So Grace swallowed a giant breath and ran for it. Not knowing where she was going. Losing herself in the maze of the rambling castle.

A pair of armoured knights on plinths stood flanking a broad staircase that led up to the next floor, each clasping a long sword in its gleaming gauntlets. Grace clambered up onto the nearest plinth and yanked the weapon from its occupant’s clutches. The sword was nearly as tall as she was, heavy and unwieldy, but the first man who tried to slice her face off would get to watch his own guts spilling on the floor before he came within a yard of her. Grasping its hilt with both hands she ran up the stairs to a galleried landing. Left or right?

If in doubt, always turn left, Ben had said. She took his advice. The landing narrowed to a corridor with magnificent burnished oak doors on both sides, any of which could burst open at any moment. With her heart in her mouth she scurried past two, three, four of them; and then saw a fifth that was open a crack.

She paused and peered through the door into a luxurious empty bedroom. A large key protruded from the inside of the door lock. She slipped inside the room, closed the door and locked herself in. Feeling only slightly more secure, she looked around her for another hiding place. There was an antique wardrobe big enough for five people to huddle inside. A huge four-poster bed she could crawl beneath.

Then Grace noticed the dainty little bedside table next to the four-poster. And what was on it. The phone was a clunky, obsolete type of thing with a dial and a receiver connected by a cloth cord. Ancient technology. She hadn’t used one like it since childhood. She laid the sword across the bed, hesitated for a moment and then picked up the phone. Pressed the heavy receiver to her ear, inserted a blackened fingertip into the dial and forced herself to remember a direct number for the Divisional Headquarters of the Highlands and Islands police.

When the voice came on the line she said urgently, ‘This is PC Grace Kirk from Fort William. I want to speak to Detective Chief Superintendent Allison.’

‘I’m afraid DCS Allison is in a meeting.’

Grace chewed her lip. ‘Then let me talk to his deputy.’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say it was concerning?’

‘Just do it, will you?’

‘Hold the line, please.’

Grace waited. And waited. Tension locking her muscles as hard as wood. Staring at the locked door. Expecting the pounding and the rattling to begin at any instant. But then the waiting was over, and she was put through to someone who was neither the DCS nor his deputy, but an officer from Inverness CID who was still way up the chain of command from Grace herself.