Waking the Witch (The Witch of Cheyne Heath Book 1)

by W. V. Fitz-Simon

  The manila envelope was in the middle of his suitcase, becoming covered by socks and underpants. She pulled it out and opened it up to find an ornate carved wooden box.

  “What’s this?”

  “Careful.” He dropped his dress shoes on the bed and took the box from her. “A bottle of brandy. Ruinously expensive. Apparently, they’re connoisseurs.”

  He replaced the box in the case and surrounded it with clothes as if it were a rare artifact being shipped to a museum.

  “I saw something else.”

  “What was that, darling?”

  He was only humoring her, his mind elsewhere.

  “I had another vision of Mick.”

  That stopped him. He frowned at her as he tucked his wash bag between his socks and underwear.

  “Another vision? Just now?”

  “In a dream.”

  “Oh.” He smiled. She could have sworn with relief. “A dream. Darling, you went through a traumatic experience. It’s bound to disturb you.”

  She slid off the bed and grabbed his hands before he could dive into the cupboard for dress shirts.

  “It wasn’t just a dream.”

  He kissed her on the forehead.

  “I don’t mean to be cruel, but Mick’s gone. We’ll find out what happened, I promise, but I have to leave if I’m to get up to Glasgow in time.”

  In a matter of minutes, he was packed, dressed, and one foot out the door.

  “I’m so sorry.” He kissed her on the lips as they stood on the front steps in the chilly night. “When I get back, we’ll talk. Promise me you’ll look after yourself?”

  Her head spun, the brisk night air cooling her headache, making room for her confusion. He’d been called away on trips before, but never in the middle of the night. And why was he so disinterested in Mick’s death? He’d been needling her about Craft and Influence for years.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “The boys will keep me company.”

  “If I’m not back in time, give Miranda my love.”

  He put his suitcase down and wrapped her in his arms and kissed her again.

  “I’m doing this for you, for us. I hate how you and I have been distant. When I return, it’ll be different, I promise.”

  He picked up his suitcase and skipped down the stairs to the car idling in the street without looking back.

  She held her robe closed against the chill and watched as he slipped into the back seat and drove off. The car slid further and further away into the darkness, until all she could see were the twin red pinpoints of taillights, the lights winking out as it turned onto Manor Road. The night grew quiet, the ringing in her ears drowning out what little sound there was on Canterbury Gardens at this godforsaken hour of the morning.

  Her skin rippled with goosebumps, the stone of the top step rough under her bare feet as she stared into the dark.

  For a few brief minutes it was as if they were still in love, but now, standing on her own on the front steps in the middle of the night with the cold seeping in through her robe, she realized he had brushed her off, distracted her with sex. Was it Mick he didn’t want to talk about, or Influence?

  She shivered, feeling exposed and vulnerable. What was that hideous creature in the men’s room? Was that the presence that had scared her witless and sent her running?

  The thought of dipping her toes into all that madness brought exhaustion crashing down on her. How could she get her head right? She needed someone to talk to. She was having lunch with Miranda the day after tomorrow. If only she could talk to her, but she had problems of her own and, anyway, Gosha had never had the courage to reveal her secret to her.

  Her stomach gurgled as she shut the front door. She’d forgotten to eat. In the foyer, the ornamental clock on the side table informed her the time with a gentle, off-key chime. Midnight. Never the best time to face your troubles, even on a full stomach.

  On her way upstairs with a plate of Mrs. Dearing’s cooking in hand, she passed Cressida peering out from her bedroom through a crack in the door.

  “Go back to bed,” she hissed, but she could have shouted at the top of her lungs and not disturbed the boys. They slept like the dead.

  10

  She woke up angry. A night of troubling dreams had eaten into her rest: the vision of Mick’s last moments intermingled with George and Cressida laughing, George and Cressida kissing, George and Cressida having sex in this very bed. She rolled over in disgust and stamped into the bathroom.

