The devil stone, p.1
The Devil Stone, page 1
Contents
Cover
Also by Caro Ramsay
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Also by Caro Ramsay
The Anderson and Costello series
ABSOLUTION
SINGING TO THE DEAD
DARK WATER
THE BLOOD OF CROWS
THE NIGHT HUNTER *
THE TEARS OF ANGELS *
RAT RUN *
STANDING STILL *
THE SUFFERING OF STRANGERS *
THE SIDEMAN *
THE RED, RED SNOW *
ON AN OUTGOING TIDE *
THE SILENT CONVERSATION *
Novels
MOSAIC *
* available from Severn House
THE DEVIL STONE
Caro Ramsay
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2022
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
This eBook edition first published in 2022 by Severn House,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
severnhouse.com
Copyright © Caro Ramsay, 2022
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Caro Ramsay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0974-0 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0976-4 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0975-7 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
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Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland
PROLOGUE
He was on top of the world. He ran and ran, blood pumping with sheer exhilaration, on through the woods, over the top of the hill, then up the stairs, two at a time.
Flying.
At the bottom of the monument, amongst the old beer cans and the discarded syringes, he started to scramble up. His trainers slipping on the smooth marble, his toes catching in the angles of the statue, his bloodied hand grasping, leaving red feathered traces on the stone, scarlet teardrops on the steps below. At the top, face to face with the soldier, he hugged his unyielding friend, telling him that he loved him before swinging out on an outstretched arm, looking across the night cityscape. He was beguiled by the twinkling lights, the deep dark scar of the Clyde and the unhurried fireflies of red and amber on the motorway. He breathed in deep, taking in the sight of all that was below him, knowing that he was a hawk, and that all this was his.
He could dive if he wanted.
He could fly if he wanted.
He regarded the little people, the rooftops and the dear green city.
He closed his eyes, feeling the energy in the air, let go and launched himself into space. For an eternity, all he could see were the trees swirling below him, the clouds dancing above him, and the grass, the green sweet grass that welcomed him so warmly.
He wasn’t sure when he hit the ground. He was just there. No longer flying. Now embraced by Mother Earth, a small stone cutting into the skin of his cheek. One leg was twisted to the side. His shoulder wasn’t where it should be.
A comforting hand was on his arm, giving him a reassuring pat, then fingers slipping his iPhone from his pocket and a voice asking him for his PIN number, telling him that help was on the way.
ONE
Tuesday, 5 July, nine days before
The day was dying. Long shadows followed the two lads creeping round the outer walls of Otterburn House, their silhouettes echoing furtive movement before being absorbed by the ivy on the bricks of the old mansion. Once through the arch at the walled garden, they dropped their hoods and started to swagger.
They moved in silence though they knew no one was home to overhear. Their only companions were their shadows, and they weren’t much for talking.
Scotto gave the cars the once-over: the Lexus, the Jaguar, the Land Rover and the Audi. They’d turn a pretty penny if only he had the right contacts. He saw Bainsy pointing to the lower window – a single pane, wide enough for them to get through easily; they were skinny wee guys, built for speed. Scotto fixed some duct tape to the leaded glass before knocking it gently with his favourite mallet. A lightning bolt cracked across the pane, and the accompanying snap echoed around the darkening garden, caught by the high hedges. The rooks took flight and headed for the cover of the trees.
They waited. No alarm, no lights. No shouts, no slippered footsteps rushing across the hall, no barking dogs. No response to the noise. Just the angry cawing of the circling birds.
Scotto tapped round the edges of the frame, easing the larger shards of glass on to the tape before lifting them clear of the wooden casing and settling them against the ivy. He lifted the remaining jagged pieces with his gloved fingers, chucking them over his shoulder where they nestled amongst the cream-coloured stones of the driveway. He hefted himself up, sitting on the edge and swung his legs over, the soles of his trainers squeaking as he landed on the tiled floor.
Bainsy, the shorter of the two, took a running jump at it.
They flicked their phones on, swiped to torch and flitted the beams across the white tiles of the kitchen, the rugs, the eight-burner cooker and the copper pans hanging from the ceiling. The glimmer from Scotto’s phone halted for a moment as it highlighted the wine rack. He’d heard there was a whisky collection here as well. That’d be worth a few bob if he could get it to the right guys in Glasgow.
Bainsy nudged him, telling him to get a move on, reminding him what they were here for. They sneaked through to the older part of the house where the hall’s wooden panelling was festooned with weapons and armour, three storeys rising above them. The staircase circled all four walls to the top landing in the apex of the eaves, the clouded sky clearly visible through the roof window, as were the gyrating birds. Scotto looked up and felt uneasy; he’d never seen anything like it. The McGregor family had lived here for generations. They were minted.
