Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (14 page)

I’d been intent on finding the places that sounded threatening; dark and blameful. Perhaps I could tick
the place of absolution
off my search list.

Fergus was still talking. “Romani are regularly removed from their homes all over the EU. It’s a silent ethnic cleansing that’s ignored, even condoned.”

“Why are people so cruel to strangers?”

“It’s family, isn’t it Sabbie? I’m from a big Irish family and I can tell you, day-to-day, we used to hate each other’s guts. But as soon as one of us was threatened from outside, we’d stick up for each other to the death. We were family.”

“Yeah,
family
, okay …”

He held up his hand, and that was just as well because my knowledge of family was a little scrubby. “From families come clans, and clans form into tribes. And from tribes grow countries … states. It doesn’t even seem to matter how similar you look. The Irish don’t look much different from the English, for instance, but they underwent centuries of hatred.” He stopped short. “Ah, forgive me; I’m in lecture mode. I like to play devil’s advocate. But then the devil takes me by the toe and pinches.”

“I guess you’ve kissed the Blarney Stone.” Stuck his tongue right down its throat, if you asked me.

“Jesus, I’d never do that. The locals pee all over it. It’s just for the tourists.” He paused and gave me a quick smile, enough to make something behind my rib cage go
chirp
. “At least,
that
sort of kissing the Blarney. There is another, indeed.”

“And that is?”

“I’d need to know you far better before I disclose that to you.”

Whoa
, I thought.
Is he inviting me to bed?
At that moment, it felt like a sideswipe from off the field of play.

I was perplexed by the man—the atmosphere kept changing—long sofa kisses had become a professional discussion and then snapped into what felt like a tacky proposition. Perhaps with his strict working philosophy, he struggled to leave his sense of duty behind when he was off duty, and only managed it by wandering into minefields.

“So,” I said, trying to trace our conversation safely back across the minefield, past blarney and devils, “you look after … what? People from the EU?”

“Among other things.”

“Such as?”

“I support people who are applying for asylum.”

“Helping them stay put in this country?”

“When we can. We try to work in sympathy with the immigration authorities.”

“In sympathy? How can you do that and look after the interests of people like Mirela?”

“To be honest, the agency sort of straddles the divide between the protest groups and the law. When we take a case on, we’re not looking to blame anyone on either side. We want to listen and help.”

“That sounds like a line from a website.”

I was becoming a bit tetchy—I definitely preferred Fergus in amorous mode. He stood up, brushing down his jeans, as if he had picked up on the tone of my voice.

“Fancy another beer?”

“Okay. Although I’d better go easy. I’ve got clients tomorrow.”

While he was struggling towards the kitchen, I took in my surrounds. The party was getting raucous. The music had turned sultry and couples were practically having vertical sex on the dance floor. Scented whiffs of wacky baccy drifted around. I had thought Fergus a little too diligent for my taste when I’d met him, but I’d only seen a thin layer of the man in the Polska Café. He was beginning to round out.

“What’re you doing here on your lovely own? Not deserted you, has he?” Juke flopped onto the sofa beside me.

“He’s gone to get drinks.”

“He’ll be lucky.” Juke was wearing bleached jeans and a dark suit jacket with an artificial daffodil on the lapel, the sort you get when you put money into a charity box. He had a two-inch beard that looked incredibly soft and so well spread out I could almost count the hairs in it. The beard was golden brown, contrasting with the darker hair that swept horizontally across his forehead. In between the two shone Juke’s face, his round cheeks almost red after a night of partying. He had a nice smile, though.

“Are you running out of booze?”

“Perish the thought. But getting to it is now a route more perilous than a sponsored charity trek to Machu Picchu.”

I smiled, to tell him I got the joke, then shifted across the cushions because he’d laid his hand on the sofa between us, as if getting it in position for his next move. I hadn’t yet forgiven him for calling me
tottie
.

“D’you work with Fergus? Or alongside him?”

“Yeah, you got it. The three of us run the branch together.” Juke crossed his arms over his chest, as if he was practicing for being a Christmas angel. He massaged both his shoulders at the same time. “Fergus says you’re a shaman.”

