by Morgana Best
Barbara was still waiting for me by the front door, so I followed her out the door and looked up on the roof. Sure enough, there was Lily on the roof meowing and looking quite scared. Not far from her was an oversized, enormous brushtail possum. “Don’t go near that possum!” I called to the cat. “They have very sharp claws, and it’s much bigger than you are!”
Barbara looked at me as if I was crazy. “Your cat doesn’t understand what you’re saying, you do realize, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “But I have to get her down. Keep an eye on her, will you, and I’ll go and get a ladder.”
As I left to get the ladder, I could hear Barbara muttering that this would never have happened if I had a man. When I returned with the ladder, she was still muttering the same thing.
“How would a man stop the cat going up the roof to chase a possum?” I asked rather snappily.
“A man would get the cat down for you, Prudence,” she replied waspishly. “You shouldn’t be living on your own.”
I rolled my eyes. I thought perhaps I should add Barbara to my Most Not Wanted list, along with Constance.
I gingerly climbed up the ladder. The ground underneath it was slightly uneven so it wobbled. “Hey, Barbara, could you hold that ladder for me please?” I asked.
Barbara did as she was told. When I reached the roof, I climbed onto it, and then Lilly moved further out of range. The big possum hadn’t moved, and just continued to survey the situation. I was concerned that Lily would go after the possum, because they did indeed have very sharp claws and could be quite aggressive if threatened. “Here kitty, kitty,” I cooed at Lily, but in response she turned her back on me and stalked in the direction of the possum.
“Shoo!” I hissed. The possum just sat there, but Lily ran over toward it. I scrambled up the roof in the direction of both of them, and lunged for Lily. That scared the possum, and Lily as well. The possum ran in one direction, and Lily ran in the other. She ran to the silver birch tree near one corner of the house and nimbly climbed down it, leaving me alone on the roof.
“You don’t need to worry now, Prudence,” Barbara called out. “Lily is safely down.”
“I know that,” I said through gritted teeth. “But now I’m stuck up on the roof.”
“This wouldn’t happen if you had a man,” Barbara pointed out for what seemed like the millionth time.
I muttered some very rude words under my breath, and headed back for the ladder. The roof was quite steep, and it had been easier to go up than down. “Hang onto that ladder again, will you?” I called out.
I managed to maneuver from the roof to the ladder, but it wobbled as soon as it had my full weight on it.
Soon I was on the ground and Lily was sitting at the foot of the ladder, smirking at me. I grabbed her and headed inside, with Barbara hard on my heels. As annoying as her words were, I couldn’t help but feel as if she were right. It would be nice to have a man, Alum specifically. I like my own company, but it was hard to do everything myself, with no support, no one to talk to, no one to fetch my cat from the roof. And some love in my life wouldn’t be such a bad thing, I had to admit.
Alum to me seemed to be the ideal man, but he was in mortal danger. And even if his partner were brought to justice, would Alum even know who I was when he wasn’t in his spirit-state?
Chapter 7
I was back in Tamworth again. Constable Decker’s spirit knew where Alum was being kept in a safe house, and since he wouldn’t come through, his wife was the only link to him. People who were murdered often had difficulty coming through for weeks, and Alum did not have the luxury of time.
I needed to find out who murdered Constable Decker—not to bring them to justice, but so I could convince them to tell me where the safe house was. It was a long shot, for certain, but it was the only hope I had.
I didn’t have a plan figured out, so I was going to wing it. I had thought through several scenarios on the drive to Tamworth.
On my first drive past the house, the woman outside Decker’s house was watering the garden. I pulled up in the street just outside her house, and jumped out of my car.
At first, she seemed alarmed to see me. “Can I help you?” she asked stonily.
“Good morning. I’m Prudence Wallflower,” I said. I held out my hand, but she just looked at it. She didn’t say a word, so I pushed on. “This might sound strange, but I’m a clairvoyant medium. I was driving down the street when I felt the spirit of a recently deceased man, and he was right outside your house.”
She gasped and narrowed her eyes. “Are you a cop?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Have you ever heard of Lisa Williams, the clairvoyant medium from America? Or the Hollywood Medium? Or Theresa Caputo? They’re on TV.”
She nodded, but pursed her lips.
“I do what they do,” I said. “There is a spirit outside your house of a recently deceased man. The sense is very strong, although the spirit won’t speak with me.”
“What do you want?” she said. “Who are you, really?”
“Like I told you, I’m a clairvoyant medium, Prudence Wallflower,” I said. “You can google me if you like.” I handed her my card.
She took my card and turned it over several times, before peering at it, holding at several inches from her face. “You really are a medium?” she said. Her tone held more than a measure of disbelief.
“Yes,” I said. “You can google me if you like,” I said again.
“I’ll do just that,” she said firmly.
To my surprise, she invited me into her house. I hadn’t known what reception to expect, but I hadn’t expected her to invite me in.
“Excuse the mess,” she said. “I’ve been at the hairdresser’s all morning, and then I had to get my nails done, so I haven’t had a chance to clean the place.”