And they were here for a bit of rock? It didn’t make sense.
All around him he could see small valuables, easily disposable for cash. But Bainsy was only after the stone, the Devil Stone. He was obsessed with it.
The gossip around the village was that the McGregor family were away on a cruise, and Otterburn House, with its treasures and secrets, had been sitting empty, alone behind the wrought iron gates. It would be rude not to pay it a visit.
Scotto looked at the panelled walls with the stag’s head trophies, the long drapes of tapestry portraying the family crest above, and below, the wide carpet, blood red and fastened by bright brass rods. He leaned on the newel post, sniffing, jerked his hood up a little higher, pulling a face at Bainsy. ‘Something’s crawled in here and fuckin’ died. It’s mingin’.’
‘It’s an old hoose, of course it stinks. There’ll be deid rats an’ folk’s grannies up the chimney. Come oan, the old yin keeps it oan her fireplace. Find her bedroom and we find the … Jesus!’ He pulled back at the sight of a giant stag’s head on the half-landing, fourteen-point antlers, the beam of the torch catching its glassy eye. ‘Ohhh, Ah nearly shat masel.’ Bainsy sat down on the red carpet, his cuff gathered in his hand, jamming it in his mouth as tears streamed from his eyes, trying to stop laughing.
The stag regarded them with disapproval.
‘Oh deer,’ said Scotto, joining in with the laughter. ‘Get it? Oh deer.’
‘Fuck’s sake, man, come oan.’ Bainsy got to his feet, unsteady, farted and yanked up the waist of his jeans that had dropped down his hips to bare the legend Dolce & Gabbana on the waistband of his counterfeit boxers.
They started up the stairs again. Scotto looked at the figure in the window, wondering w ho the guy with the beard and doleful eyes was. Moses? Noah? Jesus? Some bloke in an amber tunic and burgundy robe, a lamb at his feet. He wished those brown eyes would stop following him.
Thou shalt not steal.
Bainsy was made of stronger stuff. He didn’t give a toss about Jesus or the cross or what it all stood for. The faith of lambs right enough. He followed the master of the fire. And he was reclaiming the stone.
The smell was stronger here, thick enough to chew, causing Bainsy to cough and flip up his hoodie again. ‘Ah think they fucked off oan holiday and left the dug, and it’s crawled intae a corner and died.’
‘Smells like it crawled up your arse and died. That’s rotten, pure rank, by the way.’
‘Why’s it so fucking dark?’
‘The tint’t windae. Ma pals got a motor like tha’, cannae see a fuckin’ thing. And naw, yer naw puttin’ a light oan.’
Something, some feral sense of self-preservation, stopped them at the top of the stairs. A little pause to steady the nerves, yet they knew there was nobody in the house.
Bainsy turned to take a last look at Jesus, checking he was still immortalised in glass and not following them to remind them of the way of the light as they continued up and along into the valley of darkness.
Scotto stepped onto the first-floor landing. The beam of light over the ornate ceiling showed it was bigger than his flat back in Glasgow. The old woman, old McGregor, would have her bedroom up here. According to Bainsy, she was worth millions; she had diamonds, necklaces. She might even have a bloody tiara. And she had the Deilstane, resting on velvet in a glass display case, sitting on the marble hearth, fire and brimstone bleeding together. Bainsy had been telling him some shite about a stone that bled real blood. Too much of the old Mary Jane, that was Bainsy’s trouble. Scotto had his own plan to steal anything small enough to pocket and get it back to Glasgow, get it sold and make some dosh. He’d keep that from Bainsy, who was insisting a blood-stained bit of rock was going back to its rightful owner.
At the moment, Bainsy was standing still, merely tilting his wrist as he shone the soft beam of his phone round the walls of the landing, the light moving over an oil painting of a few skinny horses before pausing on a large picture of some blonde bint in a long white frock. She looked a bit of all right, probably an ancestor of the McGregor family. Then the light picked up the slashes on the canvas. One horizontal, one vertical, the shape of an inverted cross. A feeling of faint pleasure grew somewhere in the back of his mind. He shone the beam from side to side seeing the shelves of leather books that lined every wall, the four archways that led off to different parts of the house and, in front of the banister, a grand piano.
‘A fuckin’ piano in the hall, eh?’ Bainsy got a nudge from Scotto, a jerk of the head. ‘What’s that worth? How much d’ya think?’
‘Aye right, Ah’ll just stick it up ma jumper and away we go. Ya dick.’
But Scotto was looking at the candlestick on the piano lid, highly polished silver, worth a few bob but too big. More interesting were the silver and gold trinket boxes, small enough to lift right now: eight of one, ten of the other.
Bainsy dropped the light beam towards his feet to see the blood-red carpet bordering the dusty wooden floor. The stink was worse here, bad enough to gag a ferret.
