The Dead of Winter (13 page)

‘You lied, didn't you?' Tim asked quietly.

‘About?'

‘About seeing a medium.'

Rina glared at him and then sighed. ‘It was a very long time ago. I only thought about it again when we came here. It was just after Fred died and I felt so terribly alone and I went to one of those public meetings where a medium gives messages. I left only part of the way through. Somehow it all seemed a little odd, not really what I was looking for, though I have to admit other people there did seem to be getting some comfort from it.'

Even if the messages were, to Rina's mind, hopelessly banal.

‘And it was as though, as though . . . Well, I felt Fred speaking to me outside, telling me I didn't need any kind of intermediary to chat to him. It was so strange. I've never talked about it.'

‘How did you know Rina was lying?' Terry asked Tim.

‘Oh, just a feeling.' Tim smiled at her. ‘This was a daft idea, wasn't it, Rina darling.'

‘Only this part of it; we've enjoyed the rest. But I've had enough now. I want home and my own bed and all my own things around me and my family. Especially my family.'

‘Chocolate cake,' Joy said, ‘and dessert in blue bowls with loads of cream and the Peters sisters playing the piano.' She laughed a little shakily.

‘Can anyone come and eat cake at your house?' Terry asked.

‘Oh, only a chosen few,' Tim told him. ‘But I think you're in with a shot. Rina, you think someone was manipulating the seance. Rapping the table.'

‘Yes, I do. And I think the group didn't just research their imagined ghost, Grace, they researched myself and Joy. It would be easy enough to do, especially these days when everything is on the Internet. Apparently, I even have a
Wikipedia
entry. Terry, were you involved in creating Grace?'

‘Oh, not really. Gail, Rav, Edwin and David Franklin and Simeon spent between Christmas and New Year here together, and I think Melissa was involved. I think Toby and Jay Stratham arrived just before New Year, and Viv and Robin just before I did. I got here only a few hours before you all did. Prof Franklin and Edwin briefed me and told me that some friends of Toby's were coming along to be witnesses and that I should be careful not to say too much to you because that would ruin the experiment. I must admit I thought it was all a bit odd, but I was here so I thought I might as well go along with it. When I met you, I did wonder how it was all going to turn out though.'

‘Tim, what did Toby say to you to get you to take part?' That question had been nagging at Rina ever since they arrived.

‘He said nothing, Rina, I was just returning a favour. He made the film of the Pepper's Ghost illusion I performed at Christmas and The Artist's Dream. He didn't charge, even though it took a good deal of time and the use of equipment I really couldn't hope to get access to any other way. He said he'd do that for me if I acted as fourth camera on something he was working on. Of course, I agreed. Then I asked if Joy could come with me, and then you came into the picture, and he asked if I thought the two of you would mind being witnesses. I thought he just meant it like two members of the audience – you know, “come up and check the chains and locks and that the guy is in the sack” sort of witnesses. By the time I got here and found out exactly what was going on, it was all organized, and I guess I thought—'

‘You thought you owed Toby a favour and a deal was a deal.' Rina nodded. Knowing Tim as she did, that made perfect sense. ‘I don't like him,' she said bluntly.

‘We were very close at university. Being with him now makes me realize just how long ago that was. It felt good to see him again, to have him working with me on filming the illusions, but outside of the work, I don't know, you suddenly realize you've got very little in common with someone you once felt you knew, and that's hard.'

They fell silent, reflecting on the events just passed. ‘Bed, I think,' Rina said at last. ‘I've had enough, and I need my sleep.'

They all rose, agreeing with the sentiment, when the orangery door opened and the others trooped through. Toby looked oddly serious, and Edwin excited.

‘Oh, good. You're all still up,' Edwin said. ‘My dear, you have to watch this.'

‘Watch what?' Joy backed away. ‘I'm sorry, Edwin, but I really have had enough of all this stuff. I want to go to bed now.'

‘Oh, but Patrick left a message for you. You have to hear it, my dear. You really do.'

‘I don't understand.'

Rina looked from one to the other of the group. Edwin could not contain his excitement. Viv and Robin hung back as though uncertain and puzzled, and Rav poured himself a drink and then leant against the fireplace observing them all. Jay Stratham prowled, looking out of the window as they had done earlier, and whatever had excited Edwin seemed lost on him.

Toby was fiddling with one of the video cameras. ‘I've set it up on this camera,' he said to Joy. ‘You get the best view.'

‘Of?' Rina looked at Rav for explanation. He shrugged, setting the ice in his drink rattling.

‘Where did Melissa go?' Tim asked.

‘Back to the kitchen to get more food. She's determined to force-feed us, I think,' Viv told him.

‘I didn't see her come through.'

‘No, there's a little door at the other end of the orangery thing. It's behind a tree.'

Rina raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like Tim to miss something like that. Not like her either. ‘So?' She looked at Rav again.

‘After you'd gone, Edwin suggested we use the planchette to take a message. I have to say I declined.'

‘And?'

‘And any of these techniques is open to abuse and self deceit.' Rav sipped his drink, seeming ready to dismiss it all.

‘Why not let Joy decide?' Edwin said. ‘Toby, will you show her the film, please?'

‘Joy, you don't have to do this.' Rina was annoyed now.

‘Sorry, Rina, but I think I do. OK, Toby, show me what you lot got up to.' She sat down on the sofa, Tim beside her, and Toby handed him the video camera. Rina and Terry stood behind.

Toby had started the recording at a point when they were already using the planchette, the wheeled trolley moving rapidly across a board on which letters and numbers had been painted. Rina could not recall having seen it previously. Convenient, she thought, that someone had the foresight to bring it into the room.

‘Can you tell us your name?' Gail was saying.

‘P, A T, R – Patrick, is it Patrick? That's a yes, a definite yes.'

The planchette moved again and this time spelt out the name Joy. ‘I'm sorry,' Gail said. ‘Joy had to leave. Was there something you wanted to tell her?'

Everything seemed to stop and then abruptly begin to move again. ‘Love her,' the message spelt out. ‘Wish her happy.'

‘Is there more?' Rina demanded.

‘No, nothing very constructive,' Toby said. ‘We kept trying, but we just got a lot of gibberish after that.'

Joy said nothing. The colour had left her cheeks again, and she looked unbearably weary. Finally, she got up and took Tim's hand. ‘I'm going to bed,' she told them all. ‘Goodnight, all of you. We've decided to leave in the morning.'

Protests and pleas to reconsider followed Joy and Tim through the door.

‘You can't
really
be going,' Toby said.

‘Why not?' It was the first contribution to the conversation that Jay Stratham had made. ‘I may well be joining them. I doubt our promised speakers will be back tomorrow, not if this weather continues, so I think I'll be off too. I don't see anything worth remaining for.'

‘We could try again with Grace,' Edwin said. ‘Jay, there is still so much more to explore.'

‘Is there? I'm sorry, Edwin. I understand how important this event has been for you, but frankly I've seen more professional behaviour from carnival fortune-tellers.'

Viv giggled, and Robin looked shocked. Edwin was clearly hurt. ‘Jay, I can't believe you would say such a thing.'

‘And it saddens me to have to. Edwin, you've been at the vanguard of your field for a lifetime; frankly, this little performance tonight was unworthy of you. That you should lend your name to such a pathetic farce saddens me greatly, it really does. I'm planning on leaving in the morning, if the weather permits, but I won't be participating further. I'm sorry, Edwin, but I can't lend my name or my reputation to any of this, and neither should you.'

‘But Jay, please.'

Jay Stratham crossed to where Edwin stood and gently laid his hands on the old man's arms. He spoke softly, friend to friend, ignoring the remainder of the gathered company. ‘Edwin, my old friend, only my respect for you bade me say yes to this. I was worried from the start that it seemed off the wall, even for you. No, hear me out. I understand, or I think I understand, what you hoped to do, and it is laudable that you should try and bring such a disparate band together, a credit to your reputation that we should all agree, but frankly, Edwin, I don't believe a word of what's been going on. None of it will stand scrutiny. Believe me. Let it go.'

He released Edwin and walked stiffly towards the door.

He was the third cameraman, Rina thought. What did he film that upset him so much? She glanced at Rav, who had refilled his glass and continued to watch silently from his place beside the fire.

‘And what do you think?' she asked him.

‘That Jay is correct and we should pack up now, spend the rest of the weekend as each of us sees fit and leave as soon as the weather breaks. Edwin, I too am sorry, but so much is wrong about this set-up. It proves nothing; it demonstrates nothing. You and I disagree on so much, but I've always considered you a consummate professional, a stickler for what you deem to be the truth, even when I've been utterly unable to agree with your conclusions. You need to let go of this, now. At least the weather will spare you the embarrassment of presenting the films to the convention. Bless the weather, Edwin, and leave it alone.'

Melissa chose that moment to arrive, clanking across the hallway with an ageing tea trolley. ‘You lot have to eat,' she commanded.

Rina glanced at her watch. It was past one in the morning, and she felt too weary to pursue further discussion. More to please Melissa than because she wanted anything, she chose a couple of sandwiches and announced that she would eat them in her room, then followed Joy and Tim up the stairs. Back in the hall she could hear that the arguments continued, getting heated now as Edwin defended himself and Rav, in quiet tones, tried to persuade him to walk away from what Rav simply saw as a failed experiment. Then the door closed and Rina could hear no more.

Slowly, carrying the unwanted plate of sandwiches, she made her way to her room, got ready for bed and made herself a cup of tea. Rina sat beside the window, staring out at the still falling snow and allowing her mind to collate the events of this weekend. The knowledge that Mac would try and reach them tomorrow soothed her. She needed his clear head and Miriam's observational skills, and just the idea of having as a sounding board people that had not been involved thus far was a happy one.

‘What have we all learnt from this?' Rina asked herself. ‘Apart from not to do it again, of course.'

Nothing really, she had to admit. The one clear but unsurprising revelation was that people clung to the positions they had adopted, even when those positions were under siege. That ideas were precious to those that avowed them and built their reputations upon them: people like Edwin and Rav and Jay, who could still manage to be friends despite their intellectual differences, but who made ready to break such bonds if it looked as though their professional reputations might be compromised.

‘People,' Rina said with a sigh. ‘You reach the point in life, Fred, when nothing they do shocks you much, it just disappoints.'

She could imagine his response to that. ‘Not like you to be cynical, love,' he would have said. ‘And there are some who don't let you down, you know that.'

Yes, she knew that, and it was knowing that which always permitted a bit of optimism to remain even when things got bad, to be clung to like a life raft when the world got all too complicated.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep yet, she spread Viv's notes out on the dressing table, moving the old-fashioned dressing table set – moulded glass candlesticks and oblong tray and little bowls – and finding in the process the newspaper pages she had discovered lining the shelves in the servants' quarters.

Happy to be distracted, Rina pored over the adverts for
sunlight soap
and
pink pills for pale people
and the maternity corsets that looked like elaborate birdcages. Turning the pages over, she found a list of sailing times for passenger vessels out of Liverpool and London. Of quayside auctions listing goods brought in from the Indies and China and even Afghanistan. Silk cloth and raw cotton, tea and sugar, spices and tobacco. A report on the visit made by the Duke of York, the election of local counsellors, making special note of the re-election of Mr George Pryor as Mayor. People so long dead and gone, but their stories still resonating down the years. She turned to the second folded sheet of newspaper and opened it out on the dressing table. A familiar face looked back at her – though, in the faded black and white photograph, Albert Southam looked older and more tired than he had in his portrait. She realized with a little shock that she was looking at his obituary and the report on his impressive funeral.

Local industrialist and benefactor of many local charities, promoter of education for both the children of his employees and the employees themselves – apparently, he hired teachers for a number of free night classes – Albert Southam seemed to have left his mark.