Kirby reached across and hit another two keys. Jane’s voice issued from the laptop’s inadequate speakers. She sounded tinny and far away.
‘…blame yourself for this, Raj. We’re all under a lot of stress.’
Silence. Jane took a step towards him.
‘ We must talk about it,’ Jane said. ‘Or at least talk to Robert. He’ll know the best way to proceed.’
Carter winced at this. He had no idea what had just happened, and was at a loss to know what to do next. He watched Jane move closer still to Raj. The man w asn’t responding. He could be carved from stone. Carter squinted his eyes to get a closer look at him. He was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. ‘Can we zoom in on Raj?’
Again Kirby reached over and pressed a couple of keys. The image of the man sitting on the floor filled the screen. Carter studied the image closely, and then froze. ‘What’s that in his hand?’
Kirby zoomed in closer.
Clenched in Raj’s bloodied fingers was a shard of glass, six inches long and wickedly pointed.
‘Pull back,’ Carter shouted.
The camera retreated in time to show Jane crouching down in front of Raj.
‘Jane, no!’ he shouted and, tossing the laptop to Kirby, ran to the door, wrenching the handle. Locked. He started beating on it with his fist. ‘Jane! Get out of there!’ He remembered the broken window. There was still a chance. He pushed through the others and ran to the front door.
In the library Jane glanced back at the door with irritation. She turned back to Raj who had now raised his head and was staring at her. Raj’s lips moved and Jane leaned in closer to catch what he was saying. And as she leaned in Raj lashed out, swinging his arm in a wild arc.
The shard of glass sliced through the soft tissue of Jane’s arm, missing the artery but causing blood to pour from the wound.
Jane slapped Raj around the face. The blade of glass fell from his fingers. With an angry roar Jane picked up the glass and swiped it across Raj’s neck, severing his windpipe and cutting his carotid artery. As blood pumped from his neck Raj tumbled backwards, hitting the floor, the impact sending a fresh spray of blood into the air. His fingers scrabbled at his throat, trying in vain to close the wound, but the more he struggled the more the air pumped from his lungs and he could feel the warm breeze from his windpipe on his blood-wet fingers.
As he lay there on the carpet, his life draining away in a crimson pool, Raj was changing. His face was shifting, stretching and ageing, until Jane was staring at her mother’s disapproving features.
‘Such a disappointment, Jane.’
‘I know, Mum. I’m sorry.’ She moved her lips but spoke the words in her head.
‘Such a disappointment.’
Raj’s eyelids fluttered shut.
‘Raj!’ Carter was at the window, frantically trying to haul himself over the sill, but there was still enough glass in the shattered window to impede him. ‘Jane!’ he shouted.
‘You’re too late,’ Jane said. She was standing now, the bloody shard of glass still gripped tightly in her hand.
Carter stared at her, torn between revulsion and uncertainty. A slow smile spread across her lips. ‘Much too late,’ she said, and started to sink through the floor. A few feet away from her Raj Kumar gave a final red- speckled exhalation and quietly died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The telephone next to Jessica Anderson’s bed rang, waking her from a deep and dreamless sleep. She rolled over and clamped a pillow over her ears but could still hear the shrill electric tone through the thick pad of duck feathers. Eventually she could bear it no longer. She threw the pillow across the room with a curse and grabbed the receiver, pressing it to her ear. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.
‘Jessica, darling, it’s Celeste. Did I wake you?’ It might have been midday from the alertness in the woman’s voice.
‘It’s three o’clock in the morning, Celeste. Of course you woke me.’ She tried to inject a small amount of affection in her words but she felt murderous.
‘Good. Be at the airport in an hour.’ The alertness was mixed with cold instruction.
Jessica sat upright in bed, the pillow falling onto the floor. ‘Are you out of your mind? Why the hell would I want to go to the airport at this time in the morning?’
‘Because I have my Lear there, fuelled up and ready to go. We’re going on a trip.’ She sounded like a mother presenting an errant daughter with a rare treat.
‘A trip? A trip where?’ Was this some romantic interlude?
‘Scotland. Well, the Lear will take us to Aberdeen Airport; from there we’re getting a helicopter to Kulsay.’
Jessica picked up the glass of water sitting on her night-stand and took a sip, washing away the fur on her tongue. ‘Celeste, you
‘I’ve just come from a meeting with the Sorority. It’s been agreed that we need a presence on the island, to oversee what’s happening there.’
‘No, I’m sorry. I’m not flying to Scotland at three o’clock in the morning.’
‘Sorry, sweetie,’ Celeste said in her honey voice. ‘It’s a done deal. We’re going. Unless, that is, you want to upset the Sorority,’ she added silkily. The menace was floating on the surface.
Jessica took the phone away from her ear and glared at it venomously.
‘Are you still there?’ Celeste said after a long moment.
Jessica sighed and put the receiver back to her ear. ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she said, resignation in her voice.
‘Fine. See you in an hour then.’
‘Yes,’ Jessica said, and placed the receiver back on its antique-style cradle.
She threw back the sheets and padded through to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later she’d showered and washed her hair. She wouldn’t have time to dry it so she pulled it back into a severe ponytail and secured it with a band, then she threw a few changes of clothes into a suitcase, and added half the contents of her dressing table.
When she was packed and dressed she picked up the phone again and hit the intercom button.
It was an age before Jennings, the chauffeur, answered. His voice sounded sleepy.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ she said. ‘I have to go out. Bring the Mercedes round to the front of the house.’
‘Where are we going, ma’am?’
‘The airport.’
‘The airport,’ he repeated. ‘Very well.’
The Lear was waiting on the runway. Celeste Toland had met her at the entrance to the airport and swept her through passport control with the ease of the heavily influential. As she walked across the tarmac Jessica looked up into the Lear’s cockpit. The pilot was young, fresh-faced and wore heavy dark glasses, despite it being the middle of the night. He was reaching up and adjusting something above his head. Then, as if aware he was being watched, he glanced down at Jessica, smiled slightly and threw a salute.
‘He looks very young to be flying planes,’ Jessica said to Celeste. ‘No more than a child.’
Celeste took her arm and guided her towards the steps. ‘Don’t worry,’ the older woman said with a smile. ‘Jackson’s very experienced. And I don’t just mean his piloting skills.’ She gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Jealous?’
‘What, of Flyboy? Hardly.’
‘Good. You needn’t be. It’s you I love.’
And Jessica didn’t believe that either.
At the steps to the Lear, Jessica was surprised to see the rest of the group that called itself the Sorority. They all greeted her warmly but none made a move to get onto the plane.
Eventually Jessica lost her patience. ‘You’ve got me up at the ungodly hour. Can’t we at least get on
