Gloria was in the main room, and she stood there with her eyes closed and her arms extended. She was much better at picking up on vibrational energy than me, and I could see she was tuning in to the place. I prowled around, trying not to stand on anything. I peeked into the kitchen and the bathroom, but the whole flat was empty. Charlotte was not here, and nor was the person who had done this. Books had been flung to the floor, and the table had been overturned. Things were smashed, and the kitchen smelled of split foods and cleaning products.
“She could have done all this herself,” I said, thoughtfully.
“Vincent Paston,” Gloria said from behind me. I jumped. I still had the phone clamped to my ear, and the hold music was on an irritating loop, skipping to the beginning halfway through a crescendo.
“What about him?”
“The energy here is male, and he is a relation to Charlotte – I feel a kinship. There is love and hate all mixed up. And he’s taken the book.”
Well that made no sense. She had been trying to give it away. Why take it so violently?
“So where is Charlotte?” Suddenly my call was connected and I was distracted, explaining the situation to the operator who sounded concerned enough to assure me a unit would be on its way very soon. Suspiciously soon.
I shoved my phone back in my bag. “I don’t think she’s going to be coming back any time soon,” I told Gloria. “Remember that Evangeline said there’d been an arrest on the case yesterday? I assumed she meant Vin.”
“Oh my god. Do you think Charlotte’s been arrested?”
“I am sure of it. Come on. Let’s get out of here before the police arrive.”
Chapter Twelve
“Where are we going?” Gloria said. We clattered down the steps and through the passage alongside the butcher’s shop. I could already hear a distant siren and I assumed they were heading our way. We wanted to be well out of the area by the time they arrived.
“We need to talk to Vin.” I had been avoiding it, because I wasn’t sure what to say. But now I had questions. And he had the book.
“Where will he be?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go to his house, and take it from there.”
So we did, but Gloria knew as soon as we arrived down the narrow street of terraced houses that he was not at home. “He’s not been here for a while,” she said. “He certainly wasn’t here last night.”
“Did he stay at Charlotte’s?”
“No, I didn’t get that feeling.” She closed her eyes. “Who else?”
“His parents. I have no idea where they live, but they are local.”
Gloria’s eyes snapped open. “Someone in this town will know. Let’s go and find out.”
Thank goodness Wildham-on-Sea was a small place. We were certainly getting fit with all this walking around town.
Gloria was right, and we soon unearthed an address for Mr and Mrs Paston. This time we ended up having to catch a bus to head a little way out of town. Gloria sat by the window and gazed at the flat fields. “Why don’t you have a cat?” she said, out of nowhere.
“I don’t have the time.”
“Cats are independent. It’s not like they need walking.”
“I mean, I am often away for my work. I can’t be asking people to come in and feed a cat. People don’t mind, once or twice, but I’d have to ask at short notice and it’s an imposition.”
“Nonsense. Cora’s grand-daughter has just rescued an abandoned cat with a litter of kittens. They were living in boxes behind a takeaway in town. I’m going to have one of them, when they’re old enough, and you can have one. Then I can look after yours when you are away.”
I really wasn’t sure but I let Gloria chat on about it. I had had a cat, years ago, but she had been a Russian Blue and the most resentful and arrogant familiar that a witch could possibly have. In truth, I didn’t want to be put under the judgemental eye of a cat like that again.
Plus, it was responsibility. I was happy with my life and all of a sudden people wanted me to take on new responsibilities. First Evangeline, and now this. A cat? No.
Gloria didn’t notice my reticence but I suspected she would realise I was against the idea when she thought about it later. I was starting to see how her mind worked, and I let her ramble. She had pretty much chosen a name for my future cat and worked out its character and everything when I rang the bell for our stop, and we alighted in a pretty little village clustered around a green with the traditional village sign on a pole in the centre. It depicted the principal industries of the area – in this case, mustard-growing.
We found the Pastons’ house easily. It was a detached place with a neat front lawn and all the curtains were closed. Before we went to knock on the door, I sent a text to Bernie, asking her to confirm exactly who had been arrested.
We had to wait about ten minutes for the reply, which was terse when it came. “Charlotte.”
“Just as everyone said,” Gloria remarked. Of course, when we had been asking for the Pastons’ address, most people talked about Charlotte too. But Bernie’s text was more reliable than small town gossip.
“Right,” I said, looking at the blank and closed-off house. “They are going to be quite upset. We are only here to speak to Vin. We won’t ask the parents any questions. And no mention of Charlotte, okay?”
“Okay.”
The front door opened. A tired and red-eyed man looked at us blankly. “Yes?”
“Can we speak to Vin, please?” I said.
“Who the hell are you?”
I was trying to come up with something non-threatening when Gloria blundered right through my plans and said the one thing that most normal people found the most threatening of all when they were in a time of stress. “She’s with the press.”
The door slammed in our faces.
I retreated immediately. Gloria dithered at the doorstep like she was thinking of knocking again until I called her back to me. “We can’t try again,” I said. “That’s it. We’re done here.”
