Colonel Craig moved out and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Good luck, my boy, and don't try to win the war on your own. All we need is some conclusive proof, remember.'
Chavasse smiled once, turned and moved away across the lawn and the old man went back inside and closed the French windows. Asta waited until he pulled the curtains, cutting off all light and then went after Chavasse, silent on crepe soles.
10
Chavasse covered the two miles from the lodge to the loch in exactly twenty minutes, following the track beside the river, clear in the moonlight. Already the weather was changing and when he looked beyond the mountains, a blanket of dark moved in from the sea snuffing out the stars one by one. All he needed now was a little rain for conditions to be near perfect and with luck he might even get that before very long.
He moved away from the river as he neared the loch, cutting across the moor to drop down into the quiet bay from which he had fished that morning. The moon still shone brightly and he put down the canvas grip, took off his rucksack and crouched on the edge of the water, looking out towards the island.
The north end was the place to make a landing, rocks and sandbanks scattered over a wide area, bushes growing down to the shoreline. He marked it well and as clouds started to pass across the face of the moon, turned and set to work.
He opened the rucksack and took out the aqualung that he might or might not need, depending on what happened. The collapsible boat came next. He took it out of the canvas grip, activated the compression cylinders and the boat started to inflate with a soft hiss.
He had been aware of the movement in the heather behind him for at least two full minutes and when he turned and jumped into darkness, it was with the speed of a tiger. His hands gripped soft flesh savagely and Asta gasped his name.
'Paul! Paul, it's me!'
A cloud moved away from the face of the moon and he gazed down at her for a moment and then sat back, squatting on his haunches as darkness descended and rain began to fall.
'All right, Asta,' he said calmly. 'I think you'd better start talking.'
'Max killed Fergus tonight,' she said flatly.
'Where?'
'Back at the house. The body's still there in the cellar, hanging from a hook like an animal. He beat him to death, Paul.'
'Does he know you saw him?'
She shook her head. 'I slipped away quietly, took Murdoch's bicycle from the garage and rode over to Ardmurchan Lodge to you.'
'And arrived just as I was leaving?'
'That's right.' She gripped his arm and leaned forward, her face a pale blur. 'Tell me, Paul. Tell me everything! I must know!'
He had little choice and knowing that he took her hands and held them tightly. 'All right, angel. You asked for it. I'm a NATO Intelligence agent and your step-father and his friends are working for the other side, it's as simple as that.'
Her hands tightened in his and then suddenly she fell forward against him. He gave her only a moment and raised her chin with a finger. 'Whose side are you on, Asta?'
She gripped his arms fiercely and gave him a little shake. 'Damn you, Paul Chavasse, do you need to ask?'
The hissing stopped behind them as the compression bottles emptied themselves and he stood up. 'Where are you going-the island?'
'That's right. Donner's up to something out there and I'd like to know what it is.'
'I thought so. I knew that's what you were watching this afternoon on the hillside through the binoculars. Can I come with you?' Before he could protest she went on, 'I might as well wait for you in the boat as here on the shore.'
'All right,' he said, 'but no nonsense when we get there and you do exactly as you're told.'
She settled herself into the prow with the aqualung and he pushed off and scrambled into the stern. The moon was completely obscured by cloud and a thin rain was falling as he paddled in a wide circle that carried them into the path of the emptying river so that the current swept them in towards the northern point of the island.
Asta leaned over the prow, fending off the rocks and, when they grounded on a bank of sand and shingle, Chavasse scrambled over into the shallows, and ran the boat into the shelter of overhanging bushes.
'Now wait here,' he whispered. 'I shouldn't be very long. If you hear any kind of fuss at all, cast off, paddle back to the beach and get to Ardmurchan Lodge as quickly as you can. Colonel Craig will know what to do.' She opened her mouth to protest and he closed it firmly with one hand. 'No arguments. If the worst comes to the worst, I can swim for it. Now be a good girl.'
He splashed through the shallows, following the shoreline before cutting up through the bushes to the base of the castle wall. At this point, it was crumbling badly and he pushed his way through a wasteland of nettles, scrambling across a jumbled mass of broken stones to a point where he could see inside.
The walls formed a rectangle enclosing a paved courtyard. There was a roofless building to his right and a line of half ruined pillars stretching towards the arched gateway.
To his left, the tower of the keep lifted squarely into the night, dark and silent and he moved towards it, mounting stone steps to the battlements. At this end of the building, the walls seemed to be almost intact and where they joined the tower, there was a broad rampart and two decaying cannon still at their stations.
He peered over the edge and saw water breaking in white spray over jagged rocks forty feet below. He turned to examine the tower. It raised its head another twenty feet into the night and he stiffened suddenly. There was a light showing from the window near the top, only the merest chink as if a curtain had been carelessly drawn, probably not even visible from the shore.
A crumbling buttress made a natural ladder, but as he moved towards it, the silence was shattered by the sound of an engine breaking into life on the far side of the loch and the motor boat moved towards the island.
Chavasse hurried across to the wall and a couple of minutes later, the engine was cut and the boat drifted in. He couldn't see the jetty from that point, but he heard the sound of the landing, and the scrape of a shoe on stone.
He moved cautiously back along the battlements, crouching in a corner of darkness where the tower joined the wall and peered down. Two men crossed the courtyard talking in low voices. They paused directly beneath him and opened a door in the base of the tower. It was Donner and Murdoch. As a brief shaft of light fell across the flagstones he saw them clearly and then the door closed again.
He descended the stone steps to the courtyard and moved towards the tower, keeping to the shadow of the wall. He could hear voices, a low murmur that sounded as if it was coming from somewhere beneath him. He listened carefully at the door for a moment, then opened it gently.
An oil lamp stood in a niche, briefly illuminating a dank stone chamber whose walls glistened with moisture. To his right, circular stone stairs lifted into the darkness. To his left, another door stood open slightly. The voices were coming from inside.
He pushed it open an inch or two at a time. There was a stone landing, then the beginning of some steps, dropping away to his left. The roof was supported by ribbed vaulting, he could see that, and then someone crossed his narrow angle of vision and paused to light a cigarette.
He wore the grey-green uniform of a private in the German Army, his face a dark shadow under the peak of the combat cap. The sight was so unreal, so unexpected, that Chavasse momentarily closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the man had gone.
He pushed open the door a little further and crawled inside on his stomach, peering cautiously over the edge of the landing. The room below was large, iron, military-style beds ranged around the stone walls. Max Donner leaned over the table in the centre, Murdoch at his side, a map spread out before them and the men who crowded round him all wore German Army uniform, except for two who were in British Army battledress.