The Lavender Lady

by Faith Martin

  Early on in her marriage, she had constantly worried that she was never going to be good enough to be Michael’s wife. That at some party or other, she’d shame him by committing some social faux pas that would betray her ignorance about how the well-heeled behaved.

  But whenever she’d told him that, Michael had only laughed and told her that she worried too much.

  As the light began to fade outside, Effie got out her little reading light and promised herself that she’d read just until the end of the

  chapter and then turn it off and concentrate on the business at hand.

  And if she’d stopped to think about that, she might have realized that, subconsciously at least, she wasn’t expecting anything to happen during the hours of broad daylight, despite Corwin’s assurances that phenomena weren’t restricted to the hours of darkness. So, perhaps it was because of that, or perhaps because she was so engrossed in her favourite form of fiction, that it took a little while to come to Effie’s attention that she was actually smelling something.

  Something floral and very familiar, in fact.

  Lavender.

  For a second, Effie simply froze where she was, staring down at printed words that no longer mattered. Then her head shot up and she looked wildly around and about her, an icy sensation spreading its way up her spine and leaving her feeling as if a cold hand was clutched around the base of her neck.

  But just one quick, manic, wild-eyed look informed her that the room was totally empty. Of course it was. There was no ghostly figure of an old woman standing by her bed, or lying beside it, which was how Claudia had been found. There was no moaning, or mist, or rattling of chains.

  Effie blinked, and her breath shot out of her in a noisy exhale.

  Her heart was pounding though, making her feel slightly light-headed.

  Automatically, she half-rose, her legs feeling a little jellied at the knees and alien beneath her. OK, Effie, get a grip, she told herself firmly. There’s nothing and nobody here. Although twilight had fallen, the room was still perfectly visible.

  OK, what should she do now?

  Be calm. Be sensible. Do your job.

  She found herself, ridiculously, nodding like one of those toy dogs in the back of car windows. She’d also been unknowingly holding her breath again, because suddenly she was obliged to take a deep breath.

  Along with being so sensible, it would probably be a good idea to breathe as well, girl, a mocking little voice piped up somewhere in the back of her head.

  Slowly putting away her book, she forced herself to reason things out. OK, first things first. Was she simply imagining it? That was the most likely explanation, of course. Just because her conscious mind hadn’t been thinking about Claudia, or about being in the same room where the woman had been found dead, that didn’t mean to say that her subconscious mind hadn’t been at work. In fact, she would hardly be human if it hadn’t been, right?

  So perhaps her mind was playing tricks.

  Slowly and carefully she drew in another breath through her nose. No. There was no mistaking it. Effie could definitely smell lavender.

  Her eyes shot around the room, frantically seeking its source. But there were no bowls of potpourri, no bars of soap or talc or anything else like that in the room. Of course not — she knew from listening to the others that all such sources of possible contamination had long since been removed.

  OK. So perhaps someone had secreted a scent bottle somewhere? Perhaps Mickey, playing a joke on her? She wouldn’t put it past him, the dozy little—!

  But even as she thought it, she just as quickly dismissed it. Although Mickey might consider himself the joker of the group, when it came to what the C-Fits did, he seemed to be as serious about it as anyone. Besides, neither he nor any of the others would let Corwin down by playing such a stupid trick. If nothing else, it would lay their findings open to even more question than usual, and she knew how fiercely they were dedicated to doing their job properly.

  Isabel then? Could she be behind it — not to cause mischief, but perhaps out of a desperate need to prove to everyone, especially her family, that she hadn’t been imagining things? And what better way to do that than to have someone else smell lavender, just as she had?

  But how, even if Isabel had put a hidden bottle of lavender perfume in here, had she managed to rig it up to produce scent nearly an hour after Effie had first come into the room?

  And then it was as if someone had given her a swift kick in the shins, as she realized that she’d been standing here frozen for what felt like hours, fruitlessly searching for an explanation, when what she’d needed to do all along was blazingly obvious.

