Death of an Adept

Chapter Nine

A forty-mile stretch of open water separates the Isle of Lewis from the Scottish mainland. Skimming half a mile above the foam-flecked waves in their twin-engine Cessna, Peregrine pressed his forehead against the window glass and watched the shadow of the plane sweep before them like a dark hound leading the hunt. He hoped there was nothing but poetic allusion in the comparison. With the nature of the case confronting them yet to be determined, he preferred not to encounter any ill omens at this early stage of their investigation.

The flight itself had been uneventful, apart from some expected wintry turbulence over the Grampians. Fortunately their pilot, one Harry Nimmo, was no stranger to flying in adverse conditions. Indeed, he was no stranger to their work. McLeod had briefed Peregrine about Harry while they watched him fuel the plane, though only later had he disclosed the most important piece of information about Harry Nimmo.

By then, Peregrine had learned that Harry was a former major in the SAS, who had flown Harrier jump-jets in the Falk-lands War before taking up a highly successful career in the law. In the years since, though his considerable legal talents had earned him the coveted apanage of Queen's Counsel, Harry had continued to indulge his love of flying, not only retaining active flying status with the reserve RAF, but also making occasional guest appearances at air shows as a pilot of vintage aircraft. Harry had flown everything from Spitfires, Lancasters, and Hawker Hurricanes to the even more exotic aircraft of the biplane era - Tiger Moths and Sopwith Camels, the latter so named for the distinctive humpbacked outline of the fuselage and made famous by the flying exploits of Charles Schulz's Snoopy and the Red Baron.

McLeod's matter-of-fact recitation of Harry's flying credits had sparked fond memories of some of Peregrine's favorite boyhood reading - of Biggies, the fictional British flying ace whose dashing escapades had made him the hero of many an English schoolboy. On finally meeting Harry, Peregrine had found himself picturing the pilot-cum-barrister in the leather flying jacket, goggles and helmet, jodhpurs, and boots affected by Biggies and other pioneers of aviation. Indeed, with his lean, lightweight build and self-assured good looks, Harry Nimmo might easily have served as Biggies' prototype.

Not that anything in Harry's present attire or even his manner suggested much of a Biggies parallel. As he'd led them out the Cessna parked on the general aviation apron, Harry was togged out like his two passengers in a serviceable, close-knit sweater over collar and tie, with hard-wearing woollen trousers and stout winter boots - sensible, professional-looking winter-wear for assisting in a police investigation, whether as police officer, artist, or senior barrister. Only his military-issue sunglasses lent a touch of the exotic - though the dark lenses were more a necessity than an image statement against the harsh glare of snow glittering beside the parking apron.

The anomaly between reality and reputation had persisted as Harry unlocked the plane's cabin and directed them inside, himself ducking under a wing to make a final pre-flight inspection. As Peregrine clambered into one of the Cessna's rear seats and stowed his sketch box in front of the seat beside him, leaning out then to take the coats that McLeod handed up, he had begun to wonder if perhaps he had been too quick to draw the parallel between Harry Nimmo and the dashing Biggies.

Except that as Harry came around the aircraft, removing his sunglasses as he ran a hand along the near wing, Peregrine caught a glimpse of an eagle-keen blue gaze - just before Harry produced a navy baseball cap from a hip pocket and donned it with a flourish. The cap bore the logo of the Starship Enterprise. Simultaneously, Peregrine realized he had just dumped his and McLeod's coats atop an old-fashioned brown leather flying jacket, fleece-lined and with an embroidered set of RAF wings sewn above the left breast. A creamy-white silk scarf spilled from one of the pockets.

"If the jacket looks familiar," McLeod had said over the back of his seat, "it's because you may have seen it a couple of years ago. Harry flew one of the helicopters on the Cairngorm mission."

Now more than an hour into the present mission, Peregrine glanced wistfully at his sketch box, set on the floor behind the pilot's seat, half-tempted to try some trial sketches to see what would show up - for McLeod's attitude toward Harry had soon made it clear he was far more than a crack barrister and sometime Biggies clone, and that the Cairngorm mission was but one of many in which Harry had placed himself and his talents at the service of the Hunt. Listening to the drift of their conversation, filtered through the headsets that all of them wore to communicate above the drone of the twin engines, Peregrine inferred that the pilot was one of those individuals he had sometimes heard described as a Hunt Follower.

