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 are out of your mind.’
‘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 board?’
Several of the women laughed. Celeste laughed with them, which angered Jessica.
Celeste stroked her face. ‘Poor Jessica. We don’t need to get on board.’
‘Celeste, I’m tired. I just want to sleep. What’s going on?’
Miranda Fry had opened her purse. ‘Celeste, do you want to use mine?’
The older woman shook her head sadly. ‘Thank you, no. It has to be mine.’
She opened her own purse and took out a small revolver.
Jessica backed away. ‘What…’
Celeste sighed. ‘I do genuinely regret this Jessica, though you won’t believe me. The Sorority doesn’t need you anymore. We have our passage to Kulsay. You’d only be, I am afraid to say, a hindrance.’ She hesitated, almost as if there was genuine regret in her actions. ‘I would always have to doubt your allegiance wouldn’t I, Jessica?’
With that she shot Jessica three times in the chest and once in the head.
As Jessica slumped to the tarmac, quite dead, the group of women sank slowly into the ground until there wasn’t a sign of them having been there save for the gentle waft of Chanel No. 5.