'Yes, I can believe that. But as I said when you came in, you look a trifle peaky.'

'What happened shook me as well as the other dinner guests,' he said testily.

He felt uncomfortable under her gaze and looked away, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his cords. For a moment it had seemed she had looked into the very core of him.

'All right, Mr Childes, I don't intend to pursue that particular matter any further. However, I do suggest you consult a doctor at the earliest opportunity; your fainting spell may well be a symptom of some hidden illness.'

He was relieved, but said nothing.

Miss Piprelly lightly tapped the blunt end of a fountain pen on the desktop as if it were a gavel. 'Victor Platnauer also brought something else to my attention, something, I'm afraid, to do with your past history, Mr Childes, and of which you have omitted to inform me.'

He straightened in his seat, body tensed, hands clasping his knees, knowing what was coming.

'I refer, of course, to the unhappy dealings you had with the police before you came to the island.'

He should have realized it would not be forgotten so easily, that England was too close, too accessible, for such news not to have travelled, and to have been remembered by some. Had Platnauer always known? No, it would have been mentioned long before. Someone had told him very recently, and Childes smiled to himself, for it was so obvious: Paul Sebire had 'looked into' his background a either that, or Amy had told her father a and passed on the interesting information to the school governor. In a funny way, he was glad the secret was out, even though he considered it to be nobody's business but his own. Suppression leads to depression, right? he told himself.

'Right,' he answered.

'I beg your pardon?' The headmistress looked surprised.

'My "dealings with the police" as you put it, were purely as a source of information. I helped, in the true sense, with their investigations.'

'So I gather. Although your method was rather peculiar, wouldn't you say that?'

'Yes, I would say that. In fact, the idea still astounds me. As to my not having informed you when you hired me, I hardly thought it necessary. I wasn't criminally involved.'

'Quite so. And I'm not making an issue of it now.'

It was Childes' turn to be surprised. 'My, uh, standing here isn't affected in any way?'

The ticking clock timed the pause. Six seconds.

'I think it only fair that I tell you I've asked our police department to supply me with more information on the matter. You should appreciate my reasons for doing so.'

'You're not going to fire me?'

She didn't smile and her manner had its usual brusqueness, but he regarded her with new interest when she said: 'I see no reason for doing so; not at this stage, at any rate. Unless you have anything further to tell me right now, anything that I'll probably find out anyway?'

He shook his head. 'I've got nothing to hide, Miss Piprelly, I promise you that.'

'Very well. We have a particular need for your special abilities, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to spare La Roche more of your time, and that I've explained to Victor Platnauer. I must admit he was reluctant to see my point of view at first, but he's a fair-minded man. He will, however, be keeping a close eye on you, Mr Childes, as I shall. We've agreed to keep the whole affair strictly to ourselves: La Roche would find any such publicity regarding yourself totally unacceptable. We have a long-established reputation to protect.'

Estelle Piprelly sat back in her chair and, even though her body was still ramrod straight, the position seemed almost relaxed for her. She continued to study Childes with that unsettling, penetrating gaze and the fountain pen stood stiffly between her fingers, base resting on the desktop, like a tiny immovable post. He wondered about her, wondered about her sudden frown, what she was reading in his expression. Was there just a hint of alarm behind the thick lenses of her spectacles?

She quickly recovered, leaving him unsure that he had seen any change at all in her demeanour.

'I won't keep you any longer,' Miss Piprelly said curtly. 'I'm sure we both have lots to do.'

I want him out of the room, she thought, I want him out now. It wasn't his fault, he wasn't to blame for this outrageous extra sense he possessed, just as she was not responsible for her own strange faculty. She could not get rid of the man on that basis; it would have been too hypocritical, too cruel. But she wanted his presence away from her, now, that instant. For a moment she had thought he'd seen through her own rigid mask, had sensed the ability in her, an unwelcome gift that was as unacceptable to her as adverse publicity was unacceptable to the school. Her secret, her affliction, was not to be shared; it had been too closely guarded for too many years. She would take the chance of keeping him on a he was owed that much a but she would keep away from him, avoid unnecessary contact. Miss Piprelly would not give Childes the opportunity to recognize their similarity. That would be too foolhardy, too much to give after so long. Dangerous even, for someone in her position.

'I'm sorry, Mr Childes, is there something you wanted to say?' She deliberately quelled her impatience, years of self-discipline coming to her aid.

