Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (13 page)

The past binds us all up; it’s never finished with. By the time I got back to checking my soup, I’d had a good rifle through my casket of early memories, without once recalling the disapproving features of a younger Mrs. Mitchell. I had “aunties” galore, but none of them was her.

The soup looked good, but too thick. I threw in the half pint of milk and gave the lot a go with my soup whizzer. I stayed beside it, watching it slowly bubble up again.

No photo was passed down to me. No locket around the neck of the dead woman containing a whisper of a heritage. That sort of thing only happened in Victorian novels and, as I’d never read one, there was no possibility that it might be happening to me.

_____

I was washing up my bowl and glass when my phone rang. I snatched at it. I could not afford to miss calls from prospective clients.“Sabbie Dare.”

“Oh,” said a high voice. “Sorry … I’ve got your card. Sabbie Dare, Shamanic Therapist?”

“Right.” The girl sounded so young this could be a prank call. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Laetitia Mitchell.”

For a moment I was thrown. This didn’t sound like the Mrs. Mitchell I spoke to at the Hatchings.

“Lettice to my friends. I hate my real name.”

I couldn’t help a chuckle. “I’m the same. I hate my real name as well.” I was trying to be chatty, put her at her ease now I knew who she was, but she came back very quickly.

“Sabrina? That’s your name?”

“Yes …”

“Ma chucked your card in the bin.”

“Not in need of a shaman, then.”

“You didn’t leave it for that reason, though, did you? You’re a relation or something, aren’t you?”

“I’m honestly not sure, Lettice.”

“Ma thought you were a gold digger.”

“I’m not after anything. I was delivering your lunch.”

“Truly? Only … she doesn’t know I’m calling you.”

“Then it’s not a great idea that we talk. It makes things look even more of a conspiracy, when actually they’re the exact opposite. Serendipity.”

“What’s that?”

“Things that just happen.”

“Like fate?”

“Sort of.”

I told her about my birth certificate, how I’d refused to cast eyes on its details until they’d been thrust under my nose. “All I know is that I’m the daughter of a woman called Isabel Trevina Dare.”

“That’s my aunt’s full name,” said Laetitia, in a whisper. “I think you’re my cousin.”

“What?”

“My mother has a sister she never talks about.”

I was unable to reply. The thoughts whirling in my head had dried my tongue.

“I want to meet you. I really do.”

“Look, Lettice … it’s important not to have secrets with people you don’t even know—me for instance.”

“Oh my god, Ma’s coming,” hissed the girl. “Gotta go.” The line went dead.

I put the mobile down with care, as if it might bite me—or worse, ring again. So when the door bell went moments later, I leaped off the floor.

Andy Comer was standing in the darkness of my porch. He didn’t speak. His shoulders were spasming with anger. Something gleamed white in his hand. It was my letter to Drea, screwed into a ball. Clearly he hadn’t appreciated its arrival in his house.

“You,” he said. There was whisky on his breath. “You … told her to go.”

“That’s not your business.”

His shoulders came up around the tops of his ears as he leaned in on me. “Whose business is it, if not mine?”

“Drea’s.” I wished my voice sounded stronger, but a thin squeak was all I could manage.

“She’s left. Gone back!” He smoothed the crumpled sheet and appeared to read some of it. “She was gone when I got home.”

“Good,” I said. “You didn’t deserve her. Think I can’t guess what is wrong with that girl?”

“No!” He was shouting. “You couldn’t guess. And she would never tell you.”

“She didn’t have to.”

“What have you done?” His voice dropped, as he reined himself in. He was good at that. Usually controlled … in public, at least. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

He raised his hands. He seemed to grow, under the streetlamp. I was winged into Drea’s journey; the snake looming over me. I was sure I’d done the right thing in giving Drea that letter, and secretly, I was pleased with the result. I didn’t need to listen to this drunken man’s ramblings.

“Well, screw you,” I said.

I slammed the door.

twelve

Saturday night, and the
Curate’s Egg was jam-packed and throbbing with sound. There was always live music, although Kev, the manager, was not fussy about auditioning, so the quality varied from finger-tapping to ear-clapping. He’s a people person, is Kev—good with the punters—but probably tone deaf and definitely can’t spell. When I’d first started working here, I’d sneaked around all the blackboards
…
Happy Ower! Live Music Tonite! Reel Ale buy the Glass
…
taking a bar cloth to the offending words. There wasn’t much
I learnt at school (let me rephrase that—there wasn’t much I learnt in the classroom), but I seem to naturally be able to add up and spell. Quite useful skills for bar work, along with a steady hand and a steely eye.

Tonight we’d been threatened with a jazz band, but as they got going I could see—well, hear, I suppose—that they were closer to R&B than jazz, which was more up my street. I’m a survivor of Brit Pop and trance, but luckily for my job at the Egg, I enjoy the decades before I was born.

This band
was loud and energetic with a lot of oldies that were making people get up and dance, even though the Egg doesn’t possess a dance floor. Every seat and standing place was taken and the floor was already wet with beer. The Egg had been a pub long enough to have started out with straw on its floor, and sometimes I’m of the mind that we should put the straw back down, but Kev is perversely proud of the way he pulls the weekend punters. He doesn’t do food—you’re lucky if you can choose your flavour of crisps—and the downing rate is so high that by time the band’s on its second session, there are more cases of alcohol poisoning behind the doors than at an unsuccessful AA meeting. Not everyone is sheets to the wind, though; people do come here to catch up with the local music scene and there’s always a few aficionados
crunched into corners, their entire bodies pulsing with the beat. There was one tonight, sitting so close to the band his ears were endangered, a half-finished pint before him and his head low over the table, scribbling into a notebook.

I looked again. It was Fergus.

I wove towards him, collecting glasses as I went. “Hi!”

“Hi,” he said, closing the notebook. “So this is where you work.”

He had shaved. I spotted the vestige of a dimple at the centre of his smooth chin.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” I said.

“Ah, but that’s because you didn’t know me before.”

“Fair enough. What you writing about?” I pointed to the notebook. “Not checking out the pub’s employment record are you?”

“Pardon me?”

“I know, I know. The band’s belting it out above safety levels.”

“I could hang around until they’ve done their gig.”

“Okay.”

I introduced him to a couple of the regulars to get him chatting. I’d been joking about the secretive writing, but Kev would throw him out if he thought he was making notes about the temperature of the beer. I kept glancing over at Fergus, wondering where I stood with him. I’d expected him to come and lean on the bar, so we could chat some more, but he stayed where he was, talking mostly to the band’s little following, until after they’d dismantled their gear, at which point he helped them carry it out.

Bit by bit, the punters strayed into the cold night. It wasn’t the sort of place where they beat each other to a pulp or barfed in neighbouring doorways, but I was happy to see them depart.

I was giving the bar a final wipe when Fergus walked over to me.

“What did you think of the band?” I asked.

“Okay. Not my entire cup of tea, if I were honest.”

“What’s your cup of tea, then?”

“Folk and roots. I like to taste and try from around the world.”

“I heard some Bulgarian music this week. At least I assumed it was Bulgarian.”

“I love Balkan folk. It’s very east/west.”

“Oh, right,” I said, nodding like I knew what he meant.

“And a wide variety of instruments: bagpipes, woodwind, fiddle …”

“You know a lot about all this.”

“Music is my dream, so it is.”

“Your … dream?”

He nodded. “I love my job. Agency for Change. Of course I do. It’s important. Essential, I believe. But it isn’t what …” He trailed off.

“What you love?”

“Absolutely. Passion. You should have one in your life, wouldn’t that be so, Sabbie?”

His notebook was still in his hand. It had parchmentlike, hand-cut pages and on the cover was a design in Celtic knotwork; an intricate weave of spirals within circles, all interlaced and unbroken. It was the sort of book you buy as a gift at an ethnic market stall. I wondered if someone had bought this for him to write in.

“Is that what your notebook’s for?” I asked. “To record your thoughts about the music you hear?”

“Not at all.” He lifted it in reverence and slid it into an inner jacket pocket. “This is my dream. To write the songs that others love to hear.”

“You write songs?”

“I’d sing them, if anyone would employ me to do so.”

“You could ask Kev.”

“Be careful. You haven’t heard my songs, yet.”

“Oh, he’d take anyone.” My hand shot to my mouth at my gaff, but Fergus laughed; perhaps too long and too loud, but it was a rich, Irish laugh and it made me giggle too.

“Thanks for the recommendation. It deserves recompense, indeed. Shall I write a song for you? A love song, perhaps. ‘Shaman Girl,’ or some such. How does that sound to you?”

It sounded like Fergus was in high flirt mode. I could feel my skin warming up under his slanted smiles. Without even meaning to, I tapped his arm. If I’d had a fan to hand, I’d’ve slapped it closed and used that. “You are outrageous!”

“That I am. An outrageously dreadful fellow. So, Sabbie, what are you planning for later?”

“I usually go home and flop into bed.” The double meaning dawned and I rushed on. “There’s a taxi waiting for me. What about you?”

“I promised to show up to a friend’s party.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Would you care to take a look with me?”

“Yeah, why not? Just give me about ten seconds to tart myself up to party standards, okay?”

“Ten seconds is surely all a girl like you needs to make herself look beautiful.”

Wow. I dashed into the back loo and started pulling my bag apart—deodorant, hairbrush, lippy. Odd compliments he offered, but nice nonetheless. Fergus was from Ireland after all, so his chat-up lines were going to sound quaint and lyrical but full of guile too. I liked that. I decided Fergus would be refreshing to get to know.

And Rey had given strict instructions on that subject: find someone new.

_____

“Fergus! You’re here at last! And you brought tottie!”

As we’d walked along the empty streets of Bridgwater, it had belatedly occurred to me I might have got the wrong end of the stick. By
party
, did Fergus mean half a dozen Irishmen sitting round with Jamesons in their hands, talking about the good old days when knee-capping was the national sport?

Luckily, the guy at the door was young, in possession of a slopping pint, and yelling to make himself heard above the thud of nineties garage music. I wasn’t going to let his sexism fly over my head, though.

“You got my name wrong,” I said, as we unwound ourselves from our outdoor wear. “It’s Sabbie, not Tottie.”

“Oops. I spend my day grappling with the inequalities of our immigration system, and sometimes I need to break out. Juke. Short for Justin.” He offered his hand and I shook it. “Cath is about somewhere,” he added in Fergus’s direction.

“I work with Cath and Juke,” Fergus explained.

“Agency for Change?”

“Yep,” said Juke. “
Agency
as in
agenda
. Wouldn’t you say, Fergus?”

“Guess so.”

I passed Juke the bottle of Blossom Hill that we’d prized off Kev and we waded into the kitchen over the legs of a bunch of people propped on either side of the hallway. Steam rose from them and mingled with a Ms. Dynamite beat.

The kitchen was crammed. Getting to the drinks end of it proved a matter of putting your head down and going in. Fergus spoke into my ear. “I hope this is your sort of thing.”
I grinned at him and he grabbed my hand and charged into the throng.

Armed with Buds, we stepped our way back to the living room, where the rugs had literally been taken up; I could see one rolled and leaning against a wall like it was waiting for a partner. Twenty or more people were dancing on the laminate, crammed into the space left by pushing the sofas back to the walls.

“You want to …” said Fergus.

We shuffled into the crowd and began to gyrate. Well, Fergus gyrated, whooping and waving his arms in that male “I can dance” way, while I did little pointy movements with my feet.

We swayed in and out of each other’s close-up zone as the beat notched itself to a climax, sometimes almost touching, sometimes apart. But the next track brought the pace down. Fergus put a hand on my arm—a light touch that I could ignore if I pleased. I moved in and he slid his arm around me. Turned out we were on the same eye level. I’m five-five in the trainers I always wear at the Egg. Fergus couldn’t have been much more than five-six or -seven. I liked that, the way I could look directly across at him. His breath had a yeasty scent and he had one of those mouths … not too full, not too thin, not too wet, not too dry … Lips that might make a girl yearn to lean in to test their fit.

