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Kathleen locked her car and began to scroll through the day’s plan on her phone as she walked to the door of the visitor centre, splashing through the deep puddles left by the previous night’s storm. “OK, OK,” she said aloud to herself, loosening her scarf with her other hand. “So, no services today to schedule things around and we’ve managed to close the ticket office for one day so this film crew – what are they doing again? Documentary, right – can work without tourists underfoot. Let’s just hope they can get all the footage they need before we have to start letting the public back in, and…” The door opened. “…And you’re here early.”
“Yeeeaaahh,” said Alasdair, running both hands back through his scruffy ginger hair before clasping them in front of himself. Was that a bite mark on the back of the left one? “Remind me, when’s the documentary crew meant to be getting here?”
“They said ten.”
Alasdair checked his watch. “OK, so we’ve got a bit more than a couple of hours. That’s… OK, we can maybe…” He trailed off, staring at his watch for a moment longer before he glanced back up to meet his colleague’s deeply suspicious gaze.
Kathleen tucked her phone into her pocket, smoothed back a lock of her own iron-grey hair, and folded her arms. “You’re never here this early. Explain.”
He sucked a deep breath in through his teeth and held it for a couple of seconds. “OK, but first you have to promise to stay calm.”
“What did you do.”
“Look, just-” He broke off with a sigh and waved for her to follow him through the visitor centre to the chapel itself. “You know I live over by the hills, right? So I was cycling over this morning along one of the farm roads when I found this young woman by the verge. She’d somehow got her foot trapped in a cattle grid and wrenched her ankle something fierce trying to get free. Might’ve been stuck out there all night as far as I could tell – soaked to the skin, shivery and dead woozy. She didn’t really seem to understand what was going on, but I thought I could at least get her an ice pack and a cup of tea, so I got her foot out of the grid – and that was an undertaking and a half! How she’d got stuck that fast in the first place, I’ve no idea, it was almost impressive – and managed to pack her into my wee cargo trailer to get her over here.
“Anyway, we got here, I unhooked the trailer and tried to move her into a chair, and she, uh… I suppose she was still a bit confused and, long story short, now she won’t come out of the sacristy.”
Kathleen sighed deeply and pressed the heels of both hands against her eyes. “Alasdair. I want you to think very hard about everything you just told me and answer a question. Did you kidnap a woman?”
There was a long silence. “I… maybe… did… kind of… kidnap a woman… a little bit.” More silence. “Well, of course it sounds bad when you put it that way! My intentions were pure, I swear!”
“OK,” said Kathleen, drawing it out into another sigh. “You – go put the kettle on, get some ice from the cafe, and find some spare clothes so she can change into something dry. I’ll try and talk her out of the sacristy before the film crew arrives.”
As Alasdair hurried off to raid the visitor centre, Kathleen cautiously opened the west door of the chapel and edged around the stone font into the choir. The lights inside had not been switched on and no candles were lit, but the morning sun streamed in through the high windows to cast spots of colour across the pews. Kathleen tiptoed along the south aisle to the sacristy stairs. “Hello?” she called gently. The only answer was a shaky intake of breath. She crouched at the top of the stairs, peering as far into the vault below as she could. “I’m sorry if my friend scared you. He didn’t mean any harm, he’s just, ah… He’s a bit of an idiot.”
There was still no spoken answer, but perhaps the breathing steadied a little.
“Can you come upstairs? You’re not in any trouble. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Another few seconds of silence, before: “…I need a mirror.” The voice was young – not a child, but younger than Kathleen; early-mid twenties, perhaps – and high-pitched without being gratingly squeaky, and while Kathleen couldn’t quite place the accent, if pressed she’d put it somewhere in America.
“A mirror?”
“Yes!”
“O-OK. I’ve got a wee one in my bag here. Is it all right if I come down?”
“…Mm-hm.”
