‘What?’ McKinley said.
‘You heard me, John,’ Raj said.
There was an edge of panic to Kirby’s voice. ‘You’re wrong, Raj. You must have made a mistake…misinterpreted…’
‘As I said, there’s a five percent chance. All I know is that when I looked forward, when I tried to see what lay ahead, there was nothing. A void. Just a black, gaping hole. We don’t have a future.’
‘No!’ Kirby shouted and stood, looking about the room, wild-eyed.
‘Kirby,’ Jane said. ‘Calm down. You’re…’
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. The window to her right exploded, sending a shower of glass across the room. Kirby cried out as needle-sharp splinters embedded themselves in her face. She threw her hands up to her eyes to protect them.
In front of Raj his camera started to vibrate on the wooden table, then it flew across the room, smashing into the bookcase, lens and body separating, back springing open, a brown snake of film escaping and spiraling across the floor.
Icy wind howled through the shattered window, billowing out the drapes, flapping them around like flags. The table started to rock violently. McKinley and Carter leapt from their seats and backed away from it, watching as the table lifted into the air and sailed across the room. Carter ducked as it flew over his head, crashing into the wall above the fireplace, smashing the large square mirror that hung there. More books launched themselves from the shelves, hurtling across the room, pages flapping like demented birds.
Carter grabbed Jane by the arm. ‘Let’s get out of here!’ he yelled above the noise of the wind. He propelled her towards the door and yanked it open. McKinley and Bayliss followed close behind whilst Carter helped Kirby; she still had her hands to her face.
‘Hold on to me,’ Carter shouted in her ear. Kirby gripped his arm and Carter made his way across the room to the door, dodging the books that were now spinning in a vortex of wind.
At the door Carter glanced back at Raj. He was standing in the center of the room, arms outstretched, an exultant expression on his face.
Jane bustled past him, back into the room. ‘Raj!’ she yelled.
Carter caught up with her and pulled her back. ‘Leave him!’
She shrugged him off furiously. ‘ We can’t just leave him!’ she yelled back at him. She took another step towards Raj, whose head swiveled to look at her. His eyes had rolled back into his head, showing only the whites, and his mouth opened. The sound that issued from his open mouth was louder than the wind, louder than the sound of crashing, splintering furniture. It was a scream, a howl, a roar; deafening in its intensity.
Jane clapped her hands over her eyes. The sound seemed to penetrate her body, vibrating, making her bones ache. She sank to her knees, her legs unable to support her. A heavy leather-bound book detached itself from the vortex and flew at her, hitting her on the temple, knocking her sideways.
Carter gripped McKinley by the arm. ‘Help me get her out of there!’
The two men barreled into the room, arms up to protect their faces from flying debris. They grabbed Jane under the arms and hauled her backwards out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Simon Crozier picked up the phone, punched in the number and held the receiver to his ear.
For a moment there was static, and then a mechanical female voice said, ‘The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.’
‘Dammit!’ he said and slammed the phone down. He looked at his watch. He’d been trying to reach Jane Talbot for the last hour without success. The landline was dead and her cell was either switched off or receiving no signal. He’d tried a few of the others on the island with the same result.
The door to his office opened and Martin Impey entered holding a thin blue file. ‘I have the information you wanted,’ he said.
‘Information?’ Crozier was distracted. He was trying to decide whether to give Jane more time or to send a helicopter over to Kulsay to take them off.
‘The Sorority,’ Martin said, holding the file out in front of him. ‘Took some digging up.’
Crozier gathered himself and went back to his desk. ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘And show me what you have.’
Martin slid the file across the desk and waited while Crozier flicked it open and scanned through the pages.
‘Basically it’s a group of high-profile women who’ve banded together to perform charitable acts; hosting celebrity-studded luncheons, sponsoring music recitals, that kind of thing. I can’t really see why you’re interested in them. There’s nothing there to suggest there’s anything more to them than just a group of wealthy do-gooders with too much time on their hands.’
Crozier closed the file, then opened it again and pulled out the list of the Sorority’s members. ‘Miranda Fry,’ he said. ‘How do I know that name?’
‘Sister-in-law of the last U.S. president. She was a bit of a wild child, then she married Sebastian Fry, head of Nexus Communications, and transformed herself, virtually overnight, into a born-again sophisticate.’
‘And Felicity Coleman?’
‘Widow of Mark Coleman, the astronaut who died in a plane crash back in the eighties.’
‘The other names mean nothing to me, except for Celeste Toland.’
Martin sat forward in his seat. ‘Ah, now she’s interesting. If only for the fact that she has no history.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She came to prominence in the early 1980s when she bought out the Haver Corporation. Bought it lock, stock and barrel. But I can’t get a line on her in the runup to that. I found an entry for her in the 1963 yearbook at Priestley High School in Connecticut but after that nothing until twenty years later when she arrived fully formed on Wall Street and started making huge waves in the financial circles of the day.’
‘But there must be something to show what she was doing with herself for those twenty years. College? University?’
‘I agree, there should be something, but there’s nothing documented. Maybe she left high school and went abroad to further her education. If that’s the case, then it could take days to pick up her trail.’
‘At high school she was listed as Celeste Toland?’
Martin nodded.
‘So that means she never married.’
‘If what you say about her relationship with Jessica Anderson is correct, then that’s hardly surprising, is it?’ Martin smiled the way men do when talking about women seemingly beyond them.
Crozier grumbled something under his breath that Martin didn’t catch. Then he said, ‘Surely there was some press when she bought out Haver? There must have been a curious journalist out there anxious to know who this woman was, where she came from.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But I can find nothing, and I’ve trawled through every database I can think of. Why are you so interested in her anyway?’
‘I’m not…not her specifically. But the Sorority interests me greatly, and Jessica Anderson’s connection to it. This whole Kulsay Island thing has me rattled. I get the feeling the Department is being used and I don’t like that, I don’t like that at all.’
‘Have you heard from Jane? How are things going over there?’
‘I heard from her last night. Nothing today. I’m sure things are fine.’ He drummed his fingertips on the desktop. ‘Do another sweep and see if you can turn up anything at all on this Toland woman. Anything at all.’
‘But.…’ Martin started to protest.
Crozier cut him off. ‘Just try; there may be something you’ve missed.’