Chapter Twenty-Nine

The lights were on at Raventhorn. All of them, or so it seemed from the end of the drive. Relief washed over him. Rosalie was back, safe and sound.

Almost immediately a worrying thought made him stop the car at the side of the lane and switch the engine off. Rosalie would never leave the lights on in every single room like that. Something wasn’t right.

He got out and walked the rest of the way, pausing near the stable block, and making sure he stayed out of the glare of the security lights.

A black four-wheel drive was parked in the courtyard. Its boot and back seat were piled high with boxes filled with paintings and ornaments. But that wasn’t all. Rupert McBride’s sports car was stationed near the garage, next to Rosalie’s taxi.

A man walked out of the kitchen, carrying a cardboard box full of crockery. ‘Are you sure these are worth anything, Cheryl?’ he shouted. ‘It looks like a pile of junk to me.’

‘Jake said to grab anything that was on that list Rupert gave us,’ a woman’s voice answered from inside the house.

Jake. She must mean Tyler. Marc balled his fists by his sides. So he’d been right. The man was there, or close by. But where was Rosalie?

‘I think we have enough. Jake’s waiting for us and, as you know, he’s not the patient type.’

The man put the box inside the car and straightened up, and Marc recognised him from the Stag’s Head the day of the snowstorm.

‘Get a move on, will you? We need to leave. And don’t forget the silverware.’ The man shouted as he opened the driver’s door.

Marc’s heartbeat quickened. Looking around he saw a pile of wooden sticks discarded on the ground. He picked the largest, heaviest one up before stepping out of the shadows and walking into the courtyard.

‘You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where Rosalie is.’

The man swung round and stared at him in surprise. ‘What the—’

‘Step away from the car,’ Marc ordered. ‘So, where is she?’

The man frowned but remained silent.

Marc clenched his fist around the stick. He’d never been spoiling for a fight so much in his life. ‘I asked you a question.’

The man shrugged. ‘Relax. She’s with Tyler. Knowing him, I’m sure he has a more lucrative career in mind for her than driving that cab. Something like modelling, for example. She may not be much to look at in boots and anorak but I bet she looks tasty naked.’ He laughed, a throaty, sleazy laugh.

Marc tensed as red-hot rage surged through him. Before he realised what he was doing he threw his weapon to the ground, grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket and pushed him against the bonnet of the car. ‘Shut up.’

The man grunted, slackened under his grip and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘All right, calm down. I was only joking.’

‘Where are they?’ Marc asked again, taking a step back.

Just then his mobile rang. Perhaps it was Luc with important news. He looked down, patted his coat pocket, and wasn’t ready when the man suddenly lunged at him with such force that he lost his balance, slipped and fell back with a hard thump. His head hit the cobbles, his phone flew from his hand and landed a few meters away in the snow. Damn. How stupid of him not to have seen that coming.

‘There, take that too!’ The man growled as he kicked his side, his shoulder, and went for his head, but Marc managed to grab his ankle and pulled him down.

Rolling on top of the thug, he straddled him and smashed his fist into his face. He was about to hit him again when the tiny part of him still capable of rational thought whispered that knocking his adversary out when he needed information would be pretty stupid.

Breathing hard, he grabbed the man’s jacket and lifted his face up until their noses almost touched.

‘Tell me where she is!’

‘What’s going on, Joe?’ Cheryl shrieked behind him. Glancing over the thug’s shoulder he saw that she had a holdall in one hand and a couple of silver candlesticks in the other.

Ignoring her, Marc looked down at the man again. ‘Damn it. I’m losing patience here.’

There was the sound of hurried footsteps. The man’s pupils dilated as he stared at something behind Marc. Marc turned round but it was too late. He didn’t have time to get out of the way as Rupert McBride brought a candlestick down onto his head. The pain was so intense he saw a bright flash of light, then spiralled into darkness.

An hour had passed in tense silence as Tyler smoked and stared at Rosalie. His henchman, Sam, came back in a couple of times to complain he was freezing to death, but Tyler sent him out again to keep watch. She gathered they were waiting for their associates to come back from Raventhorn. She had no idea what would happen to her then, although it was obvious Tyler had no intention of releasing her.

Ignoring the pain that stabbed her shoulder every time she moved, she leaned forward and said in a low voice. ‘What if I told you I can get what you want?’

He put his glass down on the armrest. ‘And how do you know what I want?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I know my mum took a diary from you, and that you want it back.’

Tyler narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you, now?’

She nodded. ‘I know where it is. I’ll give it to you if it means I get rid of you and your friends, and never see, or hear from you again.’

He narrowed his eyes, drew on his cigarette, and studied her for a moment. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘You don’t.’

Silence anxiously dragged on. Would he take the bait or would he see right through her?

The door to the living room opened and the man called Sam burst into the room. ‘Joe and Cheryl are back, and Rupert is with them.’

Tyler grabbed his coat and slipped it on. ‘Tell them to come in. You’re staying here while the girl and I drive to Raventhorn.’

He threw her anorak and boots in her direction. ‘Put them on and hurry.’

It was a struggle to get dressed but she managed and followed him outside.