  Her makeup remained flawless, despite a rough night’s sleep and a bucket’s worth of tears. Her job in Mrs. Halliwell’s shop in the village taught her many things, not least the secrets of blending, contouring, and highlighting. With no models of flattery and courtesy in her immediate family to draw on, learning the art of making people look and feel beautiful under Geraldine at the makeup counter might have been a challenge, but working on commission was a powerful motivator. Once in London and in need of a job, she was surprised to discover how much she’d learned about building connections over the miserable hours watching her mother trap the visitors to her kitchen in search of relief from their troubles in a web of obligations. All Gosha’s secret advantages propelled her to become one of the most sought-after makeup artists in London in the days before she discovered her love of photography. But no amount of makeup could hide the tiredness in her face.

  Her eyes were red, her skin clammy and soiled. Cold cream, another of her special recipes, and a scalding hot shower were usually enough to wipe away the residue of the night before, but even the sounds of the Radio 1 breakfast show cranked on the transistor radio in the bedroom couldn’t dislodge the unease that clung to her over her visions of Mick and that presence in the men’s room.

  The clock read nine when she got out of the shower. She pulled on a pair of ripped and safety-pinned black jeans and her favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt and walked out onto the landing. The house was quiet. Cressida rarely got back from taking the boys to school until ten, and Mrs. Dearing wasn’t in today.

  The creative chaos in her studio after weeks of preparation had become the stale leavings of a long-ago party that ended in tragedy. She brushed aside a stack of reference books, took out a pad of paper and sat at her desk to make a list of everyone she knew with some connection to Craft and Influence. It was a short list: George, his father, her mother.

  There must be someone else, surely?

  As she looked around the room, her mind wandering in search of anyone else she could turn to, her eyes fell on an old photo of George in a pair of swimming trunks, sitting on the beach in Venice, his long legs and broad shoulders covered in oil and glistening in the sun. His body the night before had been as excited and eager as when they first made love, but the memory turned sour as fragments of dream came back to her, George and Cressida making love mingling with her memories, re-stoking her fury.

  They were having an affair. She was certain.

  She padded down to the kitchen, pausing at every landing to listen for sounds of movement. Satisfied she was alone, she ran back up to Cressida’s bedroom and stopped at the door. If she was wrong, she was about to commit a terrible violation of trust. But if she was right…

  She knocked on the door.

  “Cressida? Are you there?”

  No answer.

  What would she have done if the girl had been there?

  On the verge of heading back up to the bedroom, a fragment of dream elbowed its way into her consciousness. George’s hand on Cressida’s thigh, his lips against hers, his tongue slipping into her mouth.

  The door opened with a click that echoed through the house like a gunshot and creaked like a haunted house warming up to scare its visitors to death.

  Cressida’s room was unremarkable, exactly what you’d predict for the bedroom of a twenty-two-year-old girl. The only surprise was a poster of Prince Charles looking down from the wall next to the more expected Adam Ant, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan. The dresser was a Vi
ctorian antique with a built-in mirror Gosha bought from a dealer with a stall at the far end of Morel Market. Perfume, makeup, and a jewelry box were strewn across its surface, a collection of silk scarves draped from the sides of the mirror.

  More than I ever had at 22.

  What would be evidence of an affair? Love notes? Expensive jewelry? A hidden fur coat? She pulled open the top drawer of the dresser: bras, panties, stockings, and socks, a few well-worn t-shirts, probably for sleeping. She hesitated before putting her hands in the drawer to rummage around.

  What am I doing?

  In her mind’s eye, George’s hand slid up Cressida’s thigh. His lips kissed her neck.

  A flush of angry heat washed away any reserve that might have held her back. If she was wrong, she was wrong, but at least she’d be able to put this maddening uncertainty behind her.

  Working her way through, drawer by drawer, she slid her hands around the edges of Cressida’s clothing in search of anything hidden. She took out each garment with care so as not to disturb its folds and laid them out on the bed. Cressida was a wealthy girl who didn’t need their money. What gift could George possibly give that would impress her? Cressida’s clothing was all run-of-the-mill preppy Sloane Ranger clobber you’d find in the pages of Harpers & Queen and Tatler. Nothing was out of place. Nothing reeked of an adulterer intent on seducing a younger woman.

