The Other Side of Midnight

by Simone St. James

  Gloria tilted her head. “And do what?”

  “Tell fortunes. Read palms,” I said. Both were impossible, and therefore a lie—according to my mother—but sometimes I thought that lying would be better than telling those grieving women the truth. “Anything but endure those visions—the dead.”

  Gloria’s gaze had gone curiously still as she looked at me, and I could tell she was calculating something. I’d said too much, perhaps, though in my distress I couldn’t fathom what I’d said wrong. “It bothers you, then?” she said almost softly. “The visions?”

  “How can you ask that?” My voice cracked, and I fought to keep control. My emotions were tumbling out of me of their own accord. “This power means I’m a circus freak. A witch—you said it yourself. A girl who will never have a normal life.”

  Gloria arched an eyebrow again. She put a hand on one hip and regarded me for a long moment. Then she walked to the door and slipped on her coat with its beautiful fur collar again.

  “I’ve never wanted a normal life,” she said to me, “so I can’t help you with that. But it seems to me that your problem is that you have no life at all. Come with me, darling. Let’s get drunk and see what we can do about it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When I finally arrived home from Ramona’s disastrous séance, my street in St. John’s Wood was as dark and quiet as if the world had ended. My heels clicked shallowly on the front walk and my key seemed to echo as it slid into its lock.

  I tossed my handbag aside and dragged myself back to the kitchen, the silence deafening in my ears. It suddenly seemed that I had heard nothing but silence since my mother died; I’d been swaddled in cotton, the world muffled outside the confines of my head. Those last few years of my mother’s life, after I met Gloria, had not been quiet in this house. There had been arguments about hemlines and hairstyles, and tense fights when I came home in the middle of the night, and one particularly shrill confrontation when my mother caught me smoking. Then there was the drama of my mother’s scandalous retirement, and her moans of pain after she’d grown sick. And then all had been silence.

  A tray covered with a dome sat on the kitchen table. My daily woman had come and gone as always, dutifully leaving me supper even though I was not in the house. What did she think of me? She never said. She had worked for my mother, and after my mother died we’d had a brief conversation in which she’d stated she’d like to stay on if I’d have her. She had offered no condolences, and I had asked for none.

  I pulled the dome from the tray and looked down at the cold supper beneath it. This was how I lived: With the ghost of my mother, whose name I had taken, whose dress I wore every day in atonement. With the ghost of the daily woman, who hadn’t mourned my mother and would never mourn me. With the ghost of Gloria Sutter, who had haunted me long before she died.

  I hadn’t gotten drunk that first night, despite Gloria’s proclamation. I’d never been drunk in my life, and I was far too terrified to let even Gloria have her way. She had taken me to supper at a tiny club with plush red chairs, no windows, and a wizened proprietor who spoke nothing but Russian and communicated with his patrons chiefly in mime. Gloria had downed a bottle of wine over the meal, let me pay the bill with my last few coins, and then taken me out into the night.

  There had been taxicabs and clubs, and almost-beautiful women in expensive dresses and fur coats, and men who poured drinks and whose comments seemed to insult you and compliment you at the same time. It was bitterly cold, the slush on the streets wet and nearly frozen, our breath pluming in the air as we went from a taxicab to a doorway and back out again. It was hectic and exhilarating and exhausting. Everyone knew Gloria; everyone loved her and referred to her as “darling” or “simply too much,” but even I could see the wariness in their eyes beneath it all, the way none of them touched her.

  Now, in my silent kitchen, I took off my high heels and rubbed my feet. My brain hurt and my eyes felt as if sand had been rubbed into them. Still, I made the journey back to the front hall to retrieve my handbag and pull out the little satin bag I’d taken from Gloria’s flat the day before. I’d carried it with me like a talisman, never certain when I would need a bolt of gin. That moment seemed to be now.

  I slid the little flask from its pouch and admired it briefly. It was well made, chosen with Gloria’s impeccable taste, slender and feminine. When I touched the empty satin bag again, I heard a telltale crinkle, and when I slid my fingers inside, to my amazement I pulled out a few folded pieces of paper.

