Death of an Adept

Chapter Eighteen

"You've told Ximena about your secret life," Philippa said.

She was looking not at her son, but at the wintry landscape streaming past on either hand as they sped along the snow-banked ribbon of the M90 toward Edinburgh, Adam at the wheel of the Range Rover.

"I have," Adam acknowledged. "I won't say that it was an easy confession to make, but I felt it was both just and necessary. I can't very well ask Ximena to share my life, while at the same time withholding significant truths about my work. She deserves better of me than that.''

"Indeed." Philippa's tone was noncommittal. "And how much did you feel obliged to tell her?"

"Enough to give her some idea of the shape of things to come," Adam replied, slowing for traffic ahead. "Ximena's no fool. For the most part, all I did was confirm guesses she'd already made for herself."

A blue route sign loomed ahead, relaying the information that they were some fifteen miles out of Edinburgh. Adam checked the road in front and behind before whipping the Rover around the slow-moving bulk of an articulated lorry. A dark green Granada traveling several cars back, attempted to copy the maneuver, but was forced to tuck back in when an ambulance came up fast from behind, blue lights flashing, and overtook them.

Philippa dismissed both vehicles with a casual glance before focusing her attention on her son's patrician profile. "Your wife certainly has more brains than most," she observed, "but this isn't necessarily a matter for intellect. If you don't mind my asking, how did she take your revelations?''

"She didn't immediately question my sanity, if that's what you mean," Adam said wryly. "Perhaps between us, her father and I have succeeded in demonstrating that the world is more full of mystery than is commonly believed, in these materialistic latter days. In any event, she's prepared to take a great deal on trust."

"Even the fact that there are going to be times in your life when you can't explain yourself or your actions?"

"Ximena knows that I have certain - special abilities," he replied. "She understands that there are limits to what I can tell her without compromising the interests of others besides myself. She accepts that keeping the peace occasionally necessitates keeping secrets, if justice is to be served. She knows the value that I set upon my vocation - and my honor."

Glancing sidelong at Philippa, he went on.

"You must have confronted these same questions when you married my father. Is this more than a marriage-partner is entitled to know?"

Philippa smiled. "Not if the partner is worthy. But that burden of knowledge is not always easy to bear."

Conversation subsided momentarily, as a flurry of snow forced Adam to give his attention to minding the road. When the air cleared again, he was ready to pose some questions of his own.

"Just how much did my father know about your work as a Huntsman?" he asked, his eyes still on the road.

He heard her draw a deep breath before replying.

"I told him as much of the truth as I could," she said. "As much as I dared without risking his safety. Of course, there are aspects to the work we do that can never be adequately explained to someone who hasn't experienced the revelations of the Inner Planes."

She turned to smile at Adam.

"I was very much in love, though, just as you are," she went on. "And like you, I couldn't see the sense, let alone the virtue, in keeping my spouse wholly in the dark when my actions were bound to affect our relationship. The war was on then, and he was on active service. So was I, though in a capacity he never guessed at the time - though I did tell him more in later years, when we'd got to know one another better.

"But there was a very real possibility that one or the other of us might not survive the war. Your father needed - deserved - to know what to expect from me, just as I needed to know what to expect from him. I never had cause to regret my decision. I hope you never will either."

His mother's words left Adam feeling obscurely relieved, as if he had been delivered of a weight he had not previously realized he was carrying.

A companionable silence prevailed for the next several miles, born of mutual understanding and contentment. When Philippa spoke again, it was to redirect the conversation toward the less sensitive, if no less pressing, topic of her son's wedding plans, which were proceeding apace, with the date now less than four weeks away.

The invitations had gone out the previous Saturday, as soon as a date and location had been secured for the ceremony and the order could come back from the engraver. In the days immediately preceding, Julia had helped Philippa with the happy task of addressing the invitations, so that they could be posted the socially correct four weeks before the wedding date. Several times, the two of them had dragged Ximena off in search of the perfect gown - thus far, without any decision being reached.

"While we're talking about marriages, my dear, I need to run a few wedding details past you," Philippa said, with an arch glance in his direction. "I know that with your professional commitments, you and Ximena don't have time to sit down together very often right now, but I do need a few decisions, if I'm to take the planning burden off the two of you. I adore being able to do it for you, but I can't operate in a vacuum."

Smiling contentedly, Adam gave her a fond side glance.

"Philippa darling, your taste is impeccable and we're doing this partially for you, so anything you decide will be fine with us. I know it isn't easy doing this on such short notice, but we're extremely grateful." He paused a beat. "What do you need a decision on?"

"Well, the menu, for one thing," she replied, with an exasperated sigh. "If this is to be done right, the caterers really do need a few weeks' notice. And flowers for the reception."

"How about ringing the florist who did the flowers for Peregrine and Julia's reception?" Adam asked. "I liked those, and they know what the house needs."

Philippa gave another exasperated sigh. "Adam. This is a February wedding. You cannot get June flowers in February."

"Then you decide!" Adam said with a chuckle. "Honestly, I don't care. Or rather, it isn't that I don't care - it's that it doesn't matter to me, so long as Ximena is happy." He glanced at her again. "Does that make it any easier?"

Laughing, she gave a helpless shrug and went on to the next item on her list. By the time they pulled into the car park at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, where Adam worked, amicable agreement had been reached on several thorny points.

"Well, I'm glad we managed to resolve a few things, while you had me captive for this drive into town," Adam said, as he pulled into his assigned parking space. "And I'm even more appreciative that you agreed to come in with me today. This Gerard case has reached something of an impasse, and you're the only one I know who can deal with its - ah - 'unusual' aspects. I really could use a second opinion."