'Only thanks. I appreciate your trust.'

'That has nothing whatsoever to do with it. If I thought you untrustworthy I wouldn't have employed you in the first place. Let's just say I value your expertise.'

He rose, managed to smile. Estelle Piprelly was an enigma to him. He started to say something, then thought better of it. He left the room.

The principal closed her eyes and let her head rest against the high-backed chair, the sun on her shoulders unable to dispense the chill.

Outside in the corridor, Childes began to shake. Earlier that morning, he had assumed he was in control, that much of the anguish had been purged the day before, literally walked from his system, so exhausting him that when he returned home sleep would overwhelm him. And it had. There had been no dreams, no restless turning in the bed, no sweat-soaked sheets; just several hours of oblivion. That morning he had awoken feeling refreshed, the sighted images of Saturday evening a contained memory, still disturbing but at least uneasily settled in a compartment of his mind. Subconscious reflex, self-protecting mental conditioning; there had to be a legitimate medical term with which to label the reaction.

The morning newspaper had easily shattered that temporary defence.

Still he had gone through the motions of everyday living, unnerved but determined to get through the day. Halfway there and then his meeting with Miss Piprelly. Now he was shaking.

'Jon?'

He turned, startled, and Amy saw his fear. She hurried to him.

'Jon, what's wrong? You look awful.'

Childes clung to her briefly. 'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'Can you get away for a while?'

'It's still lunchbreak. I've got at least half an hour before my next lesson.'

'A short drive then, to somewhere quiet.'

They parted when footsteps echoed along the corridor, and turned towards the stairs leading to the main entrance, saying nothing until they were outside, the sun warming them after the coolness of the school's interior.

'Where were you yesterday?' Amy asked. 'I tried to reach you throughout the day.'

'I thought you were showing Edouard Vigiers around the island.' There was no criticism in his response.

'I did for an hour or so. He understood my concern for you, though, and suggested we cut it short. I wasn't terribly good company, I'm afraid.' They walked towards the car park. 'I came by the cottage, but there was no sign of you. I was so worried.'

'I'm sorry, Amy, I should have realized. I just had to get away, I couldn't stay inside.'

'Because of what happened at dinner?'

He nodded. 'I hardly ingratiated myself with your father.'

'That's not important. I want to know the cause, Jon.' She took his arm.

'It's starting all over again, Amy. I knew it that time on the beach; the feeling was the same, like being somewhere else, watching, seeing an action taking place and having no control over it.'

They had reached his car and she noticed his hands were trembling as he fumbled with the keys. 'It might be a good idea if I did the driving,' she suggested.

He opened the car door and handed Amy the keys without argument. They headed away from the school, taking a nearby winding lane that led to the coast. She occasionally glanced at him while she drove and his tenseness was soon passed on to her. They parked in a clearing overlooking a small bay, the sea below a sparkling blue, hued green in parts, lighter in the shallows. Through the open windows of the car they could hear the surf softly lapping at the shingle beach. In the far distance, a ferry trundled through the calm waters towards the main harbour on the eastern side of the island.

Childes watched its slow progress, his mind elsewhere, and Amy had to reach out and turn his face towards her. 'We're here to talk, remember,' she said. 'Please tell me what was wrong with you on Saturday.' She leaned forward to kiss him and was relieved that his trembling had lessened.

'I can do better than that,' he told her. 'I can show you.' He reached over to the back seat and unfolded the newspaper before her. 'Take a look,' he said, pointing a finger.

'"INFANT'S GRAVE DESECRATED",' she said aloud, but the rest was read silently, disbelievingly. 'Oh, Jon, this is horrible. Who could do such a thing? To dismember a child's corpse, to . . .' She shuddered and jerked her head away from the open page. 'It's so vile.'

'It's what I saw, Amy.'

She stared incredulously at him, her yellow hair curling softly over one shoulder.

'I was there, at the graveside. I saw the body being torn open. I was part of it somehow.'

'No, you couldn't have . . .'

He gripped her arm. 'I saw it all. I touched the mind of the person who did this.'

'How?' The question was left hanging in the air.

'Like before. Just like before. A feeling of being inside the person, seeing everything through their eyes. But I'm not involved, I've got no control. I can't stop what's happening!'

Amy was shocked by his sudden abject terror. She clung to him, speaking soothingly. 'It's all right, Jon, you can't be harmed. You're not part of it, what's happened has nothing to do with you.'

