The Colony Part 6

'Did he or she comment on the experience?'

'I've no idea of who the photographer was. An agency was commissioned to carry out the a.s.signment. Sygma, I believe.'

La.s.siter nodded and peeled off the cotton gloves. They were slightly damp now to the touch. He turned and made to leave.

'Spend tonight in company, if you can, Mr La.s.siter,' Fortescue said into his wake.

Gloom had descended when he left the museum. The sky had become overcast and the cobbles were greasy with rain. When he got out of the museum precincts, to where the traffic flowed, the dimmed headlamps of cars were streaks and daubs of light emerging and disappearing through grey air. The weather had been sunny for so long he had forgotten how gloomy the world could appear.

He very badly needed a drink. There was no waiting today for the healer. He needed it before nightfall.

He found a pub and bought a double scotch. The place was busy, nowhere to sit at the bar among the press of thirsty customers vying to be served. A football match, he thought, but then noticed how well-dressed the punters were, men and women both. Football matched weren't played in England in June. A race meeting at Aintree, he thought, it was the height of the National Hunt season, wasn't it?

The pub was late Victorian, engraved ornamental windows, heavy oak fixtures, a heaving saloon and a snug to the rear which looked a quieter refuge to a man seeking somewhere peaceful in which to sip a restorative drink.

All the tables but one in the snug were taken and the one was half taken, a woman seated at it with her head over a book and no gla.s.s in front of her. She didn't look as though she was waiting for a companion to return from the bar or lavatory.

She had a self-contained air. She wore her hair in a precisely cut black bob and its geometric frame emphasised the paleness of her skin and the vivid red of the lipstick she wore. She was a strikingly attractive woman and she would probably suspect his motive in asking but he needed somewhere to sit. She'd soon realise her caution unnecessary. Fearful and distracted as he was, he was in no mood to chat anyone up.

'Excuse me, Miss. Is this seat taken?'

She looked up at him from her book. She was stylishly attired in a black wool coat with twin rows of gilt b.u.t.tons. Her eyes were a brown so dark that in the diminished light of the pub, they were almost black. She snapped the book shut in her hand. Her voice was only a hoa.r.s.e whisper when she said, 'You should leave this matter be, Mr La.s.siter. No good can come of it.'

She stood and slipped out of the snug doorway in one swift movement and so disappeared from sight. For a moment he was too stunned to react. Then he followed her. The crowd in the saloon was a boisterous human obstacle to anyone trying to heave through it to the entrance. But she had gone. There was no sign of her at all.

He went back to the snug. She had left her book on the table top. In her hands, it had appeared new, a vivid matt orange jacket binding pristine pages within. But abandoned there, he saw that it was a battered old Penguin paperback, the cla.s.sic livery, its cover sun blistered and lotion smeared from beach reading and its pages mottled by the pa.s.sage of time. It was Mary Sh.e.l.ley's Frankenstein.

He had stumbled about three blocks with no clear destination in mind and the strengthening rain had drenched him by the time he found the mental composure to pause and fumble for his mobile in the shelter of the doorway of a derelict shop. He called the museum and asked for the Keeper of Artefacts.

'I was about to turn it in for the day, Mr La.s.siter. You're lucky to catch me.'

'I think I might have seen a ghost.'

There was a silence on the line. Then, 'David Shanks?'

'A woman, early 20s, immaculately groomed, pale complexioned and wearing her hair in a black bob. She was seated. When she stood, she was quite tall.'

'She didn't really look very much like a student, did she? She certainly didn't have the look of a 70's feminist. I don't think she'd have been seen dead, frankly, in a boiler suit.'

'What do you mean?'

'You've just described Elizabeth Burrows.'

La.s.siter swallowed, 'Really?'

'To the life,' Fortescue said.

'When did she kill herself?'

'In the autumn of 1971.'

'She knew my name,' La.s.siter said, forlornly. But there was no one to hear him say it. Fortescue had broken the connection.

Chapter Four.

