Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (17 page)

“Okay. Mirela told me about a massive employment scam going on there.”

“Sabbie, please don’t turn gumshoe again. It’s common knowledge that the Papazovs didn’t get where they are today by selling nice soup.”

“You don’t want to hear about anything I find out, then?”

“Employment law is outside my remit, thank the lord. Tell the uniforms.”

“I thought I might get word of Kizzy from the other workers, but they’re not very forthcoming. I’ve been wondering about a micro tape recorder. Don’t suppose you keep that sort of stuff at the office?”

“Sorry, we’re clean out of surveillance equipment at the moment.”

“Pity. We’ll just have to use a dead-letter box drop, then.”

“Just remind me that you’re joking, Sabbie. Papazov is a sleazy character. Not the sort you’d want to cross. I don’t want you waking up to a nasty surprise one morning.”

“The head of my favourite horse lying beside me?”

“Your own head lying beside you.”

“I wish I didn’t have to work for Papa, but to be honest, even a pittance is welcome money at the moment, what with Christmas coming and everything.”

“Yep. I’ll certainly be expecting my usual gold cufflinks.”

“You’ll be lucky to get a card. I’m going to celebrate Yule instead. The Winter Solstice. Cheaper and better.”

“How’re you fitting your therapy work in with delivering fast food?”

“It’s so sluggish there’s no problem at all.”

“Thought about a leaflet drop?”

“Shamanism doesn’t work like that. It’s best if people are pulled to me. Word of mouth, deliberately searching the small ads, that sort of thing.”

“What about the aromatherapy side of it? Surprised you’re not handing out flyers with every Papa Bulgaria meal.”

“Rey—that’s a really good idea!”

“Glad to be of help.” Rey emptied his glass and looked ready to depart. I was ambushed by an urge to grab the front of his marl grey sweatshirt and hang on. I searched around for a topic that might hold him here a while longer.

“Have you heard of CORE, Rey?”

He put the glass hard on the surface of the bar and examined me. “What?”

“Children of the Revelation Enlightenment. It’s a religious sect.”

“Going to join, are you?”

“Definitely not. Their leaders marry lots of young girls … I mean bigamy and that. Well, rape, in my view.”

“Oh, please, Sabbie, don’t give me any more sidelines to investigate.”

“I’m not joking, Rey. This chap is crazy scary!” My raised voice floated across the pub. The music had stopped while the band rifled through their notes and lubricated their dry throats. In the corner pew, Fergus lifted his head and stared at me. “They are all so spooky. Not quite in the real world, if you know what I mean.”

Rey laughed. “And you are?”

“Okay. I can see you’re not interested.”

“You know him by name?”

“Eric Atkinson. He came to my door. He was searching for someone who had run out on the sect. One of his wives. And now she’s gone back. She was too indoctrinated to resist.”

“CORE, you say?”

“They meet at Charter Hall on Friday nights.”

“You’ll need to give me more than that,” said Rey.

“Oh! Right, well, he comes from Exeter. This girl’s partner has gone down there today to see if he can find her. I did wonder if Kizzy had got lost inside the cult, but really, she isn’t that sort.”

“So. Can I assume you’ve already poked your nose in? Probably in a manner that put everyone’s back up?” I couldn’t think of a reply to this, but Rey didn’t need one. “You don’t seem to be able to help yourself,” he went on in a blithe tone. “You need a bodyguard. Or a police escort, or something.” He pulled out his wallet, and flipped a little white card onto the bar top. There was his name, followed by his title, and a mobile number.

“D’you hand these out to the criminal classes, so they can ring you for cosy chats?”

“Certainly don’t. But I want you to have a number you can get through to quickly.”

“Why?”

“Because you tend to get yourself into situations that need a direct response armed unit, that’s why.”

“I ring and you come running?”

I watched him suppress a smile. “Keep it on your person.”

I turned the card over. He’d scribbled his address in pencil. “Wow,” I exclaimed. “You live close to …” I trailed off. I’d been about to say
close to Fergus
, but probably that wasn’t wise. “Close to the police station.”

“Not close enough, at times.” He gazed into his empty beer mug in a profound way for a moment. “Well, I’ll be off.”

