by Peter James
Me – DARK
Phoebe – FRUIT MACHINE
Jonathan – CASH AND CARRY
Max – LOSE WEIGHT
Meredith – DEAD BY 25. CAR CRASH
Frannie looked up with a start. ‘Dead by twenty-five. Car crash. Meredith?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You wrote this down at the time?’
‘Yes. Well – probably a few days later. How old was Meredith when she died?’
‘She’d have been twenty-five in October.’
‘Shit,’ uttered Susie and then repeated it. ‘Shit.’
‘That’s really freaky,’ Frannie said.
She shivered, turned the page, compelled to look for her own message.
Susie was silent. ‘Fruit machine,’ she said suddenly. ‘That was Phoebe’s message.’
Frannie could find nothing relevant on the reverse page. It looked as if her own and Seb Holland’s messages had been on the strip that was torn off the bottom. She looked back at the list. ‘Yes, fruit machine.’
‘One-armed bandit,’ Susie said.
Frannie didn’t react at first; she was hunting again in case her own entry was written somewhere else. Then she stopped and stared at Susie, understanding the gruesome connection. ‘You were told dark, and this has happened to you. Jonathan cash and carry and he’s shot by a mugger. Phoebe fruit machine and she’s lost an arm. It’s easy to make them fit. But that doesn’t make them predictions or prophecies, does it?’ She could hear the anxiety in her own voice.
‘What does it say for you?’ Susie asked.
‘Mine and Seb Holland’s are missing. Someone’s torn off the bottom of the page. Can you remember what they were?’
Susie thought for a moment then shook her head. ‘No. Too long ago. It was just a lark, I didn’t take it seriously.’
‘Some lark,’ Frannie said.
Susie grimaced.
‘You don’t remember if I had a number in mine, Susie? The number twenty-six?’
‘No, I really can’t remember. Is that what you think it was?’
‘Phoebe told me to be careful of that number the day before she had her accident.’ She shrugged and looked back down at the diary. ‘Max Gabriel – lose weight,’ she read out.
Susie seemed not to react for a few moments, then she said, ‘Well, he’s doing that all right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was going out with him – before – what happened. He was working with some loony environmentalists; tried to sabotage a French nuclear power station and ended up getting heavily irradiated. He’s in a hospice dying of leukaemia. It’s not four out of the seven who were there, Frannie. It’s five.’
Frannie looked down at the knuckles of charred wood and the grey ash in the cold grate, and wondered distractedly if they had been there since last winter. The ceiling was low, a grubby cream that was unevenly stained with nicotine. The room felt so gloomy and dark she had to look through the window at the blue sky to convince herself that it was not raining outside.
Her hands opened and shut. Her body felt leaden, as if she had buoyancy tanks inside her that had been ruptured and she was going to sink. The sofa sagged beneath her weight; there was a stone floor beneath the sofa, and earth beneath that. She felt the vastness of the planet and the smallness of the room, and the strength of the pull of gravity drawing her downwards.
‘Why’s all this happening to us?’ she whispered.
Susie began to pull each finger in turn, cracking her knuckles. Frannie remembered she used to do that at university and it had got on her nerves. ‘I’m scared, Susie,’ she said. ‘I’m really scared.’
She heard birds singing and the distant drone of the combine harvester. She closed her eyes, trying to staunch a flood of tears. ‘I’m sorry. You’re the one who’s had the awful thing happen and I’m sitting here crying.’
‘I’ve done plenty of crying,’ Susie said quietly.
‘It needn’t have happened,’ Frannie said. ‘Maybe if we’d thought about the things the Ouija said, we could have stopped all these –’
Susie leaned towards her. ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone could have done that would have made any difference. They’re all so vague, so joky, you could interpret them in dozens of ways.’
Frannie hunched her shoulders, closing them in protectively, cocooning herself. ‘Not Meredith’s.’