“Well, he hasn’t been here, either, for a while,” she said. “I can’t feel much trace of him at all.”
“Can you track him to where he actually is?”
She tilted her head. “Do I look like a bloodhound?”
“No, more like one of those cute pugs.”
“How rude!” But she laughed.
And I suddenly realised that our friendship had shifted a gear. When you can insult one another is when you know that you are close. “Okay,” I conceded. “So you’re not a bloodhound. But maybe I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“I write about the countryside, right?”
“Yeah. You write for people who buy chintzy Laura Ashley stuff and wear expensive wellington boots and tweed and all that.”
“Sometimes. But I have also got to know a lot of real country people over the years, and they have taught me a lot. When that mixes in with my magic, things get very ... useful.”
“So you can actually smell his trail?”
“Okay, I didn’t mean I was actually like a bloodhound. But I’m close enough. Come on.”
Now it was my turn to breathe and relax and orientate myself. I had Gloria’s intuition that Vin had not been here recently. He had been at his own house, but his most recent visit was to Charlotte’s. That was where we would pick up the trail.
We caught the bus back into town, after a bit of a wait – the timetables were forever being trimmed down – and headed back to her flat. Here, it was hard work. I was reliant on nature and natural phenomena, which were difficult to spot in urban areas. Still, there was always lichen.
Now, to a proper rural tracker, the many varieties of lichen can give a lot of information. People say that it grows on the north side of things but they are getting confused with moss. In fact one variety, golden lichen, will grow on the south side of stones.
But I didn’t want to find north. I hunted out a patch of map lichen, which is harder in towns, as it only grows
in areas of low air pollution. We were lucky to have clean coastal air here. The round black-edged splodges were said to look like maps.
Maps that I could use.
I found what I needed close to the passageway by the butcher’s and I was certain that Vin must have passed by this patch on his way in and out. I said to Gloria, “Can you keep a watch, please?”
“What do I do if anyone comes this way?”
“Stop them.”
“I shall use my natural charms.”
I was already halfway through my calming rites and too busy to come up with a clever retort to that. I put my hands either side of the patch of map lichen but did not touch it. I inhaled fresh salty air and then leaned in to breathe on the lichen. It was suspended between my hands and it seemed to throb in recognition. There were two entities here – an algae and a fungus. I greeted them both and sent them an impression of Vin Paston.
Okay, so of course you cannot literally have a conversation with a patch of lichen. I haven’t completely lost the plot. It was not going to form a mouth and tell me exactly where Vin Paston had gone.
But this was a map lichen and it pulsed, three times, at least in my imagination. I thanked it and breathed on it once more, and withdrew.
I put up my hand, palm out, at Gloria. “Don’t speak! Follow.” I had to hold the map lichen in my heart and I couldn’t do that if someone was chattering to me. Instead I bent my will to maps and paths and tracks and used the gift of the map lichen to heighten my senses so that I could follow the trail of Vin Paston.
I had a strange kind of tunnel vision thing going on. The map lichen guided me by making certain things seem to stand out and glow. I scanned the passageway and I saw an orange pebble on the floor, and I knew I had to go that way. I walked towards it, letting my half-unfocused eyes sweep the area. A dandelion growing in a crack leaped out at me. We headed that way. On we went, with Gloria steering me away from oncoming traffic and buffering me from pedestrians.
We found ourselves with the out of town shopping centre on our left and the River Wild in front of us, to the north. I was beyond the help of the map lichen here. Its influence faded and I returned to the real world with a bump.
We looked at the bridge. “This way?” Gloria said.
“Hmm.” We went over the river and on up the road a little way. Now we were wending through the industrial estate, which was quiet due to the weekend.
“I was here last night,” I said. “Just over there, in fact.” I pointed to the car park at the far edge.
“Is this where Evangeline brought you?”
“It is. She wanted to point out Ian Martinet’s house to me.”
“Is that where Vin has gone?”
“I would bet money that it is. It would add up. Vin is deeply connected with this whole business. You know what I think?” I said. “I think that Vin has taken the book and fled to Ian’s house.”
“Oh god, yes. That would make sense.”
“If he is the murderer, will he let his sister take the rap for it?” I asked. “Could he really do that?”
“The dirty rat. I’ll kill him myself.”
“But if she is the murderer, why has he run off with the book?”
“That book,” said Gloria. “It’s more and more important. Shall we go on?”
“What, knock on their door and ask for it back?”
“I want to see this house.”
“We shouldn’t get too close,” I said. “I would think he has set all kind of traps and stuff around it. He’s magical, according to Evangeline. And I know that he can see ghosts.” We walked up the road a little way. It became a narrow, single-track road, with fields of crops either side of us. At this time of year, most of what was growing looked, to the untutored eye, like an indistinguishable mass of greenery. I knew that on our left would be potatoes and on our right would be sugar beet, from the shade of green and the shape of the leaves.
We both stopped at the same time. We could see the edge of a grey house in the distance, and a tall rank of conifers that made a square screen almost right around it. “That’s it,” I said.