“That’s right.”

“Fascinating.”

I gave him a discouraging smile. “It’s not
fascinating
; it’s how I live my life.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet one. A shaman, that is. But I was kind of visualising some spaced-out old guy sitting cross-legged under a cactus teaching people to fly.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh, you don’t disappoint,” said Juke. “I’d love to know more about the whole thing. I’ve read several books.”

I bit back my first reply—
that’ll make you an expert then
—but it was hard to take Juke seriously. I’d already slotted him into the post-student bracket of insensitive and butterfly-minded. “I don’t think a party is the best place to talk about this.”

“Right! I should come to you then, learn how to do it?”

“Why not, if you’ve got the time—several years—and the commitment—hours every week.” I tried to keep my voice from dropping to below zero Celsius. I was praying for Fergus to hurry up with the drinks.

Juke’s hand stopped massaging his shoulder and made the quantum leap to my knee. I caught his gaze and held it as I gently removed his hand and patted it down on his own knee. I’d tried not to embarrass him, but Juke took a long pull of lager to recover from the snub. He drank from a fancy pewter tankard with a handle in the shape of a key. That was sweet; he was drinking from a twenty-first birthday present. He was a babe, and he should be careful not to hit on older women.

I spotted Fergus holding bottles above his head like cats whose necks he’d wrung. I jumped up from the sofa and drove through the throbbing mass of dancers until we met.

“Look, Fergus, I hadn’t realized the time.”

He handed me a Bud and glanced at his watch. “Indeed so, it is late.”

“I have to be up at the crack of dawn to feed the hens and prep my therapy room.”

“You look the very sort. Early to bed and early to rise.” He gave me a smile that made my heart warm towards him.

“I’m sorry, Fergus.”

“Understood. Will you stay for one more dance, maybe?”

The music had changed. Something sweet by Bruno Mars was making me want to sway. I wound an arm round his neck and burrowed into the hollow of his left shoulder, where his t-shirt felt soft and his aftershave smelt nice.

His hand rested warm on my ribs, the fingers tickling, as if trying to resist the temptation to crawl towards my breast. A mix of emotions swilled inside me. He’d been hoping I’d go home with him. And why shouldn’t I? Fergus Quigg was fit and fanciable, but he was also a coworker in the search for a missing girl. I decided I had made the right move telling him I’d be sleeping alone in my own bed tonight. It would be best if our wires didn’t get too crossed.

_____

She’s sleeping when he comes, a deep sleep, full of dream. She’s on Tatta’s horse, the brindled mare, and she’s flying; racing the ridge of the high hills, clutching the unbrushed mane in both fists. The warmth of the mare’s coat is against her legs. She can smell its ripeness. The pain that runs like iron bars through her has diminished to an ache the dream explains away as a stitch. She’s laughing into the wind when daylight floods into the room. She wakes, a bit at a time.

“Here,” he says. “If you want, you can write to your sister.”

She pulls herself up and leans into the writing pad he’s rested on the duvet. Pain rips like a bullet. He lays a ballpoint on the pad. “Write in English.”

She shakes her head. “She won’t understand.”

She can hear his impatience. “Tell her this. That she should come here and visit.”

“Here? Where is here?”

“Tell her we’ll pick her up and bring her to see you.”

She nods. She starts to write. She’s a slow writer. She hisses through her teeth. She’s panting with the effort to even hold the pen. She bites her lip to hold things in place until she’s done. She bites so hard, blood drips onto the bedding. Onto the paper. He wipes it off with a tissue.

“Good,” he says. He smiles his not-smile. He helps her to lie back. He closes the curtains.

Her breath is very thin now, as if she’s galloped for miles.

But he’s destroyed her dream, and another will be a long time returning.

thirteen

It was some years
since I’d had proper paid employment; I’d forgotten how your free time whizzes by. Already, I was halfway through Tuesday’s shift for Papa Bulgaria and I felt a lot more confident, both on the roads of Bridgwater and round the shop. I was almost enjoying it; it was okay to be one of the guys again, sharing moans and jokes with workmates. I was learning the tricks of the trade too. For instance, Stan could only
guess
the time it took to do each batch of deliveries. I was popping back to Harold Street to throw the hens some corn and even do a few chores.

