She dashed off. I kicked at the ground and felt a little useless.
I’d go and see Clare. She always sorted me out. She always had.
I WALKED THROUGH TOWN, stopping to talk to people as I went. Not everyone knew that I was a witch, because not everyone really believed in such things. But everyone did know that I had a “way” with people’s personal matters. I think most people suspected, underneath, what I did and what I could do, even if they’d not be able to put it into words.
So I listened as a man told me all about his work troubles because I knew that his ranting was masking his real problem, at home with his wife, and let him talk his way to the nub of the issue, and then promised him that I would “see what I could do” which we both knew meant a charm or a spell, and he promised me in return that he would speak to his wife. And we both knew, too, that the speaking was at least as important as the charm, but he needed to feel that something else – some magic – was working on his behalf.
I wasn’t sure what was stronger. Humans or magic. Magic or the belief in magic. Where did one start and the other end?
But I was no witch-philosopher and I shook it out of my head. I took a circuitous route through town, heading up and down side streets. I often just walked, because it was the best way to reaffirm my connection and commitment to the town. This place was under my protection as much as I protected it.
My not-so-random steps took me inland, westwards, where the railway line terminated near an out-of-town shopping centre. Here there were terraces, in long lines, and many were split up into houses of multiple occupation – flats, bedsits, and bed and breakfasts. It was a poorer area, where people clung on to seasonal work. They had employment during the tourist season but winter was a long, hard time, and boring too.
Young families also lived here, and people in their twenties, just starting out in life, renting from landlords or scraping together enough of a deposit to buy one of the crammed-together houses in their long rows.
I was looking for one particular person whose schedule would put him in this area for this time of day.
And that was Donny the street sweeper.
I was right and I grinned to myself when I spotted the council-issue high-vis from the other end of the long straight street. He was a burly man with a weathered face and he had been doing this job ever since he left school. He pushed the cart up and down every single street and road in Wildham-on-Sea, picking up litter with his long-handled grabber. He also helped out the other council workers in tidying up the seafront. He repainted the white rocks that spelled out “welcome” near the winter gardens, and he often rode the mower to clip the grass between the road and the promenade. Small children were sometimes lucky to get a ride on the mower with him as a treat. I bet that wasn’t in any risk assessment.
I waved and he stopped and waved back. My first words were, “Hey Donny, so who do you think killed Will Howlett?”
“The police have already asked me that,” he replied in his lazy Norfolk burr. “Why do everyone think I’d know it?”
“Because you know everything.”
“Yeah, that I do.” He laughed. “But I don’t know that.”
“What do you know about Will Howlett and Charlotte Paston?”
“She were a nice girl and she were supposed to have gone to London with him, but she never did. Must have had an argument.”
“Were they an item? Were they seeing one another?”
“Nah! Never, not him and her, no. I don’t reckon as she’s into dating and all that malarkey. She were ill when he went to London and I don’t think she ever got better, really. I dunno what it was she had, though. She’s perked up recently but I don’t know no more.”
“What about her brother?” I asked, remembering that he had gone to Will’s parents’ house and asked to see him.
“Vin?” Donny jerked his thumb down the street. “Vincent? He live down there, number thirty, with the red door. You see it? He’s a rum ‘un and all, that Vin.”
“How so?” I asked. “Who is he, and what does he do?”
“He do work on the fairground in the summer and he do whatever he can in the winter,” Donny told me. “Sometimes he comes up and does bits for us, like, but there ain’t much work on right now. He’s a funny old stick. Keeps himself to himself.”
I could listen to Donny’s old accent all day, but I had things to do. I thanked him and told him I’d let him get on with his work. I began to go towards Vincent Paston’s house, but Donny stopped me. “You won’t find him there now, petal.”
“Is he working today?”
“Nah. The police has come and took him away to help with their enquiries as they say. See that van there? That’s them. All over his house like a rash, but I dunno why.”
The little white van didn’t have the blue lights on the top, which is why I hadn’t recognised it as a police vehicle. I thanked Donny again, and headed towards the house anyway.
The police were keeping it all very low-key, but the curtains were twitched frantically all along the row of terraced houses. I approached but before I reached the door, someone sprang out of the white van and waylaid me.
“Jackie!”
“Hey, Pete. How’re you?”
“Not so bad. You don’t have business with Vin Paston, do you?”
“I might have. What’s going on?”
“He’s not in, that’s for starters, and I can’t tell you when he’ll be back.”
“Why are you all over his house?” I dropped my voice. “Is he a suspect in the murder case?”
Pete also spoke more quietly. He was a uniformed constable and had been for nine years or so. Everyone knew him as a straightforward community policeman. “He is a suspect, yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Is that because you don’t know?”
Pete looked a little embarrassed. “Yeah. No one has told me.”
Just then, someone dressed entirely in white, right down to their shoe covers, came out of the house with a large book in a plastic bag. Pete said, “Hey Kathy, what’s that?”
