Dark Summer, page 2
I breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to make my way to the workshop when McGregor, having seen Bliss safely on his way, stopped me. His forehead was tightly furrowed. When he spoke, his voice was low.
“Bliss says he heard someone down there.”
“He’s mistaken.”
McGregor frowned harder. “He seems pretty sure.”
“There’s no access apart from through the house.”
“For a human, maybe.”
I kept my face blank. McGregor lowered his voice further. “We’ve installed apartments like yours for lots of clients. It’s our job. But it’s my contractual obligation to remind ye of the law against harboring unregistered haemophiles.”
I took a moment to ensure my voice was steady before speaking. “We provided you with all the registration documentation before the work started.”
“Aye, that I know—or we wouldn’t be here. So why is your friend roaming the caves during the day instead of secured in the cell?”
“The resident of the cellar is currently away. But his whereabouts are, frankly, none of your business.”
McGregor’s lined face shifted. “We’ll leave it there then, sir. You understand it’s my job to check.”
“I understand. Now, if you don’t mind, I have my own work to do.”
I felt McGregor’s eyes on me all the way down the hill.
Clem straightened with a wince from the engine of a ruby-red 1972 VW Beetle at the sound of the workshop door.
“Didn’t think I’d see you today,” Clem said as I pulled on overalls and a mask.
“Thought I’d get ahead on the Triumph,” I said, grabbing the sander and making for the silver Triumph Herald, the only other car in the workshop.
“Phone’s been buzzing.”
I paused. Clem was wiping his hands on a rag and glaring at the Beetle engine like it had just insulted his mother. I retrieved my phone from where it was sitting on the workshop windowsill.
“This fancy company not sorting a new phone mast?” Clem grumbled as I brushed the thin layer of dust off the phone screen.
“I thought you liked being out of phone range?” I said, noting three emails, two text messages and a missed call notification.
“Aye. But it’s distracting, having that thing buzzing away in here all the time.”
“I’ve had all of four calls all year.”
“Yeah…and most of them today.”
My throat tightened. The emails, missed call and one of the text messages were all from Ivor Novák.
The written messages all said the same thing.
Lord Aviemore,
I would appreciate you getting in touch as soon as possible. There are matters of some importance I wish to discuss.
Yours,
Ivor
This was the third time the haemophile spokesperson had tried to make contact in the last six months but, despite everything he had done for me and Terje, I had never returned his calls. Novák had allowed us to build a life together, facilitating a blood supply and fake registration documents for Terje, but I’d suspected it was more for his benefit than ours. Terje’s ‘death’ at the hands of Jon Ogdell, ex-business executive and anti-haemophile campaigner currently serving a life sentence in a high-security prison, had shocked the nation and promoted heated discussions and increased awareness around the obstacles surrounding haemophile rights. I had more human reasons for wanting to keep him to myself, but the arrangement suited us all, more or less.
But of course, for every inroad paved, the louder and more extreme the backlash.
I’d had a better Internet connection and sturdier landline installed at Glenroe out of necessity, but I didn’t read the news and I wasn’t on social media. I had no desire to keep track of the messy and divisive politics surrounding haemophiles’ attempts to co-exist with humans. However, some news was impossible to avoid, so I was certain it wasn’t a coincidence that Novák had started reaching out at a time when some powerful political names were gathering support for stricter haemophile registration laws.
I almost returned the call. Perhaps he had answers… Perhaps he could help me understand why Terje, who had stated he wanted to be with me and away from everything else, didn’t seem able to stick with it for very long…
But I forced my thumb away from the call button. It wasn’t in Novák’s interest, or maybe even in his power, to help me understand Terje. And whatever it was that the political mogul wanted, it wouldn’t be good.
I deleted his messages and opened the only one left, from a mobile number I didn’t recognize.
We need to talk.
Meg
I stared at the text message long enough for Clem to stop work and ask what was up.
“Nothing,” I muttered, deleting that text too and replacing the phone on the windowsill.
I returned to the Triumph and began to sand away the scratched paintwork. With the noise filling my head and the paint dust clouding around me, it was easier to ignore my thoughts. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I needed it.
The afternoon passed with surprising speed. Clem rumbled off down the track in his Land Rover around six, not having said another word. I locked the workshop as the sun began to sink behind the mountains and, finally, the air started to cool. I climbed the path to Glenroe and was relieved to find that the construction crew was gone for the day.
The ancient oak front doors had been retained, but new hinges allowed the heavy leaves to open smoothly, swinging inward with barely more than a whisper. It still felt wrong, almost intrusive, to be entering that way. When they had been in regular use, the doors had been opened by a footman—then by the housekeeper. Then, when Dad had drunk away the last servants’ wages, the late Lord Aviemore had opened them himself, but only to guests he was both expecting and deemed appropriate. Those soon dwindled in number, until they’d stopped altogether as the cellars emptied, the hall decayed and the old judge retreated too far from the world to ever find his way back.
I locked them then checked that all the other doors and windows were secure. After a moment’s deliberation, I fetched a shotgun from the cabinet in the cellar and returned to the caves. I stood again on the cliff over dark nothingness, holding my breath. Not even the sound of dripping water reached me.