I searched my scrambled brain for something more to keep him there, but in the pause Kev tapped my arm and quipped, “Work here, do you?” and I was instantly involved in a complicated round of drinks. By the time I looked up, Rey had gone. And when I looked over into Fergus’s corner, he’d disappeared too. Neither of them had bothered to say goodbye. I felt as adrift as a leaf in a drain.

sixteen
dark moon

It was a blustery
day, typical early December, but that hadn’t put my foster father off. After lunch in the Davidsons’ caravan—Gloria’s famous egg, tomato, and potato pie, a slice of which melted in your mouth, exploding with sweetness and salt and filling you up
to bursting—we’d marched out on the customary Sunday walk. We’d ended up at the edge of Brean Down, a fat finger of land sticking out into the Bristol Channel. I’d chased Kerri and Rudi and their father over the little tumps that stick out of the rough landscape, playing rough-and-tumble to warm ourselves up. The wind
was high and bitter, blowing in from the grey sea. Philip was pouring hot tea from a flask for the adults, except Dennon, who had brought his own Coke.

“I’ve done some research online, since I came here last,” I said, settling down on the car rug. “Those tumps are a Bronze Age barrow. And there was a Roman temple here, too, after that.”

“I believe it was used in the Second World War.” Philip hugged his tea. “It’s certainly an elemental place.”

He was right. The sea was vast, looking out towards Wales, and the land was so wild I was sure I could feel ancient whisperings from thousands of years before us. Although on reflection that might be Rudi having me on.

“How’s trade in the therapy business?” asked Dennon, stretching out his boots.

“Wow, is this Dennon Davidson, under-the-floor-deputy-sheriff speaking? Have you transformed into a business person or something?” My phone chirped me a message as I was speaking and I shot Dennon a look. He had a habit of sending lewd jokes. “Is that you?”

“Nope.”

I extracted my phone. It was hard to read the screen in the wind and cold, and I stared at the message a moment or two too long, puzzlement emanating from me like body odour. Dennon snatched the phone and read aloud.

“
Can we poss meet? Say @ starbks street weds? Lv lettice xx.
Ugh? Where’s Starbks Street and why do they love lettuce?”

“I have no idea,” I said, hoping he’d believe me, but Gloria smelt scandal on the wind and was reading over her son’s shoulder. “Is it Starbuck’s
in
Street?”

“It’s a bloke,” said Dennon, grinning. “Someone well into salad. Naughty.”

“If you must know, her name is Laetitia.”

“Of course,” said Philip. “Laetitia. I had a great-aunt on my mother’s side by that name. We all called her Lettice.”

My foster dad has never lost his Jamaican lilt, even though he hadn’t lived there since he was a small boy. Whenever they returned from a Caribbean holiday, his accent was stronger for a couple of weeks. The dark power of the vowels always made me grin with delight. Although it was Gloria’s idea to let me start visiting their house while I was at the Willow’s children’s home, it was Philip who had said, “We’d be glad to have you stay with us for a while if you want, Sabrina.”

Naturally, my response was, “Wha’ever. An’ it’s
SABBIE!
” But I have never forgotten his words. They formed my future.

Loving someone because you can see some tiny, almost extinguished spark in them can’t be an easy thing to do, especially when no one is demanding it of you. But the Davidsons had always done that for me. For a while, I dreamed of getting rich (reaching the top of the charts was my fave scenario) and showering them with presents. But I don’t think they mind that I never managed that.

“Who is Laetitia? Is she a client?”

“Nooo,” I said, brushing my palm over the grass.

“What?” said Dennon. “Come on, sis, I can always tell when you’re lying. Your teeth go on edge. Like this.” He barred his strong teeth at me and growled.

“You
put
me on edge. And how can I be lying? I haven’t said anything.”

“That’s not right, for a start,” said Gloria. “It’s usually impossible to shut you up.”

I stared up at the sky. It was almost black with unspilt rain. Very soon I reckoned it would come down in torrents and we would be sprinting back to the caravan. “None of this will do me any good,” I began. “And it’s all your fault, Mum.”

“
Mine
?”

“You know how I believe magic works. You deliberately sent me my birth certificate. That was all that was needed.”

