"Gees, yer whole body's tremblin'." She pulled me next to her and held me. "It was just a bad dream, Zack. It was just a nightmare." She was wrong, of course, for I knew what it was.

As True would say, it was my destiny.

It was in mid-March and I was working on the banks of Loch Ness. I'm the area manager for an insurance company, and I cover a large part of the Highlands. Anyway, I was finishing some paperwork when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this black hump come out of the water. I thought, "heavens" and looked at it again, and sure enough, it went back into the water and came back out again, and then back down. I thought, "I've seen it… after all these years, I've actually seen it!"

It's just typical of these things that I didn't have a camera with me and no one else to corroborate. But on the hump, I would say it was black, sort of a dark black color, and it had water coursing off of it, and it was just big… I think that's the best way to put it. It certainly wasn't a seal, it certainly wasn't a fish. All I can say is that, looking at the Loch, that somewhere in there is the Loch Ness monster. And as far as I'm concerned, I've seen it."

—GARY CAMPBELL, INVERNESS RESIDENT, 14 MARCH 1996

Chapter 31

Upper Foyers, Loch Ness

Having barely slept, I found myself racing the Harley-Davidson south on General Wade's Military Road, climbing the hills toward Upper Foyers with the rising sun.

I had called Max earlier, requesting a private meeting with Theresa Cialino at Inverness Castle. He told me the prosecution had decided not to call her as a witness, believing her testimony might dissuade the jury from seeking the death penalty, in the likely event they found Angus guilty. Max told me I could reach her at her summer estate in Upper Foyers, but asked that I return to Inverness in time for the barristers' closing remarks.

I turned onto the B852, a single-track road with sharp twists and turns, following the highway to Upper Foyers.

The Cialino's summer home was an estate that had once belonged to John Charles Cuninghame, the seventeenth and last Laird of Craigends, a powerful family dating back to the fourteenth century. The residence had horse stables and acreage for grazing, along with a spectacular view of Loch Ness and Foyers Falls.

I parked the Harley, then knocked on the huge double doors. Expecting a servant, I was a bit surprised when Theresa Cialino answered her own door. "Hello, Zachary. Do you want to come inside?"

"Not really."

"You don't like me, do you? I can understand why. I don't blame your father for what happened, I blame my husband. Money changes a person. It changed John. He became a control freak."

"Lady, I really don't—"