When he didn’t reply Jane looked away. ‘I’m sorry about Sian.’
She heard his intake of breath. ‘They’re probably all dead anyway,’ he said.
Jane knew whom he meant but didn’t understand what made him think that. ‘Crozier gave me the dossier. Waincraft haven’t heard a word from them. There’s been no news.’
‘Not officially,’ Carter said tightly. ‘I get my information from a variety of sources, and because of Sian’s disappearing act I’ve been doing some checking; recent missing persons in certain circumstances, possible department links, you know the type of thing.’
Jane understood what he was saying, and she remembered the various whispers and snaps of information that seemed to come his way as if by magic; although it was actually of course from a very sophisticated intelligence network that he set up gradually and slowly so no one was aware of it, and no one could infiltrate it. ‘I can’t say for certain about all of them, but at least half of the “missing” group is dead.’
He turned and walked out of the room.
She caught up with Carter on the patio. He was sitting at one of the tables, sipping a glass of lager, staring out across the garden. The sun was high in the sky and she could feel its welcome warmth on her face.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ she said, pulling up a chair.
He shook his head. ‘Something very bad happened here.’
‘Here in general, or here specifically?’ He handed her an open bottle of beer. He had anticipated she would join him.
‘Here, on the patio. There.’ He pointed at the ground not two yards from where they sat.
‘Do you know what exactly?’
‘I can’t get a fix on it. Just random impressions.’ He turned to look at her. ‘ We shouldn’t be here, Jane. It’s too dangerous.’ There was serious concern in his face.
‘We’re here to do a job.’ Jane had become used to her role of persuader.
He took another mouthful of lager, swilling the beer over his tongue before swallowing. It did nothing to take away the coppery taste in his mouth. It was the taste of fear and he was all too familiar with it.
‘I want you to hold a séance tomorrow,’ she said. The sudden change of immediate subject was designed to deflect any further anxiety.
‘Yes, I think I should.’ Carter nodded vigorously.
‘Pardon?’ His quick agreement took her by surprise.
He drank some more beer. ‘I think I should. And I’m not going to wait for tomorrow. I’ll hold one to night. After dinner.’
Jane frowned. ‘I thought you’d object.’
‘Why should I?’ Carter said. ‘I’m as anxious as you are to know what’s going on here.’ He swilled the beer around in his glass. ‘Have you noticed the gloom hanging over this place? You can almost taste it. There’s something here.’
‘I was saying as much to Crozier earlier. Kirby seems quite badly affected.’
‘So’s McKinley. He’s even more morose than usual. What about you?’
‘It’s not too bad, but I’m not completely immune to it.’
‘Me neither, but I know how to protect myself. As does McKinley. He hasn’t opened up since we got here, and quite honestly I don’t blame him. But I’m not sure the others are as prepared as us. Kirby especially — she’s like an open nerve. It’s like we’re sitting in a lion’s den, and the lion’s watching us, biding its time until it’s ready to pounce. It’s unnerving.’
‘We’ll have to watch out for each other,’ she said, remembering the conversation with McKinley earlier. ‘Crozier raised the possibility that what happened here could be a case of mass suicide.’
‘No,’ Carter said. ‘He’s wrong. It’s nothing like that. These people didn’t choose what happened to them.’
‘Can you be sure? Another beer?’ She got two more bottles from the bar and waited for his reply.
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. There’s something evil on this island, Jane. Something more evil than anything I’ve encountered before.’
‘Very reassuring considering some of the cases you’ve worked on.’
‘And I’ll tell you something else.’ He pulled two cigarettes from the pack on the table, lit them and handed one across to her. ‘It wants something from us.’
‘What?’
‘I wish I knew,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll get some answers to night. I’ll have a word with Kirby and tell her we want to eat early. The longer we have afterwards the better.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘I think you’re out of your wee mind, wanting to go over there again. When Fiona rang me I couldn’t believe it. Not after what happened the last time. You were lucky they didn’t arrest you.’ Cameron Whyte closed the engine housing on his boat and wiped his oily hands on a rag.
‘But will you take me across, Cameron? That’s the question.’ Bayliss leaned against the rail, glancing over his shoulder at the wavelets lapping against the hull. A few gulls were circling overhead, crying out to each other and ducking down to the water, searching for food.
‘Aye, I’ll take you. I’ll take you because Fiona asked me to, and that’s the only reason.’ Whyte threw the rag into a metal bucket and went back to the wheel house. Bayliss pushed himself away from the rail and followed him, avoiding the numerous lobster pots littering the deck. Cameron Whyte made a good living as a lobster fisherman. Restaurants as far away as London paid top dollar for the blue crustaceans Whyte and his crew pulled from the waters around this stretch of the coast.
‘When?’
‘When what?’
‘When can you take me?’
‘This evening, when I take the pots out.’ Whyte looked up at the sky, predicting to himself what the weather conditions would be later. He was generally right most of the time.
‘Not before?’ Eagerness roared out of every pore of Bayliss’s body, making him edgy and more than a little twitchy.
‘This evening.’ Whyte glared at Bayliss, then turned his eyes to the chart laid out on a table in front of him.
‘I was hoping to get onto the island sooner.’ He was almost bouncing with anticipation, a remote control figure with the hand controls on maximum.
Whyte looked round at him with amusement. ‘Then swim.’
Bayliss held the other man’s gaze for a long moment. Finally he relaxed and smiled. ‘This evening it is then. I’ll be back about five.’
‘Make it six.’
‘Right. Six it is. See you then.’
He swung himself from the boat and walked back along the quayside. It wasn’t the result he wanted, but there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, he’d waited this long for something else to happen on Kulsay; another few hours was neither here nor there.
Raj sat at the computer they’d set up in one of the sitting rooms, making sure the complex arrangement of cameras and microphones he and Kirby had installed so far were working and feeding their signals back. Wireless technology meant Kirby could place equipment in the most obscure locations and record what ever was happening there. It was a far cry from the early days in the Department when they’d had to lay countless yards of cable and double-check every connection. In those days they’d been dependent on main electricity, and a number of times investigations had been hampered by sudden power surges or brownouts. Now everything ran on long lasting rechargeable batteries, so no matter what state the power supply was in, the cameras and microphones continued to record, sending their images and sounds back to the hard drive of the computer.
‘How’s it going?’ Kirby appeared and set a mug of coffee on the desk. She pulled up a chair, peering at the screen.