by Peter James
‘Except when I accused him of giving me the plum deliberately. God, I’m sorry!’
He took his left hand from the wheel and patted her thigh. ‘Listen, he might have done it.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It was an accident.’ She looked at him. ‘There’s no reason on earth why he should have wanted to hurt me, is there?’
I hope you’re not planning to sleep with my daddy.
‘No,’ he said with a weary smile that contained no conviction, and placed his left hand back on the wheel.
She experienced the familiar feeling that he was holding something back. ‘When you say he’s “disturbed”, what do you mean? The strange silences he lapses into, and the Latin he starts speaking?’
‘It’s a whole raft of things. He’s very disruptive at school – some of the other boys are quite wary of him. I’ve had a couple of warnings from the headmaster that they might not be able to keep him there.’
‘Disruptive?’
‘Things like refusing to attend the chapel, which they’re meant to do every morning. How do you convince him God loves him when he knows that God took away his mother?’ He looked at Frannie and she had no reply. ‘Gets into a lot of fights with other children. And the worst thing was last term when he set fire to a wastebin.’
Frannie stifled a grin, guiltily, her heart going out to Edward. ‘Bloody nearly burned the school down,’ Oliver said.
‘Has he seen anyone?’
‘Shrinks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve done the rounds. Behavioural psychologists; psychiatrists. Been to the best people. He’s sweet as pie with them. Angelic; they end up getting nowhere with him. I’ve tried a homeopath; dietary changes; drugs.’ He shrugged. ‘So far you’re the only thing that’s worked.’
‘I’m very flattered.’
He took her hand and squeezed it, then drove on in silence for a while. She saw a police car sitting on a motorway bridge ahead, but Oliver was driving below the limit. A jumbo jet came alarmingly close and flew low across the motorway in front of them, landing at Gatwick, filling the air with the screams of its engines.
She stroked his hand. ‘With your fear of coincidence, what do you make of my finding the tiger in the cupboard at the Museum?’ She detected a faint tremor in his hand.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s almost as if there’s something that’s drawing us together, bit by bit. One connection after another.’
‘Yes,’ he said tersely.
The road slid beneath them. The Range Rover’s grimy bonnet vibrated a little; a large fly exploded on the windscreen in a smear of blood; its wings continued flapping as if they were trying desperately to fly off without the body.
Oliver drove on for a couple of miles in silence, then indicated left and they turned off the motorway at an earlier junction than last weekend. ‘Edward’s school,’ he said by way of explanation.
A short distance on, he braked and turned into a driveway between brick pillars and over a cattle-grid, past a large sign saying STOWELL PARK PREPARATORY SCHOOL. As they drove up a long avenue of poplars and beech, Oliver’s face came slowly back to life, like a creature awakening from hibernation; as if he was filled with yearning at the prospect of seeing Edward again, and Frannie was touched; it was the first time she had really felt the intensity of Oliver’s love for his son.
‘If there’s anything I can do to help with Edward in any way, do tell me. I’ll gladly do it.’
‘You are helping,’ he said. ‘Just by being around. It’ll be a real surprise for him that you’ve come with me to collect him.’
There was farmland beyond the trees on both sides; sheep were grazing and the soft hills of the Downs lay beyond. Frannie compared the idyllic setting with her own old school yard in Bethnal Green, and wondered how she would have viewed life if she had been here instead. Yet she felt no resentment; that was life’s lottery. She also wondered how she would have viewed life if she had seen her mother decapitated when she was five.
It was warm in the car and she wound her window down a little. ‘Rodmell’s quite close to you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, just down the road.’
‘There’s an old student friend of mine who lives there. I’d like to pop over and see her some time today or tomorrow. The poor girl’s gone blind.’
‘Christ. What happened?’
‘I’m not exactly sure. I gather it was some virus she picked up in the Far East.’
‘You’re not having much luck with your friends,’ he said grimly.
She did not reply.
‘Why don’t you go over this morning? I have to go and look at some machinery with Charles in the afternoon and I was hoping you might keep an eye on the boys for a couple of hours. I can run you over and pick you up, or you can take the car, if you like.’
