obvious answer, but if so, how did that affect Jane and the others who were already on an investigation, which had the full involvement of the Andersons behind it?
Nick Bayliss had settled himself in the chair by the fireplace; totally relaxed, legs crossed, mug of coffee clenched in his fist.
‘We’re waiting,’ Jane said. Conversation had stalled while they all waited for Kirby to return with the drinks.
‘Waiting?’ Bayliss was enjoying his moment, the might of the Department waiting for him to speak.
‘For you to tell us why you’re here,’ Raj said. ‘As you are well aware.’
Bayliss sipped his coffee, glanced across at Kirby, and winked at her again. ‘Great coffee. Cardamom?’
Kirby flushed slightly and nodded.
‘Thought so.’ He turned back to Jane and the others. ‘You’re here to find out why those people disappeared. Am I right? Your masters think there might be a paranormal explanation for it.’
‘Are you here to tell us there isn’t?’ Jane said.
‘The Ministry of Defense was here two months ago. They thought they were dealing with a mass kidnapping by a foreign power. Idiots! But lucky idiots. They were only here twenty-four hours, then they buggered off again. Had they been here longer they may have discovered firsthand what’s really going on.’
‘I’m losing patience, Mr. Bayliss,’ Jane said. ‘Either you tell us why you’re here or I’ll make a phone call and have you removed.’
‘I think you’ll find that rather difficult,’ Bayliss said with a smile. ‘I checked my cell phone before I came here. There’s no signal. I suspect yours will be the same.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I was using mine last night,’ Jane said, and pulled her phone from her pocket. The NO NETWORK message on the screen told its own story. ‘Everybody, check your phones.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Dead.’
‘No signal.’
Carter walked across to the landline phone and lifted the receiver. No dial tone, just a harsh continuous whistle. He shook his head.
‘We’ve a radio transmitter,’ Jane said. Doubt was clouding her mind like a gathering storm.
‘I wouldn’t waste your time,’ Bayliss said. ‘That’ll be blocked too. It’s started.’
McKinley was on his feet. He grabbed Bayliss by the front of his shirt, hauled him out of his seat, coffee slopping over onto the parquet, and brought his face to within inches of the smaller man. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of this, man,’ he said. ‘Stop pissing us around and tell us what you know.’
‘Let him go, John!’ Jane said, steel in her voice.
McKinley held onto Bayliss for a few seconds more, and then dropped him back into his seat. Bayliss took a moment to recover. ‘They’ll use that as well. Any form of negative energy is sustenance to them.’
‘ To whom?’ Jane said, her voice rising.
‘The ones controlling what’s happening on the island,’ Bayliss said. The Scottish accent gave a local flavor and only added to the menace in the words.
The others exchanged looks and glances. It was Raj who gave voice to what the rest of them were thinking. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Bayliss was watching Carter closely. ‘You know, don’t you, Mr. Carter? At least you’ve got a pretty good idea.’
No one spoke.
Carter turned away. He went across to one of the bookcases in the room and stood with his back to the others, blindly scanning the titles. In his mind he was back in the chamber with Sian.
‘Robert?’ Jane said. ‘What’s he talking about?’
‘I don’t know.’ Carter didn’t turn to face her. Jane knew instinctively by the way his shoulders were hunched that he was holding back on her.
‘He’s lying,’ Bayliss said, wiping the coffee that had spilled on his legs and hands.
McKinley came up behind Carter, grabbed his shoulder and spun him round. ‘Are you?’
‘You really need to control your temper, John,’ Carter said, his fists clenching.
‘Then help us out,’ Jane said. ‘I’ll ask you again. Do you know what he’s talking about?’
Carter regarded her for a moment, then said quietly, ‘They’re the ones who took Sian.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jane stared at him for a moment, then stormed across to the door and yanked it open. ‘Robert, outside. Now!’
She waited until he’d joined her in the hallway, then closed the door behind them ignoring the quizzical looks from the others, and then she wheeled on Carter. ‘No more bullshit, tell me what’s going on.’
‘Jane, I don’t know
‘Well you seem to know a damned sight more than I do. Is this about what happened at the hotel the other night?’ Her voice had a hard edge to it, a bottom of the bottle finality.
‘Yes.’ It was hard to explain to her what he was still interpreting himself.
‘You’d better explain,’ she said. ‘And make it good. Between you playing your cards too close to your chest, and the Coffee Kid in there with the holes in his socks, I’ve just about had enough.’
He was silent for a moment, and she could almost see the turmoil in his mind reflected in his eyes. When she spoke again her voice was softer. ‘Please, Rob. I need to know.’
He stared at her for a long moment. Finally he sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘In the vision you had at the start of the seance you saw Gemma being dragged through the mattress of her cot, and you saw the helicopter sinking into the ground.’
She nodded.
He continued. ‘The images are the same. Something being pulled from this world, down into another. It ties in with what happened to me at the hotel. I was pulled into the pond. Grabbed and pulled down through the water. I must have blacked out because the next thing I was aware of was waking up in some kind of stone chamber. I can’t swear to it, but I had the feeling it was deep underground.’
‘And Sian?’
‘She was there.’ He took a breath, almost a sob. ‘Christ, Jane, they’d ripped out her eyes!’
‘Do you still think Sian’s alive?’ Jane said when he’d finished relating the events of that night.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know for sure. The whole thing could have been some kind of illusion. But it certainly felt real enough.’
‘So what connects Sian’s disappearance with what’s happening here on the island? There’s four hundred miles between the two.’
‘You made the connection yourself.’ He was lighting a cigarette but Jane held up her hand to refuse the one he offered her.
She thought for a moment. ‘The ley line you mean? We haven’t actually established that such a ley line exists. There’s certainly no record of one. I had Martin Impey check the database and he came up blank. If the Department hasn’t got it charted, then it’s probably not recorded anywhere.’
Carter blew shrouds of smoke into the air. ‘But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. You know as well as I do that their location is unreliable, not completely charted.’‘
‘Agreed, but even if there is, I don’t see how it moves us forward any. I still can’t see how it links Sian to Kulsay.’
‘Unless something is using that ley line and others like it to reach out from the island. Think about it, Jane. The population of the island disappeared. The Waincraft team disappeared. Sian disappeared.’
Jane stood and paced. ‘But why only take
‘I don’t know and, believe me, that question nags at me like a toothache. I can only assume it’s part of a