The realization gave him pause, for hitherto, he had always understood a Hunt Follower to be someone with no particular psychic gifts, who was nonetheless associated with the Hunting Lodge. Whether that association was familial, marital, or professional, Peregrine had further understood that whatever aid a Hunt Follower might be prepared to render, such an individual could never be allowed to know the full scope of the work of the Hunting Lodge itself. The principle of "need to know" was for the mutual protection of all concerned, since what a Follower did not know, he or she could not be induced to betray.

Yet McLeod had been more than usually candid while briefing Harry on the case, once they were airborne, and allowed himself to be drawn out on rather specific possible esoteric implications. Granted, Harry was trained to ask probing questions, but the exchange made Peregrine wonder whether the role of Hunt Follower might be subject to fewer restrictions than he had hitherto supposed.

Confronted with this possibility, the young artist found himself examining his earlier assumptions. Perhaps the role of Hunt Follower was to be interpreted more flexibly, as dictated by the relative strengths and proclivities of the individuals concerned. It certainly made sense that, just as Adept talents varied from individual to individual, some Followers would have a greater capacity for knowledge and understanding than others - and judging from McLeod's display of confidence, Harry was more capable than most. Even without the esoteric dimensions of their present assignment, it was clear that Harry Nimmo would be a good man to have behind them in any crisis, if any real trouble was looming ahead.

Contemplating the form such trouble might take, as the Isle of Lewis itself loomed ahead, Peregrine found himself cupping a hand over the slight bulge of his Adept ring in a trouser pocket. Very shortly, Harry's voice jarred him back to the present, a little tinny-sounding in the headphones.

"We're about to start our descent into Stornoway. Anything else I should know, before I get involved in tower chitchat?"

"Nothing I can think of," McLeod replied. "Just keep your eyes open. If anything at all strikes you as odd, don't hesitate to point it out. Just be careful what you say in Chisholm's hearing. He's a good man, but he can't be expected to think like one of us."

"Roger that," Harry replied, reaching for the radio. "Let's take her down, then."

The next few minutes passed in a buzz of landing preparations and tower chatter as Peregrine considered McLeod's phrase, one of us. The ride down was bumpy, and the artist braced himself as the ground came rushing up to meet them, idly noting a Loganair commuter plane parked on the apron beside a very small terminal building. The lightweight Cessna jibbed briefly under the force of a random crosswind and snow flurries, but Harry set the little craft down with the effortless precision of a man placing an egg in a basket. After taxiing to an area apparently reserved for light aircraft, he shut down the engines and McLeod opened the door to a blast of wind and cold. A patrol car in the white and blue livery of the Highlands and Islands Police was waiting just beyond the chain-link perimeter fence, and the driver's door opened as McLeod poked his head out and raised a hand in acknowledgement.

"That'll be Chisholm, I expect," he muttered, as all of them put on their coats.

Chisholm joined them as they were lashing down the wings to tie-downs set into the tarmac - a lanky, pink-cheeked figure in a policeman's cap and a dark-blue parka zipped to his chin against the cutting wind. When he and McLeod's party had traded introductions and handshakes all around, the island officer ushered them out through a gate in the chain-link fence.

"I figured I'd better collect you myself," Chisholm said to his visitors as they piled into the police car, McLeod in the passenger seat beside him and Peregrine and Harry behind. "Fortunately, the weather isn't too bad today, but it's about fifteen miles across the island to Callanish - and you'll love the road."

He buckled up his seat belt before starting the engine, then pulled a manila folder from between the two front seats and handed it to McLeod.

"That's the production file thus far," he said, putting the car into gear. "I sent you the incident report, but there are some photos that might tell you a lot. Incidentally, the blood on the sleeping bag was bull's blood, thank God. But that still doesn't explain what was going on."

As McLeod opened the file and started to leaf through the notes accompanying the incident report, Chisholm fell silent, whipping the car out of the parking area and past the adjacent RAF station, then winding through the fringes of Stornoway itself. McLeod had gotten to the photographs by the time they were speeding south and westward along the snow-edged A859 - a stretch of road that traversed some of the bleakest highland landscape Peregrine had ever seen.