As I drove through the heavy rain, I found myself passing the Agency for Change. I wasn’t sure if seeing Fergus was a great idea. In my books, it was polite to contact someone you’d spent the night necking, at least to text—
Hey! Great kisser!
—but I hadn’t heard from Fergus at all since the party. On the other hand, I hadn’t got in touch with him, either, but I had thought about him a lot. After a couple of dances and my final beer, Fergus had called me a cab. He didn’t have a car, he’d told me, but neither of us were in state to drive anyway. He waved as I got into my taxi, and I was hoping that we could reestablish our original relationship—two people both wanting the best for Kizzy and Mirela. With that in mind, I decided to pop into his office for a professional-based chat.

It was the same ponytailed girl on the Agency for Change reception desk. “Mr. Quigg’s doing some calls. He won’t be back in the office this afternoon, I’m afraid.” She looked bored, dull, and undernourished, but frankly, not a bit afraid.

I was on my way back to my scooter when I thought of the Polska Café. It was half past one; Fergus might be having his lunch. I pulled at the heavy door and went in, scanning the room, especially the corner Fergus occupied last time. He wasn’t there.

I refocused my gaze towards the café’s interior. The back of a head. Close-cropped brown hair. Wide shoulders packed into a combat jacket. DI Rey Buckley was sitting at a small table near a window, talking to a woman. She was younger than he, and she had the sort of hair I’d been so proud of only months ago. So long you could sit on it. Only hers was glossier than I’d ever got mine, even with de-frizz shampoo and straighteners. I peered closer without actually moving. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move again, for I could see even from my position in the doorway that her hand was resting on the edge of the table. And Rey’s was resting on top of it.

Rey had loved my long, dark hair. Hadn’t he? And then it had gone; shaved off and replaced with a tangle of slow-growing corkscrews. His morning visits trailed off. I wasn’t the same Sabbie as when we’d met.

No wonder he’d told me to find someone new.

_____

When I finally arrived back at Papa Bulgaria, I was still catching my breath … catching my dignity. I glowered with doom and damp.

Stan pounced on me. “You’ve been gone ages. What were you doing? Rowing a boat?” For Stan, that was quite a witty comment, but I bit back a retort. I peeled off my helmet and scratched at my head. “Don’t play with your hair!” Stan yelped. “Hygiene!”

“Oh, give me a break.”

He seemed to take this literally. “Okay. Half hour maximum, while the next orders heat.”

I took him at his word and wandered over to Jimmy. “What’s spare? Seeing his lordship’s said I can take my lunch break.”

Jimmy passed me a foil container. “Cancelled order. Veggie moussaka. Enjoy.”

“Cheers, Jimmy,” I said.

I went into the changing room and put my feet up on the bench so I was leaning against the wall. Wet coats dripped on me, but I was grateful I was able to think for five minutes. I pulled the cardboard top off the moussaka and dug the plastic fork in.

Max wandered into the changing room and sat on the other bench, his knees splayed. He had soup in a mug and a dry pitta and looked at my portion with some envy.

I smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi there.”

I’d been trying to gently prize information out of Papa’s staff about Kizzy and her sudden going-away. I’d discovered that Mirela, Kizzy, and Petar hadn’t been the only Romani to work for Papa Bulgaria; there had been many others in the past. It occurred to me that I should go and find out about the Papa Bulgaria shop in Finchbury, where I might meet other Roma workers. But I was nervous of doing this. I didn’t want Mr. Papazov to realize what a nosey parker I was.

Although Max was a member of the Papazov clan, he was turning out to be a laugh on the quiet, and I decided it was time to quiz him.

“How well did you know Kizzy, Max?”

“I didn’t mix with them.” He gave me a sheepish look. “I’m sure you think Bulgarians stereotype these gypsies, but honestly, they do live up to expectations.”

“I’m no better,” I confessed. “I met Kizzy at the squibbing, still all dressed up. It struck me she was in the business of picking up men. But Mirela swears Roma girls stay chaste.”

