Chapter 16
Roberta sprinted past that stupid metal stag and barrelled through the open doors.
Outside, the moon’s glow cast everything in black and white, carpeting the wet grass with a billion tiny stars, turning the woods on the other side of the hotel gardens into a wall of silhouettes.
Her bare feet ploughed into the cold hard gravel.
‘Ow, ow, ow, ow!’
It was like some sadist had carpeted the world with blocks of Lego.
‘Ow, ow, ow, ow . . .’ and then her toes squelched onto the wet grass. Bliss.
Nairn disappeared around the corner and she hammered after him, squishing and slipping on the waterlogged turf, down the side of the building.
He was fast. Faster than her, anyway, arms and legs pumping. Probably helped that he had shoes on. But the gap between them was widening as he took a hard left, cutting across the moonlit gardens, making for the coal-black treeline.
‘COME BACK HERE, YOU CREEPY WEE SHITE!’
He didn’t, though, because no bugger ever did.
Nairn was getting away . . .
Then that gap in the clouds closed up, swallowing the moon whole and plunging the world into darkness again.
She whipped her torch up, the beam just bright enough to catch the back of Nairn’s roadkill cloak. Even further away now.
Argh . . .
Roberta leaned into it, huffing and puffing – closing the gap a little . . . and then Nairn vanished into the woods.
Oh God, it’d been bad enough trying to follow him last time, and that was in daylight. Now? In the dark, at night, when he was very probably armed? Yeah, this maybe wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. But what was she supposed to do, let him get away?
And then her torch did its stupid cutting-out trick again.
She skip-hop-slithered to a stop and whacked the thing against her palm. ‘Come on, you piece of crap . . .’
It gave one last sulk of dim yellow light and died. Didn’t matter how many times she battered the wee bugger, it didn’t come on again. Dead.
Well, that kinda put the arsehole on chasing Albert Nairn into the woods, didn’t it?
Still, it wasn’t as if he could actually go anywhere.
She hauled in a deep breath. ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!’
Then bent double, grabbed her knees, and wheezed for a bit. Been far too much running about, this holiday. In fact, if she was being brutally honest, this whole trip had been a bit of a wankfest.
Puffing out a heavy breath, Roberta straightened up.
Just have to head out mob-handed in the morning to House-of-Horrors Cottage and arrest Nairn. Three of them, one of him. Should be doable.
After all, what’s the worst that could happen?
As if on cue, a distant rumble of thunder sounded in the mountains, and the rain rushed in on its wake, battering into her, drenching her right through on the way back to the hotel.
‘I sodding hate weddings.’
The tartan carpet darkened around Roberta’s bare feet as she hammered on the door marked, ‘THE BALVENIE’. Hair plastered to her head, T-shirt sticking in all the wrong places, jeans being overly familiar with her underwear-free parts, as she dripped. ‘SERGEANT MOORE, OPEN UP!’
The door cracked open and there was Moore, in his Spider-Man pyjamas, yawning and blinking. ‘Time is it?’ He screwed up one eye and peered at his watch. Sagged. ‘Not my shift till four.’ Then gave her a peer too. ‘Why are you all wet?’
‘Nairn.’ She ran a hand through her hair and flicked the water against the walls. ‘He snuck in and bashed McKinnon over the back of the head.’
‘Son of a bitch.’ Wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘What do you need me to do? Is Mikey OK?’
‘Boy’s got a head like a curling stone.’ She turned and stomped back down the corridor. ‘Wake the buggers up, every last one of them. We need to make sure Nairn’s no’ crucified anyone else.’
Roberta wrapped another three-or-four foot of bandages around PC McKinnon’s ginger napper. ‘Will you hold still?’
The wee lad was still a bit wobbly, but at least his colour had returned. Possibly due to the very large brandy she’d liberated from the hotel bar and made him drink.
The open library door gave a clear view down into the lobby, where Sergeant Moore herded every single guest and staff member down the hotel stairs by torchlight.
The whole lot shuffling about in their PJs, hair all squint, eyes all puffy, yawning and scratching.
Whinging about what time do you call this and there better be an emergency and you had better believe the Chief Constable was a close personal friend who would not be pleased.
Roberta tied the bandage off, nice and tight.
‘OW!’
‘Don’t be such a wimp.’
Outside, in the lobby, Moore held up a hand. ‘I know you’re all tired, but let’s everyone just pay attention and we’ll get you back to your beds as soon as possible.’ He consulted a clipboard. ‘Mr and Mrs Reeves?’
The fusty man stepped forwards, dragging his wife with him. The pair of them done up in matching floral jim-jams. ‘I wish to make a strongly worded complaint to your superior officer!’
‘Good for you. Now, off to bed.’ Moore ticked something on his clipboard. ‘Mr and Mrs Beresford?’
‘Present.’
‘Thank you. Off to bed for you too.’
Roberta double-checked her knot. ‘You didn’t see anything?’
The constable shrugged. ‘One minute I was checking the library windows and then: pow.’ He rubbed his cheek. ‘Next thing I know, you’re belting me one.’
‘It was Nairn. I chased him off into the woods. At great personal risk, I might add.’ She sat back and examined her handiwork. ‘You’ll live.’ Mind you, there was one thing bugging her. ‘When was it? When did he attack you?’
McKinnon frown-winced. ‘Half one? No, tell a lie, cos I heard the grandfather clock in the billiard room striking quarter to two just before I came in here.’
Quarter to two, and she got up at what, quarter past-ish? Which meant Albert Nairn was sneaking about the hotel for at least half an hour, completely unsupervised.
She wandered over to the library window and scowled into the rainy darkness. Nairn was out there, somewhere, probably bunkering down in that taxidermy mausoleum of his, getting ready for a siege. But for thirty minutes he’d had the run of Skirivour Castle Hotel while everyone else was unconscious.
‘What the hell were you up to, you animal-stuffing little freak?’
With everyone sent back to bed, the lobby had returned to its gloomy quiet, but only Sergeant Moore, PC McKinnon, and Roberta were there to enjoy it.
Roberta leaned back against the stag’s plinth and took a sook on her e-cigarette. Blew a cloud of strawberry steam at the ceiling. ‘Well?’
‘All present and correct.’ Moore held up his clipboard, showing off all the scored-out names. ‘Whatever Albert Nairn was up to, it wasn’t killing anyone.’
McKinnon prodded at his bandaged head again. ‘Well, at least that’s something, right? Right?’
‘Aye, that or we got in the way before he could do it.’ She sent another strawberry cloud skyward. ‘Get your arse off to bed: Sergeant Moore will take the rest of your watch. But first thing tomorrow: we’re going to hunt Albert Buggering Nairn down and arrest his murdering arse.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The wee loon scampered off, leaving them alone in the lobby.
Roberta gave Moore a good once-over. Scruffy hair, rabbit-skin slippers, red-and-blue webby pyjamas. ‘What is it with you and Spider-Man?’
‘Everyone’s got to have a hobby.’
He and McKinnon were as bad as each other. Mad as a tea party.
She shook her head and left him to it.