“OK. I’m coming down now.” The vault was mostly in shadow other than the blue-and-gold arch of the stained-glass window on the far wall, but Kathleen could still make out the shape of a person squeezed into the gap beside the altar, sitting curled up in a ball facing the corner. An impressive mane of platinum-blonde hair trailed down over the back of the young woman’s sodden red blazer, probably very pretty when it was dry and brushed, but currently looking rather bedraggled. Kathleen made a mental note to also find her a comb as she crouched down again at a distance, placed the little compact mirror on the flagstones, and slid it across the floor like a tiny curling stone. Without turning around, the woman whipped out a pale hand with nails lacquered a glossy black and grabbed the mirror before it could bounce off her hip. Still facing the wall, she flipped the mirror open and stared intently at her reflection, first with one eye and then the other, prodded at the tip of her nose with one finger, and pulled her lips back to inspect her teeth, running her tongue over each canine in turn. Quite what she was looking for, Kathleen had no idea, but she seemed relieved by the sight and finally relaxed a little, closing the mirror again with a small sigh and uncurling slightly from the corner where she had wedged herself.
“My friend said you’d hurt your ankle,” said Kathleen without standing up or coming any closer. “Do you want me to take a look for you? He went to get some ice for it, and to see if he could find you some dry clothes.”
There was another pause before the woman nodded, shuffled back from the wall, got her feet under herself, and – holding the corner of the altar for balance – stood up. And up. And up some more.
There was clearly no further need to stay in a reassuring crouch. Kathleen heaved herself upright as well, resisting the urge to crane her neck back to stare up at the woman’s head almost an entire foot above her own. “My name’s Kathleen,” she offered.
At last, the woman turned around. Except for some gothic-dark lipstick and a faint blush below her eyes, her face was as pale as her hand, but her smile was unexpectedly sunny. “I’m Charlie,” she said, and took one step forwards. The smile disappeared with a puppyish whimper the second she put weight on her right foot.
Kathleen darted forwards to catch her arm before her leg could give way altogether. “Let’s ca’ canny about this,” she said, pulling the arm around her shoulders. “One step at a time. First, we’ll get you upstairs. Then – well, we’ll see.”
Between Charlie’s extraordinary height, the steepness and narrowness of the stairs, and the low, cramped archway above them, this was a more complicated operation than Kathleen had hoped, but eventually they emerged back into the south aisle to find Alasdair waiting for them in the choir with a small pile of clothing, a plastic bag of ice cubes wrapped in a tea towel, and a tray bearing three mugs, a sugar bowl and a metal teapot.
Kathleen carefully sat their guest down on the nearest pew. “We’ll give you a moment to get changed,” she said, before she grasped Alasdair by his elbow and firmly marched him out of the north door.
“Yes, I know I should have just called an ambulance for her or something,” he said in a stage whisper, gazing up at the wide-mouthed lion gargoyles above the door. “It did not occur to me at the time, OK?”
“Actually, having seen her now, I’m more interested in how you even managed to fit her into that little trailer of yours,” admitted Kathleen.
“Oh. Honestly, she folds up surprisingly well. I did have to leave her feet poking out, though.”
“Christ. You’re lucky you didn’t run into the police on the way over. They might have had some questions for you.”
It was another couple of minutes before Charlie called that she was decent and they went back inside to find her – now dressed in a white t-shirt, a maroon fleece gilet and a black pleated skirt that would have been quite long on most people, but didn’t quite reach her knees – attempting to both prop her injured ankle up on a cushion and place the ice pack over it at the same time. Alasdair gathered up her wet clothes and took them outside to drape them over a bench in the sun, pausing on the way to retrieve a phone from one pocket of the blazer and lay it down on the pew beside her.
“I hope the clothes are all right,” he said when he returned, just as Kathleen took command of the ice pack and tied it in place with her scarf. Charlie watched this with great interest, staring at her own foot – the skin almost pure white, the nails painted a similar red to her blazer – as if it was an entirely new sight. “I don’t know if skirts are usually your thing, but I couldn’t find any trousers I thought would fit you. And I, uh. I’m sorry for… sort of kidnapping you?”
“It’s fine,” Charlie assured him, that sunny smile returning in full force. He smiled back and passed her a steaming mug of tea. “Thank you…” she squinted at his name tag, “…Al-az-dayr.”
He was too polite to scowl at the mispronunciation, but he did lower his eyelids slightly. “‘Alasdair’,” he corrected. Kathleen hid a small smile behind one hand.
