Black Cathedral (department 18)

by L. H. Maynard

  ‘Golden opportunities often hide demons that come up and bite you on the ass when you’re not looking.’ Anderson had collected a variety of truisms during his business life and enjoyed sharing them with those he was mentoring.

  ‘Then I’ll consider myself well and truly bitten,’ she said. ‘What’s been happening here?’

  Anderson leaned back in his chair. ‘Nothing much. There are a few civil cases pending. The helicopter pilot’s family has lodged a negligence suit against us, but Legal don’t think it’s got legs. The fact that both Harrison and the helicopter disappeared and no wreckage was found doesn’t give their lawyers much to work with. What’s to say he didn’t just fly off somewhere? For all anyone knows he could have flown out to the Caymans or the Bahamas, sold the chopper and is now living a life of luxury. The only other pressing matter is the party tomorrow.’

  ‘Is everything ready?’ She was making short work of the sandwiches.

  ‘My secretary’s dealing with it, but I understand the caterers and the pianist are booked; thirty-five guests have confirmed.’ He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. ‘I still think it’s impolitic to be going ahead with the party,’ he said.

  Irritation flared in Jessica’s eyes but it was gone in an instant, to be replaced by an easy smile. ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, and nothing to be ashamed of,’ she said. ‘No one will be looking at what happened on Kulsay and blaming us for it. Hell, hardly any of them will have heard of Scotland, let alone a remote island.’

  ‘Except Harrison’s family,’ Anderson said. Voicing remorse for an employee was uncharacteristically humane for the notoriously hardhearted Anderson. Jessica wondered whether he was unwell.

  ‘They won’t be here,’ Jessica said, her voice cold. ‘I’ve told you before; you worry too much about what people think.’

  ‘Now, listen. I’ve spent forty years building my reputation. I’m not prepared to sit back and see you destroy it. I’ve given you every advantage; the best schools, a Harvard education, but in some ways you’ve learned nothing. Your arrogance will be your undoing. You think you’re fireproof, but this Kulsay fiasco has proved you’re not. You’re out of your depth, Jessica. My only decision is whether to throw you a lifeline or let you drown.’

  She regarded him coolly, but inside her emotions were writhing. ‘We’ve let it be known that we’re doing everything humanly possible to get to the bottom of what happened on the island. If we cancel the party, at such short notice, the media will be all over us. They’ll take it as an admission of culpability.’

  ‘They might see it as a demonstration of restraint and humility.’

  ‘We’ve nothing to hide,’ she said again, desperately trying to stand her ground. ‘Our hands are clean. The party will show that.’

  He shrugged and got to his feet. ‘If you say so. But if there’s any flack flying around I may not be in a position to protect you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to. I’m a big girl now,’ she said.

  ‘Not to me,’ he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s good to have you home.’

  She covered his hand with her own. ‘It’s good to be home,’ she said. At that moment they were both sincere.

  She watched the door close behind him and bit her lip. She was scared; more scared than she’d been in her life. Everything now rested on the collective shoulders of Jane Talbot, Robert Carter and the rest of the team on Kulsay. She prayed they wouldn’t let her down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Carter awoke in a circular stone chamber with rough-hewn walls and a ceiling so high it was lost in the darkness above. His thoughts were hazy. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. The stone floor was cold, freezing cold, and the chill seeped through his clothes and into his body, taking up residence in his bones and making him shiver.

  There was enough light in the chamber for him to see the walls, but he couldn’t make out where the light was coming from. There were also soft noises — the muted sound of someone crying.

  He manipulated himself up into a sitting position and realized his clothes were sopping wet, as were the stones on the floor around him. It was a small wonder he felt so cold.

  He wasn’t alone in the chamber. Sitting on the floor, twenty feet away from him was a naked figure; a girl, head bowed, arms wrapped around her legs, face pressed against her knees, crying softly.

  ‘Where are we?’ he said to her.