He was talking to Cheryl and another man who had bruises all over his face and one eyelid badly swollen. Rupert stood apart, hands deep in the pocket of his anorak. He sneered at her, but didn’t speak.

‘Looks like things got messy at Raventhorn,’ Tyler said. ‘Your boyfriend caused a bit of a commotion.’

Rosalie’s heart did a somersault. ‘Marc? Marc is there?’

Tyler turned to his associate. ‘Where did you leave him?’

‘In the courtyard,’ the other man replied.

‘Then it’ll look as if he interrupted a burglary – which in a way he did.’ Tyler’s lips stretched into a thin smile.

He gestured towards Rosalie. ‘Get in the car.’

Struggling to understand, she asked, ‘Where is Marc? What did you do to him?’

Tyler pointed at Rupert. ‘Your friend here bashed his head in with a candlestick. The man’s dead.’

It felt like her heart stopped, and she swayed against the side of the car. No, that wasn’t true. Marc couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t!

Tyler was now talking to Rupert. ‘You know what that means, don’t you? You have to disappear or you’ll get arrested and charged with murder. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’

Rupert snorted. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear. He was punching Joe. I didn’t think …’

‘That’s your problem, isn’t it?’ Tyler retorted. ‘You never think.’ He shook his head. ‘What about your car? Is it still at Raventhorn?’

‘No. I drove it back home. Joe followed me with Cheryl in the four-by-four and gave me a lift.’

‘You can stay here for now,’ Tyler said. ‘We’ll drop you somewhere in town when we set off back to London.’

Rupert shook his head. ‘Nobody will know it was me who did it. I was wearing gloves, so my prints won’t be on the candlestick. Anyway, I can’t leave Irlwick at the drop of a hat. There’s my mother, and Cheryl.’ He stepped closer to the young woman and put his hand on her shoulder.

‘What about me?’ The woman snarled as she shook him off and edged away from him.

‘You said we would be together. You said you wanted to live here with me.’

She let out a short, hard laugh. ‘I said a lot of things, Rupert. You don’t get it, do you?’

‘Get what?’

‘You were set up, mate. I was only with you because you were useful to my uncle Jake. Didn’t you think it was a bit of a coincidence that we met just before McBride needed to sell his cars and my dad happened to run a vintage cars auction mart?’

‘But I was the one who chatted you up in that club in Inverness after I spilled my drink all over you. I made you laugh, I thought you liked me …’

Cheryl snorted. ‘If you believe that, then I am a better actress and you’re a bigger fool than I thought.’

‘But why? Was it all about Geoff’s cars?’

‘Nah. Uncle Jake needed you to watch over McBride and help him sell his nice cars so that he had plenty of cash. He also needed you to list the valuables at Raventhorn and sneak away what you could, and keep searching the place for his diary.’

Rupert looked crestfallen. ‘I did all that. I did it for you – for us –not for him.’

She shrugged and turned to Jake Tyler. ‘Enough talking. I’m going in. I’m bloody freezing. I’ll see you when you get back.’

She went in, followed by Rupert who was still pleading with her.

Tyler opened the passenger door for Rosalie. ‘Get in.’

‘Wait!’ She turned to the man called Joe. ‘Are you sure Marc is—’

‘Dead?’ The man finished, a scowl creasing his bruised face. ‘Yeah, pretty sure. And if he wasn’t when we left, he will be by now.’

He was flying over Raventhorn, over the forest and the loch. As he glided down he saw a shape in the water – a small building, or what was left of it. He had to get inside. What he sought was there. He was so close, so close …

The wind blew him away from the water and then he was falling and spinning down towards Raventhorn’s cobblestone courtyard. He hit the ground, and it felt like his head exploded. A raven flew down from a tree branch and landed next to him. Its small, beady eyes stared at him, its feet made light tapping sounds as it hopped around him on the cobbles, and its beak poked at his head.

Marc groaned. What a weird dream. Only it felt so real. The pain in his skull felt too damned real too. As did the hard, bumpy, frozen surface under his body and the wet snow on his face.

He opened his eyes and blinked as snowflakes fell on and around him. It was dark. He must have been lying there for some time – long enough for the security lights to switch off.

Flinching against the pain, he sat up, lifted a hand to his head and touched his hair. It was matted with blood and there was a gash at the side of his head where McBride had hit him. The ground moved and swayed in front of him as he tried to get up, so much so that he only managed to kneel down. Closing his eyes, he waited for the dizziness to pass before trying again. The security lights came on when he stood up, and their raw glare made his headache a hundred times worse.

He needed help, and fast. He patted his jacket for his phone. Nothing. He looked around but couldn’t see it in the courtyard either. He must have lost it during his scuffle with Tyler’s associate. He would have to use the phone in the hall to call the police.

The kitchen door was open. He closed it behind him and went up to the hall, but when he lifted the phone receiver, all he got was silence. The line was dead.

‘Hell.’ He put the phone down. Where was Rosalie? His only hope was that Tyler was staying at the holiday lodges up at Geal Charn again. That was where he needed to go. He was heading back downstairs when there was the noise of a car outside.