Max shrugged agreement. “I’ve heard that. Tinkers and horse thieves, but they consider prostitution as bad as slavery.”

I tried not to groan aloud, remembering Mirela’s umbrella fight outside Belinda’s Bunnies. All because I hadn’t got my facts straight.

“No one seems to care that Kizzy’s been missing since that night.”

“I didn’t say she was pure as the driven snow. She was a looker. She was a tease. She’d sell herself, but she’d have to stay in charge. Pole dancing, say. Or maybe tacky porn movies, that sort of thing.”

Max rested his pitta on his knee and steadily sipped at the soup, suggesting this conversation had gone as far as it was going. I polished off the rest of my own lunch in silence.

I slung the empty foil container and the plastic fork in the bin and glanced at the time. If I didn’t get back to work in five or so minutes, Stan would come yelling for me. I went into the staff loo for a pee and a splash of the face at the miniature sink.

Then I sat back down on the loo for a moment because I felt suddenly out of sorts. The morning whelmed up on me; seeing Rey like that with the dark-haired woman. My breath came fast for no reason. I could feel drops of sweat on my forehead. My eyes opened wide with the realization this wasn’t a passing moment. Patches of darkness were taking over my vision. I was about to faint and I was, like some old lady, locked in the loo.

_____

Miss Dare.

She is trouble, that one.

My vision was filled with the snake I’d encountered in the ice temple. Anaconda. The bile-green scales went on and on, stretching into a murky distance. Its head twisted and its beady eyes took me in. We stared at each other. I saw the evil tongue flicker and the sensation of its bite came back to me. The snake slithered round my waist, squeezing the air out of my lungs.

I tried to struggle, pushing with both arms against Anaconda’s dry scales. He didn’t like that. He reared up, as he had in the ice temple, and directed his aim. The forked tongue pierced the skin of my arm at its tenderest point.

Miss Dare
…

My eyes squeezed shut with the pain. I felt a cry warble over my dry throat. When I looked again, the snake had gone.

Miss Dare
…
Sabbie.

Someone was tapping the back of my hand. “Sabbie?”

I was still leaving the dream state, only half aware I was in the changing room at Papa. A man in a light suit with a crisp, blue-striped shirt was leaning over me.

“Did I faint?”

“You’ve been out for some little while.”

I recognised the voice, but it took a second or two longer to understand that I knew the man. It was the doctor who’d been my first lunch delivery.

“Dr. Grace!”

“The staff here summoned me because you collapsed.”

I was slumped on a plastic chair. Stan was hovering like a footman. Dr. Grace bent down, and I saw his black doctor’s bag on the floor by the chair.

“I have given you something to help relieve your symptoms.”

I struggled to sit up. “I felt very odd. In the loo. After the moussaka.”

“It wasn’t the moussaka,” said Stan. “Dr. Grace has eliminated that. We don’t get bugs here.”

“I have examined you,” said the doctor. “I can’t find an underlying cause. I think it might have been pressure of work? Would you say that might be the problem?”

I’d put my hands over my face. “I’ve made an absolute fool of myself.”

“Not at all.” The doctor gave his smile that crinkled the lines around his eyes. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry to move. Take your time.”

“Yeah,” said Stan, his voice dry as martini. “Keep your feet up for a few more … seconds.”

“I think it would be good if this young lady was allowed to go home. She should rest.”

Stan blanched at the doctor’s suggestion. “You are joking me.”

“No, Stanislaus, I am not.”

“We’re so bleeding short of staff we’d have to close the shop.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage. You asked for my advice …”

“Yeah, okay, but all she had was a little fainting fit.”

“My
medical
advice.” The doctor clipped his black bag shut. “Sabbie, there’s a plaster over a puncture wound on your arm where I gave a little tonic to revive you. You can remove it at bedtime.” He lifted my wrist between his thumb and fingers, a final check on my pulse. He shifted his shirt cuff to read the second hand of his watch and I spotted the faded ink of a tattoo; a brown line resembling wood disappeared behind the sleeve. The idea that this practised physician had once been a free-spirited youth made me smile.

“You go home,” he said. “Take it easy for the rest of the day.”