  She didn’t respond, but sniffed and continued to cry. He got up and moved slowly across the stone floor, not wanting to alarm her. When he was within a few feet of her he saw something that made him pause. On the girl’s naked shoulder he saw a tiny tattoo of a rose. He recognized it. ‘Sian?’ he said.

  Still the girl didn’t look up. She hugged herself tighter as if trying to hide her nakedness. He put out a hand and stroked the spiky black hair. ‘Sian, it’s me. It’s Robert.’

  The girl said something between sobs that sounded like, ‘Go away.’

  He crouched down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch but didn’t pull away.

  ‘What is this place?’ he said.

  ‘Hell,’ the girl said, her voice muffled.

  ‘Sian, look at me. It’s all right. I’m here now.’

  For a moment the girl’s body tensed, as if she might spring away from him, then the tension left her body and she leaned into him.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said again, cupping his hand under her chin, trying to lift her face.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Please, Sian,’ he said, his voice gently insistent.

  Slowly the girl raised her head from her knees and turned her face to him.

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ Carter couldn’t help the involuntary exclamation.

  The face he was looking into belonged to Sian Davies, but there was something horribly wrong with it. Where the eyes should have been there was nothing but empty holes, bloody sockets. The eyes had been ripped out.

  He pulled her close, hugging her tightly, as if holding her could repair the damage to her ravaged face. ‘Oh Christ, Sian. Who did this to you?’

  ‘They did.’ She started to cry again, harder this time, her shoulders heaving as the sobs wracked her body.

  ‘Who are they?’ Carter looked around but couldn’t see anyone.

  She took a lungful of air, struggling to control her breathing. ‘The ones who took me from the car! The ones who brought me here!’

  ‘I don’t understand, Sian.’

  A shudder passed through her body. He held her tighter.

  ‘Why did they take you?’

  ‘Because of you!’ she shouted at him, her voice rising hysterically. ‘ To make you come here.’ She started to sob again, her whole body shaking and heaving. ‘They tore out my eyes to stop me from seeing them,’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ he said.

  ‘A noble sentiment,’ a voice said, a male voice, deep and sonorous.

  He jerked his head up, looking for the source of the voice, but there was nobody else in the chamber.

  ‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘Show yourself!’

  ‘As you wish.’ Another voice sounded behind him; higher pitched than the first — almost feminine.

  Carter spun round.

  Three figures stood by the wall, tall and imposing, cloaked in gray, cowls covering their heads, making it impossible to distinguish features or gender. Carter scanned the wall quickly looking for a doorway, or some gap in the smooth stone; some way the figures could have entered the chamber. He saw nothing.

  Carter stood up and took a step towards them. ‘What do you want with us?’

  Nothing, only silence.

  The figures were drifting in and out of focus, shimmering, as if they were standing behind a heat haze.

  ‘Let the girl go.’ Carter took another step and was about to move again when the figure to the left raised its arm. He froze midstride, unable to m
ove.

  ‘Why should we?’ Three voices merging into one; baritone, tenor and soprano, speaking in a macabre harmony.

  ‘She’s done nothing to you.’ Carter struggled to move his body but it was useless. He was paralyzed.

  ‘Bring us the others!’

  The central figure raised its arm and Carter was hurled backwards through the air. His body hit the wall, the back of his skull cracking against the rough stone. With a groan he slid down the wall to the floor and darkness enveloped him.

  Jane switched off the phone and threw it down on the bed just as Kirby emerged from the en suite bathroom wrapped in a white fluffy towel, her dark hair hanging in wet ringlets about her face.

  ‘Problems?’ Kirby said, pointing at the phone.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘It was hard not to.’ She sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed another towel and rubbed her dripping hair. ‘So, do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bore you.’

  ‘You won’t. Honestly.’ Despite her youth there was a sensible maturity about Kirby that Jane had always liked.

  ‘It’s just my mother being…well, mother. She’s looking after the girls for me and never misses an opportunity to tell me what a terrible parent I am.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Kirby said.

