The Other Side of Midnight

by Simone St. James

  “You don’t know anything about it,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’re hearing all the wrong stories. James had no reason to kill her. Neither did I.”

  He leaned back again and let out a disgusted sigh. “I’ll admit you don’t seem likely. Murderers tend to be rather impulsive, and the tests on your mother happened three years ago. What’s more, you’ve had a thriving business ever since, and Gloria’s actions didn’t threaten your livelihood.”

  I flushed. They had threatened our livelihood; my mother’s career had been finished. We’d paid the bills only because I’d officially stepped in and taken over. But I saw no need to disabuse the inspector.

  “And yet,” I said, my voice trembling, “I make a living as a psychic, so I must be a liar. I’m not one of your credible sources. That is what you assume, isn’t it, Inspector? That is why I’m on your list. Let’s get to the heart of it, shall we?”

  He drummed his fingers on the stack of papers on the desk, looking at me thoughtfully, and said nothing.

  “I could tell you where I was on Monday night,” I said. “I was home alone, just as I always am every night of my life. But you haven’t asked me that, because there’s no point, is there? I’m a liar, and any answer I give to your questions must automatically be a lie.”

  “It may not be a lie,” he said easily. “It’s just possible. Your neighbors didn’t see you leaving.”

  I gripped the arms of my chair, my fingers squeezing so hard they began to go numb. “You questioned my neighbors?”

  “Yes, for the fat lot of good it did me.” He pushed back his own chair and stood, and I saw how much frustration was leashed inside his large frame, cloaked in the elegant way he handled his body but still informing his every movement. “Do you want to get to the heart of the matter?” he said. “Very well, then. Let’s. By all indications, this should be an open-and-shut case. I’ve got witnesses, or close enough. A victim who was a popular public figure, distinctive and easily recognizable. A murder that happened out in the open for anyone to see. I have Gloria Sutter’s client list, her schedule, her every movement for her final week. I know who she saw, how much she charged—I even know who she slept with, which was no one, at least not for the last few months. Everyone I’ve interviewed has been more than happy to talk my ear off, yet no one has given me an inkling of information that can actually lead me to her killer.” He said the last word as he thumped one large, well-formed hand on the desk in front of me, leaning on it and looking down at me. “That is the heart of the matter.”

  I stared up at him, biting my lip. I knew then, from the honest frustration on his face, that Inspector Merriken had no idea that George Sutter—whoever he was, whoever he worked for—was reading his reports. If I told him now, it would unbalance everything. And I needed George Sutter if I was to get to Gloria’s killer. However, I needed Scotland Yard as well.

  “All right,” I said. “Do you want to hear what I think?”

  The inspector made a sound I couldn’t interpret and walked to a sideboard where a pitcher of water stood next to several cups.

  “You’re looking in the wrong place,” I said. He turned and glared at me, but I gathered my courage and plunged on. “Clients, rivals, lovers—none of those things matter to her death. It’s all misdirection, like the card tricksters use. Gloria’s entire life was a misdirection. She was a master at it.”

  Inspector Merriken poured one glass of water, and then a second. “You’d be surprised who some of her clients were. I know I was.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. “But what does it matter? What powerful man is going to be afraid of a psychic? I could go to the newspapers and say I had psychic information about the prime minister, or the King, and they’d just laugh at me. Some politician’s petty affairs are not the reason she was murdered.”

  “Then pray tell, where should I be looking?”

  “I keep coming back to the murder itself,” I said as he took one of the cups of water and handed it to me. “It didn’t fit Gloria’s usual pattern. She never did sessions outside of her own flat. The only reason she did the session for the Dubbses was for money.”

  Inspector Merriken took a sip of his water and waited for me to continue.

  “The Dubbses paid Fitz to get access to Gloria,” I said. “And then they paid Gloria. Do you have any idea how much money that must have been?”

  “Wait a minute.” The inspector frowned at me. “Fitzroy Todd never told me he’d been paid.”

  “That’s because he’s a liar who would sell his own mother to suit his ends. Trust me, Fitz needed money, and whatever the Dubbses offered him was well worth the risk. Then whatever they offered Gloria was worth her abandoning her own rules to solve her money problems. Both of them had expensive tastes, especially Fitz. Neither one would have agreed for less than a princely sum. So exactly how rich are the Dubbses?”

  Inspector Merriken sipped his water and frowned. “The house in Kent was rather nice,” he said. “But nothing about them suggested they were wealthy.”

  “Look again,” I said. “Look for where the money came from, and then look for why.”

  “Miss Winter,” he said slowly, his voice a low drawl, “what exactly are you suggesting?”

  “It wasn’t a random act,” I said. “It was a lure, a setup. Someone put it together very deliberately because someone wanted her dead.”

  “Are you saying that the Dubbses killed her?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “To me it doesn’t seem likely that if you want to kill a girl, you invite her to your house and do it right on the property. But then, I know less about murder than you do.”