‘Sure, if you don’t need it; thanks.’
‘Mrs Beakbane would normally look after them but she’s going to a wedding or something. You don’t mind?’
‘No, not at all.’ And she didn’t. She had got over her feeling of being a surrogate nanny and looked forward to spending some time with Edward and gaining his confidence.
‘Tristram can be a bit of a monkey sometimes; and Edward rather encourages him.’
A squat Victorian baroque pile came into view. Oliver slowed for a sleeping policeman and the Range Rover bumped over it. Two boys pedalled down on bicycles towards them.
‘A lot of children can be pretty mischievous,’ she said. ‘Maybe Edward gets blamed for more than his fair share.’
Oliver said nothing.
Her eyes rested on the signet ring on his wedding finger. She could just make out the wyverns on the crest.
Non omnis moriar. She swallowed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Frannie steered the Range Rover through the narrow wooden posts of the gates, craning her neck as she tried to gauge the width of the vehicle. She pressed the accelerator and the engine bellowed; the tyres munched the balding gravel drive and her wing mirror slid past the post with a centimetre to spare.
There was a ramshackle farmhouse fifty yards ahead, looking as if it had recently weathered a trip around the world lashed to the deck of a ship. A tired Volvo station-wagon sat in the yard, sagging on its suspension, its sills shot with rust, a faded yellow Nuclear Power – No Thanks! sticker visible through the grime on the rear window.
She pulled the handbrake on with difficulty, and switched off the engine. Then she unbuckled her seat-belt slowly, in no hurry to get out now that she had found the house. She felt anxious about meeting Susie, worried about how blindness might have changed her.
As she climbed down, she heard hens clucking and smelled the stench of pigs. A strong gust scattered her hair and she pushed several strands away from her eyes. A combine harvester droned through a large cornfield behind the house. Harvest. Autumn was coming. If she lived that long.
High above her the mid-morning sun glinted like a mirror but gave her no warmth. She walked up to the house, glancing through the double doors of a barn across the yard. Inside she could see a canvas on an easel; a window had been cut into the far wall, opening a view out on to the fields.
Bits of gravel stuck in the tread of her trainers and clicked as she stepped on the porch tiles. She pressed the doorbell but heard nothing ring and wondered if it worked. She waited a moment, then lifted the rusty iron knocker and rapped loudly.
The door was opened by a woman in her late forties wearing a grubby artist’s smock and plastic flip-flops. Her hair was a bush of brown and grey wire. She wore no make-up and although ravaged by pock-marks from childhood acne she had a doll-like prettiness about her, spoiled by yellow and black nicotine-stained teeth as she smiled. A lump of rock crystal hung from a leather thong around her neck and there was a heavy charm-bracelet on her wrist. She held a cigarette in one hand and knelt, brushing two cats away from the door with the other. ‘Hello, Frannie?’ Frann
ie recognized the voice immediately from the phone last night, like a little girl’s, with the faintest hint of a smoker’s rasp.
‘Yes! Mrs Verbeeten?’
‘So sweet of you to come. Susie’s thrilled.’ She stepped back and waved the cats away again with paint-covered hands. ‘Tonga, Biba, my little honeys, shoo, out of the way for Frannie, go on, dears!’
Frannie stepped into a shabby hallway that smelled of cats and joss-sticks. A moth-eaten Aztec rug hung on the wall in front of her, and dusty-looking ethnic rugs were scattered on the floor. A huge tapestry filled the wall on her right and it took a moment for her to notice the five-pointed star motif that was its main design. A pentagram, she thought. Pentacle. A floorboard creaked above them and they both turned. Susie was coming down the stairs, confidently, as if she could see perfectly well.
She was wearing a blouse, cotton skirt and leather slippers, and clutching a small blue book in her hand. She looked exactly the same as when Frannie had last seen her three years ago. The upright, angular figure, the slender, handsome face harshened by her hairstyle, which was also the same: shorn at the sides and sticking up like a topiaried hedge on top. Only the way she stared past Frannie with a rather vacant expression gave her blindness away. And Frannie noticed that she had made a mistake buttoning her blouse; it was one out in the sequence.