“Is there someone here?” The words were shockingly loud in the black silence. They echoed then faded then fell away to nothing. “I know you’re a haemophile.” My grip tightened on the gun. Still nothing. Finally, I called, “Terje?”
Nothing.
I took a deep breath to ease my tight throat and returned to the main house, double-checking the locks on every door as I went.
I heated some leftover beef stew on the hob in the new ceramic-and-chrome kitchen and drank a bottle of Bordeaux with dinner. Having lived off microwave meals and budget tinned goods for most of my adult life, the novelty of eating and drinking well had not worn off. It had allowed me to build the muscle back that I’d lost during the lonely, hungry years at Glenroe before Terje had arrived, when both the means and inclination to eat properly had been lacking. I now filled my clothes better, had more energy and I was grateful that Terje’s mysterious income extended to making sure my comforts and needs were seen to just as much, if not more so, than his own. But, as always, when alone, it wasn’t the same…
I daydreamed of being with Terje, of tasting his rich, dark mouth, his pale, fresh skin—the deep, intoxicating pull of his haemophile Blood that he allowed me to indulge in when we made love.
I shook my head. It was Terje I missed, not his Blood—Terje’s cool gaze and strong hands, his ready wit and earnest, intense manner. The way he looked at me like I was a complex but engaging puzzle and the slow-burning, intense passion I could coax out of him, sometimes over the course of hours.
It was all that I longed for—not the Blood.
I put a lid on the line of thought and cleared my dishes.
The ache at Terje’s absence shifted around my body as I opened the door to the master bedroom. I had doubted I’d ever feel at home in a space that had been so thoroughly my father’s, but, somehow, all remnants of his ghost had been removed…even if it still haunted other parts of the house in the long, dark winter nights.
The wood paneling had all been stripped away, the walls re-plastered and whitewashed. Terje had found landscape paintings by modern artists, impressionist oil works that captured the wild, ragged beauty of nature we both adored, but without the grim, neo-classical stamp of the artists who had hung in the house for generations. The black marble fireplace was clean, the iron grate removed and replaced with a state-of-the art wood-burner. In winter it would burn for hours once lit, keeping the room warm and filling it with the cozy, comforting glow of firelight.
The heavy Victorian furniture, along with the eighteenth-century mahogany bed, was also gone. Some of it had been too decayed to restore. The bed had been salvageable, but it wasn’t something I would have ever been able to sleep in, let alone do anything else. It had sold at auction for a truly staggering amount of money, and we’d used the proceeds to commission a king-sized oak four-poster, which was simple and sturdy in design, with thick blackout curtains of midnight blue.
Another set of blackout curtains framed the wide window. They allowed Terje to stay here with me until full sunrise. They also allowed me to sleep through the daylight and wake with him at sunset without as much trouble.
I got into bed, breathing deep the fresh smells of the linen where the faintest winter-crisp scent of Terje still lingered. I turned onto my side, knowing I had a long drive the next day. But thoughts of the caves and the deleted phone messages kept me awake long after I’d turned off the light.
Chapter Two
The next day dawned bright and warm, the sky azure and unblemished by clouds. I left the house just as the first construction workers arrived, keen to be on the road before McGregor or anyone else could ask any more questions.
By the time I was bowling along the A9 with the top down on the E-type Jaguar, my spirits had, if not exactly lifted, then at least steadied. The air rushing past smelled of summer heather and hot tarmac, and the beautiful machine handled so wonderfully that I couldn’t help but be soothed.
I made it to the outskirts of Edinburgh in record time and enjoyed steering around the twisting, climbing streets. The city air was close, heavy with the smells of restaurants and warm stone, filled with the noise of people and traffic and the folk musicians busking on the Royal Mile. I was almost an hour early to the offices of Graeme Byrnes, but the receptionist assured me that Mr. Byrnes would be happy to see me sooner and that I could sit in the waiting area until he was free.
I took a seat and dared to check my phone. I didn’t want to admit the strength of my relief when I hadn’t received any more mysterious messages either from Novák or Meg, though for very different reasons. However, it didn’t balance the disappointment at still finding nothing from Terje, not even a text to say he wasn’t going to make the trip.
“Alec? Alec MacCarthy?”
I startled. A man about my own age stood in the doorway. He was tall and slim, dressed in gray-washed jeans and a figure-hugging polo-neck shirt, despite the warm weather, that nonetheless did little to hide the toned torso beneath. His eyes, wide with surprise, were a deep, dark brown, somewhere between black coffee and chocolate. His hair was the barest shade lighter, buzzed in a fashionable fade down the sides but long on top, falling stylishly over one eye. His lips were full and smiling, his skin the warm tone of fresh-baked bread, and he wore a single gold stud in his right ear. He was astonishingly beautiful, so much so that I felt increasingly foolish when seconds stretched by and I couldn’t place him.
When a spark of amusement lit in his eyes, I finally recognized him. “Jesus. Jay?”