“I can feel it. Let’s get away. Right now.”
Gloria sounded a lot more serious than I’d ever heard her and she didn’t need to tell me twice. We spun around and headed back to town.
Halfway back she said, “Vin is definitely there.”
Chapter Thirteen
I was pottering about in my kitchen on Saturday night when someone knocked at my door. It was around teatime and I wasn’t expecting anyone but I wondered if it might be Gloria. She had gone back to her gallery and had informed me she was going to do some meditation to search for a way forward. She wanted to find a way to get to the book.
“Are you any good at fortune telling or scrying?” I had asked her.
“No, I’m rubbish, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? My intentions are good, and that’s what matters.”
When I opened the door, though, it wasn’t an exultant Gloria who greeted me. Instead it was my sister, who looked older and more tired than I had seen her in a long time. She was smartly dressed and smelled like a police station – if you’ve never been in a cell, that odour is distinctive. Dust, polish, strong cleaning fluids, stale air, cigarette smoke (in spite of the smoking ban), and pent-up angry frustration.
“Get inside now,” I barked. “Sit down. When was your last good bath?”
“Do I smell so bad?” She collapsed into a chair.
“You need to relax. You’ve come here straight from work, haven’t you? I am going to run you a bath, right now, and put stuff in it.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“Good stuff. Hang on.” I dashed into the kitchen, threw some mint leaves into a glass and poured elderflower cordial over them, topping it up with sparkling water. I shot back into the living room and handed it to her, and then went to run her a bath.
“I am sorry,” she said when I came back to tell her it was filling nicely. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m on auto-pilot. I should go home and have a bath there.”
“If you go home, you will have to deal with home life. There will be housework to do or bills to open or whatever. I know your lovely hubby does most of it, but even so – it will be there. Hanging around. Responsibilities, gathering in corners like dust bunnies. Here, you can just relax. Hey ... are you falling asleep already?”
“Nearly. I might drown if I get in the bath.”
“I will be sitting outside on a chair.”
“That’s creepy. Don’t do that.”
“So you can tell me what’s on your mind. You didn’t come round for a bath, really, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t. I don’t even want one but I’m too tired to fight back.”
She didn’t put up any resistance at all. I led her upstairs and she wandered unsteadily into the bathroom. I sat on the landing outside, with my back to the wall, and heard her sigh as she sank into the bubbles. “How are you doing?” I called through the partly-open door.
“Oh god, I might just die in here. This is amazing. What’s the smell?”
“Roses, mostly.”
“Really?”
“There’s nothing magical in the bath. I’m not putting any kind of spell on you. It would be an irresponsible use of magic when all you need is good old fashioned TLC.”
“Thank you.”
She fell silent for a while. After about ten minutes, when I hadn’t heard any splashing, I called, “Are you alive?”
“Mmm. Mostly.” There was a rush of water as she adjusted her position. “You know we arrested Charlotte Paston for the murder of Will Howlett?”
“So I heard. What’s the story?”
“She has the murder weapon, or at least, the thing that was the precursor to the murder, the book. She is stronger than she looks, you know. She’s been going to the gym over the past few months, and one of the instructors there is perfectly happy to confirm she could have spent half the night pi
ling rocks up. She has a past history with Howlett, and a good case for a grudge. And she is refusing to talk.”
Her aura had been strong when I’d first seen her, though the last time it had been weaker. But yes, she might have been ill but she was healthier and fitter now. And I wondered about the timescale of that. Was it linked to the book? “What about Vin?” I asked.
“That’s the one thing she did speak out about. She said he is not linked in any way to the murder.”
“Do you not think she could be covering for him?” I said. “Loyal sister, and all that.”
“She has motive – he does not.” Bernie sighed and the water splashed. “Jackie, do you think we’ve caught the right one?”
“I am not sure. No, actually I don’t think so. But there is something else, something important, and it’s to do with that book. We’re sure that it was Vin who ransacked Charlotte’s place after her arrest and he took the book. He’s staying with Ian Martinet now.”
“Really? That’s interesting.”
She lapsed into a thoughtful silence once more. I left her to it, and went downstairs after giving her strict orders not to fall asleep and drown.
BERNIE HAD ONLY JUST left when there was another knock at my door. I flung it open and was amazed to see Clare there.
“It’s nearly eight o’clock!” I said.
“Yes but I have to tell you about Anne Boleyn.” She had a notebook in her hands and a fire in her eyes. “I could have rung you but I suddenly felt like fresh air.”
“You don’t want a bath as well, do you?”
“Er – no, but thanks. That ginger tea you promised me over a week ago though, that would be nice.”
“I’m on it. Come in.”
Clare went through to the living room and made herself comfortable. I came in with the tea, and a plate of flapjacks. They were paced with nutrients and goodness, and I suddenly wondered how different my actions were, to Gloria’s well-meaning insistent advice to Clare.
Wine, Witches and Song (The Everyday Witches of Wildham-on-Sea Book 1) Page 12