Blake watched the construction team unload their raw materials from the payload bays of the two Chinooks envious of the professionalism and urgency they showed. They had obviously been briefed on the volatility of the weather and construction was weather dependant. They wanted to get as much done as they could before there was any deterioration in the prevailing conditions that might hamper their efforts.

They looked fit and purposeful in their blue livery and bright hard hats and utility belts, with their gleaming power tools and all-round dynamism. From time to time their foreman glanced skyward. He looked like a man who led a crack outfit. Blake envied him that.

They would be working to a price. It was in their interest to get the job done with the minimum of fuss and in the shortest time possible. They weren't interested in the island or its mysterious reputation. Or if they were, they didn't show it outwardly. They loaded the trailer attached to the stubby little four-wheel drive vehicle rolled out of a chopper's belly and they transported their sections of timber and t.i.tanium and Kevlar toughened fabric the 500 metres from the landing spot to the site of the experts' camp.

Blake envied them their sense of purpose. They were half a dozen men literally doing something constructive. He led a team of five. They comprised the Seasick Four and the ex-sergeant-major Paul Napier, a war hero whose nerve had deserted him three years ago in Afghanistan.

He had some sympathy for Napier. He'd heard about the circ.u.mstances of the action which has robbed the SM of his nerve and didn't think he knew of anyone sane who'd have emerged from the incident without trauma. But practically speaking, he was saddled with four overweight, clueless stiffs and a man still a victim of battle shock. And there was something about the island that made him think he'd need far more formidable back-up than McIntyre's organisation had provided him with.

Quad bikes would have been a start, he thought to himself. The terrain was ideal for them. They would have raised the collective morale of his little force. Treat men with respect give them the tools for the job and their ability and willingness to do it increases exponentially. Aboard a quad bike, given that crucial extra mobility, he would by now, he thought, have indentified the interloper he was pretty sure was lurking clandestinely on the island and had been since before his team's arrival.

He wasn't given to fanciful thinking. He had a trained mind and had done the courses and was schooled to reason in a focussed and disciplined way. He didn't think some folk-singing phantom haunted New Hope in the way that poor, damaged Napier seemed to. But he had the strong feeling of being watched and over the course of his career had been in enough hostile places to suspect that the scrutiny wasn't friendly.

Someone was there who wasn't supposed to be. He'd have bet a month's salary on that. The reason for their presence there, he was less sure about. He didn't think it was a journalist covertly waiting to steal the New Hope scoop from under the noses of McIntyre's people. There would be no scoop until the experts arrived and their arrival was still more than a week away. Even then, there was no guarantee of a story. The Island might sustain its well earned reputation for mystery. The experts might reveal absolutely nothing new at all. And anyway journalists weren't hostile. They were always curious and could be a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance, but they didn't generally give off the raw malevolence he'd personally sensed from whoever covertly studied him on New Hope.

Blake would find that person. It was his duty to his employer to do so and professional pride would insist that he succeed in finding, confronting and exposing them. A weapon would be useful, he thought. Even a side-arm, a Sig-Sauer pistol or a bog standard Browning automatic would be both a comfort and a useful tool.

He'd begin his search in earnest once the construction guys had built the camp and departed. Their presence, their diversionary industry, was too loud and intrusive to allow him to stalk and nail the island's trespa.s.ser.

He'd do it when they'd gone. He would not, could not involve the Seasick Four in the mission. They'd likely turn a pursuit into a pantomime. The real question was whether he would involve Napier. He hadn't yet decided about that. Napier was eminently well-qualified, but could he deal with hostile action? Would involving him be remedial for the man and useful for him, or would Napier, nerve shot, prove a hopeless liability?

Blake grinned wryly to himself and remembered the singing Napier had imagined at dusk on their first evening there as they walked the perimeter together. Just as he was fostering a bit of camaraderie, the ex-paratrooper had gone all weird on him. f.u.c.k it, he thought, with a quad bike pang. No wheels and no weapon, but the island is small and I'm pretty handy with a knife. The feeling of being watched was irritating, like an itch you couldn't scratch. It was persistent and it bothered him.

You think you're sly and clever but I'll track and find you, you f.u.c.ker, Blake thought. And when I catch you, you won't f.u.c.king know what's. .h.i.t you.