I thought the place looked immaculate, but I wondered why someone whose husband had just died, and at that been murdered, would have their hair and nails done. I would have thought that she would be in a state of depression, but nevertheless I was not going to comment on her grief. I have never lost a husband, so I had no idea what form a wife’s grief would take.
I followed her down the gravel pathway flanked on one side by crimson roses, and onto her front porch. The house was a low slung brick building with large cream aluminum windows all across the front. The entrance was tiny, and I followed her through to an open concept kitchen and living room. The floors were polished pine, and the walls were white. The furniture was sparse and also white, apart from two cushions sporting white leaves on a brown background. The only color, if it could be called a color, was the black of the bulky curtains on the back wall.
The woman—I did not yet know her name—crossed at once to the curtains and pulled them open. “Tea? Coffee?”
I was delighted to be offered a drink. This was going much better than I had expected. I looked around to see if I could see a coffee machine, but I could not. That meant the coffee would be the dreaded instant stuff, which was against my religion. “A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.”
She opened a white cupboard door. “Herbal tea?”
“No, just ordinary tea, please. Any tea that has caffeine in it,” I added in desperation. As an afterthought, I said, “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Christine.” She placed two white porcelain cups on the counter. The kitchen countertops were white, as were the kitchen cabinet doors and even the handles. There were intricate white lace curtains at the kitchen windows, and they seemed quite out of place in such an ultramodern house, as did the black curtains I had just seen.
There was an awkward silence between us. I took advantage of the silence to see if I could pick up any impression from the deceased, but I could not. The whole house smelled of bleach. I wondered why someone would bleach a house within an inch of its life after there had been a death in the family, but again, I suppose everyone handles grief differently.
When Christine had
prepared the tea, she handed me the white cup on a saucer. “Let’s go outside,” she said.
I followed her outside to a black outdoor table surrounded by four chairs. The yard was huge, level and green in places although it looked as if it could do with a good watering and perhaps some fertilizer. It was quite bare, not like the front garden. I swatted at a fly and took a sip of my tea.
“Are you an undercover cop?” Christine said. She was looking down at her tea when she asked the question.
“No,” I said firmly. “Seriously, I am Prudence Wallflower. Why don’t you google me?”
She looked hesitant for a moment before she spoke. “All right, I’ll do that.” She left the entertaining area hastily, and returned moments later clutching an iPad, which she placed on the black table in front of her. She opened the case. “How do you spell it?” she asked.
“Just as it sounds,” I said. “Prudence, wall, flower.”
She nodded, although it seemed to me that she was trying not to smirk, and tapped away. She looked up from the screen at me and then down the screen again. “Yes, you do look just like your photos. You really are a medium?” she said. “Does that mean you know what I’m thinking?”
I sighed. I should’ve been prepared for the question. The public, in general, thought that all clairvoyant mediums were psychic as well. “No, I am definitely not psychic,” I said. “I’m a clairvoyant medium, which means that I can get impressions from the spirits of those who have died. I can’t call them up at will. For example, if you wanted me to contact a deceased uncle, I would not be able to call him to come forward. The spirits themselves choose whether or not they will come through, and I can’t influence that. And as for being psychic, I’m not the slightest bit psychic at all. So I don’t know what you or anyone else is thinking, and I can’t predict anything, and I don’t have premonitions. I’m no more psychic than a bar of soap.”
Christine appeared to be thinking this over, as she stared into her tea, swilling it around in the cup. Finally she looked up at me. “I think I understand. So you don’t know what anyone is thinking, and you don’t get special psychic insights into anything?”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right. I’m afraid that Hollywood can give the wrong idea of clairvoyant mediums. All I can do is pass on messages from spirits of the deceased who choose to come and speak with me. That’s it.”
Christine took a sip of her tea and then placed her cup down. “And you say there was a spirit outside my house?”
I nodded again. “Yes, and the spirit has not come through strongly. I don’t know how to explain this, but the spirit refuses to speak with me. However, the presence of the spirit was so strong that I was drawn to this place. I was on my way to my agent’s office, when I was drawn to your house by the spirit.” I almost felt bad for lying, but after all, Alum’s life was at stake.
“What did the spirit say to you?” she asked. I could tell she was trying not to seem too eager, but her eyes were glittering with anticipation.
“I don’t know quite how to say this, because it might come across as tactless,” I said.
“No, please go on,” she said urgently.
“The spirit didn’t tell me anything as such,” I said. “In fact, I don’t want to upset you, but I had the impression that the spirit was murdered.”
She gasped, but I pushed on, choosing my words carefully. “Usually when a spirit has been murdered, the spirit will not communicate with mediums at first, but we can feel such a presence very strongly. Perhaps they’re so upset at being murdered that they won’t communicate with the living. Then eventually, they pass on to the other side. Once the spirit has passed on to the other side, clairvoyant mediums are unable to contact them.”
I looked up to see Christine clutching her throat. To say she looked frightened was an understatement. I hoped I hadn’t gone too far with what I had said. When she didn’t say anything, I risked speaking again. “Do you know anyone who has been murdered lately?” I asked her. “The spirit is attached to your house.”