Her eyes widened into popping mode. “You’ve done some investigating?”

I could see that I might as well tell them. It would mean explaining about Papa Bulgaria, and that would mean explaining that I was strapped for cash. Not that they hadn’t guessed already—Gloria definitely suspected something, she kept leaving pre-cooked dishes in my fridge and twenties under the bananas in the fruit bowl. The entire story was filling my throat, clambering to spill out, word upon word.

“It sort of starts with the Bridgwater Carnival,” I said.

_____

I drove home for a short-notice aromatherapy massage, getting back just before four and immediately prepping my therapy room for a client called Shona who hated to book ahead, because,
when I’m stressed out, I’m stressed out—I don’t get advance notice.
I wasn’t going to complain, having confessed to my entire foster family that I was running two part-time jobs to pay the mortgage. (I didn’t realize until I checked my balance a couple of days later that Philip had transferred five hundred pounds into my account when he’d got home. Crafty. If he’d tried to push a cheque on me, I would’ve ripped it up, but it had dropped into such a big red pit, there was no money to return.)

After Shona had paid and left, utterly de-stressed-out (her words), I bit the bullet and rang Lettice.

“Sabbie.” She was hissing close into the phone, and I guessed she was at home.

“Hi, Lettice, thanks for your text. You okay?”

“Er … yes. Fine.” She raised her voice and began speaking in a normal tone. “Hey, want to meet in Costa’s on Wednesday or what? Wait, I’ll get my diary.”

I heard her pant up some stairs and I guessed she was heading towards her bedroom where her mother wouldn’t eavesdrop on the call.

“Lettice,” I began. “I’m going to have to decline your invitation.”

“Oh, okay, I was thinking that Street’s out the way for you, but we could meet in Bridgwater? It’s a school coach stop.”

“Laetitia,” I said, trying to sound like her mother, “before you go on, it’s not the distance. It’s the ground rules.”

“Sorry?”

“We both know that your parents would not be happy if we met.”

“They’d be fine, honestly.”

“Why are you hiding in your bedroom, then?”

“Oh,” Lettice wailed, “I just wanted to get to know my cousin!” She dropped her voice as if we were already conspirators. “My first cousin, I mean, like, both my first cousin and the first cousin I’ve ever
had
.”

“I’m sure you have lots of friends—”

“’Course I do. The girls in my year are heaps of wicked fun. But that is not the same as
family
. Grandma always says that, and it’s true. All I want to do is meet.”

“Not behind your parents’ back, Lettice. And I don’t think they would agree to this, do you?”

“Don’t see why,” said Lettice. She’d started off all in charge of things, but now I could hear her sulky-kid side rising to the surface. “It would be cool to have a chat.”

“What about?”

“I dunno. Like, whatever you talk to cousins about … sort of, what we have in common. You know, like one of those ‘me’ things on Facebook.”

“No,” I said, feeling wearily grown up. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, like, ‘what books are under your bed,’ or, ‘if you were an animal, which one would it be.’ That sort of thing.”

“Right,” I said, adding a chuckle.

“For example, I’d be a dolphin. They’re highly intelligent and I’ve already done snuba.”

“What is snuba?”

“It’s like a combination of snorkelling—which is naff; I always get nostrils full of salt water—and scuba. You’re actually attached to the boat. It is the coolest thing. We did it in Hawaii.”

I had to pick my words carefully, or I might end up hurting her and I really didn’t want to do that. “You see, that’s the problem. I’ve never snubed, or whatever. These things just reinforce how different our worlds are.”

“That’s not important.”

“No, of course it isn’t, not at all, but …”

“So what animal would you be?”

“Look, what I’m trying to explain is—”

“Go on. Just think. For a moment. What would you be?”

“An elephant,” I said, letting out a tortured sigh.

“Oh my god! Why?”

“Because they love their babies and mourn for their dead.”

“See? I love that. We’re cousins, through and through.”

“Maybe, but unfortunately your mother thinks of me as someone who delivers takeaway.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care what she thinks—”

“But I do. It’s important not to have secrets.”

“Okay!” She’d almost reached shrieking pitch, but brought her voice under control. “Okay, I’ll tell them. I’ll get their permission to meet you. Yeah, why don’t we both meet you? Me and Ma? In Bridgwater? There’s got to be a Starbucks in the town, hasn’t there?”