Charlie froze for a second, a strange tension appearing around her chestnut-brown eyes, and looked slowly up at his face. “Is that… a common name up here?”
“Very. I was one of four in my class at school. Though funnily enough, we all used different spellings.”
“Hmm.” She cast her eyes back down at her tea and took a sip. “Oh – could I have some more sugar for this?”
Kathleen passed her the sugar bowl. “So, Charlie,” she said, watching with a raised eyebrow as the young woman stirred four spoonfuls into her tea, “how exactly did you end up stuck in a cattle grid on the edge of the Pentland Hills?”
Charlie tapped her nails against the side of her mug and took another sip. This one was apparently more to her liking; she gave a satisfied little nod before she spoke. “I’m… working on a project at home,” she said, seeming to choose her words very carefully. “Something that could really help a lot of people. But I think… I need… to do some more research about how… some things have been taught. Zes- someone told me that a long time ago, before most people could read, they sometimes carved stories into their buildings instead, the stories that were meant to teach the lessons they couldn’t read in books. And he mentioned this place by name so I made a plan to come and visit it,” she started speaking increasingly quickly, “only I wasn’t sure if I could make it here by myself so I asked my uncle to lend me a – a travel pass but I think I did something wrong because instead I ended up in the middle of a city miles away from where I meant to go and there was a fortress on a cliff above a Greek temple and this black tower covered in spikes so I just started walking in what I thought was the right direction and I did get out of the city but then it got dark and it started raining really hard and I couldn’t see where I was putting my feet properly and…” She stopped talking, but only to take a deep, shuddering breath as tears began to well up in her eyes. “I was supposed to be home hours ago!” she wailed, digging the nails of one hand into her forehead. “Everyone will be so worried!”
“Got off the train at the wrong station, huh?” said Alasdair after sharing a slightly desperate glance with Kathleen. “It’s easily done.”
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” asked Kathleen. “This uncle of yours, maybe?”
“Maybe…” Sniffling, Charlie pawed awkwardly at her phone with one hand and almost slid it off the pew onto the stone floor before she managed to get a grip on it and tap the screen awake. “No signal,” she said sadly. “We’re on sort of a… special network. I don’t think your phones will pick it up.”
Kathleen shared another glance with Alasdair, who just gave a helpless shrug. “Well,” said Kathleen, clapping her hands together in a businesslike fashion, “you’ve made it here now, and if you told someone where you were going, I’m sure they’ll come looking for you soon.” There was another long silence. “You… did tell someone where you were going, yes?”
“Um… Maybe not… exactly where I was going?”
Kathleen lowered her head into her hands. “Ohhhh-K.”
“So which carvings are you most interested in?” asked Alasdair, more loudly than was probably necessary. “There’s so many, sometimes people call this place a stone book. The Apprentice’s Pillar over there is probably our most famous – you would’ve gone past it to get down to the sacristy – but I wouldn’t say there’s really a lesson attached to it other than ‘don’t murder your apprentice’.”
Charlie wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and managed another smile. “I heard something about the Seven Deadly Sins?”
Kathleen sat up again, corralling her ruffled hair back into a ponytail. “You would’ve gone past that one, too,” she said. “It’s on the ceiling in the south aisle, just over here. Do you think you can stand?”
She cautiously lowered her foot back to the floor, still with the ice pack tied around her ankle. “I – yes. Yes, I can stand.” Clearly not without pain, because she winced and bit back another whimper when she got to her feet, but she at least managed to limp over for a better view of the carving in question.
Kathleen pushed her shoulders back and moved into tour guide mode. “There are two sides to this lintel,” she explained. “One side indeed shows the classic list of the Seven Deadly Sins. In order, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Sloth and Lust.” A small frown appeared on Charlie’s face as if she took issue with something about this, but she remained politely silent. “They’re shown leading to the Mouth of Hell at the end here – this carving of a little devil emerging from the jaws of a dragon, ready to ensnare souls with that hook he’s carrying. The other side, however, doesn’t show what’s usually considered the corresponding Seven Virtues – Humility, Temperance and so on – but instead the Seven Acts of Mercy given in the Gospel of Matthew. Helping the needy; clothing the naked; caring for the sick; visiting the imprisoned; giving to the poor; feeding the hungry; and burying the dead, which in turn lead to Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven, counterpart to the Mouth of Hell on the other side.”
