jetty.’ Bennett noticed there was no ‘sir’ this time. ‘I understand they want a team bonding week but seven days is a long time without some home comforts.’
They wouldn’t have their allotted seven days. The walls of the Manse began to move during the night; the ground around the perimeter rising and falling as if it was a duvet being shaken into place.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was like waiting outside the headmaster’s study at school.
Robert Carter had mixed memories of school. He had enjoyed the social side of it, though he had kept in touch with none of the other boys. He had quite liked the education, finding learning, in most subjects, satisfying and stimulating. The discipline was a different matter. He had hated being told what to do, and as a result he quickly collected a reputation for challenging teachers, for disrupting classes with his questions. The corridor outside the headmaster’s room was soon familiar to him, and six of the best from the bamboo cane became a regular punishment.
Now, sitting on a chrome and leather chair that was excruciatingly uncomfortable despite looking chic and modern, waiting for Crozier to usher him in, the memories flooded back. The door opened and Crozier popped his head out for a moment, beckoning Carter in. A sudden flashback of being fifteen and walking nervously into the headmaster’s study washed over him and he was unsettled as Crozier closed the door behind him.
‘Robert,’ Crozier said with apparent warmth. ‘And how are you?’
For a Georgian building in the center of London’s Whitehall area the office was loudly modern. There was the ambience of a newly opened and longing to be fashionable restaurant about it. Though discreetly set on the desk were all the apparatus of a high-powered executive. Which in many ways was exactly what Crozier was.
Carter was aware that his superior was looking at him and realized he was waiting for a reply. ‘Any news on Sian?’
Crozier glanced out of the window for the barest of moments and Carter knew what the answer would be. ‘Have you seen the report from the cleanup team?’
Carter shook his head. If Sian hadn’t been found that probably meant she was still alive. The chances were her body would have shown up on the various scans of the area the Department would have organized as standard procedure if she had been killed and dumped.
There was disapproval on Crozier’s face that the report hadn’t been read and inwardly digested but Carter knew that was unreasonable given he had slept for sixteen hours once he got home. ‘Your car was thoroughly investigated, of course.’ Crozier looked up like a cat might glance at a mouse. ‘It was clean. No blood traces, no traces of…what were they you mentioned, beetles? The house was taken apart inch by inch, you know the drill.’
Carter knew from the deliberate hesitation that the news would not be good for him. Crozier was enjoying this. He was toying with Carter as a prelude to something worse to come. Not that it concerned him. His only worry at that moment was Sian.
A brief flicker of annoyance that his prey had not yet bitten rippled across Crozier’s lips but it soon passed as he slipped back the professional mask. ‘Apparently the house was untouched.’
He had no alternative but to react to that. ‘What about the wallpaper? The kitchen?’ The beetles in the dining room were still vivid in his mind. The crockery smashed in the kitchen, the smells and the noise when he went back into the house after making sure Sian…after thinking he had made sure she was safe.
Crozier flicked a non ex is tent piece of dust from his desktop. ‘Sorry, Robert, can’t help you there. The house was as clean as the day the Flemings moved out. Cleaner in fact, as the team found no psychic traces of any kind.’ This was said with a note of disbelief as if he wanted to believe Carter’s version of events but just couldn’t.
Except Carter knew his wasn’t a
There had been powerful forces in that house and if they were gone a day later then they must have been there for a reason. As Sian had disappeared at the same time, then either she or Carter must have been the reason.
There was a knock at the door and Trudy, Crozier’s secretary, walked in with a tray of cups, saucers and a teapot. The reputation of the English government flourishing on a diet of afternoon tea and digestive biscuits was kept alive in this part of the establishment.
Carter needed to get away and think. For months now incidents had been building that could only partially be explained. They had culminated in the episode at the house but other events had occurred on a regular enough basis to alert someone with Carter’s abilities. He needed to go home and run through the notes he had been making.
The tea had been poured, the milk and sugar added and Crozier was nibbling on a digestive. ‘You see the position I find myself in, Robert?’
‘What position is that?’
‘Do I have to spell it out?’ The cat was preparing to pounce.
Carter finished his cup of tea, placed the cup delicately onto the saucer and smiled at Crozier. ‘I rather think you do, yes.’
Crozier stood and walked to the windows. Looking out he could see the traffic starting to build up. The roof of Buckingham Palace was visible a short distance away. The flag was flying, indicating the Queen was in residence. Strangely, since the Helen Mirren film had been so successful the popularity of Her Majesty, already generally high, had soared.
‘Very well.’ Crozier turned to Carter. ‘You fouled up, Robert. Made a complete balls-up of what should have been a simple poltergeist investigation. Christ, it was only a favor for a colleague because the house belonged to a member of their family. How could it go wrong?’
Carter stood, and although he hadn’t intended it to, the chair toppled over backwards. Crozier took a step back as though he had been threatened. ‘That was no simple haunting…’
‘So you say…’
‘I’m the expert, remember? It’s what I do. There were forces, very strong…that’s why Sian…’
‘Which brings us to the most serious aspect of the matter.’
If he hadn’t realized it before, he was under no illusions now. This was a disciplinary meeting. How Crozier must have enjoyed setting the agenda for this.
When Carter didn’t reply Crozier continued. ‘You lost an employee on a case. Not just lost but “mislaid.” Your verbal report cannot be substantiated, and the cleanup team has found not a single trace of evidence to support your apparent sightings. You lost it, Robert. Your nerve, your powers, what ever way you want to dress it up. You cost Sian Davies her life.’
Carter walked across to Crozier, nodded once, then hit him hard on the jaw.
CHAPTER SIX
The last few hundred yards were agony. They were breasting a hill and could see the Manse in the distance, but for Michael Bennett and Eddie Farrant it looked to be miles away. The other runners had left them behind halfway round the cross-country course, and the two men were tired, thirsty and thoroughly humiliated. Farrant glanced round at Bennett, who was trying and succeeding to match him pace for pace. He swore under his breath. Bennett was ten years older and twenty pounds heavier than him. The sweat was flowing freely down the older man’s face and his mouth sagged open, wheezing in breath after breath, trying to force air down into his lungs. His eyes were bleary and unfocused and his skin was bright pink, like a lobster just out of the pot.
In the distance Farrant could see the others reach the Manse and stop and collapse to the ground in exhaustion, but could also hear the whoops of triumph. They’d made it; they’d completed the course and were celebrating. He still had two hundred yards to run, on legs that felt like jelly, with his rival both here and at work,