‘Spags!’ Her greeting was cheery but carried a hint of uncertainty.
‘Hi, Susie!’ Frannie tried to sound natural, as if nothing was different, but it came out all wrong, sounded as if she was greeting an imbecile. She reached out and took Susie’s right hand, then put her free arm around her and hugged her, clumsily. Susie hugged her back warmly and they kissed on each cheek. Frannie smelled the raw, astringent smell of underarm perspiration. Susie was nervous of this meeting also.
She released her hand, and was surprised when Susie suddenly touched her on the arms, patted her ribs, then lifted her hands up and felt her hair.
‘Slim as ever,’ Susie said. ‘And your hair’s still long.’
Frannie relaxed for an instant from the tension. ‘You’re looking great, you know? Really pretty.’
In the silence that followed she wondered if she had said the wrong thing. She watched Susie’s eyes uncomfortably; for a brief moment they seemed almost to focus on her, then they moved away.
‘Would you like a drink? Some tea, or coffee?’ Susie asked.
‘Love some coffee.’
‘I’m going back to the studio, darling. Call me if you want anything.’ Mrs Verbeeten looked at Frannie, giving her a stare she could not read. ‘So nice to meet you. Susie’s talked so much about you over the years.’
‘And you too,’ Frannie said, thrown by the stare.
‘You’re very welcome to stay for lunch, if you like. It’ll just be a salad.’
‘Thank you, but I have to get back.’
Susie led the way through into the kitchen which was old-fashioned and grimy. A cat slunk out. ‘God, I don’t know what happens to time, Frannie. I’ve been meaning to call you. I did try a couple of times but you were away on digs.’
‘I would have called you too, but I thought you were out in the Far East.’
‘So tell me about you,’ Susie said. She put the book down on the wooden table in the middle of the room, and Frannie saw that it was an old diary. She watched Susie open cupboards, remove coffee, mugs, and open the fridge. She did everything slowly, methodically, setting things down carefully. She shook the kettle, switched it on, unscrewed the jar of coffee, then felt below the worktop for the drawer with the spoons.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Susie asked.
Frannie hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘Great!’ Susie said with a warmth that surprised her. ‘What does he do? You’re at the British Museum, you said? Is he an archaeologist?’
‘No – he’s a –’ Frannie wasn’t quite sure how to describe Oliver. ‘Mathematician. A statistician.’
The kettle started to boil. Susie pulled a gadget from behind it that looked like a radio pager, with one short and one long wire. She clipped it to the side of the mug, the wires dangling in, and poured from the kettle. As the water reached the top of the first mug, a sharp electronic beep rang out. She clipped the gadget to the second mug and filled that.
‘That’s clever,’ Frannie said.
‘There’s tons of tricks,’ Susie said with a trace of bitterness. ‘I’ve got a machine I’m learning on that can read printed books – scans the words and converts them into Braille. In six months’ time I’m getting a guide-dog – I have to go on a training course.’
‘Is there any chance of getting your sight back?’
‘Milk?’
‘Just black, thanks.’
‘No chance at all,’ Susie said with finality, as if she did not even want to discuss it. She poured some milk into her mug, then set the bottle dangerously close to the edge of the worktop, turned away, picked a tray off a shelf behind and put the two mugs on it, her arm passing inches from the bottle. Alarmed, Frannie reached across and moved the bottle.
‘Sugar?’
‘No, I don’t take it, thanks.’
To her horror, she saw Susie reaching towards the back of the worktop, her hand sweeping towards the sugar bowl. She had put the milk bottle right in her path.
She lunged forward, but it was too late. Susie’s hand struck the bottle, sending it flying like a skittle. It spun across the surface, spewing out milk, striking one mug, sending it smashing to the floor. Scalding coffee exploded in all directions, lashing Frannie’s jeans and burning her legs, splashing over Susie’s legs and over her cotton skirt, spraying the units.