‘Do you really think if any of us had worked out what they meant we’d have done anything different? If I’d known I was going to go blind, do you think it would have occurred to me not to go swimming in the South China Sea? That Phoebe would have never gone bicycling? It’s easy to understand things after they’ve happened, isn’t it?’
Through the window Frannie watched a blackbird on the lawn and envied the creature’s innocence, and freedom. She watched it dip its head then look up, and saw a worm writhing from its beak. She had never in her life felt so completely helpless.
She looked at the books crammed round the fireplace: Astral Projection; Paranormal or Normal?; The Presence of the Past. She had never taken much interest in the occult before; now she read the titles hungrily, wondering if there was one amongst them that might have an answer.
‘I ought to warn Seb,’ she said. ‘If he’s still all right.’
‘Do you know how to get hold of him?’
‘Yes. But what do I tell him?’
Susie did not answer.
‘How do I stop this, Susie?’
The blind woman lifted her arms helplessly, and the gesture swung Frannie’s mood suddenly, to anger.
‘Susie,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘If it is the Ouija that’s brought all this on us, and not some other freak explanation, there must be a way of stopping it. You were the one who knew the rules about it, told us all what to do. You said your mother was a white witch.’
‘Mummy a witch?’ Susie sounded astonished. ‘She’s not a witch, she’s just a bit – I don’t know – fey.’
‘Why’s she got a pentagram on the wall?’
‘She’s got hundreds of occulty things all over the place. She dabbles in everything that’s going, but she’s not a witch. God, she can’t even do the tarot without looking it all up!’
Frannie retorted in disbelief. ‘But you’re the one who knew all about the Ouija. You insisted we had to have darkness, which is why we went down into the cellar.’
‘Mummy used to do the Ouija here sometimes, that’s how I knew.’
‘Great,’ Frannie said bitterly. ‘Just great!’
Susie’s voice stayed calm. ‘Frannie, it never occurred to me that it was anything other than a game. Do you think I want to be like this? I wake up in the morning sometimes and wish I were dead.’ She lowered her head and sank her face into her hands. Then she stood up unsteadily, and walked towards her friend, putting her arms around her. Frannie felt the wetness of her tears.
‘I’m sorry, Frannie.’
Frannie squeezed her back, she was crying too.
‘Jonathan Mountjoy,’ Susie sobbed. ‘Seb. Meredith. Max. Phoebe. All such good people.’
‘I’m going to beat it,’ Frannie said. ‘I’m going to put a stop to it, whatever it is. And get your sight back.’
‘Nothing’s going to get my sight back, but I want you to be OK. I’ll help you and Seb any way I can. But I don’t know how. Perhaps you should go to a priest?’
‘Your mother’s done the Ouija before. Has she ever had any problems?’
‘She never told me. You could have a word with her, but I don’t think she’ll be much help.’
They went across the yard into the studio in the barn. The reek of linseed oil and turps reminded Frannie of the picture-restoration room at the Museum. It was surprisingly tidy and airy; there were modern skylights in the roof as well as the window looking on to the fields, and the walls had recently been whitewashed. Canvases hung on display and dozens more were stacked on the floor.
Mrs Verbeeten was working
at her easel with her back to them, and did not appear to notice their arrival. Her palette was gripped firmly in one hand and with a fine camel brush in the other she was adding colour to a detail. A cigarette burned in a tin lid crammed with butts on a milking stool. The picture was of a group of hooded people crowded on a rocky promontory below a castle wall.
Frannie looked closely at the couple of portraits on the wall. One was of Susie in her teens; the other of a bearded man behind an untidy desk. Then she looked at one of the landscapes. It was a disturbing work, with a foreboding sky, eerie buildings and a tormented quality which she did not care for, but she was impressed by the technique.
‘Do you paint, Frannie?’ Mrs Verbeeten spoke loudly without looking round and her voice startled Frannie.
‘No.’
‘Susie’s blindness has taught me to see things in a different way. She can tell people apart by their footsteps. I’ve learned to do that. I’m learning to paint what the mind sees, not the eyes.’
