Getting out of Thompson's car, Robbie wasn't quite sure what his next move was. Here he was, following his instinct, calling his own shots and with the complete unconditional trust of his Sergeants, he was suddenly aware that he had no idea as to what he would now do or as to what his instructions would be to Hathaway and Thompson. He didn't even know if his intuition was right. He desperately hoped he had misjudged it all and that his gut feeling was wrong.
In front of him, Ash Rake House looked eerily quiet, brooding almost, despite the beautiful weather and the fresh green of the fields surrounding it. The sun was out and shone brightly onto the grey-white limestone of the stone-built house but there was a cold feeling, almost a chill to the whole place.
Robbie closed the car door behind him. Hathaway and Thompson followed suit and getting out of the car, glancing briefly at each other, both with reserved almost cautious frowns, both wondering what would happen next. Robbie scanned the house again. The windows were closed and white net curtains covered the downstairs windows making it impossible to see in. The upstairs windows were un-obscured with curtains but nothing could be seen through; the sunlight glanced off them like a mirror.
A breeze travelled gently over the hills as the three men stood, paused by an uncertainty. All was silent apart from the sound of distant jackdaws and the occasional whistle of the wind as it ebbed in strength over the hilltops. Over in the village of Ashlow the church bell struck once for the half-hour. The bell rang out clearly over the distance from the village to the house at Ash Rake. Hathaway and Thompson looked at each other once more, waiting for a command, a signal, or anything from Lewis.
Robbie scanned the outside of the house, his focus briefly on the outbuildings. Then his eyes went to the rake. Behind the stone wall a breeze brushed the fresh leaves of the ash trees and gently shook their branches. Robbie held his breath. There was some clue in the rake he was sure, but clearly it was not revealing its secret to him yet.
Robbie's eyes returned to the house. The breeze had now strengthened on the hilltop and the wind whistled around the house and Robbie felt a coldness that superseded the warmth from the sun. It was then, with a chill that came from within, not from the chilly breeze, that he noticed.
The front door to Ash Rake House was open.
Robbie felt a rush of foreboding. His eyes scanned the scene further and with horror he could see, even from the distance he was from the door, a blood red handprint on the paintwork of the door.
Hathaway and Thompson had both been watching Lewis. Their attention followed his line of sight and they turned their focus to the doorway. They both saw the bloody handprint on the door. As they looked, Lewis started to head towards the house.
The cars weren't parked very far from the house, but Robbie broke into a run. The blood on the doorframe chilled him to the bone and set a gnawing and inescapable feeling of dread.
There was a drystone wall surrounding the house, enclosing the property and its garden and most of the outbuildings from the rest of the estate. Robbie flung open the small gate in the wall and began to run up the garden path towards the open door of the house but stopped suddenly in his tracks.
Watching from Thompson's car, Hathaway and Thompson saw, at the same time as Robbie, what had pulled him to a halt, and as they did so, they started to run towards the house, towards Robbie and towards the person they could see emerge from the doorway of Ash Rake House.
It was Iain McLeod.