The Medium

by David Hatton

  ‘I believed in Jackie’s abilities but I didn’t expect this to come as much of as shock as it has. I thought I’d prepared myself. I clearly wasn’t ready. You have to admit… she’s good.’

  Robert shivered. He stood up and made his way to the bathroom, leaving a distraught Michael on his own. Several long minutes later, Detective Robinson left his office and found Michael in his waiting room. He approached the widower and sat next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Mr Walker. How are you?’

  ‘I’m just in shock.’ Michael bowed his head. ‘I just can’t believe it’s true.’

  ‘I understand this must be very difficult for you. Our team are searching the bag as we speak to see if it’s hers.’

  ‘It’s definitely hers. I caught a glimpse. She asked for that bag a few years ago for her birthday. It was a present from Jason. Well I bought it him…but…’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll inspect it inside and out. What I can tell you so far is that it was filled with bricks to keep it under water. Somebody did a good job of trying to hide this from us.’

  ‘Hopefully it might provide some clues. I take it you’ll be taking this claim more seriously now.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Robinson said. ‘We’re right on it and have people out there as we speak.’

  ‘Is there any update on Theodore?’

  ‘Yes, actually. I shouldn’t really be telling you this but to hell with it. We checked out your claims, but there’s little evidence that he hurt your sister-in-law. We’ve let him go.’

  ‘But he could be dangerous!’ Michael snapped. ‘Surely there must be more we can do.’

  ‘Michael, we searched his house and computer. There’s no evidence that he was any kind of sexual deviant. And the body showed no sign of trauma. We only found self-harm. And we’re waiting on toxicology results but we have strong reasons to believe that she committed suicide yesterday.’

  Michael stared at the officer, lost within his words. He scratched his head and soaked in the reality of Pamela’s fate.

  ‘But surely if anything that proves that what she said was true. Why else would she do that if she wasn’t scared of what he’d do to her? He was abusing her at home, raping her!’

  ‘Michael!’ Robinson shouted as if Michael was a child. ‘How do I say this… the autopsy did not reveal any sign of sexual abuse, nor was there evidence of an abortion like you claim. Certainly not a recent one. Now obviously we’ll never have conclusive proof of this, but I can say with some certainty that Theodore Buchanan did not do the things that are suggested.’

  ‘But…’

  The detective sat down and asked Michael to take a seat.

  ‘This isn’t the first I’ve seen of this. Without victim blaming or targeting people who face mental health battles, this girl was seriously damaged. I’ve seen her notes from her therapist, she had a history of making up false claims to attract attention to herself. I’m not a psychologist but I’d say she was a very traumatized girl who was crying out for support but did so in a very wrong way, lashing out against the people who loved her. Now, Michael, I urge you to seriously drop these claims otherwise Theodore would have very good reason to sue you.’

  The detective patted his shoulder. Michael’s head dropped down. He placed his hands over his eyes and trembled. Robert returned and the detective nodded his head and left the brothers alone.

  ‘Are you OK, mate?’ Robert wrapped his arm around his bereft brother.

  ‘Theodore is innocent. My God, what have I done? I’ve accused him of all sorts.’

  ‘Michael, you were only responding to information you’d received. You can’t help that.’

  ‘I should call them…’ Michael leaped up and grabbed his phone.

  ‘No. It’s too soon. Let the dust settle, eh?’ Robert jumped up and pushed his brother’s arm down.

  Before Michael could dial another digit, a police officer approached them. She took off her hat and placed it on her chest.

  ‘Mr Walker, we’ve inspected the bag and believe we do have your wife’s possessions. We found her driving licence and bank cards.’

  ‘What about her passport? It’s been missing.’

  The officer shook her head. ‘No we couldn’t find a passport.’

  ‘Was there anything else in there? Anything which could help us find out what happened to her?’