“Uh-huh,” said Charlie with an oddly wistful smile.
“Except!” said Alasdair, holding up one finger. “Look closely at the panels that should show Charity – giving to the poor, that is – and Greed.”
She peered up at each of them in turn, admittedly capable of getting a much closer look than most people. “…Have they been swapped over?”
“They have!” said Kathleen with a smile. “There’s been a lot of ink spilled over the centuries about what the symbolism there might be… But personally, I think the original masons just carved that stone the wrong way round and hoped nobody would notice.”
Charlie’s smile grew far less melancholy as she let out first a giggle, then a full-blown infectious laugh.
Kathleen grinned despite herself. “If you can make it to the other corner there, we can show you our little heavenly orchestra. Everyone seems to like the angel with bagpipes.”
Despite Charlie’s determination, she had clearly overestimated how much her ankle could take; even with Kathleen under one arm and Alasdair beneath the other, taking most of her weight between them, a little ow escaped her with every step and she was hissing in pain by the time they deposited her on a chair in the far corner. Kathleen went down on one knee to adjust the ice pack as Alasdair launched into his usual routine about the angelic band looking down from the tops of the columns.
“Are you prone to ankle sprains?” she asked quietly, removing the ice pack but tightening the scarf for some support. A trail of bruising had appeared down each side of Charlie’s ankle, creating ugly purple-black stains against her pale skin above and below the joint. “Sometimes if there’s already a weakness in the ligaments…”
“I don’t think so,” said Charlie, though without much certainty. “It’s not… not the first time? It’s always felt better by now, before. But now I think it’s worse instead. Something’s wrong but I don’t know what!” She grabbed at her forehead again; the tremor in her breathing returned.
Kathleen frowned up at Alasdair, who abruptly closed his mouth in the middle of explaining the strange mediaeval instruments that some of the other angels were playing. “Maybe that’s enough of the tour for now,” he said gently. “You should lie down and elevate that foot properly. None of the pews are really long enough, though… Tell you what, just go down on the floor for now and I’ll find you a blanket so you aren’t right on the cold stone.”
Charlie sniffled again and slid off the chair to sit on the floor. “OK.” A few more tears leaked out.
“Um…” Alasdair steepled his fingers for a moment. “Do you like animals?”
Another sniff. “Yeah?”
He pulled out his own phone, tapped at the screen a few times, and pressed it into her hands horizontally. “Here – the zoo website has a live feed of their penguin enclosure. And this is the time of year when the chicks hatch! See how many you can spot.”
She made a sound so high-pitched it was almost beyond the range of human hearing and slid further down to lie flat on her back, holding the phone in both hands and staring at the screen.
“Penguins, Alasdair?” asked Kathleen as she retrieved the cushion from the pew and placed it back under Charlie’s ankle.
“What?” He raised both hands defensively. “She was starting to spiral. Now she’s not. And I’m glad that worked, because if it hadn’t then Plan B was to start belting out Lion King songs. Besides, who doesn’t love penguins? We’ve got about an hour now until the film crew arrives and we need to find somewhere else to put her while we work out how to get her home. In the meantime, I’ll go find that blanket. Maybe some ibuprofen as well.” He let himself out of the north door. Kathleen sighed and sat down on a pew, close enough to keep an eye on Charlie without seeming to hover too much.
“I don’t think he’s an idiot,” said Charlie quietly, not looking away from the penguin cam.
“He’s not, really,” said Kathleen. “He means well, and he does know his stuff about the chapel. He just doesn’t always think things through as far as he could. But I suppose if he did, you might still be stuck in that cattle grid, eh?”
Charlie just glanced up with a small smile and looked back at the screen. “Can you hug them?” she asked in a rapt whisper.
“The penguins? Um, no, I don’t think they like being picked up. You can book to feed them, though.”