In a weird way, he felt that whoever was skulking around the place was actually doing him a favour. The pursuit would provide him with a bit of focus and excitement. The p.i.s.s-poor quality of the people under his command was something that could get to him and affect his own morale. Having a mission, a specific task within his remit would help raise his own spirits and sustain his concentration and discipline.

The construction team foreman had barely looked at him when he introduced himself and shook hands prior to the necessary ritual of checking their doc.u.mentation. The contempt had been almost palpable. A Heckler and Koch semi-automatic strapped across his chest would have made all the difference in the world where that was concerned. Civilian life was not the army, a fact that brought fresh indignities with it all the time. But he still possessed his lethal army skills and a growing inkling that in this windswept and barren patch of bird s.h.i.t and bog, he would yet get the opportunity to use them.

McIntyre told Karl Cooper what La.s.siter had told him about his Liverpool experience over dinner at his home. He said that he'd sent La.s.siter to examine some items that had belonged to Seamus Ballantyne. He said that among those items had been a pocket watch. The watch, when recovered from a locked sea chest, was ticking strongly and showing the correct time. This was despite it having been stored there undisturbed for several years. La.s.siter further claimed that the watch had spent better than a decade in the mid-twentieth century in the possession of the crofter David Shanks.

Cooper was recently familiar with the name of Shanks. McIntyre had shown him the film shot on New Hope Island in the 1930s. He hadn't really said much about it at the time of the showing. He'd grown pale watching it. The footage didn't make for comfortable viewing. His only comment at the time had been that he thought the film probably genuine. It was too disturbing to be faked.

The meal the two men had just shared had been genuinely convivial. McIntyre enjoyed Cooper's company as well as his expertise and insights. In some ways he thought of Karl almost as a surrogate son, so close was the conviction they shared about the existence of intelligent life beyond earth's boundaries. He felt affection as well as admiration for this young man, with his crystalline intellect and unforced charisma. Cooper had prospered despite a modest upbringing. It was an achievement they had in common.

He had uncorked a bottle of brandy, laid down when Napoleon Bonaparte still ruled France and its First Empire, before Cooper chose to comment. It was an extravagant gesture but one McIntyre felt his respect and fondness for his guest justified. Besides, they were on the brink of an historic discovery. He thought of the picture in his school history book of Napoleon in Egypt contemplating the secret of the Sphinx.

They were seated by now on the sun terrace of his house, enjoying the views out over London from the top of Highgate Hill and smoking McIntyre's cigars as evening embraced the world.

'And you're concerned by what you've told me?'

'I am, Karl. Very.'

'La.s.siter's a drunk. That's the impression you've given me of him.'

'He's an alcoholic. There's a difference. I wouldn't employ a drunk. He wouldn't work under the influence. He's too fastidious for that. And he's exceptionally good at what he does. I believe the experience he endured in that museum in Liverpool to have been genuine.'

'All experiences are subject to interpretation.'

'I know that. I was happy to believe David Shanks brought his apparition with him to New Hope Island. I couldn't see that black magic or paranormal phenomena of any kind had anything to do with the fate of the original community. I could think of only one plausible explanation for the vanishing.'

'There is only one plausible explanation,' Cooper said, reaching to tap ash from the tip of his cigar. 'We both know that.'

'Shanks dabbled in magic,' McIntyre said. 'At least, there's compelling circ.u.mstantial evidence to suggest he did so and that he later lived to regret it.'

'Thus the unwelcome subject of his home movie,' Cooper said, 'New Hope's spectral little squatter.'

'A 200 year old watch, apparently winding and setting itself in a locked chest in a museum bas.e.m.e.nt is a separate matter, however, for which I can think of no explanation which offers any comfort at all.'

'Swiss precision,' Cooper said.

McIntyre smiled, despite himself. 'Very droll,' he said.

'You have only La.s.siter's word, about the watch.'

'Which I've just told you, I trust.'

'He could have made the story up to make his work on your behalf seem more important than it really is.'

'The experience scared him,' McIntyre said. 'He wasn't trying to impress me in recounting it.'

