Blood Lines

Blood Lines
Grace Monroe

The gripping new novel featuring unorthodox Edinburgh lawyer Brodie McClennan, who must investigate a ritualistic murder in the Highlands in order to clear her name.A woman is lured to a lonely ruin in the Scottish Highlands and strangled almost to the point of death. As she prays for mercy, her hopes are shattered when her unseen assailant begins to carve her face, and she is left alone to bleed her life's blood into a shallow grave.In Edinburgh, 29–year–old lawyer Brodie McLennan is coming to terms with the discovery of the family she never knew she had. She must also fight the increasing resentment of the Edinburgh Bar. As the complaints to the Law Society about Brodie pile up, her grandfather and legal legend Lord MacGregor fears that Brodie is in danger and advises that to protect her reputation, she should become a crown prosecutor-accept 'silk'–something that rankles with Brodie's natural inclination to protect the underdog. When Lord McGregor's prophecy is fulfilled and Brodie is implicated in the disappearance of a fellow lawyer, she realises he is right–she is now a marked woman.Then the missing woman is found in a remote mental hospital, the walls of her cell smeared in blood, the name 'Brodie' written over and over…Back in Edinburgh, a knife is found with Brodie's fingerprints. It seems that someone is out to stop Brodie's rise to the top–at any cost…

GRACE MONROE

Blood Lines

Copyright (#u16ed8790-2977-5cfd-997e-9d1574345488)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

A Paperback Original 2008

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Grace Monroe 2008

Grace Monroe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9781847560414

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007281817

Version: 2018-05-22

Gordon, Caitlin, Patrick, Brogan and Keanu you are my raison d’être. Maria

Still appreciating you really, Dr Cairney. Linda xx

Contents

Title Page (#u1b99472f-193c-5e5a-a835-ebb49b78e6af)Copyright (#u3a340073-cfdd-56d2-ba4f-a24babf76bcb)Prologue (#u465531a7-8415-5c83-928f-97eeb673791a)Chapter One (#ud633f2a0-9c6a-590a-89c0-be84f77b9075)Chapter Two (#ucd5f686e-9534-54f3-80e7-696273351a51)Chapter Three (#uf5fb5e88-1607-51c7-aea5-aed545a330c8)Chapter Four (#udd5cde33-c546-5b5f-83d3-3ca46d32649b)Chapter Five (#u7c976f41-4f66-5f48-9fca-945254e988af)Chapter Six (#uda1e4026-3dc4-556d-bfa9-f87018aea02f)Chapter Seven (#u78337d6d-4e26-54da-b3df-5db028bed127)Chapter Eight (#u3a1e3031-fc0a-5a5b-8424-d472c1ab4a42)Chapter Nine (#u75bc5bda-de9b-5fdd-a777-25420b954f47)Chapter Ten (#ud910e698-b106-536a-bce3-4486da602d53)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)By the Same Author: (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u16ed8790-2977-5cfd-997e-9d1574345488)

Ruthven Barracks August 2005

The Jacobite ruin stands high in the evening mist. Ruthven Barracks, set on a mound in the Scottish Highlands, echoes with ghosts and lovers’ tales. The settlement which had existed there for over a thousand years is long gone, but the rumours of betrayal and obsession are as fresh as if whispered yesterday. Alisdair Mor mac an Righ once made his home here, but few round these parts referred to him by that name then and nor do they do so now. One of the blackest bastards ever to walk through Scotland’s history, the son of King Robert II lived in barbarous times – times which he, the Wolf of Badenoch, made darker and more murderous every day he lived.

Now the earth which the Wolf walked is hard from the constant tramp of tourist feet. The day-buses and walking tours have long gone as the low evening clouds scurry past the moon. It is almost midnight, but it is as bright as day underneath the startling Scottish night sky. The lovers walk up the steep gravel path from the roadside and, hand-in-hand, enter the stony ruins. They sit down amongst the ancient stones, their heavy voices echoing with lust – and revenge.

A hip flask is taken from the backpack of its owner. It is handed to the other, who fingers it anxiously, thinking of past indiscretions.

