little. That can weaken you for life. Those two never think about that of course. I couldn’t have lifted those stones at Lochashiel even if I’d wanted to (WHICH I DIDN’T), and anyway, those bones I dug up from the mud may be extremely important. Not sure I’ll show them though.”
Colin, feeling more and more uncomfortable, turned the page in fascination. “What I really ought to find out is—”
“Seen enough?” said a spiteful little voice from the doorway. Oliver was wearing striped Viyella pyjamas and carrying a large sponge-bag, and his thin face was dark pink with rage. He stormed across the room and snatched the notebook from Colin’s fingers with such force that it ripped across the back. “Do you make a habit of reading other people’s diaries, Colin?” he spat out, in a strangled voice.
“No more than you do,” his cousin answered smartly. “You were reading Mr Grierson’s. I saw you.”
There was an abrupt silence, and Oliver flushed darker than ever. “That was different,” he stammered. “There’s something going on here. It involves Mr Grierson, and we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”
“I know,” Colin said quietly. “That’s why I’ve come. Prill’s coming too, in a minute.”
The two boys stared at one another. Oliver had lost his usual composure and his face had somehow crumpled up. He actually looked as if he might cry, when he saw the ripped notebook.
Colin felt rather sorry for him, and he hated himself for having read the diary. At least he knew how things looked to Oliver.
“I’m sorry, Oll,” he said. “I shouldn’t have read your diary and … and we didn’t mean to be unfriendly.”
There was a pause, then Colin said awkwardly, “Well, what was in Grierson’s diary, anything important?”
Oliver shrugged. “It was all a bit boring really, with sums down the margin. He obviously studies his bank balance when there’s not much to say. That’s the real sign of a miser.”
“Anything else?” said Colin, trying to sound casual. The familiar faraway expression in Oliver’s eyes told him that there was.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” his cousin replied, in rather a grand voice. He knew Colin was dying to know. “He’d written something from the bible, in red, after every single entry. And he’d written it backwards.”
“Could you work it out?” Colin asked, more and more intrigued.
“Oh yes,” Oliver said airily. “Easy as anything. It’s mirror writing. Anyone can do it, once they’ve got the knack.”
“Go on then, what did it say?”
“‘Oh God, wherefore art thou absent from us so long’,” quoted Oliver. “‘Save me, for the waters have entered my soul’. Things like that. They were all the same, all about being cut off from the land of the living.”
“Heavens,” Colin muttered dumbly. “Why write that sort of thing in a diary?”
Oliver pulled a face. “Search me. Perhaps he’s brooding over something … perhaps he feels guilty. He looks guilty, don’t you think? He’s got that shifty look round his eyes.”
Colin tried to recall Grierson’s face. They’d only seen the man once. “I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “I thought he was rather striking, as a matter of fact, but definitely unhappy-looking. Why write backwards though? That’s bizarre.”
“Witches did things back to front,” Oliver said solemnly. “To undo the power of good.”
“Oh Oll, surely you’re not saying—”
“I’m not saying anything, yet,” the boy cut in impatiently. “I’m just telling you they did, that’s all. It’s worth remembering.”
There was a sudden tap on the door.
“That’ll be Prill,” Colin said, whispering just in case Aunt Phyllis was creeping about somewhere. “She wanted to talk to you as well.”
“Wait a minute.” Spread over Oliver’s bed was a navy-blue T-shirt with a collection of small bones on it. They were arranged in a definite pattern but Oliver had scooped them all up into a polythene bag before Colin could stop him.
“What did you do that for?” he said in frustration. “You said they were important, in – in your diary …” He went red.
“Not sure about them yet,” Oliver replied curtly. “Anyway, Prill’s squeamish. Don’t go on about them.” He shoved the bag under his pillow.
“Mr Grierson’s out there,” Prill said in a low voice, coming inside and shutting the door firmly. “I was just leaving my room, and I saw him. What’s he doing down here?”
“Eavesdropping probably,” Colin muttered. “We think there’s something peculiar about him.”
“You can say that again. I think he’s more than peculiar, I think he’s unhinged. He’s so violent, when he speaks to you, he sort of hisses. Allie’s absolutely terrified of him.”
“He’s got the devil in him,” Oliver announced flatly. “Duncan Ross said that, and for once I agree with him.”
The other two stared at him. “You don’t mean literally, Oll? What on earth are you talking about?” Colin said at last.
“I don’t know, quite,” Oliver said evenly, cupping his chin in his hands. “I just know there’s something wrong here, but I’m not at all sure it’s his fault. This awful behaviour’s not really typical apparently. He doesn’t usually rage quite so much at people, according to what Ma’s heard from Granny MacCann. He’s always been a loner, at least, he has since his wife died.”
“Well, he’s foul to the Rosses,” Colin said quietly. “Really foul.”
Oliver didn’t reply, he was obviously thinking about what might have soured the man, over the years. “His wife fell off a horse and was killed,” he informed them, “when their child was four.”
“Helen,” Prill murmured sadly, remembering the rocking-horse room.
“Yes, Helen. Well, that can’t have been much fun for him, being left on his own and everything, and he’s fallen out with her now, because she married someone he didn’t approve of. Then there’s the potty old mother, he looked after her for years and years. When he was a boy she used to drive him to church three times every Sunday, and make him learn great chunks of the Bible off by heart. If he got anything wrong she hit him. Well, that’s what Granny MacCann told Ma. No wonder he never goes to church these days.”
Colin and Prill exchanged sly glances. It sounded so like Oliver, an elderly religious mother, and being forced to go to church, and having to learn pieces of the Bible. Aunt Phyllis did that to him.
Oliver was still thinking of those red back to front bits in Grierson’s diary but he kept silent. Hugo Grierson had chosen the most agonized verses of the Psalms he could think of. Nothing cheerful like “Make a joyful
