Haunted (20 page)

‘Kate . . .’ she said, once inside, a little out of breath.

The other woman expressed surprise, but continued her journey towards the receptionist’s desk. ‘Hello, Edith. Sorry I can’t stop – I’m late for the conference.’ To the receptionist, Kate said, ‘Did you get me a cab?’

‘Outside waiting for you,’ came the brisk reply.

‘Terrif. These are for posting – must go off this morning.’ The research director laid a pile of envelopes on the desk.

‘Kate, I have to talk to you.’ Edith was by Kate’s elbow.

‘No time, Edith,’ Kate said, facing the flustered medium. ‘I really am running late. I’ll try and ring you later. Will you be here at the Institute?’

‘Yes, I’ve got three sittings this morning. But it’s important . . .’

‘So’s the conference. There’s a lot of introductions I have to make before it starts and I’ll be skinned alive if I’m not there to do it.’

Politely as she could, Kate brushed past Edith, heading for the door.

The medium called after her. ‘It’s about David.’

Kate hesitated, one hand against the swing door, undecided. Then: ‘We’ll talk later.’

She went through, the door swinging shut behind her. Edith went after her, but stopped when she saw Kate through the glass climbing into the waiting taxi. The medium bit into her lower lip, knowing it would be useless to follow.

Instead she climbed the stairway, the effort tiring her more than she cared to admit, and made for Kate McCarrick’s office.

Inside, she put her handbag on the research director’s desk and went straight to a filing cabinet. She pulled out a drawer and studied the index of names.

Edith stopped when she found MARIELL. She took out the file.

As she opened it, she remembered the first time she had begun to wonder about David Ash . . .

‘Edith, meet David Ash.’

The dark-haired man had risen from his chair as Edith had entered the room, and now he extended a hand. His reserve was obvious. Interesting face, she thought, the deepest of eyes . . .

A sensation ran through her, the kind of shiver that can be caused by brushing fingertips over velvet, when they touched hands. The mild shock interrupted her thoughts.

His grip relaxed as if he, too, were momentarily confused; the handshake became firm again. ‘Kate has told me a lot about you,’ he said.

‘And I know of your reputation,’ she replied, equally swift to collect herself. Edith returned his smile to let him know there was no animosity intended in the remark.

‘I was surprised you asked Kate for my help.’

‘Believe it or not,’ said Kate McCarrick, beaming at them both, ‘Edith admires your work.’

Ash raised his eyebrows.

‘I don’t doubt your motives, Mr Ash,’ Edith said. ‘There really
are
too many charlatans in my profession. We suffer enough public scorn without these people exposing us all to even more ridicule.’

Ash was direct. ‘Forgive me for saying this, but I’m used to your kind closing ranks on me.’

‘Not when we, ourselves, suspect fraud. It may take years, but such imposters are usually found out, and when that happens it reflects badly on us all. Their sharp practices need to be nipped in the bud, Mr Ash, to minimize the damage.’

‘And before these bogus mediums gain too big a following,’ Kate added. ‘The bigger the fan club, the harder it is to discredit the idol.’

Ash knew the truth of that – like any religion (for many, clairvoyance was regarded as such), it was the devotees’
will
to believe that had to be confronted as much as the methods of the individual trickster.

‘The particular person we want you to investigate is beginning to step beyond acceptable bounds,’ said Kate.

‘Beyond acceptable bounds?’ Ash addressed his question to Edith: ‘So there are some deceptions, if they’re trivial enough, that are allowed?’

‘I can’t deny the theatrics of some mediums,’ Edith replied, ‘but they’re harmless, just their way of inducing a mood for sensing.’

She hadn’t liked Ash’s smile then.

Kate stood up from her desk, wary of how the meeting was progressing. ‘Why don’t I rustle up some tea or coffee while you explain the case in point to David? I think he’ll be very interested.’

‘I believe you will,’ said Edith as Ash sat and drew out a cigarette from its pack, his face expressionless. ‘Yes, I really believe you will.’

It was impressive. The atmosphere was charged, the expectation almost tangible. The light was low in the huge room – not just dim, not just suitably muted for the occasion of a seance, but
low
, dramatically so.

Ash inspected the medium who stood alone some distance away. She was impressive too, he mused. Jet-black hair (it
had
to be dyed that colour), drawn back severely over her scalp to gather into a tight bun at the nape of her neck; her heavily mascara’d eyes tilted at the corners as if from the strain of stretched skin. Sultry lips, darkly rouged, a prominent nose which dominated but did not spoil her face. Naturally enough, she was dressed in black: high-necked silk blouse, long, full skirt, and even dark hose and shoes. Value for money, Ash said to himself. If I were a paying customer (and he knew that money would change hands some time during the evening) it’s what I’d expect as part of the show. Her name was Elsa Brotski and he wondered why she didn’t go all the way and add the title ‘Madame’. All very impressive, but ludicrous too. Yet she was obviously revered by her following.

He studied the eager ‘guests’ around him, women in the main, a few elderly or middle-aged men among them. It was the latter who appeared the quietest; a hushed, but considerably excited, murmuring came from the women.

Ash had never attended a seance of this size before. Spiritualist meetings were usually more crowded, although they were mostly held in halls which could be filled to capacity. But this was a private sitting and there were more than twenty-five people (not counting the medium and her aides) gathered there, all seated on benches that were arranged into a U-shape, the interior left empty, the medium herself seated alone on a chair at the open end.