  ‘Well we’re building up a timeline here and we’ve found something which provides a clue to her whereabouts on the night she disappeared. We found two tickets to a show in Manchester, dated the last time anyone remembers seeing her. She attended the show of a psychic medium… what’s her name…’ she looked down at her notes. ‘Oh yes, here it is… Jackie Wallace.’

  Their lives were facing as much turbulence as a Shakespearean play; the irony was not lost on the couple who lived just yards away from where they were written. Ted returned to his thatched cottage. In one hand he carried a small carrier with his belongings, returned to him following his release. He stood outside and looked up towards the room where his dear daughters had once slept.

  Thinking back to the last encounter with his little Pammy, he shook his head. He’d been so hard on her. Mental health was all well established for these millennials, but to him? He hadn’t been brought up in a politically correct or necessarily empathetic world. He struggled to understand that Pamela couldn’t simply wash her hair and stick on a smile as they had guests. He managed it and he’d lost his first-born and his grandson. Now as he considered losing a third particle in his forever decreasing world, he wondered how much longer he could wear the thespian mask which he’d sported for so long.

  They thought it had started when Suzanne moved out. Pammy’s rock had gone, she’d lost her nerve. But looking back, he realized they should have spotted it much sooner. They’d ignored the teachers, blamed them if anything. How egotistical of him to consider that anyone else’s teachings would be subpar. How shallow of him, after years of parents criticizing him when he tried to raise sensitive subjects with his students, that he would turn round and do the same for his own children.

  She’d lashed out, plenty of times. She’d been through a lot though. They’d had to move around with their jobs. It’s hard on a kid to up and move schools. Leave their home, their friends. And then the lying. Oh, the lying. It began with a small fib here and there about if she’d eaten the last muffin or seen Suzanne’s missing toy. It was all fairly tame until she caused a panic on the school grounds when she claimed there was a fire, which no one else had seen.

  And then Jason died and Suzanne disappeared. She submerged herself into her room. Only reappearing for drink and little food. The times they’d had to hide the scissors to prevent her from doing more harm. The months she spent mute. A therapist did all they could but little more could be done. They accepted her for what she was.

  Until that last night when he finally lost his nerve with her. Told her how unreasonable she’d been. He hadn’t tried and tested that method; the tough love. It was always so petty and ‘lenient’ before but he thought he’d try something different. He only had to raise his voice once for her to turn on the waterworks and his heart melted once again.

  He’d give her a project to do. Jane’s birthday was coming up. He wanted to do something nice but he was an old-fashioned bloke and he didn’t really know what women wanted. He gave her a hundred quid and asked her to go out to town the next morning. They didn’t see her again.

  Now, as he stood looking at her bedroom window, he realized he’d never see that haunting stare again. The one he used to grumble over. ‘Why can’t she smile and wave like normal people?’ He’d do anything to see that miserable glare again. Anything to see her again.

  He wiped away a tear and walked inside. Cards of condolence were scattered across the mat. Jane sat on the couch, clutching at a tissue, others spread across the floor. She was in her nightgown, unusual for her not to get dressed.

  ‘Hi, love.’

  ‘
Oh, Ted.’ She clutched at his chest.

  ‘You believe me then?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jane whimpered. ‘You were right. It had to be him.’

  ‘Well don’t worry,’ Ted calmly replied, staring towards the photograph of Suzanne in her nurse’s uniform beside her husband on the wall. ‘I’ll make it my lasting legacy to ensure Michael Walker pays for what he did to our daughters!’

  17.

  “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

  - Anais Nin (1961)

  Thomas Dalton had faced many a strange night in his job. As a hotelier he’d witnessed more drama than a soap opera. Within the three years which he’d worked for the company after leaving college, he’d spent evenings in hospitals looking after intoxicated guests, had been the victim of an armed robbery and witnessed a couple agree to divorce during their wedding reception held in Conference Room C.

