“I woke in the morning with a hangover befitting the amount of Scotch I had consumed the night before. Even a hearty breakfast failed to put me back on an even keel, and I was seriously considering returning to bed. So I was not best pleased when the prof, full of good humor and looking none the worse for wear, bellowed across the dining room.
“‘Come on, Seton. Don’t hang around. The boat’s ready,’ he said.
“The boat turned out to be a small two-man affair, with no motor, just a pair of oars. I had one look at it, then turned away.
“‘In that case, I shall row,’ he said, and all but manhandled me into the boat. He dropped a bag into the bottom beside me. It clinked, glass against glass as he cast off, climbed down into the boat and within seconds was taking us away from the jetty out onto the loch. Luckily for my somewhat delicate disposition, the water proved to be almost flat calm, and after several minutes, I even felt bold enough to light up a smoke. The prof downed oars and joined me. We sat still in quiet water a hundred yards off the shore.
“After we had finished our smokes, the prof reached for the bag in the bottom of the boat. Once again, glass clinked. He smiled and drew out some sampling jars, each with a long stretch of attached fishing line.
“He showed me the trick to operating the jars, giving them a quick tug when at the required depth to close the cunningly constructed valve at the top.
“He stood up. The small boat rocked alarmingly, but he merely laughed, and set to work, dropping the bottles over the side and letting them sink to their required depths. He sang, his voice carrying high and clear across the water.
“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest—
“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
“Out on the loch, something answered. A loud splash behind me dashed nearly caused me to jump out of the boat. By the time I looked ‘round, there was only a large expanding circle of ripples, some 20 yards away.
“The prof pulled his bottles in without taking any samples, dropped them unceremoniously in the bottom of the boat, and took to the oars like a man possessed, turning us in a circle until the prow pointed straight at where the splash had been.
“In only a handful of pulls on the oars, he brought us directly over the spot. The loch was once again flat calm all around us, but he had been taken by the thrill of the hunt and was not ready to give up on his quarry just yet.
“He sang again.
“Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
“But this time there was no answer, just a gentle lapping of wavelets on the side of the boat. We sat there for long minutes. Nothing moved on the water. Eventually, he started to deploy the sample jars again. He sang as he did so, sea shanties, nonsense songs, music-hall favorites, all at the top of his voice. Nothing answered.
“He sat down and lit up another cheroot.
“‘It was right here,’ he said. ‘We almost saw it.’
“We spent the best part of the morning out on the boat. At some point, I realized that my hangover had finally passed, and I felt able to help him out with the sampling. We pulled up almost a score of bottles filled with, what looked to my eyes, muddy water, but the prof pronounced himself pleased with the results.
“‘I shall have these sent to Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘There’s a chap waiting for them who’ll have the results back to us in two to three days.’
“‘Results? What are you expecting to find?’
“‘Something. Anything.’
“He took to the oars and started heading back to the hotel’s jetty. Almost as soon he had the boat turned around, there was another loud splash behind me. I saw the prof’s gaze switch to a point over my shoulder, and watched the color drain from his face. But by the time I turned, all I saw was another spreading circle of ripples.
He took to the oars again, rowing for the shore as fast as he was able.
“‘We should have brought the whisky,’ was all he said as I helped him tie up at the jetty.”
“So there you have the start of it all,” Seton said. “Can I have a smoke before the next part?”
Banks passed his smokes around and opened his window to let the fug out as they all lit up.
“Okay, auld man, I get that you had your own wee close encounter, but how is it relevant?”
“The relevance is in where I was when I heard those splashes. We were offshore, directly in front of Crowley’s old house. I didn’t know its history then, but it didn’t take me long to find out. The fact that the beast seemed to respond to singing, and that the prof had seen something so monstrous to him that he never talked about again, were enough data points for me to start what would turn into a 50-year investigation.”
“Okay, I get that,” Banks said. “But just because you saw, or rather heard, it near the house doesn’t mean it lives there. We’ve been seeing it all up and down the bloody loch. What makes the house different?”
“Geology,” Seton replied, then went quiet as he puffed at his smoke before continuing. “I spent the longest time wondering where a beast as big as that being reported might hide itself, and I stumbled upon the answer by accident while speaking to a visiting geologist in an Inverness bar.
“The rocks around here are riddled with caves and passageways. There’s even talk that the beast comes and goes through a long tunnel that leads all the way out into the Moray Firth, and that’s why it’s not often seen, because it only comes here for a special purpose.”
“And what might that be?” Banks asked.
“Damned if I know,” Seton replied. “But after hearing about the geology, I paid a small fortune for a set of sonar readings, not of the loch like every other Nessie researcher has ever done, but of the surrounding countryside. There’s a huge cavernous space no more than 30 yards below the manor house. That’s where it’ll be. It will go home to lick its wounds, I’m sure of it.”
“So you don’t actually ken anything at all,” Wiggins said. “This is all just another bullshit theory?”
“It’s a theory, yes, but one based on observed evidence and facts, not bullshit,” Seton said. “And there’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?” Banks said.
“Before you found me at the house, I had the dubious pleasure of stumbling around in a field on the far side of the property, and stepping in several very large mounds of fresh dung.”
Banks didn’t think a great deal of the older man’s theory.
But we’ve got little else to go on.
“Okay, Wiggo,” he said. “Keep heading for the house, we’ll have a shufti around there.”
They got through a checkpoint south of Foyers when Banks pulled rank on the young corporal at the barrier, and 10 minutes later pulled up at the foot of Boleskine House driveway just as the sun was coming up.
- 12 -
“Okay, you got us here, Sandy, now what?”
The squad got kitted up at the rear of the SUV — flak jackets, night vision headsets, rifles and handguns, each with extra magazines of ammo in their jacket pockets, and Hynd and Wiggins carrying two stun grenades each. They were now having a smoke before setting off.
“We’re looking for an entrance,” Seton said.
“That will no’ be difficult,” Wiggins said. “A huge beastie-like yon thing would need a fucking big hole to get through.”
“You’d think so,” Seton replied. “But in that case, somebody would have stumbled on it long before now. I’m pretty sure the beast’s entry to the lair must be under the water line somewhere.”
“Well, that’s fucking useful. Could you no’ have told me that when I was scavenging for supplies? Scuba gear wasn’t on my wee list.”