“I have to go there…”
Kathleen draped her arms over the back of the pew and leant back to gaze up at the intricately-carved ceiling. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
Another few minutes went quietly by before Alasdair returned with an old tartan blanket rolled up in his arms. “Couldn’t find the ibuprofen, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to thole it on that front,” he said as he laid the blanket out on the floor, “but this should be better than just the flagstones.”
“Do you have a zoo membership?” asked Kathleen as Charlie wriggled along the floor to lie on the blanket instead.
Alasdair raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I do – why?”
“Just a random thought.”
Alasdair sat down beside her on the pew, and they both watched in silence as Charlie wrapped herself up in the blanket and turned onto her side to face the wall. Her breathing slowed and evened as she fell asleep despite her obvious pain. Kathleen grimaced and got up to slide another cushion under her head.
“That still doesn’t look comfy,” she said, “but I suppose if I’d spent the night in a muddy ditch, I might settle for ‘dry’ as well.” She straightened up, bracing both hands against the small of her back, and looked idly around at the nearby carvings. The angels kept playing their instruments up on the columns. The green men peered out from amongst tangles of leaves on the ceiling. Lucifer plunged downwards on the wall above Charlie’s head, his wings half-folded and his arms bound by a coil of rope.
Alasdair crept forwards to lean around the Master’s Pillar and look first up at the carvings, then down at the sleeping woman on the floor. “‘Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’,” he mused softly.
“You know that’s about dying, right?” asked Kathleen as they both returned to the pew.
“Yeah, yeah. Should we try and move her to the cafe or somewhere before the film crew get here?”
“Nah, let her sleep for now. She can’t have managed much last night.” Kathleen paused for a moment. “Between you and me, I am a bit worried about that ankle. The swelling doesn’t seem to be going down.”
“Think we should call an ambulance after all?”
“No, it’s hardly that urgent. But if it hasn’t improved by the time the crew arrive and nobody’s come looking for her, I might give her a run over to A&E. They’d be able to strap it up properly and give her some good painkillers, at least.”
A comfortable silence fell in the chapel again. Alasdair got up to fetch some fresh candles for the altar while Kathleen adjusted the set of the lectern. Charlie pulled the blanket tighter around herself without waking up.
Gravel crunched outside the west door.
“That must be the film crew here to set up,” said Kathleen, hurrying over towards the sound. “You stay with her for now, I’ll go and see if they want any exterior shots before they come inside-”
BANG.
The door crashed open. Kathleen had the briefest impression of huge goshawk wings outstretched against the light before her eyes adjusted and an unfamiliar woman stormed into the chapel. She was about Kathleen’s height, with skin a warm Mediterranean brown, an aquiline nose, and a look on her face like absolute thunder. One eye was concealed behind a long, sweeping fringe of silver hair while the other blazed like a Beltane bonfire, and one hand clutched-
“I’m sorry, is that a spear?” said Kathleen.
“Where’s Charlie? What did you do to her?”
“Wha- Nothing!”
The point of the spear was suddenly at her throat. She hadn’t even seen it move. “Then why are her clothes outside?” asked the woman through bared teeth.
Kathleen slowly raised both hands. “She got stuck out in the rain last night. Her clothes were soaked. We just put them outside to dry off. Charlie’s fine. She’s – she’s just taking a nap down at the far end there.” Just as slowly, she turned one hand to point back over her shoulder.
The spear clattered to the floor as the woman shoved past Kathleen and sprinted the length of the chapel, leaping right over both the altar and Alasdair hiding behind it to drop to her knees beside Charlie. She reached out with one trembling hand and gave the blanket-wrapped bundle a little shake. “Charlie?” she murmured with a tenderness entirely at odds with her dramatic entrance. “Charlie, sweetie, wake up. I’m here to take you home.”
Charlie stirred, turning her head to peek blearily up out of one eye, then bolted up with a gasp and flung her arms around the woman, burying her face in her shoulder. She wasn’t terribly coherent through the gulping sobs, but Kathleen thought she heard the words ‘You found me’ and something that sounded like ‘Mhairi’, probably the woman’s name. Mhairi – if that was her name – held her tightly with one arm, stroking her still-damp hair with the other hand and making soothing shushing noises as she pecked kiss after kiss against the side of her head.
