Barbara Cleverly (22 page)

Maisie paused for a moment. Theatrically, Joe judged, but he didn’t hurry her. He took it as a roll on the drums and waited patiently for the waggle of the backside which had made such an impression on him.

‘The illusions worked. We were bloody good but that’s not the point.’ She paused again. ‘I started extemporizing.’

‘What was that, Maisie?’

‘Extemporizing – cloth ears! I started saying words that weren’t on the scripts. Things just started coming into my head and I said them. Out loud, just like that. And the sitters knew what I was on about, all right. I said things in those sittings I had no idea about before we started. Things that only my clients and the dear departed would know. I heard voices in my head, whispering usually, sometimes shouting, passing on messages – messages full of love and hope and reassurance as a rule. Sometimes they used my voice to make contact. I was scared at first and told Merl I wanted to stop but word got round and we couldn’t keep them off with a stick! We put the prices up – charged double – still they came. Merl never really understood. He thought I was just clever and lucky

Well, I was, but there was more to it than that. Much more.’

Maisie looked at him intently. ‘You see, Joe, it’s a true bill. I can really do it. I have to do it. When Merl died I stopped charging fees. It didn’t seem right. If someone wanted the comfort of a communication with a husband, a wife, a father and I could give it, that’s what I had to do and I couldn’t charge for it. It didn’t stop rich folks giving me presents and some have been very generous but you don’t have to have a brass farthing to ask me for help.’

‘But how did you fetch up here in Simla?’ Joe asked.

‘No mystery. A client who was on home leave from India went back and spread the news. I got an invitation to come here, all expenses paid. I’d never travelled and with Merl gone who was to tell me I shouldn’t? It’s a very spiritually minded place, this, Joe. Ever since that Madame Blavatski lived here they’ve been keen on it. And this town’s full of spirits, not all of them on the side of the light. In fact I’ve directed a lot of lost souls towards the light since I’ve been here. I look on it as my work.’

‘It’s very interesting, it really is, Maisie,’ Joe said with only a trace of impatience. ‘But I can’t see why you won’t help me out.’

‘You can. You’re sharp. I don’t need to spell it out.’

Joe sighed. ‘You would be compromising your art if you descended to the subterfuge I’m suggesting? Something like that?’

‘Put it like that if you like. But – would you spit in church? No? Well, it would be like that if I twisted the truth like you want me to. Sorry, Joe. Can’t be done.’

Joe felt his anger rising. ‘Maisie, can you hear yourself? Know what you sound like? A self-righteous cow who’s forgotten where she’s come from! You hear a few voices, come in for some adulation by credulous idiots who can’t face the truth without a spiritual crutch and you think you’re the next thing to the Madonna! What do you think I’m asking you to do this for anyway? To blacken someone’s character? To bring eternal damnation about their ears? Of course not! Get this into your silly head will you, love? I’m with you on the side of the light! All I want to do is catch a murderer who could well kill again, to right a wrong and solve a puzzle that needs to be solved! The way you go on anybody’d think I was asking you to call up the spirit of Charlie Peace!’

He got to his feet. ‘Well, I did ask nicely. You’ve made your decision. You can bloody well live with the consequences!’

He was at the door and opening it before she called out to him.

‘Consequences? What consequences?’

He stood silently watching her.

‘You’re a shit, Joe Sandilands! You’d blacken my name in Simla, wouldn’t you? A word in the Governor’s ear about those unresolved charges against my name back in London and I’d be finished.’

She got up and paced to the window, her face stiff with resentment. After a moment she turned to him. ‘Oh, all right. For God’s sake, I’ll do it. You’d better come round here for a rehearsal tomorrow afternoon about four. The seance is at eight o’clock sharp.’

‘Right,’ said Joe settling back into the chair again. ‘I’ll tell you how I want you to play it tomorrow afternoon then.’

‘No you won’t! I’m the bloody professional! It’s my reputation at stake! If I’m doing it, you’ll get it done and you’ll know that you couldn’t get it done better.’

Joe nodded his acceptance. ‘I take your word for it, Maisie. Oh, just one more thing and perhaps I should have asked this first -may I see a list of your sitters for tomorrow? Make sure my target is on it.’

Maisie went to a bureau and took a sheet of paper from a drawer.

