by Peter James
Frannie found a box of candles in the cupboard beside the kitchen sink, took one out, picked up the matches off the gas ring and waited for Seb. He came back in the front door, locked it behind him and gave her a large rubber torch.
She switched it on, flashed the powerful beam down into the darkness and saw the blob of white light slide across the floor. Then, tucking the candle and matches into the back pockets of her jeans, she climbed slowly down the wooden steps, holding the torch with one hand and each step, in turn, tightly with the other.
As she reached the bottom she felt an uncomfortable sense of isolation. Susie Verbeeten’s face seemed a long way above her. The cold air bit through her clothes, blew on her skin. She shone the torch out into the bitumen blackness that surrounded her, tried to dispel her unease. Shadows jumped. A steady, echoing ping … ping … ping rang out as rainwater leaked through from somewhere above.
Columns stretched out into the distance either side of her and behind her: squat stone columns and ribbed arches that had been built to shore up the cellars after the spreading waters of the Thames had eaten away some of the foundations centuries ago. Far thicker than they probably needed to be, they dated from a time long before engineering stresses and tolerances had been understood. The walls were brick, damp and crumbling, and it was rumoured that victims of the Plague were cemented in behind them.
She played the beam around, but could see nothing she didn’t recognize. Several empty cardboard boxes listed badly, their bases eaten by the damp that came up through the floor. Then she swung the beam away with a shudder as she realized it was shining on a decomposing rat.
‘OK?’ Susie called down, and her voice echoed. Ok-ayyy?
‘Yup, fine!’ she called back. Yup-ine-ine-ine, her voice echoed; then she guided each of them down the steps with the torch.
‘Spoooooky!’ Seb said, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking around.
‘Perfect,’ Susie said, then looked dubiously upwards. ‘I think we ought to shut the trapdoor. We don’t want any light at all.’
Seb climbed up and reached for the handle. The trapdoor fell with a heavy thud that gave Frannie a sudden claustrophobic feeling.
She guided him back down, then swept the torch over each of her friends’ faces in turn for reassurance. They nearly all looked uncomfortable. Even Seb seemed to have lost some of his bravado. Only Susie seemed unconcerned as she selected a wide plywood packing-case with a flat base, placed the glass upturned in the middle, then laid the letters randomly in a surrounding circle, with the words Yes and No among them. ‘Make a circle round the packing-case with things to sit on,’ she said.
‘Yeek!’ Meredith screamed, clutching Jonathan Mountjoy. ‘I saw something move.’
Frannie swung the torch and saw a rat or a large mouse disappear behind the arches at the far end.
‘Have you got the candle, Frannie?’ Susie asked.
Frannie pulled the candle out of her pocket and struck a match. The acrid smell of the sulphur was comforting against the dank mustiness. Susie took the candle, let a few drops of molten wax fall on the packing-case and stood the candle firmly in it, cursing as a drop of hot wax fell on her finger. A barrel scraped across the floor as Jonathan Mountjoy moved it. Frannie turned her head, startled by the sound, the memory of the shadow and the scrape returning. Then everyone sat down.
‘Torch off, please, Frannie,’ Susie said.
Frannie switched it off. The darkness seemed to jump in towards them, the weak, oval, yellow glow of candlelight barely keeping it at bay. A small pool of shadow rocked around the base of the candle as the flame guttered. A cold draught blew like a breath across Frannie’s neck. She could smell the hot wax and the fainter smell of the spent match. The drip of rainwater out in the darkness still pinged steadily. The flame guttered again, more so, and Frannie felt the downy, invisible hairs on her arms stiffen. Her cotton ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ T-shirt clung to her like a wet towel.
Three sharp raps rang out, startling her. Then a ghostly voice boomed: ‘Is anyone there?’
Meredith giggled.
Three raps again.
‘Seb,’ Susie said sharply.
‘Yeeh-hahh-hahhh!’ he replied, his voice low and resonating.