  I opened the first one and held it under the light.

  Dear Mrs. Sutter,

  It is with great sadness that we inform you that your son, Harry Sutter, died 19 March 1916, valiantly in defense of his country . . .

  There were three of these letters, telegrams, each of them as well-worn as lace. Tommy, the sweet one; Colin, the sour politician; Harry, the handsome one. Gloria hadn’t spoken much about her brothers, but she’d quietly carried these letters with her everywhere she went. I set them aside, careful not to damage them.

  Alongside the telegrams were three photographs, each perhaps two inches long. Each was a portrait of a man in uniform, from the neck upward, looking carefully toward the camera. They were going-to-war portraits, the same kind tens of thousands of men had had taken all over the country before leaving their families. I put them on the table and rearranged them.

  One face was youthful, the hair possibly a light brown; this was Tommy, whom Octavia said was the youngest. Next to him I put a face so outrageously handsome it could only be Harry, whom Octavia had described as gorgeous, like a movie star. He had thick black hair and eyes of inky soulfulness, as well as a strong, soft mouth and a beautiful jaw. Movie star, indeed. Finally, at the end I placed the third photograph, this one of a man slightly older than the other two, his dark hair slicked down like Valentino’s, his gaze serious. This was likely Colin, described as the future politician. What struck me about him was that, aside from the fact that he was obviously a man, his resemblance to Gloria was much closer than that of the other two. He had her straight nose, the dark, intelligent slashes of her brows. It was disturbingly like looking at two portraits somehow overlapped.

  One more sheet of paper had been folded into the silk bag, this one crisp and much newer than the telegrams. I read from the top:

  4: 1500 44 2100 214

  5: 1700 107

  I stared at Gloria’s cramped handwriting. As codes went, it was hardly the most difficult to figure out: This was Gloria’s daily schedule, tucked into her flask bag so she could handily remind herself. The first number was the date, followed by a time on the twenty-four-hour clock. The next number referred to a client. Number Thirty-One wants to see you at seven, Davies had said on that first day. The numbers 44, 214, 107 . . . those were all codes for clients. This, then, was Gloria’s professional schedule for the last week before she died.

  I scanned down the page, pausing to uncap the flask. I swallowed a bolt of gin—of course it was gin—and felt it burn from my stomach to the top of my head, turning to cinders the thought that Gloria’s killer could well be listed on the page I held in my hands.

  The schedule continued:

  7: [NUMBER BLACKED OUT] #321B!!!

  8: 277 KENT COLLECT UP FRONT

  I rubbed my forehead. On Sunday, the day before Gloria was killed, she’d blacked out her appointment and written in something else—a number in a different format, followed by exclamation points. Monday, the day she died, she had written in the Dubbses’ code number—277—followed by a note to herself to collect up front. Everyone always pays up front, I thought, but usually Davies handled those details. Gloria was reminding herself, because this time she’d bypassed Davies entirely.

  My gaze traveled back to the line, this past Sunday, where Gloria had changed her own schedule and written something else in. Only one person could help me figure this out,
of course. Davies would know what all of the code numbers meant. She would know about the schedule change the day before Gloria died. Davies, who, according to Fitzroy Todd, Gloria had not trusted, and neither should I.

  And what about the police? They must have asked Davies for Gloria’s schedule in her last days. Had Davies given it to them already? If I handed these sheets to the mysterious Inspector Merriken, would he know what they meant?

  I tossed the page down and took another slug of gin.

  That first night Gloria and I had gone out on the town, at about two o’clock in the morning my exhausted brain remembered that my mother was at home, waiting. I had never in my life been out so late—had never gone anywhere without her knowledge and approval. I was suddenly crushed with guilt that I’d disobeyed all of my mother’s rules. She would be frantic.

  “I have to leave,” I’d said to Gloria as I worriedly patted my coat pockets, looking for my pocketbook. “I have to go home.”

