Barbara Erskine - Kingdom of Shadows

She gave a strange half sigh. ‘It’s difficult. I know I shouldn’t tell anyone this – it’s breaking the rules of the office. I’m supposed to keep everything I see and hear confidential. I always have, but –’ He could hear the indecision in her voice.

‘Sandra, if it is something that worries you, and you think Earthwatch should know about it, then you have done the right thing in ringing me. Personal loyalty is a wonderful thing, but not at the expense of the environment or the safety of the people as a whole. These days we must all learn to accept that.’ It was what he always said. Trite, but true, and something he passionately believed. ‘Now, can you tell me over the phone, or would you like to meet me somewhere?’

‘No, no.’ She sounded terrified. ‘Listen, I’ve only five minutes to talk before my mum gets back.’ She paused for a moment, then began in a rush.

‘I typed out a letter last week to a Mrs Clare Royland in England. We were transmitting a client’s offer to buy her estates. She owns about one thousand acres up on the coast at Duncairn, including the village and the old castle. Today she wrote back refusing to negotiate. She said the estates were not for sale and never would be. Well, Mr Archer called me in to dictate a reply without even consulting the client again. They are offering more money than you can imagine!’ She paused. ‘When I’d taken down the letter he told me his client was prepared to go much higher if necessary to get it.’

Neil had risen to his feet. Still holding the telephone he walked across to the map of Scotland pinned on one wall of the office. The phone in one hand, the receiver in the other, he peered at the map, even though there was no need. He knew only too well where Duncairn was. ‘Mr Archer said there were rare birds and plants on the cliffs there and he thought they had some sort of development in mind, and he said he didn’t like the sound of the offer at all,’ she went on.

Neil scowled. ‘Neither do I,’ he said grimly, ‘and I would guess they are offering well over the normal market price. Do you happen to know the name of the prospective buyer?’

‘I shouldn’t tell you.’

‘You have already told me most of it, Sandra.’ He was at his most reassuring. ‘And no one will ever know how we found out any of this, I promise.’

‘Well,’ she sounded only half reassured. ‘It was a man called Cummin. He works for something called Sigma Exploration.’

Neil stood staring at the map for several minutes after she had hung up, then slowly he returned to his desk. He took a file out of one of the drawers and opened it. So it was true, the rumour that someone had been carrying out surreptitious geological surveys along that stretch of coastline. And it looked as though the worst had happened. The surveys had been encouraging.

‘Gossip has it that it is onshore oil, Neil,’ Jim Campbell had said in his note. ‘I can’t believe that, unless the geological structure of Scotland has changed recently, but for what it’s worth someone has been surveying pretty thoroughly up and down the coast over an area of several miles. And doing it far from openly. It is an area that contains several SSSI and some of it is owned by the NTS and is protected coastline …’

‘And some of it is owned by Mrs Clare Royland,’ Neil murmured to himself. He threw down the file and, standing up again, began pacing the short space of empty floor between his desk and the window. He was remembering the visit he had paid to Duncairn in June shortly after Jim had sent in his report.

It was a place he knew well, a place he had visited on several occasions as a student, a beautiful place, ruinous – including the hotel, he thought wryly – wild, unspoiled, peaceful, with several miles of rocky, dramatic coastline, which had to be preserved at any cost. He had wandered around all morning, going to the hotel for a pint of Export and some sandwiches for lunch, then, drawn back almost against his will, he had walked back to the sprawling ruins of the castle for one more look before driving back to Edinburgh.

It was then that he had seen her. He was certain it had been Clare Royland. Who else could it have been? She had arrived in a flash green Jag, dressed for a London garden party, even to the high-heeled shoes. Young, beautiful, oh yes, undeniably beautiful, rich, aristocratic – looking at him as though he had no right to be there, which, strictly speaking, he hadn’t, and then, later, looking through him as though he wasn’t there at all. Bitch. He remembered how the whole place changed after she arrived. The joy had gone out of his visit. It was as if her arrival had released strange, unhappy memories in those ancient stones. He shivered at the thought. The haar had come in off the sea, drifting up the cliffs and cutting off the sunlight, and he had left her to it.

She was the type who would sell, damn her. She might protest her love of the place, but in the end she would sell, if only because Paul Royland would see to it that she did. Neil smiled grimly as he turned off the desk lamp and began to pull on his patched tweed jacket. He had good reason to remember Paul Royland of old.

Henry Firbank paid off the cab at the bottom of Campden Hill and began to walk slowly up the road. When he had met Paul at the Guildhall, Paul was deep in conversation with Diane Warboys, one of the new brokers at Westlake Pierce, but he had paused long enough to explain that Clare had had a fainting fit at the office and decided to go home rather than come to the reception.

Later, when Paul had offered to take Diane out to dinner, Henry had made up his mind. He wasn’t being disloyal to Paul. It was merely natural concern to see how Clare was. He would knock, perhaps not even go in, just see she was all right … It never crossed his mind to telephone instead.

He could see a faint light showing at the crack in the heavy pale aquamarine silk curtains. Straightening his tie he lifted the knocker and let it drop, wishing he had thought to stop off and buy some flowers somewhere on the way. He waited, then he knocked again, louder this time. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in front of the television.

He wasn’t sure, afterwards, what made him do it, but when she failed to answer his third knock he found himself slinging one long leg over the low railings at the side of the steps and stepping into the paved front garden so that he could peer across the narrow barred area which lent light to the basement window and through the crack in the curtains.

Clare was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a guttering candle. She was facing the window and he could see her clearly. Her face was serene, blank, her eyes closed; her whole attitude completely relaxed as the flickering candlelight played over her, illuminating her features, turning them to alabaster, picking out the glint of gold at her throat and wrists and on her fingers, sending darting shadows into the deep folds of green silk piled so carelessly around her on the floor.

Henry caught his breath. He watched her, fascinated, unable to tear his eyes away, as the candle slowly died, leaving her sitting in darkness alleviated only by the thread of light thrown across the floor by the street lamp behind him, and it was only the sound of footsteps walking down the road behind him in the distance which made him straighten suddenly, realising how he must look to a passerby, doubled up with his eye to a crack in the curtain.

Vaulting back over the railing, he stood uncertainly on the step, wondering what to do. Tentatively he knocked again, then, bolder, he rang the door bell. It pealed through the house, making him jump and he waited breathlessly. Minutes later a light came on in the hall and the door opened.

‘Henry?’ Clare stared at him, dazed.