It was almost five minutes before Charlie drew back from the embrace, cradling Mhairi’s face between her hands. “What’s been happening at home?” she asked, a nervous edge coming into her voice. “Is everyone…”
“Ugh.” Mhairi let her breath out in an exasperated rush. “Husk is watching over the hotel with Cherri for backup. Your dad is furious with Ozzie, Ozzie is furious with himself, Alastor is stirring that pot as much as he thinks he can get away with-”
(“I don’t even know her dad!”)
(“I don’t think she’s talking about you.”)
“-Baxter locked himself in the basement to get away from the yelling and I don’t think Niffty even noticed you were gone.”
“…What about you?”
Mhairi gave a small sigh, slid one hand around to the back of Charlie’s neck, and leant in to touch their foreheads together. “I’m just glad you’re safe. But seriously, tell me where you’re going next time, OK? Exactly where you’re going. Ozzie managed to work out where the crystal took you, but after that I had to track you down the old-fashioned way.”
(“Crystal?”)
(“Must be what they call that travel pass she mentioned. A brand name, maybe, like an Oyster card.”)
Charlie nodded, tears still dripping down her face. Mhairi kissed her brow and gently brushed her thumbs across her eyes. “I twisted my ankle last night,” said Charlie, very quiet and almost fearful. “Hours ago, and it doesn’t feel better.”
“Hours? Let me see.” Charlie stretched her injured leg out from under the blanket to let Mhairi lay her hands on the swollen joint, pressing the pads of her fingers carefully against the bruises. “Sorry, hon,” she muttered as Charlie winced and let out a sound like a whistling kettle. “Sprained, not broken,” she went on, more to herself than to any of her audience. “Badly sprained, but it should still have healed by now. Let me think…” She stood up and looked around at the chapel, taking in the unlit candles on the altar and the patterns and figures carved across the walls and columns, and folded her arms with a thoughtful frown. “Is this still a working church?” she asked.
Kathleen started a little and straightened up at being addressed directly. “Yes, it’s Scottish Episcopal. Most of our income comes from tourists, but yes, there are still weekly church services.”
“So it’s consecrated. Holy ground.”
“Well, if you believe in that sort of thing…”
“Holy ground,” breathed Charlie as if experiencing a great revelation. “Of course…”
Mhairi gave a firm nod. She crouched down, slid one arm beneath Charlie’s knees and the other beneath her back, and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a cat despite her stature. Charlie looped both arms around her neck and held on. “C’mon, babe, let’s get you outside.”
Kathleen and Alasdair stood aside to let them past.
“You know, I’m not usually convinced by this trend for people my age dyeing their hair grey,” said Alasdair with an admiring smile, “but she really makes it work.”
“She’s a striking woman,” agreed Kathleen as she picked up the spear Mhairi had abandoned on the floor and followed them back out of the west door. Mhairi laid Charlie on a bench by the courtyard’s outer wall and sat down at her feet, propping her injured ankle in her lap.
Charlie let her head fall back to rest on the arm of the bench with a sigh. “That feels better already.”
The ankle didn’t look better, still dark with bruising and swollen to twice its healthy size, but Mhairi just gave a fond smile and Kathleen didn’t argue. She propped the spear against the wall and stood back. Alasdair looked at each of them in turn, clicked his fingers, and trotted off towards the gift shop.
“Mhairi, was it?” asked Kathleen.
“Uh, no,” she said to a giggle from Charlie. “But close enough, I guess.”
“I’m Kathleen, one of the tour guides here. You, ah, threatened me with a spear a little while ago.”
“You did what!? Vaggi!”
“I… remember.” Vaggi – not Mhairi, apparently – sighed and glanced sideways at the spear, then back at Charlie, who gave her an encouraging smile and a little go-on-then gesture. “I’m sorry. I… was under a lot of stress. And I reacted badly. It won’t happen again.” This prompted another high-pitched squeal from Charlie and a double thumbs-up. “Thank you for looking after Charlie,” she went on, sounding less like she was running down a checklist. “I-I don’t know what could have happened if somebody hadn’t found her, or- or if someone worse had found her. So, thank you. Really. Thank you.”