Joe looked at the list. ‘I want you to go through this list with me and tell me a little bit about each person. And I don’t mean the gossip you’ve collected at that window – I mean the reasons, if any have been given, for wanting to be here. Who are they trying to contact on the other side?’

Maisie knew the list by heart and recited the names from the top in order. ‘The list changes every week. Some people are what you’d call the core of the meeting and we add others for variety. Major Fitzherbert. He’s a regular. Trying to contact the Mem. They were inseparable. He’ll likely succeed because she only died a year ago.’

‘Is that significant – a year ago?’

‘Oh, yes. You tend not to be lucky if the subject passed over more than about four or five years ago. They lose interest, you know – the spirits, I mean. They have work to do on the other side. They don’t particularly want to be called back here all the time to sort things out for their relations. You know – “Aunty Enid – what did you do with Granny’s garnets?” It’s boring for them.’

‘I can understand that. But Maisie – does this really work? I mean, you can tell me. It carries me out of my depth.’

‘Out of your depth?’ said Maisie derisively. ‘It carries me out of my depth! But it’s there and it does work. But you – you’re too bound up in police procedures. You imagine that if you don’t understand it, it doesn’t exist! Where was I? Mr and Mrs Tilly. He’s a financier. Their three boys died in Flanders. The eldest comes back quite often. Helps them to bear it. Then there’s Miss Trollope. This is her first visit. She’s hoping for a message from Snowdrop. Her dog.’

‘Any hope?’ asked Joe trying to keep a straight face.

‘Yes. Now if he’d been a cockatoo or a stick insect I’d say no but dogs do come through. They put their noses in your hands sometimes to show they’re there. Then we’ve got Colonel and Mrs Drake. They lost their twin daughters to the cholera in the plains three years ago. They’ve not given up hope yet. Then there’s Mrs Sharpe of ICTC. Her husband never comes with her. She’s trying to contact her mother.’

Joe looked away, but too late apparently to avoid giving Minerva a message he was unaware of signalling. ‘Ah! So that’s your mark! The Saintly Alice? Well, well!’ She gave a cynical smile and went on with her list. ‘And the last name is Cecil Robertson, the jeweller. I think he comes to see if he can catch me out – there’s always one! But also because he’s an expert on religions and he’s, well, I suppose you could say he’s making a study of me and my techniques. Oh, and lastly, a newcomer you can add to the list – Joe Sandilands, policeman, blackmailer and sceptic. With him in the room sneering, the spirits will take a powder and I won’t blame them! Now, that’s all you’re getting! Bugger off! Hecate wants to get back into her chair.’

Joe got to his feet and the waiting cat sprang triumphantly back into its place.

‘I’ll make sure you have no cause to regret what you’ve agreed to do for us, Maisie, and thank you for — ’

‘Cut the cackle, smart arse!’ she snapped impatiently. ‘You don’t need to turn on the smarm for me. I’ve said I’ll do it – leave it there, will you?’

Joe put on a face of blazing honesty, one hand over his heart.

‘I have your word and I trust you, Maisie. I wish you’d trust me a little.’

Maisie Freeman began to laugh. A derisive laugh that made her magnificent bosom quiver and rattled the jet beads around her neck.

‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘why not? I did make it my business to see that that charge sheet against you in London was wiped clean. You’ve been in the clear for four years now!’

He dodged neatly as a whisky glass materialized and flew through the air, narrowly missing his ear.

Ť ^ ť

The room when he returned just before eight on Friday evening projected a very different mood. The dark red curtains were drawn and a log fire burned brightly in the hearth. The lighting was discreet but adequate and supplied by two or three Tiffany lamps about the room and a row of tall white candles down the centre of the table.

The cat had been banished from the scene and Minerva Freemantle was alone in the room when he arrived. She was wearing a simple dark green velvet gown, low-cut and sleeveless, he noticed, a clear indication that no trickery was contemplated. Joe allowed his eyes to run appreciatively for a moment over the voluptuous and highly unfashionable curves of her figure, admiring the strong white arms, the waist improbably narrow between swelling bosom and lavish hips. Minerva – as he was beginning to think of her – had chosen her name well. As imposing as any Roman statue that had ever graced the temple of the Goddess of Wisdom, he thought fancifully; and guaranteed to distract the attention of any man lucky enough to be granted a seat at her table. She was still a show girl, he reckoned, and a clever one.