‘Take the whisky and seal the deal,’ come the words as the dark fluid is thrown down a throat parched from the wanting. The breath of the lovers is sweet in the night air. They search for words, for an appropriate toast to what they feel for each other. Both seem content to drink in the surroundings and the presence of the other alongside the liquid from the pure waters of the nearby distillery.

This is a betrothal. A consummation. The reverberations of words exchanged and vows underscored will last beyond this night.

The Earl of Badenoch had ruled these lands in a cruel way – always taking more than he was entitled to, yet never satisfying himself. He knew the meaning of betrayal; he knew the cost of love. When he deserted his wife for his mistress, the Church ruled against him – and entire towns paid the cost. The Wolf sought revenge in an orgy of ransacking, burning and murder, eventually offering superficial repentance in order to win his way back into society.

But he, more than most, knew that what lies on the surface matters nothing compared to what lurks beneath.

Legend interrupts fact with the Earl’s story at this point and says that his final visit to Ruthven was for an infamous chess battle to the death – with the Devil. As the Devil called ‘checkmate’, a terrible storm of thunder, hail and lightning surrounded the place. In the silence of the morning, all of the Wolf ’s men were found blackened and dead outside the castle walls, with their master discovered lifeless in the banqueting hall, unmarked but with the nails from his boots ripped out. The Devil had won yet again – as the Wolf had always known he would.

‘Don’t you want me?’ comes the voice from the seated woman, who raises the hip flask to her lips once more as soon as she has whimpered the words.

‘Don’t you want me?’ she asks again, her craving for love more overwhelming than the feeling of fear which batters these walls. The betrothal is not going as planned. Where are the dual commitments? Where are the exchanged vows of lifelong adoration? As the woman reaches out to touch the face of her beloved, she also raises the pewter flask above her head as a sign of dedication. Her voice echoes around the ancient stones, joining the many pledges made there over the centuries.

‘Join me,’ she says, but her words do not invite, they beg.

‘May the hinges of our friendship never rust, nor the wings of our love lose a feather,’ she continues, trying to ignore the silence of her beloved. ‘Slainte.’

The whisky warms her heart as she takes another sip. Warms her heart more than the presence of the one she loves. As it trickles down her throat, the taste awakes demons. It dribbles down her chin as she tries to wipe it away with the back of her hand. Her co-ordination is all wrong – has her old friend affected her so quickly? She drinks more, but the dribbles increase, and the woman looks to her love for help.

The words that reach her do not comfort.

‘You greedy bitch. I should have known. That whisky was the one thing I needed to rely on – and the one thing I couldn’t control. You didn’t disappoint me, did you? You just had to drink it, you just had to take what you wanted, just like you always do.’

The woman beseeches her lover with her eyes. Why is there such cruelty in the words? Why is there such hatred in the face of the one she worships?

‘My legs aren’t working properly. Help me.’

Even to her own ears, the words sound slurred as she falls heavily to the ground. The woman’s tights rip on the rough stony hillside of the barrack floor, but her darling moves towards her, bringing hope. Her arms are pulled together above her head and held there as she is dragged still further. There is no help, there is no hope. The soldiers’ latrines await her as she is hauled round a corner.

‘This is for you,’ whispers her darling into her ear. The woman fleetingly thinks of love, of surprises prepared by the keeper of her spirit. As she is thrown into the hard-packed six-foot trench, lovingly dug just for her, her hopes are dashed and her heart knows that it has been betrayed. Silently she screams, incapable of making a sound.

‘If I’d known you were so fond of the taste of sodium pentathol, I’d have tried it years ago,’ come the words, but the woman is too busy watching what is happening to pay attention to the one-sided conversation. Her lover has picked up the spade resting on the rough stone wall and starts to dig afresh.

‘Normally it’s injected – but I find needles really … unpleasant …’

The pile of earth is considerable now. It has also managed to change the channel into something else. With the presence of the woman within, it is no longer a trench.

It is a grave.

Such alchemy.

The legs and the arms of the woman are useless. They are drugged into stillness, numbed into inefficiency, but it is the loss of love which immobilises her totally. The voice she once adored now drones on as the owner of it continues to dig.