“Compared to some of my colleagues, she was not a difficult patient,” said Kathleen. “D’you need me to ring you a taxi or something?”
Vaggi smiled and brushed her fingers gently over Charlie’s ankle again, looking down at her foot with a faintly puzzled expression. “No, I’ve, uh… I’ve got it covered.”
The gravel crunched again as Alasdair returned with a large book tucked under one arm and Charlie’s clothes draped over the other. “A couple of big vans have just pulled up out the front,” he said. “That’ll be the film crew now – we should go and see what they need for lighting and all that. But before you two head off, here’s a present for the road.” He passed the book into Charlie’s hands. “A lot of the books that’ve been written about the chapel are just Da Vinci Code conspiracy bullshit, but this is a good one,” he said, rapping one fingertip against the cover. “Properly researched, really delves into the old mediaeval symbolism of the carvings and stuff. Might be some help for your project. Oh, and here are your clothes. They’re still a bit damp, but the sun took the worst off.”
Charlie hugged the book to her chest and gave him a grateful smile and a farewell wave as Vaggi gathered her up in her arms again and got to her feet.
Kathleen pulled out her phone to check the schedule again. “Well,” she said as Alasdair leant over her shoulder for a better look at the screen, “it’s been nice showing you around the place and hopefully your next visit is under… better circumstances, but I’ll have to send you on your way now. Exit’s just back through the visitor centre there, and- where’d they go?”
She and Alasdair were alone in the courtyard.
“Must’ve… gone out the side gate?” said Alasdair, eyeing the gate in question, which was chained firmly shut.
Kathleen sniffed the air. “Do you smell sulphur?”
“Uh… yeah, a bit, now that you mention it. Maybe someone dropped a rotten egg or something.”
“That’s probably it. Anyway, let’s go get started with the film crew. Oh, and Alasdair…”
“Yeah?”
“You did pay for that book you gave her, right?”
“Yes, I paid for it.”
“Just checking…”
The next weekend, Kathleen arrived at the visitor centre bright and early. There was no sign yet of Alasdair or any of their other colleagues – today, with the tourists back, would not be a skeleton crew day – but nor was she the only one at the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Are you Kathleen?” asked the… man leaning against the wall. He was quite short, the top of his red-painted head only a little higher than her shoulders, though a black-and-white horned headdress added another foot or so. How were those attached to his head? She couldn’t see any straps to hold them in place or anything that might conceal magnets.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“The big guy wanted this sent up for you.” He held out an envelope between two fingers. “Don’t get used to it, I am not a delivery boy!”
Kathleen took the envelope with an uncertain smile and slit it open. Inside was an expensive-looking card decorated in metallic blues and pinks, which smelt of floral incense and gave off a little puff of glitter as she opened it to reveal a hand-written message and… Oh.
“You need anyone murdered while I’m here?” asked the strange man, pulling an honest-to-God flintlock pistol from an inside pocket of his long black coat.
Kathleen blinked twice. “That’s… That’s a kind offer, but I think we’re all set for, um, murders at the moment.”
“Your loss, lady!” He put the pistol away and marched off around the corner and out of sight, leaving Kathleen standing by the door in a daze.
Alasdair’s bike slid to a halt behind her. “Morning, Kathleen!”
“Good morning,” said Kathleen absently. “The, uh… the Beltane Fire Festival was a couple of weeks ago now, right?”
“Mm-hm. They always hold it on the last night of April. I didn’t go this year, but it’s usually a good time. A friend from uni was one of the performers a couple of years ago. He had great fun running around in his pants all painted red.”
“And you don’t know of any, ah, conventions going on nearby? The sort of thing people wear those funny costumes to.”
“Not this weekend, no. Why?”
Kathleen slowly turned around. “You remember Charlie from a few days ago, of course?”
He chuckled. “Hard to forget.”
“Well.” Kathleen held up the card. “A little red lizard man just gave me a nice thank-you letter from her uncle… and a cheque for six hundred and ninety thousand pounds.”
“…Huh.”