The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (53 page)

“That was
Sir Adam’s
car?” the young constable ventured.

“Aye,” McLeod whispered shakily, still not trusting himself to look up without betraying himself. “Give me a few minutes, will you, Donald? And see what else you can find out—where the car’s been taken, and so on.”

Twenty minutes later, after McLeod had concocted a cover story and steeled himself in private for the role he now must play, Cochrane knocked on the door and very apologetically reported what he had found out. Tight-jawed, McLeod gathered up his hat and coat and headed out with the young constable, ostensibly to go to the impound yard where the car had been taken, but equally to get away from staring eyes. Word seemed to have spread during Donald’s absence, and McLeod could feel the looks of sympathy and pity following him as they headed for the lifts. They were on their way out the main entrance of police headquarters when he saw the dark blue Bentley that had just pulled up to the curb, Humphrey emerging to open the back passenger door.

“Oh, God, it’s Adam’s mother,” he murmured. “Donald, go bring the car up, would you?”

As the young constable headed off for the car park, obviously relieved to be spared the meeting about to take place, a black-clad Philippa got out. Beyond her, farther in the shadows of the back seat, McLeod could see an owlish-looking Peregrine Lovat, somberly attired in a dark suit. From their expressions, he could not tell if they knew that he knew—or even if
they
knew. Did they think Adam was really dead?

As he pondered how to approach this delicate question with prying eyes possibly all around them, Philippa opened her arms to his awkward embrace, burying her face against his shoulder as she murmured, “Don’t you dare react, Noel McLeod, but he’s alive and uninjured. He called me from Newcastle last night. Go ahead and pretend to cry before you choke.”

McLeod’s sheer relief made him do just that, and he retreated into the back seat of the Bentley with her and Peregrine for a few minutes to recover and tell them of
his
cryptic call, while Humphrey closed the door and stood grim sentinel outside.

“So he wants it kept quiet, and he wants you to see about those arrangements, “ Philippa told him, after she had explained Adam’s plan. “Can you do it?”

“Aye, it will take some doing, but—aye, it can be done.”

When they had worked out the last few details, McLeod got out of the car, Peregrine coming with him.

“We’re going to have to keep up this charade, even in front of Donald,” he told the artist, as they headed toward the police vehicle where Cochrane was waiting. “I trust him implicitly, and eventually he’ll know anyway, but I think we’re better off, until Adam’s safely back, if as few people know as possible. That means we still have to go through the motions of inspecting the car. We’ll try to keep up the official pretense of a bomb—which it was, in a way, if the Lynx zapped it with lightning.”

The burnt-out hulk at the impound yard made it easier maintain the fiction of Adam’s death, for surely no one could have survived that inferno. Intense heat had buckled the side panels, slagged the glass, and even twisted the heavy frame. The interior was totally gutted. The stench of scorched plastic and a heavier aroma of burned animal hide still clung to it, heavy and oppressive even after a night in the weather and a bath of chemical extinguishers to put the fire out—and proved to come not from human flesh but from the incinerated remains of a once-handsome sheepskin coat and a leather jacket, barely discernible in what remained of the back seat.

The outside of the car provided additional interesting evidence. Inspecting the twisted hood, McLeod found the fused remains of the Lynx medallion, so blackened and twisted that it proved impossible to remove and almost impossible to distinguish for what it was.

“You know,” Cochrane said, prodding suspiciously at the slagged spot, “this looks a lot like what I found up at Balmoral. You don’t suppose that lightning struck this car, too?”

“I don’t know,” McLeod said wearily. “I think I’ll let the bomb squad carry on from here. I’ve no stomach for it. Let’s go back to the office. I need to make some calls.”

* * *

Adam, meanwhile, had landed in Glasgow and now set about lowering his profile before heading back to Edinburgh. He was feeling and looking fairly scruffy, still wearing the muddy cords and sweater of the night before, and cold as well, so he had a taxi take him to an army surplus store, where he purchased camouflage trousers, a black turtleneck submariner’s sweater, and a khaki green anorak of the type worn by Special Forces; his own snow-boots were still serviceable.