  “Do you?” Gloria drawled. We were in a small, strange, drafty bar, lit only with dim wall sconces, featuring heavy velvet drapes across the walls. The place didn’t seem to have a name. Two couples we had somehow picked up were dancing drowsily to the exhausted four-piece band, the girls leaning heavily on the men and smearing makeup on their jackets, while Gloria and I watched from an uncomfortable booth in the corner. Gloria was slouched against the wall with a cigarette in her fingers, her dark hair tousled in a sensual mess, wearing a fur coat that wasn’t hers. I had no idea what had happened to the coat with the fur collar.

  “My mother!” I said.

  Gloria took a drag, unimpressed. “Yes, of course.”

  My mind spun. I’d had a valise with me on the train—what had I done with it? I remembered carrying it up the stairs to Gloria’s flat, but that was it. I’d always been so obedient, so conscientious; it was as if Gloria Sutter had put a spell on me, or slipped me some kind of drug. I fought down the panic in my chest and glared at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I said. “Keeping The Fantastique up at night worrying.”

  She arched an eyebrow and I knew I was right, but I also knew there was something more to it that I couldn’t see. “If you’re asking whether I enjoy getting my hands on her progeny, yes, I do. I like to watch the chick toddling out of the nest.”

  It stung. She thought me stupid, naive, a child—or so she’d have me believe. Already I was learning never to quite trust that Gloria was telling the truth. “She worries about me,” I said. “And I— We have clients coming tomorrow.”

  “Do you?” She put a slight emphasis on the second word, her gaze calculating. Then she leaned her head back against the wall as if it was too heavy to hold up anymore, her half-closed eyes suggesting I was no longer worth looking at. “God, this band is horrid,” she said, and she raised one elegant hand and tossed the still-lit end of her cigarette in a perfect arc onto the dance floor.

  It was the coarsest, most unladylike gesture I had ever seen, and I stood mesmerized by it. There was something so darkly sensual about her, so unafraid. I was aware of a vein of pure, black longing within me. I wanted to be free enough to do something like that, effortlessly and without thought, a gesture that would horrify my mother, horrify myself. Much of what Gloria did and said was an act, but with an ache in my chest I knew that throwing her cigarette in that moment was not one of them. It was not staged in order to shock. She had simply wanted to get rid of her cigarette, and that was the fastest way.

  I wanted to ask her—something. I knew not what. Everything. Instead, I said, “Does drinking stop the visions?”

  Gloria blinked slowly at me, her eyes dark and unreadable as she considered the question. “I drink because I like to be drunk, darling,” she said finally. “And nothing stops the visions but sheer willpower.”

  I swallowed and my gaze flicked down to her hand resting on the table. I wanted to touch it, to feel her power, to feel that connection with her, with someone, with anyone. With Gloria Sutter. I pulled my coat tighter around me and took a step away. “I have to go.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Gloria said, as if we’d never stopped talking. She leaned slightly forward over the table. “Your precious mother. What happens to you when she’s gone?”

  “Gone?” I said stupidly. “My mother is in perfect health. She isn’t going anywhere.”

  Her voice turned harsh and almost amused. “Have you learned nothing? We’re all going somewhere. The question is where.”

  The words hit me like slaps. I thought of the old woman I’d seen as a child, all the hideous dead I’d seen since. I could not—would not—think of my mother in the same way. “Be quiet.”

  “Do you think you’ll get married?” Gloria pressed on. “What exactly do you plan to tell your husband? That you’ve spent your life staring into the eyes of corpses, but never mind, darling, I’m perfectly fine? You’ll never find a man to take you unless you lie to him—do you know that? Besides, the men all went to war and didn’t come home. I talk to those dead soldiers, and sometimes I think, ‘There’s another one. Another man no girl can marry.’”

  I turned to leave, but Gloria was faster. Her hand shot out and gripped mine, cold and hard. I hadn’t yet put on my gloves.

