"May I have some tea, Elizabeth?" Callum asked hoarsely. "I caught a chill out there last night."
"Sore throat?" she asked.
"Mostly a cough."
She nearly said that she was surprised at his asking her to fix him anything. The others had tried to be nonchalant about fixing their own food, but the unvoiced suspicion was obvious. Only Denny had eaten from anything that had already looked closer at Callum. He had not shaved, and he was wearing the same jeans and sweatshirt he'd slept in. She thought he looked pale and tired. The shock of the night before had not worn off. Without another word she fixed him a cup of tea.
"Elizabeth, what are the chances that Dawson will turn up in midweek?" Marchand asked, trying to sound offhand.
Elizabeth looked up from the card game she had started. "None," she said. "I asked him on Saturday, and he said he hadn't time."
"A pity," Marchand said softly. "Still, I suppose we will manage without him. Er, how is your patience coming along?"
"My what?"
Marchand pointed to the seven rows of cards spread out on the table. "Your game. We call it patience."
Elizabeth sighed. "Americans call it solitaire," she told him. "And that's the best explanation for the difference in our cultures that I have ever heard.''
Learn wished that the rain would stop drumming on the tin roof. It was beginning to give him a headache. Well, perhaps the Scotch had been a contributing factor, but the rain and the tension were chiefly to blame. He had tried to read a paperback spy novel, but each time he started a new page, he realized that he had no idea what he had read on the last one.
"Farthing, will you stop coughing?" he snapped, without looking up from the page.
"How do you propose that I do that?'' Callum asked wearily.
Elizabeth, now in a game of gin with Denny, touched Callum's arm. "Would you like one of Denny's pills, Callum?"
He smiled bitterly. "Denny's clap pills? That isn't what ails me, thanks. What I need is a bit of cough syrup."
"I could make you some more tea. We don't have any cough syrup, but my mother used to put honey in things when we were sick. Is Owen's jar of honey still around?"
"Thanks, I'll have my tea straight," Callum croaked. "And I think I'll have a lie-down. The light hurts my eyes, and talking makes me cough."
"He's got the flu from being out last night," Elizabeth whispered to Denny when Callum had stumbled off to a sleeping bag in a far corner of the hut. "And between this rain and the cold, we'll all have it before long."
Denny frowned. "Are you not feeling well, hen?"
"I'm fine," said Elizabeth, measuring out the tea. "But it's only a matter of time."
"They'll come and get us soon," Denny said cheerfully.
"Have you got a chance of fixing the radio, Denny?"
"Not a hope."
She looked around for inspiration. "What about using the batteries from the surveying instrument?"
Denny yawned. "I thought of that. Wrong size. Not enough power anyhow. Maybe somebody more electronically inclined could make that work, but I doubt it. Anyhow, it's beyond Leath and me, I'm afraid."
Elizabeth looked at him with troubled eyes. "I'm afraid, too," she said.
She told herself that Cameron would when he tried unsuccessfully to contact them by radio. But of course he would blame that on the storm. He might think that they were cold and miserable in their damp tin hut in the middle of nowhere, but he would not consider it enough of an emergency to take him out into rough seas in his small launch. She was not even sure that she wanted such heroics from him. There had been enough tragedy already without risking the sacrifice of Cameron as well.
Leath and Marchand had put on their rain gear and announced that they were going out to have a look around. Elizabeth, feeling very much alone, was trying to read Withering Heights again, but she had reached the part where Catherine was dying, and she couldn't bear to go on with it.
Denny, who had been taking a nap in the corner, wandered over and sat beside her. "Do you think we ought to check on Callum?" he asked.
"I did. While you were asleep. He said he wasn't hungry. I suppose we ought to let him rest."
"I wish he'd do the same for us. His coughing gave me nightmares. Me being chased by the Gabriel hounds,'' Denny smiled. "Or maybe it's the wee folk sent me that dream, letting me know that the island is cursed."
"It certainly seems to be. First, Alasdair is hurt messing about with the babies' graves, and then Owen is working on the menhir and he dies.'' Elizabeth took a deep breath. What did she have to lose by talking to him? "Do you think it's a coincidence?"
Denny looked puzzled. "How do you mean? Are you saying you believe in fairy curses?"
"No, of course not! I mean, do you think somebody is making this happen?" She lowered her voice to the barest whisper. "One of us!''
He shrugged. "I can't think why anyone would."
"I know. That's had me worried all afternoon. Suppose . . . suppose Alasdair found something? I know he was taunting Owen, but suppose he wasn't kidding? If he really found treasure, and somebody wanted it. . ."
"Enough to try to kill all the rest of us?" Denny said lightly. "That would have to be quite a treasure."
"I realize that. Something on the order of Sutton Hoo."
"A Viking ship full of golden artifacts? Yes, that would do nicely. But wouldn't it look a bit odd to have all of us die on the expedition, except for one lone survivor, and then he suddenly purchases a castle and a Bentley? People would get suspicious."
Elizabeth nodded. "Besides, from Callum's description, Owen didn't die violently. He was just sick."
Denny smiled. "Fairy curse, I tell you. They're protecting their stone circle. And speaking of the bad luck of Banrigh, how's that finger of yours?''
She glanced at her bandage. "I ought to have had stitches,'' she said.
"You were the first casualty of the island, weren't you?"
"Yes." She smiled. "And I assure you that nobody sabotaged me. I was quite alone on the beach when I cut my finger. It was my own stupidity.''
"Was the seal there at the time?"
Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to remember. "He might have been."
"There you have it!" Denny smiled. "Everybody knows that seals are magic beings in disguise. He probably wants us off his island. Well, at least you've been taking the pills.
Modem science thwarts wee folk. It's time for another one, isn't it?"
She reached for the bottle that sat on the table beside the cup of sugar. "I suppose so. And for you, as well."
"Nag, nag, nag," said Denny. "My symptoms are quite gone away now. I think I'll cut back to one a week. I feel fine."
"What we really need is some good old American liquid cold medicine."
"Check the medical chest. Surely there's cold capsules in there. They'd be counting on somebody coming down with catarrh, what with all the wet and the cold out here."
Elizabeth set the white metal box on the table. "Bandages . . . scissors . . . iodine. Ah, what's this?" She held up a bright yellow box. "Nonprescription cold capsules. One every eight hours. Yeah, this sounds like the stuff we take at home to dry up a runny nose. As soon as Callum wakes up, I'll make him take one."
Denny frowned. "How many capsules are in there?"
"Twenty-four. No. One is missing. Twenty-three. Why?"
"I think we should all start taking them."
Leath and Marchand came back in less than an hour, stamping their wet boots in the doorway and peeling off anoraks shiny with rain. "It shows no sign of letting up, I'm afraid," Marchand said. "We went down to look at the boat."
Denny stared at them openmouthed. "You're not going to try anything in that boat?"
"It isn't very seaworthy,'' Marchand agreed, "but we can't be more than ten miles or so from another island."
"And if you miss it, there's always New Jersey!"
Marchand forced himself to smile. "I thought I might give it a try tomorrow. The weather should be better by then, and perhaps I shall feel more up to the task."