"We've had a clean-up crew in this morning to remove the carcass and offal," Chisholm said, as McLeod shook his head over one of the photos, "but those will give you some notion of the state the place was in when our first witness discovered it. He was pretty upset, and I can't say I blame him. This was as grisly a mess as I've ever seen outside a slaughterhouse."

McLeod shuffled through the set of pictures, pausing now and then to consider one at an alternate angle. When he was finished, he passed the folder back to his companions. Perusing the photos in his turn, with Harry looking on, Peregrine was inclined to agree with their guide's assessment. He was glad the pictures were in black-and-white.

"I'll tell you, Inspector, I've been fifteen years a policeman on this island, and I've never seen anything like this before," Chisholm said, slowing momentarily as they passed through a tiny village. "I'm not saying we haven't had our share of eccentric visitors - these prehistoric stone circles seem to attract nutter types - but all the ones I've encountered up till now have been essentially harmless. I guess what worries me is the thought of what might come next. Based on your experience, is this what you would call black magic?"

Sighing, McLeod took the file Harry passed forward and tucked it back between the seats, letting his gaze range over the winter terrain flashing by.

"Not necessarily," he said, though without much conviction. "The formal aspects of the bull-sacrifice - the mistletoe crown, the method of slaughter - are certainly in accordance with some forms of Druid ceremonial magic. And the arrangement of the entrails certainly suggests some kind of divination procedure. In order to qualify as black magic, however, such a ritual would have to be specifically dedicated to an evil purpose by people seeking to interface with the powers of darkness. But photographs alone don't yield sufficient evidence to make such an assessment."

"What about the black bull?" Chisholm asked. "Does that have any significance?"

"Well, the traditional color was white," McLeod allowed, "but black might have been all they could get. I'd prefer to reserve judgement until I've had a chance to go over the ground at the scene."

"Well, you'll soon get that chance," Chisholm replied, hardly slowing as the snow-crusted road narrowed to a single lane with passing places.

A row of cottages briefly relieved the winter landscape as they sped on, domestic tendrils of chimney smoke snaking lazily upward against a grey sky threatening more snow. Here and there sheep huddled in the lee of wall or fence or stunted tree, masquerading as rocks, and snow lay in shallow drifts among tussocks of winter-burned grass.

Very shortly they were winding through the outskirts of Cal-lanish Village, creeping past a long, thatched cottage to nose into a muddy car park at the far end of the main street. Beyond a barbed-wire fence, a broad avenue of standing stones pointed the way to the Callanish Ring itself. The webs of bright yellow police tape strung among the ancient stones seemed jarringly out of place - an ugly reminder of the criminal present, as intrusive as scrawls of spray-painted graffiti.

Two police cars and a rainbow-painted minivan were among the half dozen vehicles already drawn up around the edges of the car park. As Chisholm pulled in between the two police cars and cut the ignition, McLeod indicated the van with a jerk of his chin.

"Would that belong to your neo-Druids?" he asked.

"Aye, lolo must be around here somewhere," Chisholm replied. "I think I told you he was the first one to report the incident. I asked him to meet us here, in case you had any questions you wanted to put to him. And there's a second site beyond that rise, where the suspect vehicles apparently parked. I'll take you there on foot. That's where we found the sleeping bag."

As the four of them began to alight, Peregrine gazed narrowly across the distant ring of monoliths, pausing with one hand on a door handle. Even at this remove, he could see there was something amiss. The entire area defined by the stones appeared slightly beclouded to his sight, as if the stones themselves had been treated to a coating of dirty grease.

Recalling his purpose, he tucked his sketch box under his arm and followed after Chisholm and McLeod, noting that the latter unobtrusively took his Adept ring from a pocket and slipped it onto his finger before pulling on his gloves. Peregrine did the same, trying not to draw attention to the gesture, though Harry clearly noticed. As they passed through a gate bearing the logo of the National Trust for Scotland and began trudging up the muddy pathway toward the main standing stones, Peregrine found himself oddly reassured to have the enigmatic Harry bringing up the rear.