My old college friend’s face flushed with pleasure as he came forward. “It is you. Bloody hell, how long has it been?”
I stood and took his offered hand in a bit of a daze. “Graduation, wasn’t it? 2002?”
“Christ, so nearly twenty years. How is that possible?” He laughed, an unfettered, cheery sound that seemed to fill the air and my body all at once.
“Mad, right?” I managed. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Well, yeah,” Jay smiled a little bashfully, shrugging his leather satchel higher on his shoulder. “I lost the weight and found out it was a dairy intolerance that messed with my skin.”
I hoped my own embarrassed smile looked sincere. “You look great.”
Jay beamed. “Thanks. Not looking so bad yourself—but then you always did the dark and brooding thing well.” He broke off with a nervous laugh. “Sorry. It’s just…wow, Alec MacCarthy. It’s like seeing a ghost. Oh, Jesus.” His face fell. “Alec, I’m sorry.”
I battled confusion for a second then my stomach dipped. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Jay said, taking the seat next to mine. I sat and schooled my face as my old friend kept his hand on my arm while he stared earnestly into my face. “What happened to you…”
“Jay—”
“No, it needs to be said, Alec. The death of Terje Kristiansen was a tragedy and an outrage. I couldn’t believe it when I heard your name on the news. Fuck, I can’t even imagine…”
“It was…hard,” I said carefully.
Jay pressed his lips together. For one terrible moment, I was certain he was about to cry, but he took a breath, and when he continued, his voice was level, if a little strained. “You’re strong, Alec. You always were. But you shouldn’t have to be.”
“Maybe,” I hedged, looking hopefully at the door, but there was no sign of anyone fetching me for the meeting. “What are you doing here, anyway?” I went on before he could say anything more. “I thought you lived down south?”
“I do,” Jay said. “London. I’m here doing research.” He opened his satchel and started rooting through it.
“Research?”
“I’m writing a book,” he said, pulling out a business card.
Jason Singh, Investigative Journalist.
“What sort of book?” I asked, the sinking feeling returning.
“An investigation into human-haemo relations and what’s being done about the injustices and inequalities in the UK. And what’s not being done, more importantly. Graeme Byrnes provides specialist haemophile services. Did you know that?”
“I’d heard something of the sort.”
“They do customized installations for communes and the ones now choosing to live independently.” He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Personally, I think they just spotted a gap in the market. But it’s progress, whatever the motivation—and brave, considering the flack they’ve had.”
“Yeah, I’d heard that too.”
“So what are you doing here?”
I hoped my hesitation wasn’t obvious. “They’re restoring Glenroe. They do Jacobean architecture as well.”
“Finally doing the place up, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Jay mused a moment, eyes bright. “Say, Alec,” he said, leaning closer. “How would you feel about giving me an interview?”
“Jay—” I began, shaking my head.
“It’s so important, what you have to say. Your experience.”
“No,” I said, then, seeing his hurt expression, softened my tone. “Sorry, Jay. But I don’t like talking about what happened.”
Jay nodded stiffly. “Yeah. Yeah, of course not. I understand. I’m sorry for asking, but I had to chance it. You’re one of the highest-profile victims of haemo-human crime. Your story could make such a difference.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, passing the card back.
“Keep it,” Jay said, a tentative smile returning. “We should get together some time. In fact…” He stopped when the receptionist knocked on the doorframe.
“Lord Aviemore? Mr. Byrnes will see you now.”
“Thank you,” I said, rising. Jay stood too but stopped me leaving with a hand on my elbow.
“I’m around for the rest of the day. Want to grab lunch once you’re done here?” I hesitated, but Jay added hurriedly, “I promise, no interview. It’s just…it would be great to catch up.” His smile was warm, his eyes clear and hopeful. It was so refreshing to be able to read someone’s face, and I couldn’t ignore the rush of pleasure it generated.
“Sure. That’d be great.”
Jay beamed. “You’ve got my number. See you later.”
* * * *
Duncan Byrnes reassured me that they were on schedule for finishing soon and that McGregor’s concerns had been addressed.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“My pleasure, my lord. Oh, and just one thing before you leave…” Byrnes was a gray-haired man in his late fifties with a strong jaw and a syrupy Edinburgh accent. He also had the uncanny ability to communicate when he was about to venture into delicate territory without changing either his expression or his tone of voice. I eyed him warily until he continued. “Our mutual friend Ivor Novák has been in touch. He hopes you will make contact with him…and soon.”
“Did he say why?”
Byrnes smiled a conciliatory smile. “Afraid not, my lord. But I got the impression it was a matter of some importance.”
I thanked him and left, grateful to get back out into the bustle of the city and feel the sun on my face. I wandered down the Royal Mile, pulling out my phone at intervals, debating whether or not to call Novák’s office. Maybe he is with Terje—or maybe Terje is in trouble.
My skin chilled despite the warmth of the day. I halted outside the towering facade of St. Giles Cathedral without really seeing it. I shook my head. Novák would surely say if there was a genuine emergency. No, the haemophile wanted something. And as grateful as I was for everything he’d done, all I wanted, had ever wanted, was to be left alone.
