidled inside, and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Within a few seconds I heard him sigh, then he followed me. We took in the neatly swept floor, the lack of evidence of any mice or other inhabitants, and the sturdy fireplace, un-laid but with a basket of logs to one side. There was a small table and two chairs set under the only window, and a simple empty bed frame against one wall.
“Weird,” Luc said quietly. “It’s as if whoever owns this expects someone to come home.”
“They belong to Dalziel. This is his land.”
He shot me a sharp look. “You sure?”
