I didn’t answer. But it seemed that whoever had killed Rory McDougal and Sylvie Binns was still on the island.

Which left me wondering—who was going to be next?

SEARCH PARTY

Janet Rhodes didn’t make it to breakfast.

There were just the five of us, sitting in the kitchen with five bowls of cornflakes and a steaming plate of scrambled eggs that Brenda had insisted on cooking but that nobody felt like eating. Libby had another cigarette in her mouth but everyone had complained so much that she wasn’t smoking it. She was sucking it. Eric was still in his robe, a thick red thing with his initials—ED—embroidered on the pocket. Mark was wearing a track suit. A security camera winked at us from one corner of the room. There were a lot of security cameras on the island. But none of us felt even slightly secure.

“What are we going to do?” Brenda asked. I got the feeling that she hadn’t slept very much the night before. There were dark rings under her eyes, and although she’d put on lipstick, most of it had missed her lips. “This island is haunted!” she went on.

“What do you mean?” Eric asked.

“Last night . . . my window . . . it was horrible.”

“I’ve got quite a nice window,” Tim said.

“I mean . . . I saw something! A human skull. It was dancing in the night air.”

So she’d seen it, too! I was about to chip in, but then Eric interrupted. “I don’t think it’s going to help, sharing our bad dreams,” he said.

“I didn’t dream it,” Brenda insisted.

“We’ve got to do something!” Mark cut in. “First Rory, then Sylvie. At this rate, there won’t be any of us left by lunchtime.”

“I don’t want any lunch,” Libby muttered.

“We need to talk about this,” Eric said. “We need to work something out. But there’s no point starting until we’re all here.” He glanced at the clock. “Where the hell is Janet?”

“Maybe she’s in the bath,” Tim suggested.

“In the water or underneath it?” Eric growled.

The minute hand on the kitchen clock ticked forward. It was nine o’clock. Suddenly Mark stood up. “I’m going upstairs,” he announced.

“You’re going back to bed?” Tim asked.

“I’m going to find her.”

He left the room. The rest of us followed him, tiptoeing up the stairs and along the corridor with a sense of dread. Actually, Eric didn’t exactly tiptoe. He was so fat that it must have been quite a few years since his toes had tips. Mark Tyler had moved quickly, taking the stairs four at a time as if they were hurdles and he was back at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. He was outside the door when we arrived.

“She’s overslept,” Tim said to me. “She’s fine. She’s just overslept.”