Frannie fingered through a stack of canvases leaning against the wall, glancing at each one: all expressing the same troubled theme as the landscape she had just looked at on the wall.
‘Images,’ Mrs Verbeeten said. ‘They come to me all the time. From every thought I get an image.’
‘They’re very good.’
Mrs Verbeeten turned and tilted her head in a childlike way. ‘How very sweet of you, Frannie.’ She laid her brush down at the edge of the easel, picked up her cigarette and dragged on it.
‘Frannie wants some advice about the Ouija, Mummy.’
Mrs Verbeeten studied the end of her cigarette for a moment, then stared right through Frannie. ‘The best advice I can give is not to touch it,’ she said.
‘It’s a bit late for that, Mummy!’
‘I haven’t touched it for years,’ the woman said. She inhaled deeply and jetted the smoke out through her nostrils.
‘Why’s that?’ Frannie said, still flicking compulsively through the pictures.
Mrs Verbeeten glanced at her picture as if she was anxious to get back to it. ‘There were too many occasions when –’ she hesitated. ‘When it was just too accurate, and unpleasant. Tarot cards give you a bit of guidance. The beastly Ouija just gives you a fait accompli. You will die in three days’ time, you know? That sort of stuff. And people do.’ She crushed out her cigarette in the metal tin, picked up her brush and stroked a vermilion splodge on her palette, signalling the interruption was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The needle of the speedometer bounced wildly between 60 and 80 m.p.h., and the Range Rover swayed and lurched along the uneven two-lane road as Frannie wrestled with the steering-wheel. She knew she was going too fast, but she kept the accelerator pressed to the floor up a gentle gradient, the engine bellowing gruffly, the needle bouncing higher on the dial, touching the 90 mark. She felt strangely light-headed, enjoying the recklessness, the sense of freedom; pleased to be away from the claustrophobic gloom of Susie Verbeeten’s house, pleased to be away from Susie’s strange mother. High on adrenaline, she was experiencing a forgotten feeling of confidence.
The tailgate of a truck she was gaining on vanished over the brow ahead. The clock which was sited to the left of the dash in front of the passenger seat, and was hard to read, said 1.10. She had promised Oliver she would be back by one.
The road curved left more sharply than she expected, and the row of trees on the far side of the bend hurtled towards her. She jabbed her foot off the accelerator as the Range Rover heeled over and her shoulder slammed against the door, the tyres yowling beneath her as if they were shedding their treads. They slewed over on to the wrong side. She jerked the wheel hard, too much; the heavy vehicle yawed, snaked, veered left then right, crossed the white line again. A car was coming in the opposite direction, flashing its lights and blaring its horn angrily. She tramped on the brake pedal, her mouth dry. Going to hit it. Going to hit it! Her throat expelled a gasp of choked air. The car screamed towards her; she could see the horror on the driver’s face, could see him wrenching his wheel. Their wings missed by inches. She heard the shriek of his horn like a train passing through a station. She thought her wing mirror was going to go, but that missed too.
Relief pumped through her. She felt clammy with shock. The truck in front was two hundred yards ahead now and there was a long, straight stretch of road. A fresh shot of adrenaline pumped through her. She could get past. She pressed the accelerator back to the floor, indicated, looked in her rear-view mirror. And froze.
Edward was sitting behind her.
A shockwave kicked through her whole body as if the wheel she was holding were electrified, and she swerved wildly. ‘Edward,’ she mouthed, turning her head round.
The seat was empty. She blinked. A chill blast of air blew down her neck. Something flashed in the corner of her eye. Red. Danger. Amber. Her mouth opened. Her eyes widened, levered by terror.
The lorry had stopped and was indicating right.
Her foot dived for the brake pedal, and she threw her weight forward on to it. The wheels locked, the tyres howled across the dry tarmac; the bonnet snaked right, left. Now the tailgate of the lorry hurtled towards her as if someone had pulled the lever on a zoom lens. She saw its brake lights go off. Its right indicator still flashed. It was starting to turn, moving slowly, crawling.