Closer to the lines of tape, two uniformed policemen had been assigned to perimeter security. One was crouched down talking to a handful of children who had come to gawk, and the other was engaged in a rather more emphatic conversation with two adult civilians - reporters, judging by their persistence. As Chisholm and his companions approached, the officer dealing with the children sent them off and came over.

"Morning, Mclver," Chisholm said. "This is DCI McLeod, up from Edinburgh. Mclver normally runs the one-man station up at Carloway, Inspector, but he was first officer on the scene yesterday."

He went on to complete the introductions. By then, the two civilians had accepted their rebuff from Mclver's partner and were trudging back toward the car park. From beyond the tapes on the other side of the circle, another man, with a camera and telephoto lens, was trying to frame a shot of the central cairn chamber, but Mclver's partner was already on his way to deal with the situation. Chisholm's mouth tightened as he returned his attention to Mclver.

"Press been giving you trouble?" he asked.

Mclver gave a stolid shake of the head and blew on his gloved hands to warm them. "Not much, sir. This morning, there isn't much to see. Those two chaps have been most persistent, but it looks like they've given up. There might be a couple of stragglers still nosing around the village in search of an angle, but I don't think they'll get very far. The locals seem to be sticking to their original statements that no one saw or heard anything worth reporting."

"They never do," Chisholm said with a grimace. "See if Maxwell needs a hand with that photographer, would you? I want to give Inspector McLeod a quick tour of the site before he talks to our witness."

"Aye, sir."

The wind up by the stones was sharp. When Peregrine had ducked under the tape that Chisholm held up for them, he turned up the collar of his duffel coat with a shiver. McLeod seemed impervious to the vicissitudes of the weather, as did Harry. Frost crunched under their feet as they made their way toward the center of the circle, now seen to mark where the stone avenue and three single lines of stones converged in a rude Celtic cross design.

The details inside the stone circle were much more foreboding. An icy slick of reddish-brown still darkened an open space beside the central stone - obvious location of the bull's demise - and looking more closely, Peregrine could see where blood had been used to trace the outline of a smaller circle on the short wintry turf between the central stone and the irregular depression of an open tomb cairn. More blood still marked the insides of all the stones defining the circle - which he had seen in the photographs, of course, and with the bloody carcass of the bull still in place.

But somehow the reality was far more disturbing, even after the first attempts at clean-up. As Peregrine tried to make some sense of what he was seeing, a sudden flood of psychic impressions rose to meet him, beating against the barriers of his inner Sight with an urgency that was almost irresistible.

"Inspector," he said, as casually as he could, "if you don't mind, I'm going to pull off to one side and start making some sketches. This seems as good a place to start as any."

"Please yourself," McLeod muttered. "You know what we need. Harry, why don't you give him a hand?"

Harry merely inclined his head and gestured for Peregrine to lead the way. Chisholm, meanwhile, drew McLeod aside to point out what looked like a scorch mark at the base of one of the central stones, where the wintry turf showed pale and withered.

"What do you make of that?" he asked. "There are three more like it."

Crouching down on his hunkers, McLeod prodded at the mark with the end of a pen, then glanced around the circle and located the three other marks, obviously marking the cardinal points of the compass.

"At a guess, I'd say they were made by lights of some kind - kerosene lanterns, maybe, or oil lamps, or possibly votive lights."

"That was my thought, too," Chisholm agreed. "But you'd think someone would have noticed. There wasn't even any moon that night."

McLeod shrugged as he rose, all too aware how a sufficiently powerful Adept might contrive to screen his doings behind a veil of obscurity, especially if he harnessed the power of the moon at full wane. Such practice did not necessarily betoken dark intentions, but neither did it bode for good, coupled with the sacrifice of a black bull. But all he said was, "If they were shielded lanterns, and set at the right angles behind the stones, they might not have been visible from the village. And given that this apparently occurred well after dark, on a cold and windy night…"

"Aye, you're probably right."

Chisholm went on to show McLeod the symbols which had been painted in bull's blood on the standing stones of the circle. Though McLeod readily identified them as Druidical signs of warding, he did not mention to Chisholm that the symbols had been fortified by signature flourishes of unusual potency. Pausing to copy them into the small notebook he always carried with him, McLeod became conscious of a foreboding prickle at the base of his skull. Though the residual power of the stones themselves appeared to be neutral, it was becoming increasingly clear that the individuals who had carried out this work on Solstice Eve were anything but novices.

