‘I think it’s time to go to the police,’ said Alec. ‘As you say, this still might not be the worst of it. She must be stopped now.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All right then. But don’t say a word to her father. He’s so well wrapped around her finger that he might try to smooth over even this.’
‘Agreed,’ said Alec. ‘And Dandy, this is horrid, I know, but you should keep the kitten, darling. They might be able to tell what happened to it.’
‘It’s going to be very unpleasant for Mr Tait,’ I said. ‘And for Luckenlaw.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll try to persuade Lorna, when she gets back, to come with me to the police station and hand herself in. It would save blaring sirens and constables rushing in and dragging her off from the manse in handcuffs, and if we could keep it out of the papers somehow…’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I’m not feeling very charitable right now, I have to say, and a bit of dragging in handcuffs seems quite fitting. But I suppose it’s hospital she needs, really. And I daresay that will feel enough like punishment – I know I shouldn’t care to be in one.’
‘I’ll ring you when it’s done,’ Alec said.
After hanging up, I steeled myself to go back outside. The gardener had placed the bundled apron aside and was digging the leg of the bird table out of the lawn, with Hugh looking on.
‘I thought you wouldn’t want it there as a reminder,’ Hugh said gruffly. ‘I’ll stick it somewhere more out of the way.’ Then, having been caught out in such sentimental extravagance, he was forced to leave and I had a chance to ask the gardener:
‘Please don’t throw the poor thing in the boiler, Timpson. If you could find a stout box and put her in the flower room on the stone floor, I’ll bury her later.’
‘Just you give me a shout, madam, and I’ll dig the hole,’ said Timpson, and the kindness in his voice made my eyes fill again. ‘I’m fond o’ a cat myself,’ he went on. ‘Verra clean wee creatures and they keep the finches out o’ the fruit garden like nothin’ else can.’ Timpson and Hugh did not see eye to eye on the question of birds, it seemed.
For the rest of the day I sat in my own room, moping a little, waiting for Alec to ring back, eventually trying the manse again, in case he had missed her return.
‘I’m beginning to feel quite worried, Mrs Gilver,’ Mr Tait told me. ‘I haven’t seen her all day, and even if she had happened upon some poor soul in need of succour and she was busy making broth in a cottage somewhere she would have got word to me, I’m sure of it.’
‘Have you tried her friends?’ I said.
‘I can’t seem to find anyone,’ he answered. ‘Miss Lindsay’s house is in darkness and Miss McCallum isn’t in the post house – they must have gone off somewhere together, I suppose. No answer from the Howies all day, either. And Captain Watson hasn’t seen her, for I went down and asked him.’
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ I told him. ‘She’s a big girl and she can look after herself. Only, you will tell her I rang, won’t you?’
He had surprised me when he said that Miss Lindsay’s house was in darkness – I had not realised how the day was passing – but looking out of my window now I saw that night had indeed fallen and I went over to close the shutters. I sighed heavily, looking out, but I could not even see the little break in the turf of the lawn which showed where the scene of the morning’s horrors had been. It was a perfectly black, moonless night. That was right, I realised, calculating it, exactly a month since that other perfectly black moonless night when I looked out and saw the grave robbers at Luckenlaw. Well, at least I knew that was nothing to do with Lorna. Her surprise, the night of her party when she heard of it, was quite genuine. ‘They robbed a grave?’ she had said. ‘But that’s…’ what had she called it? No, I remembered, she had been incapable of words at the thought.
And yet, how could it be so? How could someone be responsible for what happened at the full moon and for what had happened to my poor kitten at the dark moon last night, and yet be so shocked by the dark deeds of the moon before? It was just as the little girls sang: dark night, moonlight… and then how did it go? Haunt me something, something white. Moonlight, dark night, shut the coffin lid tight, like any other little rhyme carving up the days and weeks into tidy parcels. Sneeze on a Monday, kiss a stranger, sneeze on a Tuesday, sneeze for danger. The days of the week with their meanings and the phases of the moon, each with their allotted tasks. Surely, it would make more sense to think that the same person was responsible for it all.
But she could not have been; she was speechless with horror at the very idea of it. ‘They dug up a grave?’ she had said, again and again. ‘But that’s…’ All of a sudden, my memory seemed to sharpen and an idea took hold of me. ‘But that’s…’ she had said, and I had imagined she was going to go on and call it evil or insane. But what if she had been going to say something quite different? What if she had been going to say it was no good, that it would never work, that it was not old dug-up bones that needed to be put there. And was it not true that when we visited the chamber that awful, hilarious day Lorna had been perfectly unperturbed even when she had reached into the little hollow and pulled out the dust sheet? She only screamed when she saw that it was empty.
Was I making something out of nothing? Rattled by the horridness of the kitten that morning, was I sitting here telling myself ghost stories like any ghoul?
It was the dark of the moon again. Miss Lindsay was missing, Miss McCallum was missing, and Lorna had not gone home after her trip to my garden last night. She believed in charms and spells and yet her love charm had been powerless. Would she blame that on the grave robbers – whoever they were – putting tired old bones into the law? Was it possible that this time she would replace them with something fresher? Miss Lindsay, Miss McCallum and the Howies were all missing from home.
I started to pace up and down my sitting room. The Howies were safe, I was sure. They were married women and was it not most likely that the sacrifice of a young girl was less to do with her youth than with her virginity? So Miss McCallum and Miss Lindsay could be in danger. Who could I turn to? Who could I tell?
I imagined ringing the manse again and saying this to Mr Tait, imagined myself being wrong and him telling Hugh and Hugh making me go and speak to the kind of doctor I thought Lorna needed. Alec could not be reached except by telegram. I could ask to be put through to the kiosk on the green and let it ring and ring, hoping for someone to answer, but time was wasting.
I looked at the clock above the fire. It was half-past seven now. I had wasted hours here.
‘Stay, stay,’ I said to Bunty as I rushed to the door. I could say I was upset about the kitten and that I had driven away to have a good cry where no one could hear me. I could say the motor car broke down and I had to walk miles to find help. I would worry about all of that later. Right now, I simply had to go.
There was no one in at Ford Cottage, two hours later, when I pounded on the door – where was he? – so I drove through the ford, praying that the full, midwinter stream would not be too much for my motor car. There was a moment when I could have sworn I was afloat and the engine spluttered alarmingly, but I made it up the other side and was soon bucketing along the winding back lane which would eventually bring me around the west side of the law to Luckenheart Farm and the steps leading to the chamber. I had a crowbar beside me on the seat, taken from the old stable we used as a garage now, but I was sure I should not need it. I was sure that the padlock would be open when I got to the little wooden door. At last, I spied in the light of my headlamps the rather crumbling gateposts and sagging rusted gates of Luck House and I knew I was almost there.
A door opened and a light appeared as I shot through the farmyard on my way to the rocky cleft at the foot of the hill, so I slowed and allowed the motor car to roll backwards until I was beside Jock Christie, who was holding up his lantern and staring at me.