Frannie grabbed a tea towel, ran it under the cold tap, and pressed it against Susie’s legs, apologizing frantically, explaining that it was her fault.
‘Afraid I’m not much good at clearing things up,’ Susie said.
Frannie steered her away to the other side of the kitchen, and Susie told her where to find the squeegee and mop and bucket.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Frannie said, feeling very small, making herself another cup of coffee after she’d mopped up.
‘It’s OK. I have to get used to people helping me,’ she said ironically.
They went through into the drawing-room. It was dark, with a battered sofa and two armchairs with their backs draped in antimacassars. There were several pictures on the wall, strange, rather disturbing abstracts, which she wondered if Susie’s mother had painted. An assortment of stones and crystals were arranged on the mantelpiece, along with some small, rather ugly figurines. A creased pack of tarot cards sat on a lace cloth on a round table.
She waited until Susie had set the tray down and had removed her mug before taking the other, wary of any more mishaps.
‘Did you have any thoughts about that Ouija session, Susie?’ she asked.
‘Mummy found my old diary – damn – I left it in the kitchen.’ She jumped up and went out, neatly sidestepping a cat; Frannie watched her agility in amazement. She came back and handed the diary to Frannie. ‘Seven of us,’ she said. ‘You, me, Meredith, Phoebe, Jonathan Mountjoy, Seb Holland and Max Gabriel.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Frannie said, a band of tension tightening in her. ‘And you were given the message Dark?’
Susie gave a hollow laugh. ‘Yes. We were all given stupid messages.’ She hesitated. ‘Except Meredith. I’d forgotten until Phoebe rang me.’
‘Do you hear much from Phoebe?’
‘Not a lot, because I’ve been out of the country most of the time since university. When her contract ended in Bath she was going to come with me out to China, a few months ago, to join a dig in Szechwan, but then she got the job offer in London. She was lucky. Might have got the same thing as me.’
‘It was a virus?’ Frannie said.
‘Yes. I got it on the way, in Malaya. It’s from the pollution in the South China Sea. The locals are immune to it, and they like to keep it a secret from tourists. Most
people who get it come back with a bad eye infection and are fine after a few days – but if you get it really badly, like I did, it destroys your retinas.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t know about it sooner,’ Frannie said awkwardly. ‘I’d have come to see you.’
‘I didn’t want to see anybody until recently. I’m not very good company, I’m afraid. I just keep thinking about all the things I’ll never be able to do.’
‘Medicine and technology are improving all the time.’ Frannie said the only thing she could say. ‘There might be some real breakthroughs in a year or two’s time.’
Susie was silent for a moment. ‘Our year from university has done pretty well in the disaster stakes, hasn’t it?’
‘Is it us? Or is it something else?’
‘The Ouija?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘It was Phoebe who – I guess – made the connection.’
‘Actually, I’m surprised Phoebe hasn’t rung me back – she said she might come down this weekend.’
Frannie looked at her. ‘You haven’t heard?’
Susie stiffened and her voice turned to alarm. ‘No? What?’ When Frannie told her about the accident, she seemed dazed by the news. ‘I – I ought to go and see her. I’ll get Mummy to drive me up. How’s she taking it?’
‘She was pretty doped up when I saw her last night.’
‘She’ll go through a lot of emotions. Same as I did. God!’ She put her mug down and gripped the edge of the sofa, as if for reassurance.
‘Four of the seven who were there have had something happen,’ Frannie said. ‘That’s quite a coincidence.’
Susie thought for some moments before speaking. ‘Four?’ she echoed, dubiously. ‘Have a look in the diary, Frannie. It’s around about 24th March.’
Frannie picked up the diary and opened it. The cover was battered and the pages were creased, filled with large, untidy handwriting. There was a page to a day and almost every inch of space was crammed with lists, telephone numbers, reminders heavily underlined. Several pages were missing or partially torn out. She turned to the page with 24th March on it and noticed that the bottom two inches of that, also, were missing. Through the morass of writing she could see, heavily underlined, the word: ‘Seance!!!’ Packed in beneath it were the names of everyone who had been there. Beneath them, in list form, was written:
