Shadows on the Nile (3 page)

‘We welcome you, Beloved Ones.’

Madame Anastasia spoke with a solemn voice that Timothy had come to expect of mediums, but there was a quality underlying it that made his nerve ends tingle, a sweetness as enticing as barley-sugar to a child. What spirit could resist such beguiling tones?

‘We welcome you, Beloved Ones,’ she declared again, ‘with gifts from Life unto Death.’

All eyes focused on the simple offering of bread and soup that stood in the centre of the triangle of candles to attract spirits, who still yearned for physical nourishment and who still craved warmth and light.

‘Come with us and move among us.’

The air grew thicker in Timothy’s lungs. Madame Anastasia tipped her head back, the weight of the headdress resting on her chair, and closed her eyes once more, her purple-swathed bosom moving heavily. This was the moment
when Timothy watched for any sleight of hand. A tug on a cord, the push of a button with the knee to create a moment of magic when the spirit makes its presence felt. It was what they were here for.

On the table her clients’ hands lay flat, each person’s last finger touching that of the person next to them, forming a symbolic circle, a necklace of hands. It intensified the energy in the room. Timothy could feel the tension rising in the older man on his left. He wore a calm benevolent expression above a neat goatee beard that gleamed white in the shadows, but his fingers were trembling. They sent ripples into Timothy’s flesh. On the other side of the man, the fur-coat woman’s eyes were open wide and fixed on a spot directly above the feathered headdress.

‘I see them,’ she whispered.

Timothy’s gaze jumped to the blank space above Madame Anastasia’s head, his heart thumping.

‘Where?’ He could see nothing.

Abruptly Madame Anastasia’s chin dipped forward onto her chest and her voice became that of a child’s, one who was clearly excited to be standing with one foot on each side of the divide between worlds.

‘I am Daisy.’ Her young voice was high and pure as a choir boy’s. ‘I have a man with me. He is a gentleman who is seeking his child. He is nervous of coming forward … in case his child does not want contact.’ The last words were added in a whisper, so that they all had to lean closer to hear.

‘Father!’ The fur-coat woman’s voice quivered. ‘Is that you? Stephen Howe?’

Instantly a strange anger seemed to flicker around the table. Timothy felt its heat rise through the cloth, penetrating his fingertips. His eyes darted from face to face in the shadows and saw the anguish on each one. How many here had lost their fathers? On the other side of Madame Anastasia a middle-aged man was seated, a small figure in an expensive suit and with a birthmark reaching
across his neck. He was looking closely at the slumped medium, squeezing her fingers, but she didn’t respond.

‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Tell us, little girl, is he the spirit of this woman’s father?’

‘Many of us have lost fathers,’ the woman sobbed. ‘The Great War robbed a whole generation of them.’

The little girl told them sharply to hush while she spoke further with the gentleman. In the silence that followed the tension in the room rose and all eyes focused in silence on the medium’s lips. Finally the client with the goatee beard lost patience and asked, ‘Daisy, my dear, can you tell us the name of the child that the spirit seeks?’

A knock on the table made them jump.

A trick
, Timothy told himself,
a trick
. But his heart was racing. Suddenly he wanted to break the circle of darkness, to leap to his feet and walk away from whatever it was they had conjured into their midst. He was a fool to believe that the world this side of the veil could tinker with those on the other side with impunity. Seconds ticked past and foreboding bunched in his chest, still and cold as stone.

‘Daisy,’ the man tried again, ‘we thank you for the sign. What name does your gentleman seek?’

‘He is sad. He says his heart is heavy.’ The girl’s voice did not sound remotely like Madame Anastasia’s own.

‘Will it help him to speak with his child?’ the man asked.

Again came the sharp knock on the table. Timothy saw the candles quiver and the air in the room grew heavier.

‘Daisy,’ the fur-coated woman spoke slowly, struggling for words, ‘tell us, dear. We’ve all gathered here to speak to someone who has passed to spirit. I badly need to communicate with my mother, Audrey Howe, who passed over four years ago. I would like you to ask your gentleman if he is my father, Stephen?’

‘No,’ the girl answered immediately in a
sing-song voice. ‘He is not Stephen.’

‘Oh.’

‘Who is he?’ Rawlings asked.

‘His voice is fading.’

‘Quickly, then,’ Rawlings urged. ‘Ask him now.’

‘So many voices, all chattering in my ears. They are restless and they all want to speak out at once.’

Timothy’s hands pressed down hard on the table. ‘Is it the letter K? Tell me! Does the child’s name start with K?’

A definite knock rapped on the table, louder than before, as he knew it would.
Yes.
‘It’s Kingsley, isn’t it?’ he called out. ‘The child is Kingsley. You always said you would communicate, you were always a missionary for the cause.’ The words were tumbling out now. ‘You promised and I never stopped believing you. Do you—’

Two sharp knocks. Curt. Dismissive.

‘He says no,’ the child’s voice whispered. ‘Not Kingsley. But he says yes, it is the letter K.’

‘Kenton starts with the letter K,’ Hyde-Mason pointed out. ‘Maybe it’s you – Timothy Kenton. You could be the one the spirit is seeking. It could be your father here tonight.’

Timothy’s heart stopped. This wasn’t what he’d come for. Not this. He snatched his hands from the table, breaking the circle, and stumbled to his feet. The goatee man shouted something but Timothy’s ears seem to have disconnected from his brain because it didn’t make sense of the words. He hurried across to the door, pulled it open and rushed outside into the hall, slamming the door behind him to block off the spirits that were calling to him. His brain buzzed, as if insects were trapped inside, fluttering their wings. He breathed deeply, dragging in the ice-cold air, but none of it seemed to clear his head.

The hall was huge, a great marble entrance area with an ancient coat of arms above a columned fireplace, half hidden in the gloom. It was a dim and sombre place. The only light came from a solitary candelabra on a window ledge and its flame swayed in and out of focus.

His coat. Where the hell was his coat? He was freezing.

He moved unsteadily towards an armoire table at the far end of the hall where a pile of garments lay, but when he bent
over them to search for his navy overcoat, his mind seemed to stutter and forget why it was there. His hands rummaged aimlessly among the coats and clutched at a dark sleeve. He pulled. But instead of the sleeve coming towards him, he came towards the sleeve. It swayed and undulated in front of him. The darkness of it seemed to flow up into his head and he closed his eyes, thankful for
the peace as he slid to the floor.

Jessie Kenton was walking up Putney Hill in the rain. It was a dank and soulless evening, and an ambulance raced past, its bell clanging. It sent a shudder through her, and made her walk faster, head ducked to fend off the wind that charged down from Putney Heath.

It was the end of October. Cold, wet and dark. Winter had sneaked in early this year. Jessie hated October with an intensity that even she recognised was out of all proportion, but there was no doubt in her mind that she functioned at her worst at this time of year. Her drawings became flat and unoriginal, reluctant to take shape. Pens and pencils lay sluggish in her fingers while she tried to cudgel her brain into activity. Bad things always happened to her in October. That was why her heart jumped prematurely at the noise of the ambulance and she lengthened her stride as she hurried to reach home.

Around her, London growled its nightly chorus. The engines of cars and cabs, trams and trucks belched out their black breath as the workforce of the city spilled out of offices and factories to fight their way onto trains, trams and buses. Jessie worked in a design studio in the Fulham area of west London and she usually cycled home the few miles along Fulham Palace Road and over
Putney Bridge, enjoying both the exercise and the sight of the River Thames. It slid under the bridge like a dark thread of history – King Henry VIII himself had skated on its surface four hundred years ago in the days when it used to freeze. Prime Minister Gladstone had escaped from under the eagle-eyed gaze of Queen Victoria to prowl its muddy banks in search of prostitutes to save. Sherlock Holmes had slunk through the foul mists that coiled from its polluted depths.

The last thought made Jessie smile and she reminded herself sternly that the inimitable Sherlock was nothing more than a figment of Arthur Conan Doyle’s imagination. But today she had walked home. A furniture removal cart had clipped her front wheel and buckled it this morning. She had sat in the gutter nursing a grazed shin and cursed all carts. Cursed October. Cursed her luck. When a passing car had offered her a lift, she had glared at the driver, rejected his undoubted kindness and hobbled the last half mile to the studio pushing a wonky bicycle. She had deposited it in the oily but capable hands of a bicycle shop mechanic on the corner of Fielding Road and at the end of the day she’d headed home on foot.

She quickened her pace now. On each side of the road perched rows of discreetly respectable houses, the kind of houses where librarians and undertakers lived, curtains already drawn like armour against the outside world, the smoke of coal fires gusting down from the chimneys into Jessie’s nostrils along with the rain. As she reached the turning to her street, she glanced over her shoulder. It was automatic. This need to check.

Behind her, Putney Hill fell away, gleaming wet and secretive in the dark, its pavements lit by an occasional street lamp or car headlight. There was no one in sight. Hardly surprising, as it wasn’t a night for an evening stroll. A dog with long yellow ears and sodden flanks was mooching around dustbins, but otherwise the street lay lifeless. That suited Jessie just fine. She felt her heart steady to no more than a dull thump. All week this had been going on, this
need to search behind her.

All right, tonight she was mistaken. Tonight there was no one. But other nights, footfalls echoed behind her so clearly that she would swing round to confront, face to face, whoever it was who was following her all over London. Yet there was never anyone she could pick out of the shadows by night, and by day there was only the usual flow of pedestrians going about their business, no one’s eyes meeting hers, just the stolid indifference of city-dwellers to those around them. Some nights she hesitated to turn, afraid that she’d see behind her a lean and hungry figure with blue eyes.

‘Jabez!’

No answer. Her flat felt cold as a tomb as she closed the curtains. October was seeping through the cracks in the plaster.

‘Jabez!’ she called again, switching on the overhead light, but there was no sign of activity.

She dropped her coat and scarf on the sofa and unwrapped a newspaper packet of sprats. Instantly the stink of raw fish permeated the air, thick and salty, and Jessie was thankful that Tabitha was out at work, so there would be no complaints. Jessie headed towards her bedroom, frowning slightly at the sight of the door ajar, because she distinctly recalled making a point of shutting it before leaving for work this morning. There was mud on her eiderdown.

‘Jabez,’ she said sternly.

No answer.

‘Where are you hiding?’

She wafted a sprat by its tail through the air and her pillow trembled. A small heart-shaped face and two pointed ears emerged from under it. A pair of vivid green eyes blinked at her and a loud purr shook the bedding.

‘Jabez, you are not allowed in here when I’m out. You know that.’

The cat stretched one coal-black front leg and pretended to ignore the silvery offering that dangled from her hand. Instead he rolled onto his back, wriggling all
four feet in the air, inviting her to admire his sleek black belly. But she wasn’t fooled. She stepped forward quickly and whisked the pillow from her bed.

‘Jabez! You are a
brute
.’

On the spot where her pillow had lain curled the corpse of a squirrel, its mottled fur as dull and flat as its eyes. She prodded it with the sprat. The animal was already cold and stiff. It saddened Jessie. It takes so little for life to be snatched from your grasp: scampering around Putney Heath and leaping from branches one moment but dead as a butcher’s bone the next. She stroked the tiny creature with one finger, then picked it up and carried it out to the kitchen, ignoring Jabez’s cries of protest. She wrapped the squirrel in an old tea towel, rummaged round for the small trowel that lived under the sink and went downstairs, out into the rain, where she buried the corpse in the back garden under the forsythia bush.

It was while she was standing invisible in the darkness, with hands all muddy and hair flattened by rain, that Jessie had an unsettling sense of doing this before. Burying something. But the memory wouldn’t quite come to her, what it was she’d buried or where. She stared up at the window of her flat and saw the curtains move and Jabez’s small face peer down at her with what she kidded herself was remorse. She had found him as a kitten shut in a Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin up on the heath on Christmas Eve, a tiny starving handful of fluff, and she had taken him with her, nursed him back to health and given him a home. Now he was family. No matter what his unseemly habits.

To have abandoned one member of her family was bad enough. To lose another would be unbearable.

The telephone jangled, startling Jessie. She let it ring unheeded. Jabez opened one eye, stretched out a paw from the stack of paper on top of which he was curled and sank his claws into the woolly sleeve of her jumper.
Don’t move. Stay here
. She trailed a finger between his ears, matching him stare for stare, and let the telephone ring.