The Lure Read Online Free PDF Page B

warriors, resting their hands on shields, sat on either side of a dark archway. To the right a circular tower was topped by a conical roof looking like a witch’s black hat. Narrow, vertical windows were spaced around the tower giving, Petrie supposed, a clear field of fire in the event of rioting peasantry.
    They walked through the archway, which was about twenty feet long, and emerged into an acre of snow-covered garden lightly sprinkled with shrubs and conifer trees. To the left was a parapet looking over open, wooded countryside. To the right, and facing them, were tall grey walls surmounted by steeply sloping roofs, showing red where the snow hadn’t covered them. Between the right and facing walls was a massive rectangular tower, jutting slightly out from the surrounding buildings and half as high again as them. Widely spaced pillars supported a steep roof atop the tower. The roof itself was covered with green diamond-shaped tiles and had tall thin chimneys and a lightning conductor. This tower, Petrie assumed, was intended as a look-out, and a small face was looking down between the pillars. It vanished quickly when Petrie looked up.
    Someone had shovelled snow off the pathway and they walked along it, conscious of being overlooked by arched windows which, he noted, were double-glazed. Petrie inferred from this that the interior probably contained modern plumbing and central heating. Just past the tower, and hidden by it from the path, was a massive wooden door, covered with an iron grid and studs, and guarded by nothing more threatening than shrubs in huge stone pots. The door was in three parts and the centre one was an inch ajar. Petrie pushed this door open for Freya and followed her inside. By this simple act, he left behind his old world and entered a new one, more bizarre than anything his imagination could have devised.
    His first impression was that of spaciousness. There was a high vaulted ceiling and a gleaming marble floor. A half-circle of velvet-covered sofa faced them. Potted palms and plants occupied odd corners. Broad corridors led off to left and right. There was nobody to be seen.
    ‘What now?’ Freya wondered.
    They took to the right at random, and walked into another spacious area with another high vaulted ceiling, this one supported by tall pillars and with gold-coloured chandeliers suspended from it. Here their footsteps were softened by carpets and long strips of rug scattered around the marble floor. At the far end of this enormous space was a curved stone stairway, and trotting briskly down this stairway was a small, moon-faced man with large round spectacles and a grin.
    Charlie Gibson. Last seen, half-drunk and upside down in Uppsala Botanic Gardens, trying to scale the tall gates after closing time with his fly caught on a spike and half a dozen equally merry colleagues offering ribald advice about his future sex life.
    Gibson’s handshake was firm and warm. ‘Very glad to see you both. Very glad indeed. First let me take you to your rooms, and then I’ll tell you what exactly is going on.’
    Gibson led the way up the stairway, continuing past the first floor to an upper floor, ending up on a long broad corridor with a curved ceiling. Along the left of this corridor were recesses with potted plants and glass cabinets displaying stuffed animals and fossils.
    He stopped at the fifth door on the right. ‘This is yours, Tom. Freya, yours is the next one on. There are three of us, five now you’re here, and we have the run of the castle for a week.’
    The room was large, well-furnished with a double bed and a bright, substantial adjoining bathroom. Petrie dumped his holdall and jacket on the bed and crossed over to the window. Below him was a terrace with metal tables and chairs, all swept clear of snow. The terrace was bordered by a low parapet and more potted shrubs. The fog was lifting and he could see a village a couple of miles away. Then he went back out to the corridor where