  Ready to pack it in, she found a clue in the back of the bottom drawer. She fished out a familiar tube of lipstick with black square packaging, the gold logo on its side worn from use. Gosha twisted the base to wind up the stick of pigment: oxblood-hued, the brownish red of cured leather, a dark and dangerous shade. Bought from her favorite boutique in Kensington, long-since closed, it was a prized possession she only wore on the rarest of occasions. Once used up it could never be replaced.

  She wound the lipstick down and snapped it shut. So the girl was a thief. It didn’t prove she was having an affair with George.

  What would impress a girl like Cressida?

  A stack of dog-eared books lay on the bedside table: Jane Austen, the Brontës, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy. On the floor, by the wall, sat a portable record player, a turntable and speakers packed into the shape of a suitcase. Next to it stood a stack of albums, spines out.

  She looked up at the smiling, handsome, androgynous faces staring down at her from the walls and blotted out the anomaly of Prince Charles. Music would impress a girl like that, and George knew his way around a record bin. She kneeled by the record player and flicked through Cressida’s albums, finding signed copies of Diamond Dogs, Electric Warrior, and Rumors by Fleetwood Mac. These were George’s prized possessions. Gosha remembered how excited he was when he brought them home from the dealer. Only he was allowed to play them. He never even let anyone handle the covers, they were so precious to him.

  That was it. She had the proof she needed.

  She marched down the stairs, albums and lipstick in hand, to the telephone extension in the kitchen and dialed George’s office.

  “Do you have the number where George is staying?” she asked the assistant who picked up the phone.

  The girl rustled papers on the other end of the line in search of the information.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Armitage, I don’t have anything here. Let me put you on hold while I ask someone.”

  An old Kraftwerk track played through the receiver while Gosha waited for the girl to come back on the line. She could leave it till George got back to confront him, but she was too good at repressing all the things that made life harder to bear. By the time he returned, she might have convinced herself it would be better to suck up her jealousy and think of the boys. God knows, she’d done it before.

  “As far as anyone can tell,” said the girl, interrupting the flow of Teutonic synthesizers, “he should be in town. He has meetings this evening. Can I let the office know when he’ll be back?”

  What’s he doing? It’s not like him to just disappear.

  “He said he had a band he was courting in Scotland. They were threatening to sign with another management company.”

  “Please hold.”

  The messy distorted guitars of the Sex Pistols came on the line.

  That seems about right, she thought, the angry affront of the music matching her mood.

  “Gosha, darlin’.” Marty Suggs, a coworker of George and another of the many disgusting men that lurked around the edges of the music business, made her skin crawl. “Yeah, yeah. He’s up in Nottingham.”

  “Glasgow,” she cut in. “He said he was going to Glasgow.”

  “Right, right. Glasgow. He’s doing the good work, yeah? Defending the faith. I’ll have him call you when he checks in, yeah?”

  She hung up. Marty Suggs was definitely covering for George and doing a piss-poor job. Cressida had taken the boys to school, but perhaps she was meeting up with him later. Why would he not have done a better job covering his tracks?

  She went back to Cressida’s room and put the albums on the bed next to the piles of her clothes. The lipstick she slipped into her pocket as she set about putting everything back in the dresser, her mind drifting back to the night before. He had made a point of stopping her from seeing what he’d been up to in his study. Perhaps he left a clue. She dropped the pile of sweaters in her hands on the bed and went upstairs.

  The master suite took up most of the top floor, leaving only a small room for George’s study. It had enough space for his desk, a loveseat, a large bookcase for his album collection, and a chrome and glass cart carrying an expensive record player. She helped him furnish it when they first moved in a timeless gentlemen’s club decor. It was too stuffy for her taste.