"I think it's time I went and had a word with that witness of yours," he said, snapping his notebook shut and turning briefly toward Peregrine and Harry. "I'll be back in a bit," he called.

The witness in question was sheltering in the lee of the furthermost stone in the south arm of the Celtic cross described by the stones. Enveloped in a heavy grey wool cloak instead of a coat, he had been almost invisible until he rose at their approach, pushing back the cloak's hood from long reddish hair plaited into braids on either side of his face.

He was a lanky young man, perhaps a bit younger than Peregrine, with a straight mouth, a bushy moustache, and a pair of earnestly frowning eyebrows that almost met across the bridge of his nose. Beneath the cloak, which was fastened at one shoulder with a bronze penannular brooch, he was wearing faded blue jeans, knee-high sheepskin-lined boots, and a mossy-green medieval-style woollen tunic, the latter girt at the waist by a broad leather belt with a buckle of handcrafted bronze. Cradled in the crook of one arm was a tall ash-wood staff surmounted by a shard of rock crystal.

He drew himself erect, like a prince receiving petitioners, as Chisholm led McLeod into his presence, taking the staff in hand and planting it firmly in front of him. Despite the hint of challenge in his manner, his dark eyes betrayed no trace of guilt or evasion.

"This is lolo MacFarlane," Chisholm said to the inspector, "lolo, this is Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod."

MacFarlane looked minutely relieved, but retained his guarded stance. "A DCI? I hope this means someone is going to take this case seriously."

His voice was a light, ringing tenor, not as confident in tone as his manner had suggested. Adopting a less aggressive approach than first intended, McLeod removed his aviator spectacles to polish them casually with a pocket handkerchief.

"Mr. MacFarlane, my associates and I flew up from Edinburgh this morning at Mr. Chisholm's request. You may take that as an indication that we are all interested in getting to the bottom of this affair. I'm hoping you can help us."

"Oh." MacFarlane seemed to unbend slightly. "You really came all the way from Edinburgh?"

"Aye."

"Well - thank you. Ah, how can I help?"

"I read over the case report and saw the photographs before I came," McLeod replied, "but obviously they don't tell the whole story." He put his spectacles back on. "Judging by the signs, this would appear to have been a Druid sacrifice, but there are elements here that don't add up. So I'd like to go back over your impressions, beginning when you first arrived on the scene."

"My impressions?" MacFarlane retorted. "How would you feel if you turned up for church on Sunday morning and found that somebody'd left a dead sheep on the floor in front of the sanctuary?"

"I'd be pretty thoroughly outraged," McLeod said with blunt candor. "And I'd bloody well want to find out who did it." He cocked an eye at the younger man. "Mr. Chisholm says you're a practicing Druid yourself. I know a bit about that, and I know this isn't how it's meant to be." He gestured back toward the site. "Suppose you tell us what you can surmise about the people who did this."

MacFarlane drew a deep breath, then inclined his head in guarded assent. "They certainly seem to have known their history. Sacrificing bulls was a regular practice amongst the later Druids, as was divination from the entrails. And they knew enough to carry it out in the traditional manner. But no true followers of the Druid way would have left such a mess behind. That's sacrilege. This is holy ground. And they used it like the floor of a slaughterhouse!"

He stopped short, his eyes blazing, and McLeod gave a sympathetic nod.

"Your anger and resentment are fully justified," he said quietly. "We'll try to wind up the technical part of this investigation as soon as possible, so you and your people can come in and do what's necessary to cleanse the site."

This statement earned McLeod a look of mingled surprise and gratitude.

"We'd be very much obliged," MacFarlane said.

"I'm the one who's obliged," McLeod replied. He took one of his cards from his pocket and presented it. "If you come across anything you regard as unusual in the clean-up process, I'd appreciate your giving me a call. I need to know, if we're to find who did this."

MacFarlane took the card, fingering it thoughtfully. "I'll do that," he promised.

"Thank you," McLeod said, and then turned to Chisholm. "Now I'd like a look at where you said you think the vehicles parked."