  June 24th 2012 was one of those days which he’d later talk about with his friends over a post-work beverage. He’d always had a thing for men in uniform so when two dashing young cops turned up asking if they could have a few minutes in his back office, he wondered if it was his birthday. Constable Charlie Harrison and his peer, Vincent McCoy, looked like they could fall straight out of a hen-party spectacle but their badges were too formal for whipped cream.

  ‘We wanted to ask you a few questions regarding the night of 5th December 2011.’

  ‘Absolutely, how can I help, officers?’

  ‘Can we get a list of people who stayed here that night? It’s regarding a murder investigation so we’d really appreciate any help you can provide.’

  ‘Absolutely. It’s all on here.’ He took them to a dusty old computer and rooted through an age-old customer management system which mirrored MS-DOS.

  ‘It should be in a museum, that thing,’ Harrison quipped. ‘Is that the one Alan Turing made himself?’

  ‘Yeah we’re a little behind the times here.’

  He typed a few codes into the machine; a printer began to churn and he handed the results to the officers.’

  ‘We’ll also need a list of all those who attended Jackie Wallace’s show,’ McCoy said, eyeing over the document.

  ‘Now that won’t be easy,’ Thomas explained to the officers. He was dressed in a charcoal suit stamped with the hotel brand logo. His brown hair was spiked up with a few wisps of blonde. ‘You see we sold on average two tickets to each person so I don’t know who they brought with them. Secondly we only have the names and addresses of people who paid by card. We don’t keep details of people who paid in cash and that’s quite a few people as many bought them on the night in person.’

  He retrieved the list and to their disappointment, Suzanne’s name was not on there, but they took a copy anyway.

  The back office of the hotel was as corroded as the reception. A wobbly table held an even older computer which made a racket as the fan exhausted its final spin. Health and safety notices drooped down from the walls and the officers’ shoes stuck to the brown carpet, which discharged dust as they stepped over the fabric.

  ‘We’d like to speak to any staff who were here that night too, anyone who may have come into contact with Jackie Wallace or Suzanne Walker.’

  ‘I was on duty that night,’ Thomas said, reviewing the schedule.

  ‘Was Jackie Wallace here for the entire evening?’

  ‘Yeah, she was. She even stayed the night, look.’ Thomas took out the bookings and highlighted her name.

  ‘But she only lives down the road?’

  ‘We always give her a complimentary room for the night when she performs as she brings so much business to the hotel. We get money from the room booking and many of her attendees stay the night or at least buy a drink. It’s win-win. Her shows go on so late too, it’s easier for her to stay and pack up the next morning.’

  ‘Did you see her leave the hotel?’

  ‘No she was here the whole time. She doesn’t leave the room during the intermission of her shows. We give her lots of water and when I’ve been in there, she’s usually just reading.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she leave the room during the intermission?’

  ‘Would you? Fifty grieving widows and parents hounding her for answers… I’d be well hidden.’ Thomas shrugged and glugged on his water. His mouth was dry as he felt the scrutiny of their interrogation.

  ‘Fair enough. Did anyone else see her leave the hotel that night? Maybe after the show or after she retired to her room?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, but you can speak to my colleague who was in after me,’ Thomas explained. ‘I was here until eleven that night and came back the next morning so there’s an eight-hour period there which you’d need to speak to the night-duty manager. It was Danielle that night. She came in earlier that night actually and was her assistant during the show. She’ll be in later so you can speak to her then.’

  ‘Are you certain she slept here?’

  ‘Definitely. I saw her come out of her room the next morning and come down for breakfast. She spent most of the following day here too.’

  ‘Did you see Suzanne Walker that night?’ The police officer took out a photograph and handed it to him. It was familiar to Thomas, who’d seen the same shot printed on the complimentary morning papers which they delivered to every guest in the hotel each morning.

  ‘There were a lot of people here that night. I can’t remember everyone especially when we had a full house.’ He took another glance at the photograph. ‘No, I don’t remember her.’

  ‘Was there anyone acting suspicious? Anyone you would question the motives of? Would look out of place?’