  The feeling was stronger this time, fueled by alcohol and exhaustion. It had taken me years to learn to fully control the power I’d been born with, but Gloria’s power dwarfed mine easily. How she dealt with it, how she controlled it, what it cost her, I could not fathom. I could only gasp as the seedy nightclub fell away and the world went quiet and there was only Gloria, me, and the sharp electric current between us. Then she let me go. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a taxi, shivering and inexplicably near tears. I would never marry; she was right. I was too freakish. And someday my mother would be gone.

  I came home to find The Fantastique half mad with worry, moments away from calling the police. We had our first row that night, tearful and dramatic. I begged her forgiveness even as I bit back a resentment toward her I’d never felt before. I told her I’d made a new friend on the train home and we’d lost track of time.

  I told her my new friend was named Florence. It sounded like a nice enough name. And through all the rows, that night and afterward, I never mentioned Gloria Sutter.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Despite the restless night I’d spent after drinking Gloria’s gin, I was out of the house early the next morning. The silence in my sitting room was too much for me, the walls narrowing in. The bustle of London’s morning streets numbed my mind. I told myself I was wandering with no fixed purpose, but by the time I took the tube to Aldwych station, I admitted that was a lie. Aldwych was only a few streets from the offices of the New Society for the Furtherance of Psychical Research.

  The tube doors slid open and I made my way, along with a smattering of suited men and important-looking women, up to the street. The pavements were still damp from the last evening’s rain, and a bank of gray clouds lowered over the city, threatening another round. My temples throbbed already. I was hungry and thirsty for some tea.

  I had just paused at the doorway of a small café, considering a stop alone for breakfast, when a long black motorcar pulled up to the curb next to me and a man unfolded himself from the backseat.

  I blinked at him in shock. It was George Sutter.

  “Good morning, Miss Winter,” Sutter said, touching the brim of his hat. “Join me for coffee, will you?”

  He gently rested one hand on my elbow, and I automatically let him steer me through the door and to a seat at a small table. “Just tea,” I managed to correct him after he ordered on my behalf—tea and a scone for me, black coffee for himself. Then he turned to face me, crossing one leg over the other.

  He was dressed in one of his well-cut slender suits and an overcoat, a hat, and an unassuming tie. A folded umbrella sat in the crook of one arm. A businessman just
like any other on a London morning, except that his air of power sent the waiter scrambling with extra speed to fetch his coffee. And I’d accompanied him at his request without question, like a servant.

  Before he could speak, I asked the obvious. “How did you find me?”

  “How do you think?”

  I allowed a feeling of shock to move through me. “You have someone watching me? For how long? How did he follow me through the tube?”

  “Does it matter, Miss Winter?”

  His look told me it was a foolish question, which made me angry. “I never agreed to be followed day and night,” I said, thinking about where I’d been the night before. Had George Sutter’s man been watching? Had he seen James? “Besides, I don’t understand. If you have enough manpower at your fingertips to follow a woman through the tube, then why do you need me in this investigation at all?”

  The waiter returned with our order, and Sutter didn’t answer. I could see little of Gloria in his smooth, impassive face—a little in the eyes, perhaps, but he had none of her sensual openness. He looked older than she ever had, older than she would ever now grow to be.

  “I didn’t intend to anger you,” he said when we were alone again. “I wanted to speak with you privately, and I didn’t think you’d agree to see me. I prefer to speak in person rather than over the telephone.” He sipped his coffee and put the cup down on the saucer with a soft click. “I did try to send you a letter.”

  “Your letter was rude,” I informed him, still irked. “My reply was warranted. I hope you don’t often have to charm people in MI5.”

  “I have never told you I work for MI5.”

  No, that had been James Hawley’s idea. “Then who do you work for?”

  Sutter’s demeanor didn’t crack. “You can parry me all you like, Miss Winter, but it doesn’t change the fact that I require a progress report. You’ve accepted my fee and, according to my sources, you’ve been investigating. What have you found?”