“Why not?” said Stan. “Take it easy. But don’t take it you’ll get paid.”

_____

I crawled home. I didn’t feel ill, precisely, but I did feel world-weary. Fainting like that only confirmed it; seeing Rey with his new girl had taken all the wind out of my sails. I craved sweet foods that would fill the dreadful ache inside me. I eyed up my new toy and licked my lips. The shiny chrome and bottle-thick glass liquidizer sat next to my bread machine, and they probably exchanged stories about previous owners when I wasn’t listening—the breadmaker had come from a boot sale, and I got the liquidizer for a snip on eBay. I whizzed up a speckled banana, a wrinkled kiwi fruit, some yoghurt, honey, and a fistful of oats, throwing in some ice chunks. The smoothie glugged into a pint glass. I took a big gulp and the chilled flavour hit the roof of my mouth like a charged battery. I swung my feet onto the sofa and zapped on the TV just in time to watch a mindless programme about antiques.

I rolled up my sleeve and peeled off the little round plaster Dr. Grace had put over the injection site. The puncture wound was already gone; a bruise no bigger than the top of my finger the only evidence I had ever needed a doctor. I vaguely wondered about the tonic he’d administered. I should have asked him what it was, but I’d been too fuzzy-headed.

The image I’d seen came back to me. Anaconda had been as determined as ever to do me harm. I often re-enter previous journeys when I dream, and they sometimes twist into something more sinister. I needed some insight into what my dream of Anaconda had meant.

Or maybe all I needed was objectivity. My mind had registered a snake’s crushing squeeze round my waist. In the apparent world, Stan had to manhandle me out of the toilet onto the chair. And the moment Anaconda had pounced with his forked tongue was clearly the scratch of the hypodermic.

Not a vision at all, and nothing to do with Drea Comer.

_____

I’d drifted into a halfway sleep when the door bell chimed. I swayed through the hall, still too dozy to consider the important question of who might be at the door.

It was Andy Comer. “Please can I have a word?”

He sounded like half his vocal chords had been removed. He looked worse than he had on Thursday night—pale, nauseated, weightless—as if the intervening weekend had drained him like a vampire. I opened the door and he took a couple of steps through then stopped. He brought his hands from his coat pockets and interlinked the fingers. “I don’t know what I want to say.”

I primed a wisecrack—
that makes a change
—but the look in his eyes, a deep, troubled brown, shut me up.

I steered him into the kitchen and made him sit on the sofa.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve interrupted you.” He was staring at my glass as if the contents might have been some concoction of magic mushroom and mind-bending cactus.

“Banana smoothie,” I informed him, downing the rest and putting the glass in the sink. “Can you tell me what you want?”

He shifted on his seat. “I took my temper out on you and I need to apologise.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I have to set the matter straight, I suppose.”

Goddess
, I thought.
He wants to confess, and he wants me as his confessor.
I tried to think back to my counselling certificate. What did one do with men who finally admit they have poor temper control? All I could think was,
don’t tell him he’ll ever get her back.

“I met Drea at Exeter University,” he began. “She was a quiet girl, serious—studious, actually. For a start, she didn’t get wasted every night in the campus bar. She didn’t seem to have many friends at all, and when I got chatting while we were waiting for a lecture to start, well, at first I couldn’t see why that was, because she was nice; friendly, kind, it seemed. Interested in me as a person.”

It was the sort of thing a girl would say about a boy’s chat-up line, rather than the other way round. “She left uni, didn’t she. Before finishing?”

“Yes. You see, by then, there was no hope. She’d been love-
bombed.”

“Love-bombed?”

“You’ve never heard of the term?”

“Uh—” I found I had to cough before I could reply. “No.”

“It’s a horrible thing. It’s like targeting … grooming, almost. I mean, you have to see it from Drea’s point of view. You’re lonely. You’re away from home. All around you are kids having fun—they got to know each other so quickly. But you’re shy, you have trouble making friends. And you had a good upbringing. Church every Sunday for Drea. She was already entrenched in …” He stopped and looked up at me sharply. “God’s love. Can’t be anything wrong with that, can there?”