By the time he had added the severity of a black knitted watch cap to more than twenty-four hours’ growth of beard, he looked nothing like the polished and sophisticated Sir Adam Sinclair that acquaintances—and enemies—would recognize instantly. He took his other clothes with him in a plastic carrier bag, hoping the touch of domesticity would make him appear less threatening. Even so, people tended to give him wide berth on the streets as he made his way to Glasgow Central Station to wait for his train to Edinburgh. He was way earlier than he needed to be for the train he planned to take, but he needed to make a cryptic telephone call.

* * *

Several hours later, Noel McLeod received his second cryptic phone call of the day from the man Adam had called earlier.

“Noel, old chap, glad I caught you,” said a brisk, military voice at the other end of the line. “My brother wanted me to say that you’re invited to dinner before his Hogmanay party Monday. If you’ll turn up around eight, that would be splendid.”

“Yes, indeed. Thanks very much for telling me,” McLeod replied, glancing at his watch—it was nearly six. “I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

“You’re very welcome,” said the voice. “Hope to see you soon.”

As the caller rang off, McLeod hung up the receiver, heaved a heavy sigh, and lurched to his feet, reaching for his hat and coat. Peregrine and Cochrane also scrambled to their feet and gathered up their belongings, following him awkwardly out the door.

“Gentlemen, I think this has been one hell of a rotten day, and I think it’s time to go home,” McLeod said, for the benefit of whoever else might be listening. He pulled his office door shut heavily and locked it. “I don’t know about you, but I, for one, am going to get very, very drunk.”

It was only after the three of them had disappeared into the corridor that Charles Napier collected his hat and coat and hurried after them, rushing madly down the back stairs while his quarry took the lift. Watching McLeod suffer all day over the death of Sinclair was almost as satisfying as eliminating McLeod himself—which Napier also hoped to accomplish very soon. He watched from a nondescript blue Mazda as the three split outside the main doors, Lovat going with McLeod, and opted to follow them rather than Cochrane, who was believed to be a lightweight.

He followed the black BMW all the way to Waverley Station, waiting impatiently in a red zone down the street as Lovat got out and dashed inside, emerging a few minutes later with a tall, dark man in army surplus attire who moved very much like Adam Sinclair—except that Adam Sinclair was dead.

Or was he? The very thought put Napier in a panic, for if Sinclair was
not
dead, Napier was in serious trouble. Heart pounding, he managed to maneuver closer in the rush hour traffic to get a clear glimpse of the watch-capped man in the BMW’s rear seat—just before McLeod made an unexpected right turn and darted off to disappear in traffic. Cursing, Napier pounded one fist against the steering wheel—there was no way he could get across traffic and follow.

For it
was
Sinclair! Of that much, Napier was sure. He had no idea how Sinclair had managed to escape the holocaust of the night before, but the
how
was not important now. The bitter reality was that he had done it! And whether or not Napier reported what he had just seen, when word eventually got back to the Head-Master, as it inevitably must, Napier was in trouble. No, far better to tell Raeburn now and try to salvage something from the situation. Maybe he could yet track down both Sinclair and McLeod tonight, and kill them—and Lovat as well!

Sweating inside his overcoat, Napier pulled up beside a telephone kiosk, put a blue flasher on the roof of his car, and got out, digging with trembling fingers in his coat pocket for his phone card and the special number Raeburn had given him the night before. He could feel the pulse pounding in his ears as he dialed, and he drew a shaky breath when the expected woman’s voice answered and he identified himself and asked for Raeburn.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, when Raeburn had acknowledged. “I—ah—have some rather unfortunate news to report.”

And at the other end of the line, in a penthouse flat in one of the more fashionable parts of the city, Francis Raeburn listened to his subordinate with growing coldness.

“I see,” he said, when Napier had finished. “And you’re sure it was Sinclair?”

I wish I weren’t,” Napier said bitterly.

“Quite so,” Raeburn murmured, thinking furiously. ”Very well. I’ll take care of it. Are you calling from home?”

“No, sir, a pay phone near the station.”