“You’ve never said if our ale is as good as the ol’ Guinness,” I teased.

“Ah, now that would be telling. I don’t drink the black stuff over here. I like to sample all things English.”

I lifted my chin and my cheek brushed against his. I’d warmed up with the dancing, but Fergus’s skin still felt chilled.

“You’re cold,” I whispered.

“Jesus, I don’t mean to be,” said Fergus. “I just come across like that sometimes.”

He kissed me, and our lips really did fit, like the way a peach can be halved, then perfectly slotted together again.

He was going to do me so much good, was Fergus Quigg.

Finally, a sofa became free and Fergus grabbed it. He turned to me as if he meant real business now we’d claimed our snogging space.

The kisses tasted good, but there was a wheel, spinning inside my brain, that kept up a nagging chant:
You’ve never tried a Reynard kiss. How d’you know how his compare?

Shut up!
I kept responding.
Just shut up. Rey
told
me to do this.
He thought I was a damn dumb civvy. He’d be delighted to know I’d found a respectable boyfriend.

I surfaced from the kissing without an answer, but I had a sudden desire to shift my body away and let my thoughts catch up with my actions—something a girl should always do. I had to work out if I wanted Fergus for himself, or as a substitute Rey.

Fergus straightened too, and our knees touched. A million embryo thoughts burst into my brain.
Is that touch anything like the electric charge that sparks between Rey and me? Am I breathless? Is my heart aflutter? In any case, how long can a girl go without sex?

“Have you seen anything more of Mirela?”

I half jumped. I’d forgotten Mirela in the passion of our embraces. I gave Fergus a quizzical look at his change of subject. “Yeah, of course.”

“It’s great you’re keeping an eye on her.”

I recalled our adventure at the massage parlour. I didn’t plan to tell Fergus about that; he’d think I was a shaman’s rattle away from unhinged. “She’s so vulnerable on her own. I will personally strangle Kizzy, when she turns up eventually.”

“Turning up isn’t necessarily on the cards, Sabbie.”

He was right; wherever Kizzy was, she didn’t seem keen to get in touch. But on the edge of my peripheral vision, I couldn’t rid myself of the images that had been on the telly in the summer. The girl, drowned and dripping, pulled from the water only a few miles away from where we were now sitting. And to this day, no one knew the name of that victim or who had killed her, or even how she had died.

“Could Kizzy be dead, Fergus?”

He was silent for long seconds. “She could be anything, I guess.”

“I mean, why else would she walk away from her teenaged sister?”

“She didn’t strike me as someone who’d think too deeply about that. Get an offer, take it while you can.”

I could see that this had been his conclusion from the start. Perhaps Mirela also knew this, harsh though it was. Her sister had called her “uncool”…
like I will never dip my toe
…

“Did you manage to check the hostels?”

“I drew a blank, I’m afraid.”

He came back with his answer so quickly, I gave him a slow look. “Drew a blank as in ‘no point in bothering’?”

“Truth is, I can’t see Kizzy in a hostel with one shower between twenty women. Can you?”

I shook my head. I was beginning to despair of finding Mirela’s sister. My journey to the gypsy fire had been less than forthcoming, our investigations into darkest Bridgwater had been a complete failure, the police were not interested, and it was becoming transparent that Fergus Quigg wasn’t going to come up with any trumps, either.

“I meet a lot of people like the Brouviches, of course,” said Fergus. “They’ve had all kinds of appalling experience. Finding one concerned, impartial friend, like Mirela has with you, is nigh on impossible for them.”

“The great British public aren’t renowned for their love of outsiders.”

“You’re right,” said Fergus. “What you’ve offered this girl is pretty rare. Most people are not out-and-out xenophobes, but they don’t realize how frightened or how guilty outsiders like Mirela feel. In work, we can offer them amity and even absolution, but that’s not as genuine as finding a proper friendship.”

I pounced on his words. “Is that what you do, Fergus? At the Agency for Change? Offer absolution?”