“There is a Costa’s, but Lettice—”

“Please, Sabbie. I don’t want an epic fail on this one. I’ll talk to my parents, promise. Me and Ma’ll meet you there after school one day. Good plan, right?”

“We’ll see. See how it goes.”

“Cool,” said Lettice. “Sick cool. Be in touch, cuz!”

She rang off. I stared at my phone. How did that just happen? Phrases like “little finger” and “wound right round” sprang into my mind.
This
, I thought,
is why I’m not mature enough to have kids of my own.

The call had left me feeling empty and exhausted.

I turned on the telly and while it was blurting out early Sunday evening stuff, I made a quick pizza by cutting the thick bottom off a stale loaf and spreading it with tomato puree, fried garlic, tomato and onions, some ripped basil leaves, and slices of mozzarella, then sticking it under a slow grill. I actually prefer this to the expensive take-out version, which I couldn’t afford anyway.

I had to start asking some serious questions about my working life. It was crazy to squeeze the therapy business between three Papa shifts and Saturday evenings at the Egg. I sipped my herbal tea and thought about what Rey had said. If I did a flyer drop as I scooted around Bridgwater, and fitted any new clients in wherever I could, I’d build up my bank balance a bit before saying bye-bye to Papa. Not for one second did my conscience worry me about delivering leaflets on Papa Bulgaria time. I might even use the backs of their flyers to create my own little advert.

The TV ground towards the evening news. Pictures of a desolate coastline were appearing on the screen, with the looming menace of a nuclear power station. I looked up, interested. This was Bridgwater Bay. It was no more than ten miles north from where I lived. And a few hours ago, if the weather had been clearer, I’d’ve been able to see Hinkley Point from where I’d been sitting on Brean Down promontory.

“Police are confirming as suspicious the death of a female whose body has been found near Hinkley Point,”
a newsreader almost shouted, over the urgent beat of the signature tune.

I scrabbled for the remote and turned up the sound.

Figures of police strode in and out of a white tent that stood stark against a black sea. A policeman was being interviewed, but it wasn’t Rey. It was his boss, Detective Superintendent Anthony Horton, a rugged-faced man whose mouth didn’t seem to move as he spoke, as if out of sight somewhere there was a ventriloquist, operating this dummy in a suit with wide lapels and a slightly skeewiff tie.

Maybe he hoped the dummy would take any flak coming his way. He certainly didn’t let any details slip out. “This is a young woman who has, without a shadow of a doubt, been brutally attacked. We have not yet identified her, but we are at present treating this as murder.”

A reporter thrust a mike closer to his face. “Is there a connection between this body and the one found in the summer?”

“That case is still ongoing.” Horton’s eyes narrowed. “We
will of course be considering all avenues of investigation.”

I’d been searching for a girl and now a girl had been found. I prayed to the earth mother that this poor creature found in the sea was not Kizzy.

But I knew. A deep misery spread through me. I thought about death. How it came down on someone as animated as Kizzy. How another person, with vile intent, had taken that animation and watched it ooze away. There were no tears, but my eyes burnt as I stared at the TV screen.

My immediate thought was Mirela. Would she already know? There was no TV in her room. I snatched at my mobile. I could at least try the phone in the communal hall before the police came knocking at her door.

It rang and rang. It always rang and rang. I looked up at the screen, where Super Horton was asking the public to come forward if they had any relevant information that might help with enquiries.

That was me.

I keyed the contact number into my phone while it was still running along the bottom of the TV screen. I felt feverish—all hot and cold at once—my fingers trembled as I pressed the buttons and waited for the line to clear.

“I think I may have relevant information about the girl you’ve found at Hinkley Point,” I began. “I think I know who it is.”

_____

I was desperate for further news. The woman on the help line was happy to take my details and my information, but she could offer nothing in return … cause of death, time of death, identifying features … Those were things Rey, his boss, and his team would be pondering over right this moment.

Had Mirela seen or heard the news? Had she also rung the police? They might be ringing her; she was the nearest kin of a missing girl, someone I’d just named as a possible ID for the body they’d found.