  Still he stood by the water pitcher, frowning, idly swirling his water glass. “It bears examining, I suppose. We looked at the Dubbses from the first, because we looked at everyone in attendance that night. But they seemed a normal couple. He works in the city, where they have a flat he uses during the week, while they spend weekends at the house. Affluent, but not too rich. No surviving children. The house has three servants, none of whom live in, and all of them had been given the night off. Everything they told us seemed to fit.” He frowned. “Except for one thing, now that I think of it. Ramona told us that when she and Fitzroy Todd appeared with Gloria at the train station, the Dubbses were upset and tried to send them home. But both Todd and the Dubbses denied it, so we assumed Ramona was lying.”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “Why not? Why would Todd and the Dubbses lie?” He looked at me. “If it wasn’t the Dubbses themselves orchestrating the murder, that means they were somehow being used. You know that you’re suggesting something with large implications?”

  I set my water glass down on the desk, untouched, thinking about George Sutter, how he’d given me confidential documents from the first.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Inspector Merriken said.

  “May I go now?” I asked.

  His gaze sharpened on me. He didn’t reply, but instead said, “Are you truly psychic?”

  I sighed. “Why ask? You’re not going to believe my answer.”

  “You’d be surprised at what I believe, Miss Winter.”

  My gaze rose to his. There was a hint of something, deep in his eyes, that made me wonder what exactly had happened to Inspector Merriken to make him ask that question. But I wasn’t ready to reveal myself to the relentless scrutiny of Scotland Yard.

  I lifted my chin. “You have a fiancée,” I said, “and you’re on your way to see her tonight.”

  The inspector went very still.

  “Here’s how I know,” I continued. “There is a clock on the wall behind my right shoulder. I can hear it ticking. You’ve glanced over my right shoulder exactly six times during this interview, which tells me you have somewhere to go. It’s past five thirty at night, and Gloria died four days ago. You’ve likely put in long hours since her mur
der. If you’re looking at the clock, you’re likely expecting your first evening off since her death. And you’re doing something you’re very much looking forward to.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him and went on. “You aren’t going out with friends for a pint, or going home alone. You’re going to see someone important, someone who matters. That means a woman.” I nodded toward his left hand. “You don’t wear a wedding ring, so you haven’t married her, at least not yet. But she isn’t a casual girlfriend, either, judging by your anticipation. That leaves a fiancée.” I looked into his eyes again. “Does that answer your question?”

  His expression had gone very hard and his jaw was flexing. “Very well,” he said tightly. “You may go.”

  I pushed my chair back and stood, but as I turned to leave he spoke to me again.

  “Miss Winter. Did Gloria have contact with her family that you know of?”

  I turned back to him. The tightness in his jaw was gone, but his expression gave nothing away.

  “No,” I replied.

  “How many brothers did she have?”

  “Four. Three died in the war.”

  “And her parents?”

  He must have known this already. “Her mother is dead and her father is in a home. He’s lost his faculties.”

  “What were her brothers’ names?”

  “Harry, Colin, and Tommy. George is still alive.”

  “And what is the name of my fiancée?”

  “Jillian.”

  We both stopped. The air in the room seemed to turn itself inside out, become something unbreathable.

  “Very interesting,” Inspector Merriken said.

  Anger flushed through me and I stood frozen, staring at him.

  “Misdirection,” he said softly. “A useful trick. If you can use it, then so can I.”

  “Am I right?”

  “You know you are.” He shook his head. His voice carried a hint of admiration, but no wonder or shock, and again I was curious about exactly how he had come across the paranormal before. I suspected it was an interesting story. “You almost had me, you know. That was a clever move, making me angry.”

  I hesitated. “The glass of water,” I admitted. “It came to me when you handed it to me.”

  His fingertip had barely touched mine, and yet it had come so clear, like a rush of water. No pain, just a flow of information, my powers working just as they always had. And they had been right.

  He seemed to accept my explanation. “Did you get anything else?”

  “She has dark hair,” I said. “And she drives you crazy, and the last time you kissed her she tasted like apples. As for the rest of what you’re thinking about, I’ll only say it’s a good thing you’re going to marry her.” I watched his expression and shrugged. “It was in your mind—sorry. I can’t always help what I pick up.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “That’s a very good trick. But for God’s sake, please don’t repeat any of that.”

  “I never do,” I said, and turned and left to meet Davies.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  By the time I arrived at Marlatt’s Café, out of breath and my hat askew, I was thirteen minutes late. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t trust Davies to wait.

  The café was a little closet-size spot in the warren of streets and alleys of Soho, run by a tiny man with nut brown skin whom everyone assumed was Marlatt. The place specialized in coffee that was painfully strong, served in an atmosphere in which you practically rubbed knees with the person at the table next to you, and there was a blue-tinged fug of cigarette smoke that never dissipated day or night. Gloria had loved the coffee here, but she’d said the place was like a great-grandmother’s closet, and smelled worse.

  I pushed open the frosted door, nearly bumping into the back of an old man who sat smoking at one of the tables, and squinted into the gloom. At the counter in the back corner stood Marlatt. He was wiping it down with an oily rag and did not look up at my entrance.

