Black Cathedral

‘No, but this investigation is vital if the Department is to survive, and I don’t want it to stall before it’s even gotten under way. I’ll go and have a word with Kirby and assess the situation myself.’ She took his hand and felt the hard strength there. ‘Thanks, Rob. Let’s not fall out.’

He squeezed her hand before he stood. ‘Okay, Jane, you do that. But if you let her stay and something happens to her, you’re going to have to live with the guilt of that for the rest of your life.’

‘That’s part and parcel of being in charge, Robert. You, of all people, should know that.’ The words were out before she could stop them. ‘I’m sorry. That was below the belt.’

He looked at her steadily. ‘Yes, it was,’ he said, and left the room without another word.

She watched the door close behind him, then glanced about her. ‘Shit!’ she said.

What was wrong with her? Her people skills had all but disappeared. She was never usually this edgy, but this place was unsettling her. She was convinced there was something here; something watching their every action; something listening to every sound. She could feel it — she could almost touch it. And it had nothing to do with Raj’s microphones or the cameras. It was something that existed on a much deeper level. It was like stirring up the bottom of a pond with a stick. Now mud and debris were floating around, clouding the water, pushing understanding just a little bit further out of her grasp. She needed to speak with Kirby. Maybe then she’d get a clearer understanding about what exactly was happening here.

‘Robert’s worried about you,’ Jane said, almost as soon as she found Kirby in her bedroom.

Kirby lay on the bed, eyes closed but not sleeping. She didn’t respond.

‘Is he right to be?’ Jane persisted.

‘I’m okay,’ Kirby said, her eyes flicking open. It was obvious from her red-rimmed eyes that she had been crying.

‘How’s your head?’ Jane said, deflecting the full frontal attack with a more circuitous route.

Kirby touched her head with her hand. The swelling had subsided a little but there was going to be an unsightly bruise in the morning. ‘Sore.’

‘Sit up. Let me take a look.’ Jane heard her mother’s tone come to the fore; it was as if she was tending one of her daughters after a fall in the garden.

Kirby winced as Jane’s fingers traced the outline of the lump on the back of her head.

‘That’s quite a bump,’ Jane said.

‘I’ll live.’

‘He thinks you ought to leave the island, you know?’ The circuit had brought her back to the central issue.

‘He can mind his own business.’ Kirby pulled away. Her anger apparent in the lightning flash in her eyes.

‘I can’t guarantee your safety,’ Jane said. She was torn between honoring her responsibility for the safety of her team, and wanting, no needing, Kirby to stay.

‘I’m not asking you to. I’m a big girl now. I’m old enough to take the blame for my own actions.’

Jane regarded her for a moment, taking in the stubborn set of her chin and the defiance in her eyes. There would be no persuading her, and Jane knew that any persuasion she tried would be halfhearted. There was a lot of truth in what she had told Carter; Kirby was an integral part of this investigation, but Jane wanted her here for more personal reasons. Having another female presence on the island was important to her; it stopped her from feeling isolated by her sex in what otherwise would be a male-dominated group. She looked upon Kirby more as a younger sister than a work colleague, and having her here to look after compensated a little for being away from Gemma and Amy. ‘Fair enough,’ she said, taking the girl’s hand and squeezing it reassuringly. ‘But if anything else happens, anything at all, tell me. Promise me that I’ll be the first to know.’

‘Promise,’ Kirby said, and lay back on the bed. ‘There was so much pain in her face.’

Jane was confused. ‘Whose?’

‘Jo Madley. It was her face I saw on the screen.’

Jane immediately recognized the name from the Waincraft file. ‘Which means…’

Kirby nodded. ‘It means she’s probably dead. That’s why I could see her.’

‘Maybe she’ll make contact to night, at the seance. You are up for it?’

Kirby sighed. ‘I wish everyone would stop treating me like a child. I’ll be fine. Honestly.’

‘Okay.’ Jane said, stroking a stray strand of curly hair away from the girl’s eyes. ‘I won’t say anything else.’

‘Good,’ Kirby said.

Jane hesitated for a moment before speaking again. Finally she said, ‘Kirby, what you were saying earlier… about me being psychic…how do you know?’

Kirby looked at her, a half smile playing on her lips. ‘Jane, everybody’s psychic to a certain degree. Everyone’s capable of small flashes of precognition. Even if it’s just knowing who’s on the other end of the line when the phone rings. But some people’s psychic ability is stronger than others, and I’ve always been able to pick up on those people. It gets me…here.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Almost like an electric shock, but not unpleasant…more a warm tingle, increasing in intensity depending on the strength of their powers. Being around Robert and John, especially at the same time, is almost uncomfortable. With Raj less so.’

‘And me?’

‘A warm buzz. I’d say you’re just a couple of notches behind Robert and John at the moment. But if you opened up to it, and started to use it, you could be more powerful than both of them combined.’

Jane’s mouth went dry. She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. ‘I see,’ she said thickly.

‘No you don’t because you’re in denial. For some reason your subconscious is blocking it off. Maybe something happened in your past, something that gave your inner mind some reason to shut the psychic part down. I’m no psychoanalyst, but there’s usually a reason for this kind of barrier being erected.’

‘So how do I break the barrier down?’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

As if reading her mind, Kirby said, ‘You have to want to, that’s the important thing…and, at the moment, I don’t think you do.’ Perceptive as well.

‘The whole idea scares the shit out of me,’ Jane said. ‘And I’d like to discover if I was psychic earlier in life and what placed it in a box and threw away the key.”

‘As I said, you’re in denial. I can’t help you with that, Jane. That’s something you have to sort out for yourself.’

Back in her own room Jane collapsed onto the bed and closed her eyes. It’s not true, she told herself, but a small voice at the back of her mind, a voice unheard for many years, spoke softly to her and told her she was wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jessica Anderson glided through the party guests, sheathed in a red satin dress cut to the bone. Her hair was swept up revealing a swan’s neck and showing off the Cartier earrings hanging from her delicate lobes. In her customary business suits she turned heads; dressed as she was to night she made jaws drop…and she knew it. A slight smile played on her lips as she moved through the crowd, acknowledging greetings from old friends and casual business acquaintances alike with a well-practiced response and a flirtatious flash of her tourmaline eyes.

She reached the bar, set up in an alcove near a potted palm, and helped herself to a freshly poured glass of champagne. She looked over the top of the glass at the rest of the room. In the corner her father was deep in conversation with a young blonde actress whose Hollywood star was in ascendancy. She could tell from their body language that they would end up in bed together later. The idea that he took lovers younger than her was something she’d had to accept all her adult life. She still found it distasteful.

She looked away and her gaze alighted on a woman, draped languorously on the grand piano just to the side of the French doors, watching the handsome young pianist hired for the night, stroking the keys and looking adoringly up at her. Celeste Toland had that effect on men, especially young men. Not bad for an old broad, Jessica thought. Celeste Toland was sixty, the same age as Carl Anderson, but looked twenty