Fingers crawled up Frannie’s neck and she jumped. ‘Seb – for God’s sake!’ Then she grinned, momentarily relieved of the oppressive tension she felt. Maybe this was the best thing, just joke, fool around, don’t get too serious.
‘I can feel the spirits,’ Seb said. ‘I can feel them all over me.’ He wriggled.
‘Seb,’ Max said quietly, ‘I think we should all calm down now and be serious.’
Meredith Minns was smiling uncertainly. In the weak light, the pasty whiteness of her skin against her brilliant red lipstick and her gelled black hair presented a ghostly appearance. Susie Verbeeten stared imperiously around.
‘Hey, darlings, I’m just wondering whether I should really stay,’ Meredith said, tossing her head theatrically. ‘I have to get some reading done – I have another exam on Monday.’
‘You can’t possibly leave now!’ Susie said. ‘We need at least six to create enough energy to summon the spirit. And someone to control it.’
Meredith chewed the inside of her cheek.
‘Right,’ Susie said, ‘everyone put one finger on the glass. Very lightly, don’t push. It’s really important you don’t push.’
Frannie could read the name ‘Helix’ stamped in the base of the glass as she reached out tentatively, touching other hands that were jostling for space, then rested her index finger on the glass. It was vibrating, jerking in different directions.
‘Stop pushing it,’ Susie said. ‘You’re all pushing it!’
The glass became still.
‘Now close your eyes, everyone.’
Frannie stared out into the darkness beyond the glow of the candle, then down at the fingers on the glass. She closed her eyes.
They sat in silence for some moments. Frannie could feel the pressure on the glass.
‘Is there a spirit here?’ Susie said, quietly. ‘If there is a spirit who has joined us will you answer us by moving the glass.’
There was a low rumbling in the distance. It grew louder. Louder still. Frannie could feel the glass twitching. The rumbling increased, echoing around the cellar, rising to a crescendo din.
‘Jesus!’ Jonathan said.
‘Tube,’ Frannie said, her eyes shut. ‘Just a tube train – Central Line.’
‘Bloody good, Susie,’ Seb said. ‘You’ve managed to call up the spirit of a tube train.’
Meredith giggled. The rumble faded.
‘Could you get us a cross-Channel ferry next?’ Seb said.
Meredith giggled again.
‘How about a Boeing 747,’ Max said.
‘Quiet,’ Susie hissed angrily. ‘Concentrate!’
The glass jigged.
‘There is something here. Something is in here with us. I can feel it.’ Susie raised her voice. ‘Is there a spirit with us? Is there a spirit here who wants to talk to us?’
Frannie swallowed; the silence of the cellar magnified every sound. She could hear the boomf-boomf-boomf of her heart, the blood coursing through her veins like the roar of distant traffic, the gurgling as she swallowed again. The cellar became sharply colder, as if the door to a freezer had been opened. She stiffened. She could sense the change, as if there was something or someone else in here with them now. It was standing behind her, passing a magnet or a sheet of cellophane a few inches over her skin, drawing up the hairs, its icy breath blowing through her bones as if she were transparent. She kept her eyes tightly shut, clenched the lids together, too frightened to see.
‘A spirit has joined us,’ Susie Verbeeten announced.
Icy claws raked Frannie’s skin. She wanted to stop now, she was too afraid to go on any more.
‘We have a spirit with us,’ Susie said, louder. ‘Do you want to talk to us?’
The g
lass jerked sharply with a loud scrape, several inches to the right, and then stopped.
‘Yes,’ Susie said, her voice rising in pitch with excitement. ‘It says yes!’ Her voice regained its imperiousness. ‘Who are you? Please tell us your name.’
Frannie felt the glass move again. It skidded across the surface of the packing-case and stopped abruptly.
‘The letter N,’ Susie said.
The glass moved again. ‘Don’t push it, just let it move, let the spirit move it. O,’ she said, her voice tight with concentration.
It moved again.
‘N.’