“My husband!” she said. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed furiously at her eyes.
“I’m so sorry. I hope my words haven’t upset you.”
Christine waved my words away. “He was a cop, and the worst part about it is that they won’t tell me how he was murdered. They said it was all to do with some sort of secret thing and they can’t tell me anything. It’s bad enough that my husband was murdered, without them keeping how it happened from me.” She covered her face with the remains of the soggy tissue.
At that moment the spirit came through strongly. It was the briefest impression, but it was the impression that he had been having an affair.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought, and aloud I said, “Was your husband having an affair?”
Christine jumped to her feet, knocking the remains of her tea onto the table. “How dare you!” she yelled. “How dare you say such a thing about my husband!” She ran back into the house.
I had no idea what to do. I was sitting in her yard. I had just upset her, and I had no idea if I should just leave. I would have had to walk into her house to leave, and that made me feel uncomfortable. To my relief, she returned only moments later. “I’m sorry for yelling at you,” she said, before sitting down. She ignored the puddle of tea on the table. “What else did my husband tell you?” She stared hard at me.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” I said, and would have said more, but she interrupted me.
“But you just asked if he was having an affair?”
I shook my head. “Your husband’s presence came through very briefly, and in that time, I had the impression that he’d had an affair. I’m so sorry if that upset you. I must have got it wrong.”
The silence between us stretched on for ages before Christine finally broke it. “It’s true,” she said. She picked up the saucer full of spilled tea, and walked back into the kitchen. This time, I followed her in.
She took some fresh tissues from a nearby box and dabbed at her eyes once more. “I’m afraid to say that Adam was having an affair. He admitted it to me only last week. He said the woman was getting very aggressive with him, and asking him to leave me. When she asked him to choose between us, he said he realized his true feelings for me and broke it off with her. Adam said he never intended to leave me, but the stress of his work had led him to look for something outside the marriage.” She took a deep breath. “I know it’s no excuse, and I was just working on how I’d be able to forgive him when he died. I told him I wouldn’t leave him and that we should try to make it work. We were to start marriage counseling next week.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said lamely. “Would you happen to know the name of the woman?”
Christine folded her arms, and I thought I had gone too far.
Finally, she said, or more accurately, spat, the name, “Becca Barnes.”
Chapter 8
“Here you go! Enjoy!” The waiter smiled and placed the bowl in front of me. Lentil soup, not the most exciting meal in the world, but it was affordable and delicious. I realized perhaps too late that coffee and lentil soup might not be the best combination, but I figured it was better than no coffee at all.
“You’re looking good, Prudence!” Barbara said, beaming. Iris sat next to her, nodding in agreement. We’d managed to negotiate Barbara down from hitting the clubs to having coffee, which I initially thought would be a much better deal, but was beginning to reconsider. It was a bit out of character for Barbara to blurt out a compliment like that, so I knew something else was coming.
“Have you considered going on a blind date?” Barbara asked, quite seriously.
If I’d been eating anything other than soup, I might have choked. “No, not exactly. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d enjoy,” I answered honestly. Dating was bad enough, but a blind date sounded nightmarish.
“But how would you know until you tried?” Iris chimed in. “We’re getting too old for
normal dating, you know.”
Barbara and I sighed in unison. I spoke first, knowing Barbara would sound a lot harsher if I let her jump in. “Firstly, Iris, I disagree. Secondly, dating is currently the last thing on my mind. I’m not lying when I complain about how busy I am.” I took a sip of my coffee after I said it, hoping Iris wouldn’t refute my claim.
“Maybe a man could take your mind off it a bit,” Barbara added unhelpfully.
“Somehow, I doubt it. Honestly, I’m just not in the right mindset for a man at the moment. I have way too many other problems without any new dramas.” I felt a bit guilty about how often I’d had to lie in the past to avoid these kinds of conversations. Though I didn’t think it was fair that they were trying to push a date on me like this, I appreciated that they were probably just trying to help. A sudden chill of forewarning prickled down my spine. Perhaps I was becoming psychic, after all.
“Hello, you three.”
We looked up to see Constance towering over us. She hadn’t been invited, but in typical fashion had tracked us down and invited herself. She pulled a seat over from a nearby table and sat with us.
“Hello, Constance.” I managed to sound convincingly polite. I took a long sip of my coffee and found myself wishing for a stronger kind of drink.
Barbara and Iris said their hellos, but I could tell they weren’t exactly thrilled about it either.
“So,” Constance piped up, “what are we talking about?”
“We’re trying to convince Prudence to go on a blind date,” Iris unfortunately announced, much to the excitement of Constance.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Who is he?”
“Firstly, I’m not going on a blind date, Constance.” I said, frustrated. “Secondly, even if I was, I wouldn’t know he who is, because it would be a blind date.”
“But surely Barbara and Iris have set someone up for you?” she replied. Barbara and Iris exchanged glances, and I felt my stomach sink.