  ‘Not according to her. I take it you heard about David and me?’

  ‘Was it supposed to be a secret? Hard to keep, secrets, when you’re surrounded by psychics. Actually, Raj told me. Don’t ask me how he knew though.’ Kirby smiled sympathetically. ‘It’s a shame. I always thought you and David were rock solid.’

  ‘We were…once.’

  ‘What happened?’ Kirby continued towel drying her hair but was wholly focused on Jane.

  ‘The job happened.’

  Kirby reached across to the dressing table, picked up her hair dryer and started blasting her curls. ‘Did I ever tell you about Malcolm?’ she said over the noise of the dryer.

  Jane shook her head.

  ‘We were together for about five years. I didn’t tell him about the job at first. For ages he thought I worked in the Civil Service — which I suppose was true in a way. It was only after we’d been together for quite a while — a few months, I think — that I told him what I actually did.’

  ‘How did he take it?’ Kirby had never opened up about her private life before.

  ‘He was fascinated. He wanted to know all about it; what cases I was working on — all the details. Looking back on it now, I think his interest bordered on the unhealthy. It became something of an obsession for him. He started spending hours on the Internet, researching psychic phenomena and all the related mumbo jumbo. I suppose he was trying to find out what made me tick.’ She switched off the dryer and ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing out the curls. ‘The turning point came when I was sent to investigate that house in Bradford. Do you remember the one? The Lockhart family?’

  Jane nodded. She had a photographic and retentive memory, and could list all the cases, certainly the recent ones, without reference to any notes.

  ‘If you remember, they had the teenage daughter — a troubled soul — and there was an awful lot of poltergeist activity. Things moving from room to room, clothes ripped to shreds, all manner of noises and smells. Well, everything was fine until we started getting similar activity at home. Malcolm was a keen golfer and he got home one evening to find that a couple of his clubs had been taken from his bag, twisted into pretzels and dumped on the bed.

  ‘He was angry at first, but gradually, as more and more things happened, he started to get freaked out by it. It was when he started getting messages flashing up on his computer screen — rather bizarre messages, mostly of a pornographic nature — that he turned on me. I could understand that the poltergeist activity was affecting him, but he was also freaked out by me, or rather by my abilities, and had been for a while. He couldn’t really deal with the fact that I was psychic; couldn’t get his head around it at all. He thought I had the power to read his mind and tell what he was thinking, and that bothered him a lot.’

  ‘And could you? Tell what he was thinking, I mean.’

  ‘Of course I could. But there was nothing paranormal about it. He’s a man, for Christ’s sake. And Malcolm was not the most complex of the species; not by any stretch of the imagination.’

  Jane laughed.

  ‘Anyway, I sorted out the poltergeist thing, but shortly after that he packed his bags and left. He just couldn’t handle it…me…anymore.’ She put the dryer down on the bed. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that these powers we possess, what ever they are, set us apart from the rest of them; the normal ones. We can’t help it and, I suppose, neither can they.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ Jane said.

  ‘Think about it. Of the five of us here, who has a stable relationship? None of us. John — single for as long as I’ve known him. Raj — his partner, Neena, walked out on him three years ago and there’s been no significant other since. Me; I’ve just told you. Since Malcolm there’s been no one else, and in all honesty I’m in no hurry to put myself through the wringer again. Now you.’

  ‘John has been alone since his wife died.’

  ‘Christ, I didn’t know that,’ Kirby said, her hand fluttering at her lips.

  ‘That’s okay and anyway you forgot Robert.’

  ‘Well, you know him better than I do, but from what I’ve heard my theory applies to him as well.’

  Jane wondered what she was implying, but let it slide. She didn’t really want to delve deeper on the subject of Robert Carter’s love life. ‘You’re forgetting something. I’m not a psychic.’

  Kirby’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I think I’d know.’