‘Non,’ Jonathan Mountjoy said. ‘French for no.’
The glass moved again. ‘O – M – N – I – S,’ Susie spelled out.
‘Omnis,’ Max Gabriel said.
‘It’s Latin,’ Seb said. ‘You’ve got hold of a Roman centurion. Hi there, Polonius!’
Meredith giggled.
The glass moved again, startling them all. ‘M – O – R – I – A – R,’ Susie spelt. ‘Non omnis moriar.’
‘Non omnis moriar,’ Max Gabriel echoed.
‘Who can remember their Latin?’ Susie said.
‘Me – I can,’ Frannie croaked. Her throat was now so dry that she was barely able to speak.
‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s a quote from Horace,’ she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
‘Doris did you say?’ said Seb.
Meredith giggled again, a forced, nervous sound this time.
‘Horace,’ Frannie repeated quietly. Her arm was trembling. ‘Non omnis moriar. It means: I shall not altogether die.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
September 1991
The tube doors opened and Frannie looked up with a start, snapping out of her thoughts. Clapham South. She scrambled to her feet and just made it out of the doors before they closed again, then stood on the platform, remembering.
Oliver’s family motto. Non omnis moriar.
Tension coiled through her. Another coincidence. Unless her memory was wrong. The train slid out of the station behind her, accelerating with a fierce whine. A gust of grimy underground wind curled around her, then followed the tail of the train into the tunnel.
Altering the past to make it fit. The mind did that; the mind played tricks constantly. She thought back hard as the escalator carried her upwards. Three years ago – longer – three and a half years ago; it had been near the end of the spring term in her last year at university and they had been out celebrating someone’s birthday in the basement of the cheap pizzeria they used to frequent.
It was Susie Verbeeten who had suggested the Ouija session. Susie Verbeeten who had run it. Bossy Susie, far bossier than Phoebe. Susie had claimed her mother was a white witch, and that was how she knew about doing the Ouija properly.
But Susie was now blind.
As Frannie hurried back to her flat she wondered how she could get hold of her. She knew that her mother lived in Sussex, remembered Susie telling her it was the village where Virginia Woolf had once lived. Rodmell! She remembered that, although she wasn’t sure why. The number should be easy to get, Verbeeten wasn’t a common name.
She picked two days’ worth of post from the hall floor: bills, mostly, and a birthday card with Italian stamps and a Naples postmark, from her aunt, who every year sent her a card that unfailingly defeated the Italian postal system and arrived early. Then she went into the living-room and dialled Directory Enquiries, doodling on the back of a telephone bill envelope as she waited.
NON OMNIS MORIAR, she wrote in capitals, then scrawled down the number and dialled it immediately.
The phone was answered by a woman with a small, high-pitched voice that had a hint of a smoker’s gravelliness about it: ‘I’ll just get her for you. Who’s calling, please?’
‘Frannie Monsanto. We were at university together.’
She heard the sound of the receiver being lifted. Then Susie greeted her with a warm and cheery ‘Spags! How are you?!’
Frannie was taken aback. It was as if they hadn’t spoken for a couple of days; not for over three years. ‘Fine, I’m fine.’
‘What are you up to?’
Frannie told her. Susie seemed genuinely interested to know about her work, to know exactly what she had been doing since university, with whom she had kept in touch.
‘I wondered if you are going to be down in Sussex over the weekend?’ Frannie said.
‘Yes, I’m here all the time.’
‘Are you anywhere near a village called Meston, outside Lewes?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘That’s where I’ll be this weekend.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Frannie! That’s about four miles away! Come over and see us – have a drink or a meal.’
‘Love to. When would be best?’
‘Any time at all – I’ve got no plans.’
Frannie hesitated. ‘Susie – do you remember that Ouija session we once had underneath my parents’ café?’
‘Funny you should mention that.’
‘Why?’