As Ash studied the people around him, so Edith, seated on the opposite side of the U-formation, studied him.

Over the past few weeks, she had come to know him a little –
just
a little – and had begun to realize that his scepticism, misguided though it might be, was born out of a sincere yearning for truth. Not that he was on any kind of holy mission – there was certainly nothing evangelical about this man – for Ash’s intellect was too complicated to allow anything so direct. She sensed that he was driven by something that he, himself, could not understand. ‘
It’s a job, not a vocation
,’ he had told her in one of their recent conversations, but she wondered then as she did now if that were really true. He wasn’t an easy man to understand, and that was probably because he hardly understood himself; yet she sensed the frustration in him – no, it was something more, something deeper, than mere frustration: a personal desperate seeking perhaps? That might be wrong, too. She didn’t know why, but Edith suspected it was quite the antithesis of that. What a strange notion on her part, she thought. Was it possible that a quest for truth could have its very denial as an underlying motive? Edith realized that her confusion about David Ash would not have been possible had not her mind occasionally touched his. There was a mystery in itself.

It was a lessening of whispered chatter rather than an increase that aroused Edith from her ruminations. She turned her attention towards the woman in black who sat alone and slightly away from her ‘guests’ and who had been silent until now, as if gathering her mental energies for the seance that was to follow. As two men joined her, standing behind the seated figure like guards rather than helpers, the ‘medium’ smiled almost imperiously at the congregation.

The murmuring ceased entirely when she spoke. ‘Bless you for coming this evening. I do believe I can already feel the excitement of our loved ones on the other side. Yes, yes, they are all quite impatient to speak.’ Her scanning of the assemblage was slow, as if she were taking in everyone present; the sitters stirred with pleasure and with a certain amount of trepidation.

Edith felt a small flush of shame on her cheeks as though she, herself, were part of this charade. Before, Ash had asked her why she had no doubts that this woman was a fake. ‘A true sensitive can’t help but know,’ she had said, the ambiguity of her reply unintended. She had quickly realized the answer was hardly satisfactory and had added that this particular person had accepted too many financial rewards over recent years to be genuine, for gross profit from one’s ability could never be acceptable to those with the ‘gift’. Cashing in on something so unique wasn’t the way, she had told him, referring to ‘the way’ as a spiritual path, not an attitude. He took the point; whether or not he accepted it was another matter.

There was another reason for doubting the probity of Elsa Brotski, Edith had gone on to explain, and it was simply that this so-called ‘medium’ was just
too
infallible. She never, absolutely
never
, failed in her endeavours to contact any particular spirit on the other side; and that really was not credible, for all sensitives had failures – probably more so than successes, if truth be told. Yet this woman appeared to have none. Rather bluntly, Ash had wondered aloud about professional jealousy, and Edith had reminded him that all she and the Institute were asking him to do was investigate the woman. Prove them right or wrong, nothing more than that.

Admittance to the seance had not proved difficult, for anyone was welcome, it seemed (and that puzzled Edith: phoney mediums usually gleaned as much information as possible from potential sitters, thus slyly arming themselves with knowledge that might be perceived as startling intuition on the occasion of the seance itself; yet neither she nor Ash had been approached or vetted). The only problem turned out to be the long waiting list of ‘guests’, for this woman was rapidly gaining a reputation as a clairvoyant
supreme
. Almost two months had elapsed before Edith and Ash had received separate invitations (they had used fictitious identities as a precaution) and she had had to invent excuses so that her visit would be rearranged to coincide with his. The long wait had its advantages, for it had given Ash time to investigate Elsa Brotski’s background.

Edith caught the faint nod of Ash’s head towards her as the wall lights were dimmed even lower. She heard the soft gasp of her neighbour, a middle-aged woman who smelled of powder and soap. A small spotlight picked out the ‘medium’, her skin pale and her lips blood-red under its glare. Although the room was not in total darkness, it was virtually impossible for the gathering’s attention not to be drawn towards that circle of light, which was now softening, becoming dulled as if it, too, were sinking with Brotski into her trance.

Her lips, now like blood-bruises in the deadening light, parted as she sighed, the sound almost orgasmic. She lifted her hands and the two aides on either side stepped forward to hold them, they in turn reaching for the nearest sitters.

‘Join me,’ the woman whispered breathlessly and, as if on cue, the seated people linked hands. The palm of the elderly man seated on Ash’s right felt dry and hard like summer bark, while that of the woman on his left was as clammy damp as butcher’s meat. He mentally complimented Elsa Brotski on the effectiveness of her presentation and watched with interest as her head sank lower onto her chest, her breasts beginning to heave beneath the shiny blouse. Her eyes had been closed, but now they opened as she raised her head once more and called a name:

‘Clare.’

A low huskiness tempered her voice when she repeated the name.

A shifting of someone two bodies down from where Ash sat, a timorous utterance.

‘I have someone here on the other side who wishes to speak to Clare,’ said Brotski. Then she tilted her head as if to speak to someone by her left shoulder: ‘Yes, I know, Jeremy. Please be patient.’ She faced the audience again. ‘Make yourself known, Clare, we have many eager to speak to us this evening.’

Ash grimaced. She didn’t waste time, this woman. A little theatre, then straight into the show.

‘I think it’s me,’ someone said from the shadows.

Immediately another spotlight came into life and its beam hurried along the row of people with whom Ash sat, stopping when it came upon a woman who was literally on the edge of her seat, her mouth open, her eyes keen with excitement. She blinked against the sudden light, even though it was not strong.