'Kinetic energy,' Cooper said, after a pause. 'There must have been a tremendous release of kinetic energy when the alien s.p.a.cecraft landed and its occupants made contact. That could affect something as complex as a watch mechanism. It might generate power in the watch movement for centuries.'

'Except that the watch never went to New Hope Island,' McIntyre said. 'It was left behind in Liverpool in the possession of Rebecca Browning. It's not a relic of the New Hope community, Karl, but a souvenir of Ballantyne's seafaring life. All of the stuff in the chest pre-dates the New Hope experience. None of it ever went near the island.'

Cooper was quiet for a moment smoking, contemplating, absorbing this information and its implications. He sipped from his gla.s.s. Then he said, 'Shanks stole the watch, right?'

'He stole something. The watch had far greater intrinsic value than anything else in the chest. La.s.siter quite reasonably concluded it was the artefact stolen.'

'So for more than a decade, that pocket watch was in the possession of a black magician. Its mechanical mischief, if La.s.siter's to be believed, is more likely than anything to be a consequence of that fact. Like that apparition he captured with his cine-camera, it's to do with Shanks and his demonic dabbling and not the Island at all. It has nothing to do with the disappearance of the community. It has nothing even to do really with Seamus Ballantyne.'

'd.a.m.n David Shanks,' McIntyre said. 'That man didn't just try to settle on New Hope, Karl. He contaminated the place.'

'We're talking about a revenant apparition.'

'And a delinquent timepiece,' McIntyre said.

'For which I keep reminding you, we only have La.s.siter's word. Keep things in proportion. It doesn't amount to a curse. You have people on the Island, right?'

'A small security team has been there for a week. An ex-Royal Marine captain by the name of Blake is in charge. One of the chaps with him was awarded the Military Cross during his third tour of duty with the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan.'

'Good men then, reliable, presumably vigilant, well-qualified. Have they reported anything out of the ordinary?'

'They've reported nothing whatsoever.'

'There you are.'

'There's a construction crew there too as of this morning,' McIntyre said, 'building the living quarters you and the others will occupy. I suppose if New Hope was afflicted by ghostly goings on, someone would have radioed in to comment on it or complain.'

'But no one has.'

'Not yet.'

'There are no ghosts, Alex. There was never anything magical or paranormal there. Not in the time of the settlement. There was no ma.s.s suicide induced by ma.s.s hysteria. There was no fatal epidemic of disease and the people didn't embark from the island aboard a fleet of boats for pastures new without leaving a note. They were taken. They were chosen and taken by benign and curious visitors to our world and when I get there I promise you I'll uncover the proof of that.'

'And you still believe they left a calling card?'

'Somewhere on the island, I'm convinced they did,' Cooper said. 'And when I find that, you'll have your world exclusive. And I'll have my first solid step on the route to establishing formal contact. It'll be a moment for the world to gather breath.'

'It'll put both our names in the history books.'

The two men were poised, about to clink gla.s.ses in a toast to that happy thought, when the phone at McIntyre's elbow rang. He picked up he receiver and listened for a while and then grunted one unintelligible word and replaced it.

'Trouble?'

'That was Carrick, the paper's features editor. One of our team of experts has rendered himself indisposed.'

'Which?'

'Simon Hawsley-Smith, the spiritual medium.'

'No great loss,' Cooper said.

'We need to be seen to cover every eventuality, Karl. We need to be authoritative and scrupulous and professional. This is the definitive investigation into perhaps the greatest unsolved mystery of modern times.'

'So long as you don't lose our forensic archaeologist,' Cooper said. 'The ground there is going to yield some interesting secrets. He'll be more than useful. He's indispensable.'

'La.s.siter knows a psychic,' McIntyre said.

'You put too much store in La.s.siter, Alex.'

'She's genuine, he says, highly gifted, if reluctant.'

'If she's genuine then it's no surprise she's reluctant,' Cooper said. 'A dialogue with the dead can't be a comfortable encounter.' He emptied the contents of his gla.s.s into his mouth and gulped appreciatively. 'Think she can be persuaded?'