‘Phoebe Hawkins asked me the same thing.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes. She rang me on Tuesday evening and told me she had just been to Meredith’s funeral. That’s when she asked about the Ouija. She asked if I could remember who had been there.’
Frannie was silent. It did not sound as if she had heard about Phoebe’s accident. ‘Can you?’
‘I always used to keep a diary; I would probably have written the names down in it. It’s rather difficult looking through things like that in my –’ her voice tailed.
‘Perhaps I could give you a hand? I think I can remember but I need to make sure.’
‘What is it, Frannie? What’s up?’
Frannie didn’t want to talk about it on the telephone. ‘Can you think about it overnight? I know it was some time ago. See what you could find, or remember?’
‘Yes,’ Susie said uneasily, ‘I’ll do my best. Do you think there’s something –?’
‘I don’t know. I think it’s just coincidence.’
‘I’ve always thought that.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve always remembered the message the Ouija gave me.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was just one word, that was all. Dark.’
The traffic heading south out of London crawled forwards then stopped again. Oliver braked and put the Range Rover’s gear into neutral. It was a blustery day: fat, overripe clouds wallowed in the blue sky; trees bent in the wind; leaves and empty cartons scudded down the pavements.
Oliver was wearing a thin blue jumper over a rugger shirt, and blue jeans; his hair was untidy and he looked tired. Frannie wondered if he was all right, as they sat in silence, each preoccupied with their own worries.
Phoebe Hawkins. Phoebe had gone straight back from the funeral and phoned Susie Verbeeten to ask her who had been at the Ouija session. Then she had rung to warn Frannie of the number twenty-six. Why? She thought about the cloakroom tag at the art gallery on Wednesday night, then Oliver getting clamped. Ridiculous. Then she thought about her birthday next week and felt a prickle of unease. Her twenty-sixth. What did Phoebe know?
Non omnis moriar. The harder she thought back, the more uncertain she became. She could remember being scared, blocking her ears at some point, not wanting to hear the message that came through for her. More than scared; she could remember being terrified.
The Ouija had given each of them a message, but she could not remember what they were. She had never known what her own was, had asked them not to tell her. She knew that sometimes, if you were told something bad, you could end up turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Dark. Could Susie Verbeeten have willed herself to go blind?
Oliver took her hand suddenly, and kissed it. ‘I never apologized to you for getting angry at you on Sunday. I’m sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘It was my fault. I w
as in such pain I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t mean to accuse Edward. I just –’
They joined the motorway; the traffic was lighter and moving more freely now. Oliver accelerated hard, moving over into the fast lane. ‘I should have explained to you about him earlier.’ He ran his right hand through his hair, then lowered his window a fraction. There was a sharp hiss of air. ‘He has a behavioural problem; what the shrinks call a disturbed child. I don’t know whether it’s his mother’s death or whether it’s me.’
‘You?’
He talked quietly, keeping his eyes on the road ahead and she had to listen hard to hear him.
‘I never had much of a relationship with my parents. I was sent to boarding-school from the time I was seven and I was brought up by staff in the holidays. My brother and I had nannies until we were quite old; and Mrs Beakbane. I was never able to relate to my mother or father. So I don’t find it easy to be close to Edward. After what happened to his mother, I knew that he was going to need me to be there for him, but I’m not sure I’ve ever succeeded.’
‘You seem to have a really good relationship with each other,’ she said, feeling sad for him. Sad for his son. ‘I haven’t seen that much of you together –’ She stopped, as she remembered when she had met them at King’s Cross: Edward’s tantrum and Oliver’s helplessness. And then her mind went back further to the morning the woman was decapitated in Poultry. The father and son coming into the café: the son’s tantrum.
‘Only since I’ve met you,’ Oliver said. He slowed down, his mind wandering from his driving, and moved back into the nearside lane. The traffic they had just passed began to overtake them. ‘You seem to work wonders with him. That time I met you at King’s Cross, he had been vile the whole journey; he was good as gold the rest of the day. Last Saturday he was great; and Sunday, except –’