  I looked around frantically. The old man I’d almost collided with was the only patron in the place. Davies was nowhere to be seen. My stomach sank. She had left—if she had ever kept her word and come here at all.

  Marlatt was looking at me now, his dark eyes incurious. He was Turkish, we thought, something over fifty, his black hair combed back and slicked down on his head. He picked up a teacup and slowly polished it with his rag.

  “Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, considering how hard my heart was thumping in my chest. I stepped to the back counter. “Was Miss Davies just here?”

  Marlatt frowned at me and shrugged, uncaring.

  “Please,” I said. “I’m looking for her urgently. She was supposed to meet me. Was she here?”

  “Sure,” Marlatt told me, though grudgingly. “Just a minute ago.”

  “What happened?” I tried not to sound shrill. “Where did she go? Did she go home?”

  “How do I know? I didn’t follow her.”

  “Did she say anything? Please, it’s important.”

  Marlatt shrugged again. “She didn’t say. I assume because she was following the fellow.”

  I went cold.

  “Fellow?”

  “The fellow who came in here. Talked to her a few minutes only. Then they left.”

  “Who was he? What did he look like?”

  “How do I know?” Marlatt said again, annoyed now. Behind me, the door opened and someone else entered. “He looked like all the other fellows.”

  “But have you seen him before? Was he—?”

  “I didn’t know him,” Marlatt said, shooing me with his hands. “Now go away.”

  “If you’re asking, I didn’t know him, either.”

  I turned and saw the old man I’d almost bumped into, still sitting at a table by the door. He wore a rumpled suit and held a cigarette between two tobacco-stained fingers. He regarded me from under gray-white eyebrows of astonishing length.

  “Please,” I said, turning away from Marlatt and approaching his table. “My friend was supposed to meet me here. It isn’t like her to go walking off with strange men. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  The old man looked me up and down and shrugged. “Can’t say I got a close look at the chap. Slim. Dark suit, black coat, black hat. Respectable. Spoke softly.”

  “His face?”

  The man shrugged again.

  “Was he dark haired or light haired?”

  “Dark haired, from what I could see.”

  So it wasn’t James, then. It couldn’t be. “Did she seem to know him?”

  The man took a drag of his cigarette, enjoying the attention, likely the only he’d had all day. “Well, she gave him a glare when he approached her, though she’s always got a sour face, that one. Argued with him a bit at first. But then she got real quiet while he talked, and the next thing I saw she followed him out of here without a word.”

  “Did you hear them?”

  “Miss, I haven’t heard right since about ’13. I have no idea what they said.”

  “Which way did they go?”

  “That way.” The man pointed.

  The opposite direction from her flat, then. I thanked him and hurried back into the street. The rain had long stopped, but dusk was just beginning to fall, the sky turning lavender-blue. I hurried down the sidewalk, looking for Davies’s rumpled hat and mismatched jacket, her patented slouch as she walked alongside a nondescript dark-haired man. I pushed through the suppertime crowd, dodging elbows and handbags and puffs of cigarette smoke.

  By the time I pushed my way out into the crowds on Shaftesbury Avenue, I had to give it up in despair. Davies and her mysterious man could have gone anywhere, ducked into a shop, taken a taxi or a bus. I was nearly at the roar of Piccadilly Circus, where I had no hope of findi
ng them, even if they had come this way.

  Davies never went off with strange men.

  Never.

  Perhaps she knew him. It was probably nothing.

  It wasn’t nothing.

  She got real quiet while he talked, and the next thing I saw she followed him out of here without a word.

  What could a man—any man—have said to Davies to make her follow him in silence?

  “Damn it,” I said under my breath, the curse feeling satisfying on my tongue. I tried it a little louder. “Damn it.”

  “Watch your language, young lady,” a woman said disapprovingly as she passed me. She turned and tutted to her companion. “Girls today.”

  “Damn it,” I said to her back, and walked toward Piccadilly Circus.

  * * *

  I suppose it was inevitable that things would fall apart after I met Gloria Sutter. I’m convinced that she had some of it planned, possibly from the moment she recognized who I was while I was sleeping on that train. But sometimes I wondered whether even she was fully in control of what she’d set in motion. The problem with Gloria, as always, was sorting out the truth from the lie.

  My mother believed in my new friend Florence for nearly two years. The incredible stretch of time I kept my mother’s suspicions at bay both relieved me and utterly shamed me. In my occasional “nights over” at “Florence’s” house, my mother was never given the burden of knowing exactly what I was up to. But her credulousness came from her belief in me, in my honesty and my loyalty, none of which I earned.

  I didn’t see Gloria every day, of course, or even every week. But a month would pass, or possibly two, and I’d get a note in Gloria’s distinctive handwriting, the words toppling over one another like children’s blocks, inviting me to Soho. Perhaps she missed my company, or perhaps she was simply bored; I never knew which, and I never cared. I’d pack my valise, tell Mother I was off to visit Florence, and we’d go out on the town.