Meanwhile, Peregrine had set about his own work, preparing to settle in while McLeod and Chisholm inspected the stones and then moved off to find lolo MacFarlane. Before he could even begin to draw, his initial task was to isolate the impressions of immediate relevance from the surging background sea of historical images. At such an ancient site, it would not be easy.

Moving outside the circle of stones, Peregrine withdrew along the western arm of the cross until he could find an angle that gave him an overall view of the central circle. Taking shelter in the lee of one of the stones, he pulled off his right glove and opened his sketch box long enough to remove a sketch pad and pencil, then gave the box into Harry's keeping while he turned his attention to the circle stretched before him.

A slowly drawn breath eased him into trance with a smoothness born of practice as he set himself to filter out all the other resonances, layer by layer, until he at last was left focused on a stratum of dark images from the immediate past. Under cover of blowing on his fingers to warm them, he set the stone of his Adept ring briefly to his lips, commending himself to the guidance and protection of the Light, then set pencil to paper and let the dark images channel through his drawing hand. Wholly absorbed in his work, Peregrine soon ceased to be aware of anything else.

He worked thus for perhaps half an hour, changing location several times, filling half a dozen pages of his sketchbook with impressions. Harry observed the process with interest at first, but Peregrine's concentration clearly did not invite comment or conversation. Growing fidgety after a while, Harry circulated around the site on his own, making his own observations, increasingly restless but always drawn back to the young artist's side to see what was taking shape beneath his flying pencil, especially when Peregrine changed locations.

Peregrine had moved into the center of the circle to sketch, now sitting on his sketch box, which he'd retrieved from Harry. He was deep in a study of the dark stain where the bull had lain when Harry again returned to his side. This time, as he peered over Peregrine's shoulder, he found the other man's pencil strokes blurring in front of him like the ghost-image of a spinning propeller-blade, almost drawing him into the sketch.

Removing his sunglasses, Harry knuckled at his eyes and turned away. As he did so, his gaze lighted upon a blackened curl of something that looked like a small black snake lying on the ground beside the central monolith, just inside the blood-traced circle.

Curious, he moved closer to crouch in the lee of the monolith, prodding whatever it was with one earpiece of the glasses and then lifting it for a closer look. It was not a snake. He was just considering whether the object might be a narrow strip of bull's hide when it slid down the earpiece and onto his hand. Its touch triggered a startling and overwhelming cascade of alien images that set him reeling back to sit hard in the snow.

Harry's strangled exclamation jolted Peregrine from his sketching trance. Looking up sharply, he saw the barrister crumpling dazedly against the central monolith, eyes unseeing and fists clenched hard against his chest. Jamming his pencil through the spiral binding at the top of the sketch pad, Peregrine thrust the pad under his arm and sprang to Harry's aid.

"Harry!" he whispered urgently, seizing the man's arm and at the same time trying to block him from view by anyone who might be watching. "Harry, what's the matter?"

Both the scrap of hide and Harry's sunglasses had fallen from his fingers as he sat, and he shook his head in dazed bewilderment as he regained awareness of his surroundings - and his wet posterior.

"Christ!" he murmured under his breath, bracing himself against Peregrine and scrambling back to a crouch, brushing vainly at the seat of his trousers.

"What happened?" Peregrine demanded, giving Harry's arm a shake when he did not immediately respond. "Harry, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I - I'm fine." Harry groped automatically for his sunglasses, folding them clumsily into a breast pocket of his flying jacket, then stiffened as he saw the curled scrap he had dropped. His finger began trembling as he pointed it out to Peregrine.

"Do you see that?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"The damned thing - bit me!" he said, for want of a better descriptor - though Peregrine had a sudden inkling of what he meant. "Fetch McLeod, would you?"

McLeod was out in the long avenue that led back to the car park, conferring with the two police constables as they gestured around the location and the nearest cottages, apparently discussing who might or might not have been able to see anything. Chisholm was back in the police car, talking on the radio. Heading partway back to McLeod and the two constables, Peregrine raised his sketch pad to catch McLeod's eye.

"Inspector, can I see you a minute?"

McLeod excused himself immediately and came to join the young artist, his brow furrowing at the look on Peregrine's face.