"Unusual" was a vast understatement. Adam's involvement in the case went back well over a year when, at his own request, the patient in question had been assigned to his public case load. While Henri Gerard might be formally categorized as a catatonic schizophrenic, what the medical records did not reveal was that his malady was the direct consequence of a misguided attempt to appropriate forbidden esoteric knowledge. Already well briefed on the hidden aspects of the case, Philippa pulled a slight grimace.

"You've already made more progress with him than anyone probably has a right to hope,'' she said. "Just getting him to recognize you without going into fits of hysteria was a major achievement in itself. But you're welcome to my opinion, for whatever it may be worth."

Their dash across the car park to the lobby entrance was punctuated by a biting wind and flurries of snow that whirled across the tarmac like miniature dervishes. After checking in with the receptionist, the two Sinclairs made their way to Adam's office and exchanged overcoats for starched, hospital-issue lab coats before moving on to the cozy comfort of one of the consultation rooms on the same floor. Shortly thereafter, one of the charge nurses ushered Gerard into the room, conducting him to the chair provided.

The patient was a slight, dark-haired man in his middle forties, with furtive, haggard eyes and the shuffling gait of a man many years his senior. As the nurse departed, closing the door behind him, Adam summoned a welcoming smile and greeted his patient in French.

"Bon jour, Monsieur Gerard. Comment allez vous au-jourd'hui?"

"Assez bien, Monsieur le Docteur," Gerard responded dully. "Assez bien…"

As his voice trailed off, the dark eyes went unfocused.

"This lady here is also a doctor," Adam continued in French. "I have invited her here to meet you so that we may both have the benefit of her experience in seeking a cure for your distress."

The session which followed lasted over an hour. Once the nurse had come to escort Gerard back to his ward, Philippa turned to Adam and raised a winged eyebrow.

"I can't say I'm surprised that Mr. Gerard doesn't want to re-enter the real world, Adam. As far as he's concerned, there may be demons lurking under every rock, waiting to gobble him up - which, in his experience, is a well-founded fear. It seems to me that you're already doing everything that can be done. When you consider that this illness is deeply rooted in Gerard's historic past, you may have to accept the possibility that a cure may not be achievable in this lifetime."

Mother and son continued to exchange observations as they walked back to Adam's office, albeit in less specific terms, for the sake of would-be listeners. Arriving, they were greeted by a familiar, burly figure pacing up and down outside the door.

"Hullo, Noel!" Adam exclaimed in surprise. "What brings you here?"

Looking grimly animated, the inspector glanced in both directions up and down the corridor.

"Humphrey said I'd probably be able to catch both of you here," he said in a gravelly undertone, after returning the Sinclairs' greeting. "We may have had a breakthrough, on the Callanish front."

"Come into the office," Adam immediately replied, unlocking the door and standing aside to let McLeod and Philippa enter.

As soon as the door closed behind them, the inspector pulled a folded sheaf of fax flimsies from the inside breast pocket of his overcoat, opening them on Adam's desk as Philippa took a chair and Adam went around behind.

"You remember the sketches Peregrine did up at Callanish?" McLeod began. "Well, the name Taliere didn't seem to be producing any results, so I went back to the sketches and singled out those that showed our elderly bloke in Druid's vestments. I picked out the one that seemed to give the clearest likeness and faxed it to every department up and down the country, along with a note to say that Lothian and Borders Police are seeking to identify this man, and would like to interview him in connection with a case currently under investigation here in Scotland.

"To make a long story short," he went on, "I've had a response from a colleague down in North Wales. It seems this man in Peregrine's drawing is no stranger to the police down there. I've brought a Xerox of the reply. I thought you'd like to read it for yourself."

He presented Adam with a folded sheet of paper. Opening it, Adam saw that the message had been forwarded to McLeod from a Detective Inspector Emrys Davies, of Conwy, in North Wales.

I believe I know this man, Davies had written. The artist's likeness you sent us looks very like a fellow in our bailiwick, name of Griffith Evans. I myself arrested Evans two years ago, for causing a disturbance at a local summer solstice festival. Wiltshire Police are also aware of him in conjunction with disruptions at Stonehenge. At the time of his arrest, Evans owned property in the Conwy Valley. Per a check of local council records, taxes are current, indicative that Evans probably is still resident at that address.

Please advise if we can be of any further assistance, the message continued. If you still wish to interview Evans, suggest you inform me of proposed arrival, and I will make certain someone is available to collect you and take you out to the site; it doesn 't show on maps. Regards, Davies, Det. Insp.

Adam passed the message over for Philippa to read, then returned his attention to McLeod.

"Well done, indeed," he said. "Your instincts certainly appear to have been solid on this one. Are you going to take Inspector Davies up on his offer?"

"Aye, as soon as I make the necessary arrangements at my end," McLeod replied. "This is early on, so I don't think you need to try to fit this into your schedule. At this point, I'd ordinarily just take the train down, maybe take Donald Coch-rane along; but I was thinking it might not be a bad idea to see if I could get Harry Nimmo to fly me down instead. Who knows what he might pick up?"

His faint emphasis on the last two words elicited a faint smile from Adam.

"I agree. It's going to be very interesting to see how Mr. Nimmo continues to develop. By all means, see if he can provide you with air transport. But in case Evans is our man, do make sure that both of you take adequate precautions, on all levels. We don't know what Callanish was all about. But whoever was responsible apparently has something to hide - and might go to unpleasant lengths to keep it that way."