  ‘Well that’s not what I’m getting from you. I’ve always thought it. Takes one to know one, as they say.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Kirby. You’ve got your wires crossed. I have no psychic ability whatsoever.’

  Kirby shrugged. ‘If you say so.’ In her experience this wasn’t something about which a person could be persuaded. It was far too personal.

  Outside thunderheads were gathering ominously again, rolling in from the sea; black nimbus clouds, bunching in the sky, heavy with rain. They let loose a flicker of lightning then, a few seconds later, growled ominously.

  ‘Sounds like we’re in for a rough night,’ Kirby said. ‘Let’s hope it blows itself out by the morning. I don’t fancy a boat trip to the island in a full-blown storm.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Jane said and got up from the bed, crossing to the window to peer out at the night. As she reached the window the hotel grounds were lit up by lightning and, for a split second, the silver flash illuminated the fountain. As was the prone figure lying at its base. ‘What the hell…’

  ‘What is it?’

  Jane pressed her nose to the glass, peering out into the murky, rain-swept night, the rain-chilled window misting with her breath. Impatiently she rubbed the condensation away with the sleeve of her shirt. The lightning flashed again. She saw the fountain again but the figure had gone.

  ‘Jane?’ Kirby could tell something was bothering Jane.

  She turned away from the window. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I thought I saw something, but I must have imagined it.’

  ‘I think we’re all a little jazzed at the moment,’ Kirby said. ‘After reading the report on the island and knowing we’re going to be living there for a while, I don’t suppose that’s very surprising.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Jane said, but she was distracted now. She was certain there had been someone lying at the base of the fountain. And she was pretty certain she knew who it was.

  The grass tasted sweet. Fat raindrops the size of pennies spattered on his back but Carter made no effort to move; he was just relieved to be away from the circular chamber. He felt exhausted and a large bump was swelling on the back of his head where it had cracked agai
nst the wall. The experience had drained him. He rolled over onto his back, letting the rain hit his face. A flash of lightning split the sky and a few beats later a peal of thunder rumbled through the night. The intensity of the rain increased.

  Gradually his strength returned and he pushed himself into a sitting position. Standing, his legs were weak, threatening to give out from under him. He took a few tentative steps; so far, so good. The hotel seemed miles away but he put one foot in front of the other and by the time the lightning crackled again he’d reached the entrance.

  The reception desk was empty, the dining room in darkness. He took the stairs one at a time, using the handrail to haul himself up. He couldn’t believe how weak he felt; it was as if he’d left all his strength behind him in the chamber. After what seemed ages he reached his room and unlocked the door. The room was in darkness. He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Raj was sleeping. He could hear the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing.

  Creeping across to his own bed he stripped off his sodden clothes and lay down on the soft mattress. He closed his eyes but sleep was hours away. Instead his mind played reruns of his experience in the chamber. He couldn’t rid himself of the image of Sian’s ruined eyes — the dark empty sockets still managed to look at him accusingly. Lying there in the darkened room he tried to convince himself that what he’d seen was just an illusion, the images planted in his thoughts, but a small, hectoring voice lurked at the back of his mind whispering, it wasn’t an illusion. It was real. The bump on his head certainly was, and it was aching abominably.

  There was something else that evidenced that what had happened was real. Clenched in his left hand were a small gold cross and a broken chain. Sian’s.

  He suddenly felt very cold. He pulled the duvet up to his chin. It was going to be a long night.

  Fiona Whyte watched from the darkened office at the back of the reception desk as a soaking wet Robert Carter entered the hotel and went up to his room. He looked disoriented, unsteady on his feet. Earlier one of the dining room staff overheard a conversation Carter’s group was having over their meal. They were departing for Kulsay Island in the morning. Yet another investigation. Fiona had been on duty when the team from the Ministry of Defense had stayed here earlier in the year and they had been downright weird; evasive to the point of rudeness. She knew full well what they were investigating, despite their efforts to keep it secret, and she was pretty sure that this group was doing much the same.