  Quickly, and with fingers that fumbled only slightly, she reached into her bag for her phone and began to text.

  CAN SMELL LAVENDER. COME QUICKLY.

  She hit the button that would send the text to Corwin, and then realized that she should have sent it to everyone, and wondered why she hadn’t.

  But it wouldn’t matter; she was sure that Corwin would tell the others anyway.

  As she stood, waiting, knowing that they’d soon all be here, the feeling of sheer relief that she would no longer be alone abruptly fled as another, far more insidious and horrifying thought hit her.

  What if they came, and none of them could smell it?

  Hastily she took another deep breath through her nose. Reassuringly, the scent of lavender was as strong as ever.

  To her, yes. But what if it turned out that she was the only one who could smell it?

  For a second, Effie appreciated the irony of what was happening to her. Right from the start, she and Duncan had agreed that, for the most part, ghost sightings relied on the evidence given by ordinary people, whom you either believed or didn’t. By their very nature, stories of having seen ghosts were utterly reliant on the witness’s credibility. And a lot of people were sceptical. How ironic it was, then, to find herself in that very position. If the scent faded and no one else smelt it, why would anyone believe her?

  After all, she’d volunteered to go ghost hunting, so people could reasonably presume that she had some predisposition for believing — or at least wanting to believe — in such phenomena. She was recently widowed, so perhaps that had made her emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to thoughts that some sort of afterlife existed.

  If she had been hearing someone else tell this very story, would she believe it?

  Then the door opened, and her jitteriness dissipated. As expected, all of them had come, if not running exactly, then swiftly and silently. Corwin was first through the door, his eyes darting around and seeking her out.

  Without thinking about it, Effie beckoned him over. Behind him, Gisela, Lonny, Malc, Mickey and Jean followed in rapid succession. And as they approached her, Effie felt another moment of panic as she heard them all begin to sniff the air.

  So convinced was she that her mind might have been playing tricks on her that she almost wilted in relief as various expressions of excitement and elation crossed their faces. Mickey even went so far as to punch the air in triumph.

  Clearly, they could all smell it too.

  Effie collapsed back onto the window seat, and only then realized that she was trembling a little. Quickly, she folded her hands in her lap and hoped that nobody had noticed.

  For several minutes, and still without speaking, the rest of the C-Fits split up and paced the room. This puzzled Effie, who wondered what they were doing, until Corwin reached her side, sniffed, nodded and moved off, then came back again.

  ‘It’s clearly strongest right here, right by Effie,’ he whispered, and the others, coming over, nodded their agreement.

  ‘Yes,’ Jean murmured. ‘It’s definitely more noticeable here.’

  ‘Not by the bed,’ Gisela said, a puzzled frown creasing her brows. ‘You’d have thought it would be strongest where she died. Phenomena is usually centred around . . .’ She shook her head in puzzlement, then glanced at Effie. ‘Effie, perhaps Claudia is
trying to attract your attention specifically.’

  Effie blinked. ‘Er, I don’t think so,’ she whispered, her voice barely a croak. That was a truly hideous thought! She was only here as an observer after all. Then, quickly following on from that thought, came another, rather childish one.

  Why pick on me?

  ‘Tell us what happened,’ Corwin said, his voice firm.

  Effie looked at him blankly, and then became aware that everyone was staring at her intently. Of course. They needed a report — a clear, comprehensive report.

  She rose to her feet and then shifted a little nervously from one foot to the other. ‘Well, there’s not that much to tell,’ she began. ‘I smelt lavender, I texted you to come, and that’s it.’

  Corwin smiled at her patiently. ‘Not quite, Effie. Where were you when you first smelt it?’ he prompted.

  ‘Right here, reading . . .’ Effie faltered then shrugged, deciding that she might as well come clean.

  Jean smiled. ‘Sensible. I usually knit.’

  Effie smiled her gratitude for the support.