“Very well, then. Go home. Do nothing. Avoid further contact, in case he should be onto you. They’ve obviously put on this charade for our benefit. Have yourself a drink and put your feet up. I intend to have this all resolved by morning.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Raeburn.”

When Napier had hung up, Raeburn depressed the switch hook on the telephone, thought a moment, then lifted his hand to dial a number.

“This is Raeburn,” he said to the gruff voice that answered. “Ask Mr. Scharf and Mr. Delaney to come up to the flat right away, would you? I have an assignment for them.”

* * *

That night, in a small hotel off Minto Street that McLeod had used before as a safe-house for endangered witnesses, he and Peregrine listened while Adam reiterated what had happened the night before, gave them his evaluation, and outlined the plan that had taken on additional detail since calling Philippa.

“You’re right,” McLeod said, when Adam had finished, “and I think I know the right men to approach. We’ll want to lay this before top-ranking police officers who are also Masons and apt to accept the esoteric element. I jotted down some names during the day, while we were waiting to hear from you, but I didn’t want to make any further move until I’d talked to you, just to make sure I’d understood correctly. We can sort this out in person in the morning, and get the wheels turning.”

They managed to get a few hours’ sleep in what remained of the night, and next morning headed off to police headquarters, McLeod and Peregrine looking reasonably presentable, Adam looking like an undercover cop in his khaki-green anorak and watch cap. It was just past nine as they pulled into the car park, to be met by a uniformed officer who motioned McLeod to roll down his window.

“Might as well not even park, Inspector,” he said, leaning down to look at McLeod. “We’ve got a major incident underneath the Forth Bridge—police officer killed—very messy, from what I hear. They’re saying it looks like a Masonic-style execution.”

McLeod’s face went set and grim, and Adam leaned a little closer to hear better.

“Do we know who the victim was?” McLeod asked.

“Rumor is, it’s Charles Napier.”

With a grunt of acknowledgement, McLeod snapped the car into reverse and slewed the car around, gesturing for Adam to pull out a blue light from under the seat as he headed back out Fettes A venue and into Comely Bank. Peregrine braced himself for another of McLeod’s wild rides. Adam had the light in place and flashing by the time they careened through the roundabout and on along Craigleith Road, slowing as they approached the transition into Queensferry Road.

“Well, given what we’ve long suspected about Charles Napier, I can’t say that I’m all choked up that it’s him instead of some Mason,” McLeod said at last, using the advantage of his flashing light to bull his way through the intersection. He punched the accelerator when he was clear, and the BMW fishtailed slightly and then straightened out as they sped westward. “I wouldn’t have wished this on him, though.”

“Do you think it
was
Masons who did it?” Adam asked.

“Of course not. It will still look bad, though—a very convincing frame-up. If it follows the traditional pattern, the victim will have been staked out between the high and low tide lines, probably shortly before low tide last night. Beyond that, I can’t predict how far the killers will have taken it.”

He spent the next ten minutes telling them in graphic detail about the penalties spelled out in the obligations that all Masons swore during the course of their various initiations, should they ever turn traitor to the Craft.

“Not that I think the penalties were ever meant to be invoked literally,” he said, as he swung into the transition to the Edinburgh Road, up and over the continuation of the road they had been on. “It’s always been my contention that the penalties were largely verbal embellishments to underline the seriousness of the oaths. I’ll grant you, though, that there’ve been notable examples of so-called Masonic executions. But they’ve usually been committed by non-Masons, specifically because the victim was a Mason and would have experienced the full horror of knowing what the symbolism meant.”

He glanced worriedly at Peregrine in the rearview mirror. “This is apt to be pretty gory, son—quite possibly even worse than what we saw up by Blairgowrie. If it will help keep you from feeling too sorry for him, keep in mind that he’s probably the one who set that lynx letter bomb and almost certainly the one who tried to kill Adam last night. You know, I almost thought I saw him at Melrose, Adam, but I dismissed it out of hand. I said, ‘What would he have been doing at a Masonic affair?’”

“He was probably ordered to set a medallion, to call down a lightning strike on the abbey and kill all those Masons,” Adam said, “only he decided I was a more valuable target. I suppose I should be flattered . . . ”