intrigue in equal measures and it was almost without conscious decision that she set off after him, intent on finding out where he came from.
The broch was shadowy, very still within the high dark stone walls. She stood in the centre looking up. ‘Hello?’ she called.
A pair of jackdaws flew up, crying in agitation as they circled before settling back into the silent shadows.
‘Hello? Are you there?’
And suddenly there he was standing at one of the dark recesses in the broken wall. He raised his hand and beckoned.
She made her way across the grass to the archway in the grey stone. Under it a flight of broken steps led up inside the wall. She stood at the bottom looking up into the darkness then, cautiously, she began to climb. ‘Where are you? I can’t see.’
Groping her way slowly she rounded a bend in the stair and there he was, standing above her, framed by gaping stone. Seeing her appear he smiled, that warm gentle smile, and beckoned again.
She took another step towards him eager to be in sunshine again but as she reached the top he stepped back out of sight. Where he had been standing there was no wall. Nothing to support her at all. With a scream she found herself clawing at the stone as she began to fall.
The bespectacled face swam into focus for a moment, disappeared and then returned in more solid form. It smiled. ‘So, we are awake at last. How are we feeling?’ The hand on the pulse at her wrist was warm and solid. Reassuring.
Every bone and muscle in her body throbbed. ‘What happened? Where am I?’
‘You fell at the broch. You’re in hospital, lass, thanks to Mrs Maclellan.’
Caro realised suddenly that the post mistress was sitting on the far side of her bed.
‘How did you find me?’ Slowly she was beginning to remember.
‘Mrs Maclellan took a lift out with the post van to see you.’ The doctor paused, wondering how to describe the woman’s hunches; her second sight. ‘She remembered what you had said about the laddie up at the broch and wanted to warn you about him. Luckily for you, they saw you fall, from the road.’
Caro closed her eyes. She felt sick and disorientated. ‘What did you want to warn me about?’
The two beside her glanced at one another. The doctor shrugged. ‘It’s our belief that you saw a lad called Jamie Macpherson. He lived near the broch some while ago and fell in love, so the story goes, with a young woman he met up there. No one knows what happened but one day the boy disappeared. They found him where we found you, at the foot of the wall. He had a lassie’s silk scarf in his hand.’ He paused, scrutinising her face cautiously. ‘Mrs Foster knew the story. She was quite obsessed about it. She would stay up here when her husband went back to London, making notes to write a book about it.’
Caro lay back against the pillow, her eyes closed.
‘Poor lady. It seems she followed him to the broch one day and climbed the stair just as you did.’
Caro frowned. ‘I don’t understand. You said he was dead?’
He nodded. ‘They should pull that old place down. It’s too dangerous. The steps are broken. She fell. Just as you did. Only in her case, no one came.’
‘She was killed?’ Caro’s eyes flew open.
He nodded gravely.
‘Oh how awful. Poor woman. How sad. No wonder her husband wanted to leave.’
‘Aye.’
‘Did you follow Jamie out there?’ Mrs Maclellan sat forward on her chair.
Caro shrugged. ‘I followed someone. Young. Good-looking. Wearing a highland plaid.’
‘That’s him.’ The woman nodded.
‘And he’s a ghost?’
‘Aye.’ She was matter-of-fact.
Caro shivered.
‘I suppose you’ll leave us now, once you’ve recovered.’ Mrs Maclellan shook her head sadly.
Caro shrugged, trying to make sense of the jumble of words spinning in her head. ‘I don’t want to leave. I love it here.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I’m a writer too, like Mrs Foster.’ Was that a voice she could hear in her head? ‘Go for it, Caro. This is the book!’ She looked up at them. ‘Perhaps I should write the story for her? And for him?’ She hesitated. ‘I wonder, would that help them find peace, do you think?’
‘Aye, I think that would be the right thing to do.’ Mrs Maclellan smiled at her. Was she the only one, she wondered, who could see the handsome clergyman standing next to the bed, nodding in approval.
Sands of Time
1
It had snowed in the night and a skim of white lay across the rough grass, clinging to the banks of rhododendrons, weighing down the leaves into graceful arabesques across the track.
Toby Hayward parked his car near the ruins of the ancient castle which rose from the uneven ground ahead of him. A tall man, in his early forties, he looked the archetypal Scotsman, with sandy hair, high colour and handsome regular features. Dressed in a shabby waxed jacket and old boots he stood for a moment trying to find his bearings. The place was deserted; it was too cold for visitors and the forecast that the weather was going to grow worse would deter any strangers from joining him in this very personal pilgrimage. The ruins were picturesque, huge and gaunt, the high broken walls, the gaping windows, the areas of castellation silhouetted against the snow and the backdrop of stately ancient trees.
The imposing stable block that had once graced this great pile and which had been destroyed by fire in the latter half of the nineteenth century had long ago been pulled down. The castle itself had also been ravaged by fire, this time shortly after the end of the First World War. The ruins had not been rebuilt. Toby grimaced. Two devastating fires. Coincidence? Who would ever know now.
He fished in his pocket for the guidebook his mother had given him before he left London for Scotland a couple of weeks earlier. It traced the history of the castle and of the Carstairs family from the fourteenth century to its heyday under the ninth earl, the infamous Victorian traveller and occultist. On page twelve there was a reproduction of a portrait of the earl. Chewing his lip Toby stood staring down at it. The Roger Carstairs who gazed out at the world also had handsome regular features, offset by dark arrogant eyes. He was dressed in the sort of middle- eastern costume favoured by Lord Byron and T.E. Lawrence.
Turning the page Toby stared down at the entry about Lord Carstairs. It was the final paragraph that intrigued him.
‘The ninth earl maintained his enigmatic reputation to the last. The date and manner of his death are unknown, but rumours abounded as to the full horror of what occurred. It was said that he had perfected a method of transporting himself from place to place and even
from one time zone to another by magical or shamanic techniques which he had learned on his travels in Egypt, India and North America. The methods he used, so it is said, left him vulnerable to the demonic forces which one day overwhelmed him. Maybe the ninth earl did not in fact die at all. As you look around the ruins of the castle which was once his home, be aware that the eyes which scrutinise you from the shadows may not be those of a ghost. They may be those of a man in hell.’
Toby shuddered. What rubbish. Who wrote this stuff?
He moved on across the grass leaving transparent ice-sheened footprints in the snow, heading for the main entrance to the castle with its imposing flight of steps. These led up to the rounded arch which had once
