Free Island-in-Waiting by Anthea Fraser

it.” His eyes slid away from me. “So I – muscled in on the act, as you might say.”
    The silence between us was thick and suffocating. “Go on,” I said.
    â€œIt was like bugging a phone, but as it turned out only partially successful. I think the old devil imposed a block somewhere along the line. I could get through to you all right, but nothing came back. It was maddening, knowing you were receiving but not your reactions. All that came over was a kind of quivering electrical response.”
    He turned from me and lit a cigarette. “We had one hell of a row about it. He knew I was tapping the current somewhere and he couldn’t stop me. What really got him was that it was himself had taught me how.” He blew out a succession of smoke rings as I sat unmoving. “I don’t know why I went on with it; sheer bloody-mindedness, I suppose. At any rate every now and then, to prove to myself I could still call you up, I made contact, and gradually it got me hooked. I just had to find out who you were.” He paused again and again I remained silent.
    â€œUncle had gone to ground in some grotty little office in Chester. In spite of being cleared he wouldn’t even contemplate hypnotism again and of course he wasn’t trained for anything else. So I went to all the trouble of rooting him out but the stubborn old fool still wouldn’t budge and of course your name had been kept out of the papers – protecting minors or something. So my only hope was to bring you to the island.”
    It seemed imperative that I make some move to assert myself. My brain was reeling with implications too enormous to comprehend but I managed to say shakily, “I came here to visit Hugo.”
    He ignored the interruption. “It’s been a long wait. I was beginning to get desperate. Oh, there were a couple of false alarms – wishful thinking really – but when you did come I knew at once, even before I saw you.”
    I closed my eyes, remembering the mental bombardment from the garden gate – and the little symbolic black cloud.
    â€œSometimes,” I said hastily, staring down again at my twisting fingers, “I have very vivid dreams. I think they’re set here and some of them seem to take place in the island’s ancient past. Is that – do you –?”
    He shook his head. “Not guilty. You’re probably receiving them direct from old Tom. You’re still linked to him, after all, and he’s nuts about the place. When I was a kid we’d walk for hours out on the fells while he told me all the old legends about bugganes and phynnodderees and the rest. It was himself took me to see Granny Clegg. She’s a weird old soul living down on the harbour at Peel, and what she doesn’t know about the island isn’t worth knowing at all.”
    Granny Clegg. There would come a time when she might be able to help me –
    I said sharply, “It doesn’t seem to occur to you that I might resent being taken over like this. Anyway, you’ve proved your point, or you seem to think you have, so will you please stop it now and let me go.”
    â€œLet you go, is it?” There was a note in his voice which brought the gooseflesh to my skin. “Now why should I do that? Haven’t I only just succeeded in getting you here? No, I’ll not let you go, Chloe, don’t think it. You belong to me. Surely you can see that? I told you so yesterday.”
    My heart lurched. The unexpected intrusion of Tom Kelly had momentarily blotted out the extent of my problem with Ray. Now I saw that this was deeper and more threatening than I could have imagined and to ward off the sudden personal element I said quickly, “What did you mean about my still being linked to your uncle?”
    â€œWell, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The connection was never broken. O.K., you were brought round eventually, but by someone else. The