  ‘I suspect anyone who believes in spiritual mediums, but no. Nobody who would cause harm to our guests.’

  Sweat dribbled down Thomas’s forehead. The room was hot and the pressure pulled at his temples. Dark patches formed under his armpits. Above him, a television displaying CCTV footage hung from the wall.

  ‘Do you still have the recording of that night?’ the officer said, nodding towards the television.

  ‘That old thing?’ Thomas shrugged. ‘Nah, that’s just a ploy to scare off people trying to rob us. The staff don’t know that though. Just us supervisors and management. I use it mainly for when I’m on my own and I have dinner back here. I can see if there are guests waiting at reception. They leave me here alone a lot but a guy’s gotta eat.’

  ‘Leaving the business a little vulnerable, don’t you think?’

  ‘And the staff! I was tied up and held at gunpoint once. How do you think I know that’s not a recording? We didn’t have any evidence it happened. But it’s not my place to moan. The owner’s responsible for that sort of thing… and you’ve seen the hotel. They won’t even pay for the bedroom walls to have a lick of paint. Do you really think they give a damn about the safety of their staff when they couldn’t care less about their guests?’

  The officers nodded to each other and departed the office. They had dinner in the hotel while they waited for Danielle to show up for her shift. They inspected the hotel grounds and the room which Jackie performed within. Besides a fire door with a sticker warning guests that it was alarmed, there was no escape from the room besides the reception entrance.

  Danielle arrived and they spoke to her in the room where Jackie hosted her spiritual event. Large bay windows were covered by long draping black curtains, the salmon carpet was boldly patterned, and the walls were coated with an amber finish. Danielle was a plump girl with curly black locks. She was suited in the same outfit as Thomas, but where he had a blue shirt and stripy tie, she had a simple white top beneath.

  ‘Danielle, we believe you were working with Jackie as her assistant that night?’

  ‘I was. I’m doing an Events Management course at Salford University and… well I try to get my hand in where I can here. I set everything up and then gave her a helping hand on the night during the show.’

  ‘So you were in the room with her all evening?’
>
  ‘Well yes pretty much, besides the intermission. I went out and served drinks to the attendees of her event.’

  ‘How did you assist Jackie?’

  ‘I make sure she has enough water and get anything she needs. During the show I walk around with a microphone so that she can speak with her guests.’

  ‘And you then worked the nightshift?’

  ‘Yeah, it was a pretty long shift but worth it for the experience.’

  ‘And Jackie didn’t leave the hotel?’

  ‘Not once. I’d have seen her,’ Danielle confirmed. ‘No one leaves the hotel without someone walking past reception.’

  The officers reviewed their notes. They had all they needed for now but something tickled at Harrison’s curiosity.

  ‘Thank you. I have one last question. How does she do what she does?’

  ‘God knows! I’ve been dying to know myself. Between us… I don’t believe in all that. Don’t tell her that though as she’s a loyal customer. But… to her credit… she literally turns up shortly before it starts, grabs a drink and gets on the stage. Sometimes her entry onto the stage has a bit of illusion behind it… she loves a grand entrance, but besides that, everything she does is just her. I have to admit… she’s good.’

  The officers thanked Danielle and departed the hotel. On the drive back to the station, they reviewed the list of attendees at Jackie’s show. There was one name on it which caught their eye.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Walker’s a common name, but worth scoping out.’

  ‘Let’s find this Elizabeth Walker then and find out what she has to say.’

  *

  The search recommenced the following morning, taken over by police-funded divers. Suzanne’s handbag provided sufficient evidence that she had been near the canal on the night of her disappearance; or at least her killer had.

  The crowd around the canal grew as national press and grim gawkers huddled the area following the news that Suzanne’s accessory had been located within the murky waters of the canal. Yellow police tape cornered off the section of water where the bag had been found, frustrating canal boat enthusiasts who piled up behind, their trips to Hebden Bridge delayed.