'I had my doubts on that score the other night,' he said, drawing away. 'I wondered if I were only recalling violence I'd committed myself, certain acts my own mind had blanked out.' He indicated the newspaper. 'This occurred on the mainland on the night I was at your home. At least that fact came as a relief.'

'If only I could have been with you yesterday to knock that silly idea out of your head.'

'No, I needed to be alone. Talking wouldn't have helped.'

'Sharing the problem would have.'

He tapped his forehead. 'The problem's inside here.'

'You're not mad.'

He smiled grimly. 'I know that. But will I stay sane if the visions keep coming at me? You have to know what it's like, Amy, to understand how scary it becomes. I'm left ragged when it's over, as if a portion of my brain has been eaten away.'

'Is that how you felt last time? In England, I mean.'

'Yeah. Maybe it was worse then; it was a totally new experience for me.'

'When they found the man responsible for those killings, what then?'

'Relief. Incredible relief. It was as though a huge black awareness had been released, something like, I'd imagine, when someone suffering from over-sensitive hearing suddenly finds the overload has been blocked out, that their eardrums have finally managed the correct balance. But strangely, the release came before they tracked the man down; you see, somehow I knew the exact moment he committed suicide, because that was when my mind was set free. His death let me go.'

'Why him; why that particular murderer, and why only him? Have you ever wondered about that?'

'I've wondered, and I've never reached a satisfactory conclusion. I've sensed things before, but nothing startling, nothing you could describe as precognition or ESP, anything like that. They've always been mundane, ordinary stuff that I suppose most people sense: when the phone rings you guess who's at the other end even before you pick it up, or when you're lost, guessing the right turn to make. Simple, everyday matters, nothing dramatic.' He shifted in the car seat, eyes watching a swooping gull. 'Psychics say our minds are like radio receivers, tuning into other wavelengths all the time, picking up different frequencies: well, maybe he was transmitting on a particular frequency that only I could receive, the excitement he felt at the kill boosting the output, making it powerful enough to reach me.' The gull was soaring upwards once more, its wings brilliant in the sun's rays.

Childes twisted round to face Amy. 'It's a stupid theory, I know, but I can't think of any other explanation,' he said.

'It isn't stupid at all; it makes a weird kind of sense. Strong emotions, a sudden shock, can induce a strong telepathic connection between certain people, and that's well known. But why now? What's triggered off these psychic messages this time?'

Childes folded the newspaper and tossed it onto the back seat. 'The same as before. I've picked up another frequency.'

'You have to go to the police.'

'You've got to be kidding! That kind of publicity finished off my marriage and sent me scuttling for cover last time. Do you really imagine I'd bring it all down on myself again?'

'There's no alternative.'

'Sure there is. I can keep quiet and pray that it'll go away.'

'It didn't last time.'

'As far as I know, nobody's been murdered yet.'

'As far as you know. What happened the other week, when you saw something that shook you so much you nearly drowned?'

'Just a confused jumble, impossible to tell what was going on.'

'Perhaps it was a killing.'

'I can't ruin everything again by going to the law. What chance would I have at La Roche or the other schools if word got around that there was some kind of psychic freak teaching kids on the island? Victor Platnauer's already gunning for me and I'd hate to gift-wrap more ammunition for him.'

'Platnauer?'

He quickly summarized his meeting with Estelle Piprelly.

'I think Daddy had a hand in this,' she said when he had concluded.

'And did you tell your father about me? I'm sorry, I didn't mean that harshly a there's no reason for you to keep secrets from your family, so I wouldn't blame you if you had.'

'He got the local police to look into your history. I had nothing to do with it.'

Childes sighed. 'I should have known. Anything to break us up, right?'

'No, Jon, he's just concerned about who I get involved with,' she half-lied.

'I can't blame him for getting upset.'

'Acting a wimp doesn't suit you.' She touched his lapel, her fingers running along its edge, a frown hardening her expression. 'I still think you should inform the police. You proved last time you weren't a crank.'

He held her moving fingers. 'Let's give it a bit more time, huh? These . . . these visions might just amount to nothing, might fade away.'

Amy turned from him and switched on the ignition. 'We have to get back,' she said. Then: 'What if they don't? What if they get worse? Jon, what if someone is murdered?'

He found he had nothing to say.