  ‘OK, so you were reading,’ Corwin said. ‘Then what? Did you hear anything? Catch any sense of movement out of the corner of your eye? Anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you sense a presence?’ Gisela asked. ‘Did you feel as if you suddenly weren’t alone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you hear a voice or feel a sudden unexpected emotion for no reason?’ Gisela pressed. ‘Angry, sad, scared?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK. So you were reading, you smelt lavender, then what?’ Corwin said quietly. Effie, aware that everyone was eagerly awaiting her pronouncement, felt helplessly inadequate.

  ‘Nothing. I just . . . looked up quickly and looked around, but the room was empty. Then I . . . yes, I stood up, and took a long deep breath through my nose to confirm that I hadn’t imagined it.’ She didn’t think she needed to mention any of the other wild and fruitless speculations that had washed over her. ‘And then I texted you.’

  ‘It’s beginning to fade,’ Malc said, his words instantly setting the others off into a paroxysm of sniffing.

  ‘Damn, he’s right,’ Lonny said.

  ‘It’s really annoying that we don’t have any way of recording smells,’ Malc complained. ‘But we agree that we all smell it, yes?’

  There was a chorus of vociferous agreement, and Jean glanced at her watch, noting down the time and scribbling furiously in her notebook.

  ‘Effie, do you mind if I take your recorder?’ Malc said. ‘I’ll get you another one, but I want to run it through the computer for possible EVP.’

  Effie nodded and happily handed over the recorder.

  ‘OK, Gisela, Jean and Lonny, I want you to spend the rest of the night in here. Malc and I will man the monitors,’ Corwin began issuing instructions briskly. ‘Mickey, you keep an eye on the cold spot in the bathroom. Effie, would you mind taking the hall again?’

  Even as he asked it, Effie knew what he was doing. He was removing her from the room and giving her a way out without losing face. Even as part of her wanted to tell him off for assuming that she couldn’t handle herself, another part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and kiss him with gratitude.

  And that wayward thought made her turn away abruptly. ‘Of course not,’ she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded ridiculously prim and cool.

  As she left, she was sure that she could feel the eyes of the others boring into her back. What were they expecting her to do? Suddenly run screaming off into the night, waving her hands in the air like a mad thing?

  * * *

  ‘We all think you did very well.’ Predictably perhaps, it was Jean who approached her first, at the two a.m. coffee break. The former teacher had come down to start brewing in the kitchen, and after seeing some of the others also come downstairs, Effie decided it would look petty and silly if she stayed out in the hall, like a wallflower at a party.

  ‘Thanks,’ Effie said.

  Perhaps something of her disbelief echoed in her voice, because Gisela went up to her and put an arm comfortingly around her. For a moment, Effie froze, then she slowly relaxed, and gave the tall redhead a grateful smile.

  ‘Honestly, we did,’ Gisela said. ‘You were super-cool and all business. Even Corwin was impressed.’ She gave her arm a final squeeze and moved off to rummage in her bag for biscuits.

  Corwin, Lonny and Mickey were still upstairs. Malc accepted a mug of tea from Jean and sat down heavily in one of the chairs.

  ‘Smells are buggers,’ he said disgustedly. ‘There’s just simply no way you can prove that they exist. Corwin and me did some research once about certain chemicals soaked in cotton wool, and how some types of molecules can be extracted from the air and analyzed. But in the end, we had to give it up. There were too many variables, and besides, the cost of having a lab do all the tests that would be needed was astronomical.’

  ‘But we all know what we smelt,’ Gisela said firmly. ‘I just knew this case was going to be a good one.’

  Malc grinned. ‘Yeah, it’ll be a good chapter in Corwin’s next book all right. Let’s just hope it’s only the start of some other, more recordable phenomena. I can’t wait to watch and analyze the camera feed in Claudia’s room.’

  Effie, with a start, suddenly realized that, along with other rooms of interest, Claudia’s bedroom had been under constant surveillance. And that meant Corwin or anyone else who happened to be looking at the monitor would have been able to watch her too. And not only that, but it was all being recorded.