He looked down at the toe of his trainers as he kicked something soft; instead of the wooden floor, there was a patterned duvet, lying all fankled up, covering something.
Scotto’s torch homed in. ‘Some bastard’s been here afore us. That wis ma plan – get the stone, get some good stuff, aw’ oot oan a sheet, wrap it a’ up then drag the whole shebang doon the stair. Looks like some bugger’s done the job a’ready.’ He scanned the light around, seeing the line of peaks in the duvet, in a row, like toes in a bed.
‘Hey, look.’ Bainsy shone the light across the floor, catching a maggot-ridden goat’s head perched on a red velvet chaise longue; from it ran a trickle of dried liquid, two bright goblets on either side. Two daggers, their blades dull and stained, were arranged between. There was a black figurine, goat-headed, winged and forked-tailed as a centrepiece, and as the beam of light dropped, he saw the inverted cross and the charred book. Even he could guess, from its feather-thin pages, that it was a bible.
He started saying something that Scotto couldn’t make out, then his eyes closed, opened again, and he smiled before moving the light down, giggling a little, jerking the phone, causing the beam to drop suddenly where it caught the ghostly white face staring at the ceiling with nacreous clouded eyes. Unable to stop himself, he looked along. Another face. Then another. Five of them in a row, cheek to cheek. Dried white skin clinging to thin cheekbones, mouths open, teeth bared. A single black slug was weaving its slippery trail across the grey forehead of a girl he recognised, a girl he had quite fancied in fact, Catriona McGregor.
In panic, he dropped the torch and darkness fell on them.
Scotto pointed to the archway through to the bedroom and screamed.
Bainsy saw two red eyes in the darkness, staring right back at him.
SCOTTISH BALLET’S PRODUCTION OF La fille mal gardée at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow had been hailed a triumph; the clog dance had been reimagined, the maypole sequence re-choreographed and the finale sent a crescendo of joy and praise echoing around the auditorium. The curtain dropped, and the pain, the sweat, the exhaustion of the dancers were forgotten in the euphoria.
Kate Miller sat beside her mother’s wheelchair, eating a bar of Fruit & Nut, waiting for it to be over. Her own interest in dance began and ended with Strictly. Ballet was not Kate’s thing, too much jumping around in silly tights for her liking, but her mother had loved every minute of the performance, no doubt rolling back the years to when she used to dance. Being a ‘solidly built girl’, Kate had never tried ballet.
And it cost a fortune. Just as these tickets had. Much more than Kate could afford with three kids living off her single wage.
As the principals took their curtain calls, tears softened her mother’s eyes. Kate gave her a clean hanky before joining in with the standing ovation. Her mother raised her hands as far as her arthritic shoulders would allow, clapping with enthusiasm.
They waited, her mother rabbiting about the performance and the new principal male dancer, Borshov, as the other patrons filtered out the theatre. Her mother tapped his picture in the programme, as she explained some technical points. Kate nodded mechanically and risked a look at her watch, keeping an eye on the front doors and judging it was still too busy for the chair to exit easily. She sat back and waited as her mother droned on. Kate had parked in the Cambridge Street car park and, while dancing had kept her mother sylphlike in her youth, she was now a fair weight to push up that hill.
An usher came to chat to them, enquiring if they needed any assistance, which was shorthand for asking them to leave. The name ‘Anna’ was scripted in black on the bronze badge pinned to her red waistcoat. Had they enjoyed it? Of course they had. Kate listened as her mother prattled on, taking Anna’s slim hand, forcing the usher to crouch down to speak to her eye to eye. This was going to take some time; her mum enjoyed a good blether.
But Anna was well rehearsed in these situations. She gradually straightened up, releasing her hand from the old lady’s grasp. It was a cue that their conversation was over.
Kate nodded in gratitude, stood up and released the brake with her toe and slowly rolled the chair down the slope of red carpet as her mother kept up her incessant chatter, not noticing the folded programme slip from her lap. Anna walked alongside, nodding, saying, Oh, you were a dancer, were you? Did you ever perform here? By the time they reached the main doors Kate knew that Anna was engaged, studied pharmacy at Strathclyde University and had a rescue dog called Peanut. As they reached the foyer, somebody called for Anna’s assistance, no doubt another part of the familiar routine, thought Kate, as the usher said goodbye and that she hoped to see them again before being swallowed by the darkening auditorium. A tall woman glided towards them, must have been an ex-dancer from the way her black hair was pulled back into a classic chignon. She handed the programme to Kate’s mother, with a shy smile.
‘You’d miss that when you got home,’ she said, her voice low and melodious. Then she was gone, the eye-catching yellow of her dress disappearing into the crowd milling on the pavement.