Unusually for India there were no drinks or sweetmeats of any kind on offer. A serious business, a seance, and not to be confused with a social occasion. All had been rehearsed and they moved easily into their routine when the other guests began to arrive. Introductions were made and brief descriptions given but they were not followed up with the usual social chit-chat. The other guests were friendly and greeted him without suspicion but with that automatic reserve which prevents people from starting up a conversation in the waiting room of a doctor’s surgery. They had their own preoccupations and were not disposed to take much interest in his.

Alice Conyers-Sharpe was the last to arrive, surprised but pleased to see him.

‘Well, now we’re all here

Most of us know each other well but we welcome two newcomers to our little band this evening – Miss Trollope who has very recently lost her dear companion, Snowdrop, and who is hoping for a sign that he has safely passed over and will be there to welcome her when it is her turn to make the transition

’

Miss Trollope was a small, fair woman with the wide-eyed and earnest expression of a porcelain doll. She smiled nervously and received sympathetic and encouraging smiles in return. They all had animals they were fond of themselves and would hope to meet up with again in the hereafter.

‘

and a new gentleman.’ (Was there the slightest emphasis on the word ‘gentleman’?) ‘Commander Joseph Sandilands from London. I will let him tell you in his own words what his motivation is in joining our circle.’

She turned to him with a sweet smile. This was not rehearsed. He inferred that he was not forgiven.

‘Minerva and I are old friends,’ he said with engaging sincerity. ‘Our paths crossed many years ago in London Town when she was already quite a star in her own field. I have long appreciated her remarkable talents. I’m here to explore the paths of truth, honesty and love. I open my mind and my heart to an approach from anyone who has passed through ahead of us to the Happy Fields and is prepared to give of his or her precious time to speak words of guidance or comfort to me.’

Everyone nodded fervently in understanding except for Minerva Freemantle whose lips appeared to twitch with suppressed emotion at this speech.

She gestured to the table. ‘If we can all take our seats then? Joe, no penance, I think, if I ask you to sit between two pretty ladies? If Mrs Sharpe sits on your left and Miss Trollope on your right? There we are. Now, hold hands everyone and place your joined hands on the table where we can all see them.’

She doused the electric lamps but left the candles burning. If he had not been anxiously waiting for the performance of his own trick, Joe thought he would have begun to enjoy himself.

The atmosphere was not at all what he had expected. Seated holding the hands of a pair of pretty girls at the walnut table, surrounded by kindly faces, he was more in the mood of cheerful expectancy that came over him at the beginning of a dinner party with friends and not in the dark mood of guarded superstition he had associated with seances.

‘We’ll begin with our usual prayer,’ said Mrs Freemantle without emotion.

Everyone except Joe and Miss Trollope knew the words and began to recite them together.

‘Lord of the Universe, Spirit of Love, we ask you to look with kindness on our gathering and keep all here assembled safe from evil, from despair and from doubt.’

A silence fell but it was a comfortable silence, the silence of an audience who know the curtain is about to go up on a performance they very much want to see. Joe found that he was thinking deeply as he did in those few minutes of private prayer before a church service. The hands holding his were not the source of embarrassment or even arousal that he had anticipated but a comforting touch linking him to the rest of the group. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the candle flame in front of him. He was not sure how many minutes had slipped by when Minerva Freemantle began to speak.

‘David? Is that David? Mrs Tilly, your son is with us!’

Mr and Mrs Tilly looked at her eagerly but stayed silent. Joe felt a tingle in his arms and hands and stirred his elbows and shoulders discreetly to keep the circulation flowing.

A voice, shockingly deep to the inexperienced Joe, came from Mrs Freemantle’s throat. A young man’s voice full of life and humour and excitement.

‘Mother! Father! I’ve found them! Both of them! Bill and Henry are with me and quite safe now. If you can believe it they were both still in their bunker on the Somme. Didn’t know which way to turn. Didn’t want to desert their post even though they were supposed to have passed over! They say thank you for the last parcel you sent. Bill had the blue socks and Henry had the green ones. They send their love and we’ll all be waiting for you when you come through.’