  Good grief!

  She was going to have to bear that in mind from now on. What if she’d done something hideously embarrassing like pick her nose or scratch her bum?

  A hasty mental review of her time in the bedroom reassured her that she had done nothing but sit and read. But it was a close call. From now on, she was going to remember that she had to act with decorum at all times.

  Michael would have been appalled if she’d—

  Abruptly, Effie thrust the thought away. Michael was . . . gone.

  Mickey chose that moment to breeze in, yawning hugely. ‘Nothing,’ he said gloomily.

  And ‘nothing’ remained the order of play for the rest of the night, much to Effie’s relief, if nobody else’s.

  Eventually, at seven thirty, Isabel got up. Corwin told her about the night’s excitement, apologizing and forthrightly admitting that he’d simply got so caught up in the excitement of the moment that he’d forgotten that she wanted to be notified of any events at once, as and when they occurred.

  Effie found herself pleased by his honesty, and Isabel seemed to share her approbation, since she took it with good grace. She was obviously relieved to know that she wasn’t alone in smelling the lavender.

  Particularly as both her husband and her daughter were on their way over.

  ‘Jeremy has business in Banbury anyway, and is just dropping by, or so he says, to remind himself of what his wife looks like,’ Isabel explained laughingly, ‘but Ros admits to being out-and-out curious. Besides, she’s dying to meet you all. I hope you can stay and meet them?’

  Lonny and Malc had to apologize, since they needed to get back to have a quick nap before work, and Mickey had to admit that he had a class at nine and needed to go back to his digs and guzzle coffee in order to stay awake throughout the ordeal.

  But the others were happy to stay, and Effie knew that Corwin would be glad of the chance to talk to other members of Claudia’s family, if only to help fill out the case file with more background information. Effie herself was also curious. Just what would Claudia’s nearest and dearest make of the C-Fits and the latest manifestation of the lavender lady?

  * * *

  Jeremy’s silver hair contrasted sharply with his florid colouring, and his hands were square and slightly callused.

  ‘Hello,’ he gave the group a general greeting. ‘I understand that you’ve been having fun in
the night?’

  The question might have sounded jovial but the gaze he levelled on Corwin was steady and thoughtful. Clearly he didn’t know what to make of these odd people that his wife had called in to her old family home.

  Corwin, quickly sizing him up, smoothly handed him over to Jean, who began competently running down their scientific methods of research for him. And under her no-nonsense attitude, Effie could almost see the man’s suspicions and unease melt away.

  Whilst it was clear to her that he was uncertain of his wife’s contention that her mother’s spirit might not be resting easily, under Jean’s tutelage he quickly came to realize that the C-Fits were harmless. Or at least, that they weren’t a predatory bunch of charlatans who were only interested in trying to part Isabel from any of the family cash.

  And indeed, Effie knew that money would not be changing hands.

  Corwin had made it clear right from the start that he didn’t expect Isabel to pay them for their services, nor did they intend to offer any money to Isabel for letting them investigate her mother’s house. Effie could certainly see the sense in this. Whatever accusation anybody might level at the C-Fits, financial wrongdoing could never be one of them.

  So when Rosamund Carteret arrived, clearly looking a little apprehensive about what she might find, everyone was sitting at the kitchen table, amiably eating toast and marmalade, with her father listening with rapt attention as Jean explained to him the finer points of cold spots.

  ‘And I could go up there and feel it now, could I?’ he asked somewhat doubtfully when she’d finished.

  ‘If it’s currently there, yes,’ Jean said. ‘We’d have to check the latest temperature readings.’

  ‘Dad?’ Rosamund said, coming around the table to kiss his cheek. She was a tall woman, with thick honey-blonde hair in an artlessly untidy cut, and grey-blue eyes. Her skin wasn’t particularly good, and her nose was slightly too big for true beauty, but her face had character.

  ‘What’s all this about cold spots?’ she demanded, with an uncertain smile.

  CHAPTER EIGHT