Lunch was adequate if plain. In answer to Carol’s question, Meredith said that Joyce Mair and Ann Parish were cooking the meals. As Carol had surmised, they had brought calor-gas cookers­ with them. Smith and the other men took it in turns to wash the dishes and keep the fires supplied with fuel.

‘Then Paul and I must take our fair share of the work,’ Carol stated.

‘All right.’ Meredith smiled.

‘You were going to tell us how you came to be up here, Mr Meredith.’

‘Ah yes. Tell me, Mr Wilson, do you know anything about psychical research?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘What’s your own line of work, if I may ask?’

‘I’m a stockbroker.’

‘H’m. A bit far from my field.’

Carol drank some water.

‘Isn’t extrasensory perception to do with using card guesses to test if people have telepathic or clairvoyant faculties?’

‘That’s part of it, Mrs Wilson. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Psychical researchers, or parapsychologists, are interested in any phenomena that shed light on the personality of man, that seem to indicate that our so-called hard material world – which incidentally has taken a severe bashing in recent years at the hands of theoretical physicists – is only one facet of reality.

‘I am the director of a parapsychological institute situated at Benmore House on the island of Mull. Dr Arnold Bourne here is from the Baird Neurological Research Institute at Bristol. Some time ago he stayed with us on Mull taking part in some of our work.’ His face carefully neutral, he looked at Bourne who watched him, a tiny smile on his clever, sarcastic features. It’s more than dislike that they have for each other, thought Carol.

‘I think it fair to say that Dr Bourne, initially sceptical concerning the whole world of “psi”, was so changed in his views by his experiments with some of our subjects, in particular two girls, that he has ever since retained a keen interest in the field.’

‘Now, Meredith, don’t give the impression that I am an out-and-out believer. I will grant you that in certain limited areas there are indications that there’s something worth investigating. But so much is wishful thinking, bad experimental technique or downright fraud.’

‘That may be, Bourne, but you wouldn’t have joined this project if you thought it was a bus ride to nowhere. However, let’s not bore our friends with arguments. The point is that Dr Bourne, while doing research on changes of EEG patterns with altered states of consciousness, came across something rather interesting.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Paul. ‘You’ve lost me. What is EEG? And what are “altered states of consciousness”?’

Meredith was seemingly taken aback by this display of ignorance. Bourne, in his slightly down-talking, didactic way, filled the gap.