Midnight Never Comes - Jack Higgins [41]
'That's right. Donner's up to something out there and I'd like to know what it is.'
'I thought so. I knew that's what you were watching this afternoon on the hillside through the binoculars. Can I come with you?' Before he could protest she went on, 'I might as well wait for you in the boat as here on the shore.'
'All right,' he said, 'but no nonsense when we get there and you do exactly as you're told.'
She settled herself into the prow with the aqualung and he pushed off and scrambled into the stern. The moon was completely obscured by cloud and a thin rain was falling as he paddled in a wide circle that carried them into the path of the emptying river so that the current swept them in towards the northern point of the island.
Asta leaned over the prow, fending off the rocks and, when they grounded on a bank of sand and shingle, Chavasse scrambled over into the shallows, and ran the boat into the shelter of overhanging bushes.
'Now wait here,' he whispered. 'I shouldn't be very long. If you hear any kind of fuss at all, cast off, paddle back to the beach and get to Ardmurchan Lodge as quickly as you can. Colonel Craig will know what to do.' She opened her mouth to protest and he closed it firmly with one hand. 'No arguments. If the worst comes to the worst, I can swim for it. Now be a good girl.'
He splashed through the shallows, following the shoreline before cutting up through the bushes to the base of the castle wall. At this point, it was crumbling badly and he pushed his way through a wasteland of nettles, scrambling across a jumbled mass of broken stones to a point where he could see inside.
The walls formed a rectangle enclosing a paved courtyard. There was a roofless building to his right and a line of half ruined pillars stretching towards the arched gateway.
To his left, the tower of the keep lifted squarely into the night, dark and silent and he moved towards it, mounting stone steps to the battlements. At this end of the building, the walls seemed to be almost intact and where they joined the tower, there was a broad rampart and two decaying cannon still at their stations.
He peered over the edge and saw water breaking in white spray over jagged rocks forty feet below. He turned to examine the tower. It raised its head another twenty feet into the night and he stiffened suddenly. There was a light showing from the window near the top, only the merest chink as if a curtain had been carelessly drawn, probably not even visible from the shore.
A crumbling buttress made a natural ladder, but as he moved towards it, the silence was shattered by the sound of an engine breaking into life on the far side of the loch and the motor boat moved towards the island.
Chavasse hurried across to the wall and a couple of minutes later, the engine was cut and the boat drifted in. He couldn't see the jetty from that point, but he heard the sound of the landing, and the scrape of a shoe on stone.
He moved cautiously back along the battlements, crouching in a corner of darkness where the tower joined the wall and peered down. Two men crossed the courtyard talking in low voices. They paused directly beneath him and opened a door in the base of the tower. It was Donner and Murdoch. As a brief shaft of light fell across the flagstones he saw them clearly and then the door closed again.
He descended the stone steps to the courtyard and moved towards the tower, keeping to the shadow of the wall. He could hear voices, a low murmur that sounded as if it was coming from somewhere beneath him. He listened carefully at the door for a moment, then opened it gently.
An oil lamp stood in a niche, briefly illuminating a dank stone chamber whose walls glistened with moisture. To his right, circular stone stairs lifted into the darkness. To his left, another door stood open slightly. The voices were coming from inside.
He pushed it open an inch or two at a time. There was a stone landing, then the beginning of some steps, dropping away to his left. The