"What is it?"

"I dunno. Something just happened to Harry. He seems to be all right now, but he said that something 'bit' him. I think he meant psychically. It looked like a fragment of bull hide."

"Did he touch it?"

"I think so."

McLeod nodded and headed in Harry's direction.

"That's one of the reasons I brought him along. I expected that something like this might happen, if I just gave him time and opportunity. I do believe our Harry may have made a personal breakthrough."

Harry had struggled to his feet during Peregrine's brief absence, and was leaning heavily against the central monolith on the side away from the others, folding something into a pocket handkerchief.

"I didn't touch it a second time," he said in a low voice, as McLeod came close beside him. "Didn't mean to touch it the first time, but it sort of slid onto my hand when I was trying to scoop it up with one of the stems of my sunglasses. It's in here," he added, handing the folded handkerchief to McLeod and immediately wiping his hands against the legs of his trousers, as if to divest himself of something unpleasant.

Very carefully McLeod opened the handkerchief enough to see what was inside, nodding as he glanced back at Harry.

"Care to tell us about what happened, Counsellor?"

Harry swallowed audibly and managed a sickly grin. "Tell me this, first. Would there have been a reason to sew somebody inside the skin of that bull?"

McLeod nodded carefully.

"And some kind of binding in addition to that?" Harry persisted. "Some kind of ligatures around the wrists, the upper arms, the ankles?''

Again McLeod nodded, refolding the handkerchief over its contents and slipping the bundle into an inner coat pocket.

"Restricting the movement of a subject is a form of sensory deprivation," the inspector explained. "It can enhance states of altered consciousness. And the ligatures would restrict blood flow to the limbs - and hence concentrate blood flow to the brain - also enhancing psychic activity. Psychotropic drugs are sometimes given for the same reason. What did you see, Harry?"

Harry glanced at the remnants of the circle outlined in blood, hugging his arms across his chest to suppress a shiver.

"Something really dark," he whispered. "And for just a few seconds, I seemed to be part of it."

"Tell me," McLeod said quietly.

Harry swallowed and nodded. "I was lying in the center of that circle of blood. I was sewn tight into that damned bull hide with my arms strapped to my sides, stark naked inside. I couldn't move, I could hardly breathe; my feet and hands were numb."

"Go on."

"There were - a couple of men were bending over me," Harry continued, blue eyes going unfocused as he remembered. "One of them was old, with white hair and some kind of crown on his head - I'd know him if I saw him again. The crown wasn't metal, or even leaves. It had wings like a bird, but - close to the head. Not Viking or anything like that."

"Did he say or do anything?" McLeod asked.

"Aye. He - put a flask to my lips and tipped something into my mouth. I can almost taste it, even now - odd, aromatic… And then things really began to get weird…."

He paused and gulped for breath. Peregrine had an odd look on his face, but McLeod only nodded slowly.

"I don't suppose this man had a name?"

Harry closed his eyes, wrestling with a memory just at the edge of retrieval. "He did. It wasn't said, but somehow I knew who he was. Something - something beginning with a T". Tal - Toller, maybe? No, more like Talley… but longer. Tallier. That's not quite it. Tallier… No - Taliere. Yes, that's it. Taliere."

"Taliere." McLeod tasted the four syllables, then shook his head. "It doesn't ring any bells. What happened then?"

Harry shuddered and shook his head. "I can't remember exactly. Things got very dark. I - can only describe my feeling as one of dread. My head felt like it was about to explode, like there was something in there, trying to get out - or something outside, trying to get in…." He shuddered again. "I can't remember anything more, but it was awful." He swallowed with difficulty and finally looked at McLeod again. "What - what does it mean?"

"It means, my friend, that you seem to have experienced a rather potent flash of psychometry, almost certainly triggered by contact with that bit of ligature," McLeod said casually, laying a gloved hand on Harry's forearm in reassurance. "I've been half expecting it for some time, though I didn't anticipate anything quite this dramatic, first time out."

Harry's jaw had dropped during McLeod's explanation, and now his face went pale beneath its tan.

"I'm not sure I want to hear this," he whispered. "You know I haven't any psychic talents."