“Something that was hidden, and it just doesn’t fit in that house,” she said, muffled by her mask. “Very suspicious. We’re taking it to the station to ask him about. Probably there’s going to be a reasonable explanation but my spidey-senses are working overtime on this, you know?”
Pete nodded. “Police intuition,” he said to me.
I tried to look at the book but Kathy whisked it away into the back of the van. Pete shrugged, and I went on my way.
I WAS JUST WALKING up Clare’s driveway when my phone buzzed. It was a call from Bernie. “Hey there,” I said, pausing.
“Hey, you. Just thought I’d let you know we’ve got both the Pastons in custody, brother and sister. It’s a bit of an odd situation.”
“Yeah. You found a book in Vincent’s house, didn’t you? What is it?”
“Damn it! Come and work for us, clever-clogs. Yes, we did, but here’s the strange thing. It’s an old mediaeval manuscript of music, and I would say that it’s obviously stolen, and he swears blind that it’s not his, but that he didn’t take it.”
“Oh, so is he claiming it was planted there by the police?”
“No, he actually says that it belongs to Charlotte. He says it is a family thing. And she doesn’t deny it, either, but she just says she doesn’t want it any longer. She’s pretty evasive and isn’t saying much, but she did say that before she clammed up.”
“Do you know where it’s originally from?”
“Not a clue. With Charlotte’s musical background, it makes more sense that it is hers. But you know the other odd thing? There isn’t a single musical instrument in Charlotte’s little bedsit.”
“Maybe she sold them all for food.” What a tragic waste, I thought. “Anyway, she was a singer, wasn’t she?”
“Maybe. Our background reports suggest that both Charlotte and Will sang, but also played a variety of i
nstruments. Anyway, I’m just filling you in, because you put us onto Vin and Charlotte in the first place.”
“Who is looking like the main suspect?”
“It is too early to say,” Bernie said. “I can’t give you details in the ongoing investigation, but I know you understand. Thanks again. Gotta go.”
I pushed my phone away, and knocked on the door. Clare answered. She looked pale but her eyes were bright.
“I have news,” I said.
“You brought the ginger tea?”
“Oh, damn. Sorry.”
Chapter Four
“It’s your Scarlett’s twenty-first next Friday, isn’t it?” Clare said as we went into the living room. Clare favoured the Scandinavian style of furnishing – it was all pale wood and whiteness, sharp edges and earthy-coloured throws and cushions to off-set the right angles of the furniture. I felt instantly at home in such a place but I’d never managed to instil that same style in my own house. I owned too much stuff.
“Yup. Just one week away,” I said. “How did I get so old?”
“She’s kept you young,” Clare said.
“And my bank balance empty.”
“That’s not fair. She’s been independent for a fair while, now, and your Neil always sent money for support, didn’t he?”
“Yes, too much, in payment instead of his paternal duties,” I said grimly. “I know, I ought to let it go, but there it is. He still annoys me and we’ve been divorced over a decade now.”
Clare laughed. She’d never had kids. Her career had been a priority, and she’d planned on having them later, once she was established. But illness caught up with her. She’d been a doting almost-aunt to Scarlett, and my closest ally through the long dark nights of the soul in the months and years after Neil left us. “He’d annoy you more if he’d stayed around.”
“True that,” I said. “But for Scarlett’s sake ... I can’t help wondering how things would have turned out if she’d had a father figure around for longer, that’s all.” I meant that, and I meant something else too, and tried to smile.
“She is who she is,” Clare said. “You can’t change a thing.”
“I wouldn’t want to change her. But life is going to be hard for her, without it.”
“It’s just the same as it is for me, and for most people. Most normal people. Let it go.”
But there was still a chance and I had seven days to wait to until I found out for sure. Clare knew what I was thinking, and ordered me to go to the kitchen and make some brews.
When I brought them back into the living room, she was mostly lying on her sofa. She got dizzy when she stood up for too long – orthostatic intolerance, they called it – and her joints and muscles often ached. But she seemed lively, today, and she always liked to make the most of her good times. In moderation, at least. What fun she had today would be paid for tomorrow.
“So,” I said, keen to change the subject, “the murderer might be Charlotte Paston. Or her brother Vin. Or maybe both of them, working together,” I said, remembering that it was a male figure who followed Howlett onto the beach. She could have already been down there, lying in wait for her brother to herd the victim into her clutches.
Clare rubbed at her face. “Will you pull the curtains across? It’s too bright.”
“That’s because you go for this clinical Scandi-chic.”
“The only reason you don’t is because you know the dust shows up more and you’re scared of housework. Okay. Right, tell me what their means of murder were, and their motivations, and what their opportunities were.”
“Charlotte has the strongest motivation. Will went off to London and became a success without her.”
“That’s not a killing offence. Did he force her to stay behind?”
“No,” I said. “But maybe he threatened her? They were a solid duo and then suddenly he went off and she did not. There has to be a reason but no one is talking about any argument. It’s got to be something more subtle, like threats that nobody knew about.”