  His desk, a kitschy affair of elaborate pseudo-Celtic carvings in heavy dark wood stood beneath the window looking out over Canterbury Gardens. Books, papers, and manila file folders spilled over an architectural plan of what Gosha realized was his father’s house in Merseyside.

  She looked through the papers. Most were reports on the state of his father’s finances, a healthy income from holdings and investments across the globe, much of it secreted in offshore bank accounts. How did George come across so much sensitive information when he and his father had such an acrimonious relationship? At the bottom of a pile of spreadsheets she found a manila folder stuffed with black and white photographs of Robert Armitage. The glossy black and white prints showed him getting out of cars, walking into office buildings, and dining alone at expensive restaurants. There were even shots of him through the windows of his mansion. At the back of the file a report detailed his movements over the past three months. George had obviously hired a private detective to dig all this up. Was that where he went?

  Nothing on the desk spoke of an affair. She opened up the drawers, but found little more than a few bottles of whiskey, unused legal pads, and a handful of pens. Crouching down to rummage through the bottom drawers, she found a hidden one under the desk, slim and wide with a tiny brass keyhole. She rattled at it, fully expecting it to be locked, but it slid open in her hands. Inside were two slim books, old clothbound editions with covers embossed in gold. The first was published in the nineteen-twenties. Its title, “An Occult History of the Great Saints of Britain,” embossed on it in gold, it was filled with biographical details of people she had never heard of dating back to medieval times. The second, “Rites of Ritual Purification,” read like a prayer book from some obscure Christian sect. She found a bookmark between the pages of a chapter on meditation. Had George joined a cult?

  As she stared out the window trying to put together what George was doing, she spotted a familiar shape walking toward the house, Cressida returning from her morning. With a start, Gosha realized the mess she had made in the girl’s bedroom. She wasn’t ready to confront the girl without conclusive proof.

  She dropped the books back in the drawer and ran down the two flights of stairs to Cressida’s room as she heard the front door slam shut. Panic froze her as she stood in front
of the bed, piles of clothing on the bedspread and all the dresser drawers open.

  “Mrs. Armitage?” Cressida called from the bottom of the stairs. “Are you up? Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  Gosha launched into action, doing her best to put everything, including the three incriminating records, back as Cressida’s footsteps grew closer. By the time she reached the landing, Gosha had everything away, but how would she explain being in Cressida’s room?

  The folding doors of the built-in closet were ajar. Without thinking, she slipped inside and hunkered down among boxes of shoes and pulled the doors to, hoping the girl wouldn’t open them up and find her. She felt ridiculous, like a badly written sitcom character, but it was too late. Through the slats in the doors, she watched Cressida enter and drop her handbag on the bed.

  The girl always had a peaceful, serene air about her that Gosha found attractive, thinking it a quality she would welcome in the house. It soon palled, even before Gosha’s suspicion of George’s infidelity began. Today was no different. The flush on Cressida’s glowing skin from the cold air made her seem even younger and Gosha feel even older, even though only eight years separated them. She took the jewelry box from the top of her dresser and placed it on the floor. From it she took a photograph too small for Gosha to make out and a sprig of brambles, which she propped up against the open jewelry box. Kneeling before the box, she bowed, touched her head to the floor, and sat back. A beatific smile spread across her face.

  What the hell is going on in my house?

  Without warning, pain lanced from temple to temple behind her eyes and she was no longer in the closet, no longer herself.

  Mick Trash’s last moments played before her eyes like a video she couldn’t switch off. His exhilaration turned to confusion and fear as he dissolved part by part into oblivion, the hideous creature stooping over him to watch him die.

  11

  She came to in the dark at the back of the closet. The bedroom was empty. Swaying with pain that lingered after the vision, she got to her feet and cracked the closet doors open. Up from the kitchen drifted the crisp sound of porcelain knocking against porcelain. Cressida must be downstairs putting away the dishes. Gosha slid the closet doors shut behind her, padded out onto the landing and up to the next floor, doing her best not to make a sound.