"So you've always claimed," McLeod said with a faint smile. "However, I've suspected otherwise for some time. The ability to pick up psychic impressions from physical objects is one of the more useful and better-documented types of psychic sensitivity."

"I know what psychometry is!" Harry snapped, then raised both hands to rub at his temples distractedly, shaking his head in denial. "God, I don't believe this. Couldn't this just have been imagination run rampant?"

McLeod smiled thinly. "Counsellor, I would never venture to describe you as a fanciful man."

"And even if you were," Peregrine said quietly, "I think I can produce some rather compelling independent evidence."

He turned to one of the newly filled pages of his sketchbook and held it out for Harry to see: a sketch-portrait of an elderly white-haired man garbed in the costume of a pagan priest, crowned with a winged headdress in the form of a speckled bird.

"Is this anything like the man you saw?" Peregrine asked.

Harry stared at the drawing. His jaw dropped slightly, his face growing paler still under its healthy sheen of outdoor tan.

"Dear God, that's him exactly!" he whispered, suddenly weaving a little on his feet. "That's him, right down to the last detail."

Casually pulling off his right glove, McLeod turned the stone of his Adept ring inward and lightly clasped the back of Harry's neck, making certain the stone made contact.

"Steady, old son. Just close your eyes for a minute and take a deep breath," he directed with calm authority. "Now let it all the way out. You're perfectly all right. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. Quite the contrary, in fact. Psychometry's a very useful talent. We'll talk more about this later. In the meantime, just relax and take another deep breath… Now another… You'll be fine in a few seconds."

Harry did as McLeod instructed, trembling beneath the inspector's hand. After a moment or two, his breathing steadied and his face started to regain its normal color. After another few seconds, McLeod slid his hand down Harry's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Better now?" he asked, as Harry sheepishly opened his eyes.

The counsellor nodded and took a deep breath, letting it out with a whoosh.

"You'll have to excuse the attack of funk," he murmured to his companions, suddenly self-conscious. "I never thought anything like this would happen to me. Maybe proximity to you people triggers this kind of thing, Noel. Or maybe it's just that one is more inclined to believe, having seen you work."

Or it could be that the time is ripe for you to come into possession of your own talents, Peregrine reflected. He certainly had no trouble remembering how alarmed and confused he had been when his own talent first had begun to manifest itself, not so very long ago.

But before he could offer Harry any words of reassurance, the sound of hurried footsteps on frosty ground heralded Chisholm's return. He was shaking his head, looking grim.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you on your own," he announced. "If you'll let McIver know when you're ready to head back to Stornoway, he or Maxwell will run you in."

"Trouble?" McLeod asked.

"Aye, but only the usual sort, thank God - not that the poor bastards involved will know the difference," Chisholm replied. "We've got a vehicle over the side on a really bad stretch of road, down toward Harris. It looks like two dead - local chaps. A recovery team is on the way, and I've said I'll meet them there."

McLeod raised an inquiring eyebrow. "I don't suppose there's any chance of a connection with this?"

Chisholm shrugged, but he looked unconvinced. "I suppose it's possible," he allowed. "Dispatch said it's a Land Rover - which is certainly capable of pulling a horse-box with a bull in it. But it's far more likely that the two incidents are unrelated. This time of year, people drink far more than they should and then try to drive. It's probably just poor judgement and bad luck."

"But you'll let me know if you find anything to change your mind," McLeod insisted.

Chisholm cocked his head quizzically. "Do you know something you're not telling me?"

"No. Just ring me if anything seems odd. I tend to mistrust coincidences, when dealing with something like this."

"All right. And ring me if you come to any conclusions about all of this."

"I will, that."

After Chisholm had taken his leave, McLeod and his companions walked the outside boundary of the circle a final time before seeking out PC McIver for the promised lift back to Stornoway. Their departure was noted with what appeared to be only casual interest by a man loading photo equipment into the passenger seat of a grey Toyota, but he lifted a long tele-photo lens to observe as the police car pulled away and disappeared down the single track leading back to the main road.

When he had stowed the camera in a fitted case and closed the passenger door, he produced a small cellular phone from a breast pocket of his anorak and, as he walked around to the driver's side, punched in a Glasgow telephone number.