Chapter 8: Smoke at Noon

The kitchen was full of black smoke and Morag was standing in it with a wet apron over her face.

"The stable's gone," she said.

"Burning like a candle."

"And they've thrown a bale down the cellar stair."

I ran to the cellar door.

It was wide open.

Orange light came up the steps in waves, and the heat hit my face.

Down at the bottom, past the flame, lay the iron-bound door of the room where Niall slept.

I could not see it.

I could only see the fire between us.

"Who?" I said.

"Angus Gow and two of his father's men, over the wall at the back."

"They barred the kitchen door from the yard."

"They knew where he sleeps, lass."

"Somebody's told them."

Hamish's brown leather book, I thought.

Angus did not need a warrant now.

He only needed the sun.

If the smoke killed him, or they let noon in through a shutter, the Gows had what they wanted.

Nobody would ask any questions about a dead man the glen had never seen.

"The back stair," Morag said.

"The old coal chute."

"It comes out in the passage behind the pantry."

"It's blocked, but it'll go."

"Go where?"

"Down."

"You'll never get past that fire any other way."

We took the poker and the coal hammer and broke the pantry wall.

Behind the plaster was a black hole with a rotten ladder.

I tore off my jacket and soaked it in the rain barrel.

I wrapped it around my head and shoulders and went down the ladder into the dark.

The smoke was so thick I could not see my hands.

I felt for the wall.

I found a stone floor, and a door, and the door was hot.

I kicked it.

The wood was old and burned through at the hinge, and it came in with a crash, and I fell through it into the room.

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