“I don’t buy it,” Clare said flatly. “Her motive is still pretty weak. If she was cowed enough to listen to his threats, would she really suddenly kill him? For something that happened three years ago? And what about the means to do it – do you know how the man was killed yet?”
“No.”
“Right. So if we’re talking about something stabby, then perhaps she did do it. Something that involves brute strength, though, like I don’t know – a hammer to the head – is far more unlikely.”
“People keep saying she was ill but I don’t know what with. Have you any idea?”
“Nope. I’ve not seen her at any of my clinics. I always thought it was depression, personally. That can have a pretty physical component. It comes and goes, affects her in all sorts of ways, and affects holding down a job – or a relationship – or, indeed, the potential of a glittering career in London.”
“True,” I said with a nod. “Okay, I agree her motive seems weak and her means are questionable, because mostly we don’t know about that.”
“How about this Vin? Vince? Vincent?”
“Vin, I think. He went to the Howlett’s house and asked his parents if he could see Will.”
“That’s it?” Clare said with a laugh. “That’s all that connects him?”
“No, don’t forget he’s connected through his sister. Oh, Charlotte was seen arguing with Will, too.”
Clare sighed. “Okay, you seem set on having her as the murderer. What does she gain from it? How is her life better now he’s dead?”
“I don’t know. She could have done it for revenge. For something. Listen, there was another thing I needed to tell you. There was a book...” I told her about the recent findings by the police, and what Bernie had just told me on the phone. “So she is connected. I feel it.”
“Mediaeval music?” Clare said. “That is interesting. That book would be valuable, assuming it is real and not a fake or forgery. Now you are not going to like my biggest question, Jackie. Brace yourself.”
“Go on.”
“Have you done any work today?”
“What?” I didn’t expect her to hit me with that.
“Have you written anything, or pitched anything, or edited anything? Interviewed anyone? Taken any photographs?”
“No,” I said. “I’m allowed a day off, right?”
“You’re following this murder case a little too closely and I don’t want you ending up like one of those obsessed women. You know the ones who collect newspaper articles and think they can work out who the killer is, when even the police can’t. You have a job to do, and I don’t want to see you distracted. Also, poking around after a real, actual murderer is dangerous, don’t you think?”
“Bernie asked me to help, actually,” I said stubbornly.
“Did she? Did she really?”
“Well, no, sort of, kinda. Okay, she asked me to scry. Except afterwards she said she’d been joking and hadn’t expected me to actually do it.”
Clare gave me a look. And I had to concede that she had a point.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll keep my nose out of it now.”
I HAD THE BEST OF INTENTIONS, I really did. I left Clare’s house in the early evening. Her husband Steve came home from work and I helped him start on with the evening meal, peeling a mountain of potatoes. Clare was flagging and needed a rest. I’d tired her out, and felt guilty about that. I still owed her the ginger tea.
By the time I was walking through town on my way home, the shops and businesses were closing up for the night. Only the takeaways and pubs were open now. I took the roundabout long route home, and went by the police station. I don’t know why, really. Something was still prodding me in the back, and it was like an itch I could not quite scratch.
I started to consider that Evangeline Dot had actually put a curse on me. It wouldn’t have surprised me. She was a magical person, and had had real power in her day. Quite why she would want to curse me,
though, was a mystery to me. Maybe spite was good enough reason for her.
I stopped dead in the street when I saw two people coming out of the side door of the police station. That way led to the custody suite, I knew, so these two weren’t just members of the public reporting a lost watch or something.
One of them was a small, thin woman – Charlotte Paston. The other, then, was her brother Vin. He tried to put his arm around her, but she elbowed him out of the way, and walked on, getting a bit of distance between them.
I tuned out of my earthly senses and sought out their auras. The evening light was low enough, with thick grey cloud stopping the sun, that it was easier to see their astral energies. Charlotte’s surprised me. She had a shimmer of rainbow colours around her. I’d expected to see a greyness or a damped-down, washed-out colour, but she had a healthy and indeed a vibrant glow to herself. If she suffered with depression, it was currently held at bay – this was the aura of a very well-balanced individual, with creative talents.
But it was tinged at the ends with red, and there were spikes.
She did not want to be anywhere near her brother.
His aura was also startling, but in a different way. It was tiny. I mean, it hardly projected at all from his body. I couldn’t think what would do that to a person.
Charlotte was striding out of sight and I began to walk after them again, trying to be very casual and unobtrusive. Vin hurried up to her side but she pushed him away once more.
Luckily, I was still using my second sight. Otherwise, I would never have seen the ghost which then appeared.
It wasn’t the first ghost I’d ever seen. Any witch no matter her particular talents will get used to receiving impressions of spectral entities, although they come to us in differing ways. Some of us can detect the resonances of those who have passed. Some of us get sought out by them, though that had never been my thing, thank goodness. I could do without being plagued by hordes of the undead. The most I saw was generally just the fleeting energies that remained when people close to me had died.
Wine, Witches and Song (The Everyday Witches of Wildham-on-Sea Book 1) Page 4