‘Are you planning any séances?’
‘Not today.’ Jane shook her head. ‘I want Robert to try one, but I don’t think he’s in the right state of mind at the moment. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.’
‘I don’t like them,’ Kirby said, lifting her mug from the cabinet and taking a mouthful of the sweet tea. ‘Séances. They freak me out a little.’
‘Me too,’ Jane admitted, ‘but they have their uses. Sometimes they can stir things up a bit.’
‘And do we want to stir things up?’ Kirby wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she was scared.
‘I want to find out what happened here. Not for the Department, certainly not for the KDC, but I want to know. I don’t like mysteries.’ What David had done had upset her more than she could have imagined. It had also given her an anger that needed an outlet. What ever had happened on this island, solving what had happened was a good way to purge the rage inside her.
‘Then you couldn’t have picked a worse career.’ Kirby looked serious.
‘I didn’t. It picked me.’
‘Really?’ Kirby’s eyes widened questioningly.
Jane smiled and patted her hand. ‘I’ll tell you about it sometime. But not now. I’m going to check in with Simon. Let him know we’ve arrived safely.’
Kirby took that as her cue to leave. She swung her legs to the floor and walked to the door. ‘Sorry about the baby stuff. Stupid.’
‘Forget it. Please.’
The door closed and Jane picked up the phone.
‘Crozier.’
‘Simon, it’s Jane. We’ve arrived.’
‘Good. How is the place?’
‘Seems comfortable enough.’
‘Good.’ He paused. ‘Anything to report yet?’
‘Nothing concrete. But there does seem to be some kind of atmosphere about the island itself.’
‘Describe. Not a report, just your first impressions.’
‘A kind of melancholy. It’s already affected Kirby; raising all kinds of ghosts from her past.’
‘Can you feel it?’
‘Slightly.’
‘Be careful. You remember Hayden Towers?’
Hayden Towers was an apartment building in North London where the suicide rate was apparently eight times the national average. It was demolished once it was realized the block had been built on the site of a plague pit. It was never established whether the high occurrences of people taking their own lives was directly attributable to the pit, but many thought there was a connection. No one ever built on the site again.
Mass suicide. She considered this for a moment, imagining the members of the Waincraft team throwing themselves into the sea like lemmings. ‘It’s an interesting possibility. Do you think the explanation could be that simple?’ She couldn’t keep the skeptical note out of her voice. Anyway hadn’t she read recently that lemmings don’t actually throw themselves to certain death?
‘I’d welcome a simple solution, Jane,’ Crozier said.
‘So would I,’ she said. ‘But I’m not optimistic that this thing will be solved that easily. What about the MOD people? Do you know if they were affected by the place?’
‘As I told you before, they were giving nothing away. All I know is that a team of three went out to Kulsay, and three returned. I don’t even know who they sent.’
‘Could you ask around? Call in a few favors. I’d be interested to know their findings. Any feedback at all would be helpful.’ For all its depth the report Impey had collated was low on detail about the MOD involvement.
Crozier sighed. ‘I’ll do my best, Jane, but it’s like getting blood out of a stone. I don’t hold out much hope. I’m afraid the favors they owed me are all used up.’
‘What about the Minister? Could he bring pressure to bear?’
‘I doubt it. He’s locked into a budgetary conflict with Henderson, the Defense Minister. Apparently they can’t stand the sight of each other.’ Crozier loved the little snippets of gossip he was privy to, and traded them discreetly in bars and restaurants as a substitute for popularity.
‘Do what you can. I’ll call you again tomorrow.’
‘Fine, but I may not have an answer for you that quickly…if ever. Anything else to report?’
Jane hesitated. She had outlined some of her plans to Kirby but she preferred acting on instinct. Once her ideas were shared with Crozier she knew he would consider them set in concrete. ‘I’m going to try to persuade Robert to hold a séance tomorrow.’
‘Do you think he’ll go for it?’
‘He may.’ She tried to keep her options vague.
‘Good luck.’ He sounded as sincere as a TV game show host.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to need it.’
She would. They all would. Beneath the house, far beneath the island, there was movement. Stretching far and wide, using powers and secrets long kept dormant, many things were stirring. They had waited a long, long time. Soon the waiting would be over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Okay, everyone, listen up,’ Jane began, and waited while attention switched onto her. She had a glass of brandy in one hand and took a tentative sip, hoping she wouldn’t choke on its strength.
‘Dutch courage, Jane?’ Raj joked.
She smiled. ‘We may need all our courage for this one. You’ve all volunteered, and you’ve got my thanks for that. As volunteers you’ve had the briefing so you know the position. Missing people, not experts on survival, nothing heard from them now for weeks. Our job is to find them.’
‘Dead or alive,’ John McKinley murmured.
Jane turned to face him. ‘It’s not a “missing presumed dead assignment,” John. We’re here to find them, but if we can’t then we have to learn everything we can about what may have happened. People can’t just disappear from an island in the twenty-first century.’
She took a sip of her brandy and looked at their faces. No, if she was honest she didn’t look at the faces of all of them. Raj was smiling, as usual, and returned her glance with a grin; McKinley gave a curt nod that acknowledged his understanding of the task; with Carter, she avoided eye contact. She looked at a place on his forehead somewhere between the eyes. It was technique she had perfected years ago when she and her father played staring games for fun — look as if you are staring the other in the eyes but avoid direct eye contact. Except Carter knew the method and employed a counterstrategy; he stood up and walked across to her.
Jane involuntarily turned away, then instantly aware how unprofessional that was, swung back round just as Carter stood next to her. Jane’s hand knocked his arm, and for a moment they started to apologize to each other for mutual clumsiness. It was Carter who took her arm, smiled ruefully and shifted his position so that his back was to the others.
It was in her thoughts as they stood together. Everything they had shared and yet here they stood saying sorry about a clumsy greeting, almost like strangers at a train station, muttering sorry while thinking about the menu for the evening meal. Surely, she thought, we are closer than that. Then she realized it wasn’t a casual thought, they had been close, and her random thought was nearer to hope than she wanted to admit.
‘You don’t believe all that?’ Carter said quietly to her.
It took her a second to adjust to what he was saying; her mind was preoccupied with more sensual matters. ‘About what?’
Carter was watching for her reaction. Surely Crozier hadn’t kept the facts from her, not if she was being asked to lead the team. But it wouldn’t be Crozier’s call; Jessica Anderson would have the final say, and she would want Jane to come in unprepared. Not as a simple ploy, not as a maneuver, but so she would argue for his own inclusion in the team. That would be the reason; he wouldn’t be allowed to lead a team himself, not directly, not with his maverick reputation, but if the mission was sold subtly enough to Jane she would, despite their personal track record, insist he was included.