Faster. Please move. For God’s sake faster.
She was locked too, just like the wheels. A passenger. The Range Rover lurched left, jolted hard, and the howl stopped abruptly as the tyres tobogganed across the grass verge. For a moment the vehicle slid in almost complete silence; not even the sound of the engine. It missed a bus shelter, but was hauled in by the hedgerow. Brambles clattered like hail against the windscreen, ripped and tore. The car then dipped forward, tobogganing still, its shocks creaking as it bounced on to the soft earth of a ploughed field. Several rooks took off and a panicked pheasant lumbered into the air. The car bounced again, then slewed round in an arc to the right, as if caught in a giant rut.
When Frannie opened her eyes a red light was shining on the dash in front of her. She hugged herself. And she looked in the mirror again, then turned. Nothing. No Edward in the car. Just the empty rear seat.
Something ticked busily. The engine had stalled, she realized. She opened the door and leaned out, peering behind her. There was a wide, messy hole in the hedge, and she could see the black tarmac of the road beyond. She heard the distant roar of a lorry changing gear, moving away, fading. Then just the ticking of the fuel pump again.
She looked around, feeling slightly foolish now, and pulled the door shut. Water trickled down her wrist. The palms of her hands were wringing wet. She wiped them on her jeans, then turned the ignition key. The car jumped forward and stopped. She pressed the clutch and put the gear into neutral, then tried again. The engine revolved several times without firing. Come on, please! She twisted the key hard over, then pressed the accelerator slowly forwards as the starter motor clattered. Oily blue smoke rafted past the windows. She put the car into first gear, then slowly let out the clutch.
The wheels spun and mud and stones rattled against the underside. Then the car slid sideways. She stopped. Think. She knew she ought to be able to get out. On a dig she had once been in a Land Rover that had got bogged to its axles in sand. The driver had pulled something on the transmission tunnel and it had got them going. She scanned the carpeted hump and saw a small plastic knob. Faded white lettering on the top said: ‘Diff Lock’, and there was a plate screwed to the bulkhead in front with instructions. She pulled the lever up then pushed the gear forwards and let out the clutch again.
The Range Rover slewed sideways; she accelerated harder and suddenly they began to crab forward. Turning in a wide arc towards the gap in the hedge, she drove through it and stopped. There were deep brown furrows where the locked wheels had gouged out the grass. The wing mirror had been knocked flat against the door, but that was the least of her worries.
&n
bsp; She looked guiltily at the hole in the hedge, then scanned the road once more. No sign of anyone. Oliver might know the farmer who owned it; she’d phone him and pay for the damage. Then she turned her head once more and stared at the empty rear seat. She unbuckled her belt, climbed on her knees on to the seat and peered over into the tailgate area, just to be sure: some jump leads lay on the carpeted floor; a chewed plimsole from the days of Captain Kirk; a can of de-icing spray and part of a chocolate wrapper. No Edward. She sat back down. She had imagined it.
Cracking up.
She edged forwards and pulled out on to the road. Then she began to shake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Frannie turned in beneath the wyverns on the gate pillars, past the sign that said MESTON HALL. OPEN TODAY 10 A.M. – 5 P.M. and down through the arch beneath the stable block. The hands of the clock said 1.25.
She slowed as she emerged into the milling visitors, acknowledged a prim smile from a woman member of staff, and parked on the gravel drive along the front of the house.
Then she climbed out and inspected the front of the Range Rover. The tyres and the wheel arches were coated in mud and there were brambles tangled in the bull bar, which she hurriedly removed and dumped on the bonfire tip beyond the formal garden.
As she walked up to the front door of Oliver’s wing, a muffled bang rang out in the distance, followed by a roar, then a steady drone. She had heard the same sound last week, she realized: Oliver’s aeroplane. Good. She hoped that meant he wasn’t back yet.
