by Linda Taylor
I poured the tea, my hand shaking with temper.
She had only just arrived. How would I survive the next 50 minutes or so?
‘The baby is due February, Mum, and I’ll fetch the scan photo.’
I went over the dresser and found the photo for her.
She merely glanced at it and sniffed.
‘Our grandchild, Joy. How wonderful! Doesn’t matter about horse and cart these days, love. People are much freer. I wish they had been in my day.’ Dad said kindly and this last phrase spoken quietly and conspiratorially. I smiled at him. Poor sod!
‘Business is booming. I keep telling your Dad we should put the prices up whilst it is good and put some money by for our old age.
I suppose you two are consoling each other over your losses? ‘ she said, flashing a look at the two of us sitting closely together on the settee, her conversation at the usual racing pace.
‘I was that sorry to hear about Alison, son. Nice lass. I understand it happened under some routine surgery. She didn’t come out of it…’ Dad interrupted Mum bravely.
‘S’right. She wouldn’t have known anything. That’s something I hold on to. ‘Peter certainly wasn’t grinning now.
‘Thanks both for clearing Grace’s stuff. Not that she would have had much, I don’t suppose, with that useless wastrel of a husband. She should never have married him. My Dad said as much. But your Granma said we should all be thankful that someone was prepared to take her on. She had no career as such. Well, you didn’t back in the 50’s 60’s. Not like women today. She was always a problem, right from the start. Not that I mean to speak ill of the dead.’ My mother’s voice droned on.
‘You mean her nervous troubles? Ma couldn’t help those any more than someone could help having arthritis or heart trouble, Aunt,’ Peter said in her defence.
He excused himself then and went out for a smoke. I wished I could join him and I have never smoked in my life before.
Mum lowered her voice as he left the room to go outside.
‘Of course I feel for the lad. But she was always a strange one, his Ma, Grace that is. I don’t know if I have ever told you about her talking to herself. She would hold these conversations to thin air. Then there was all this hysteria over one of her rabbits dying and when the cat died… In those days of course, these things were taken even more seriously and with no names put to them. It was seen as unnatural to get so upset and, well, to put it bluntly, crazy to be talking to no one and to so many no ones.’
‘What exactly do you mean, Mum?’ She had never revealed this information before.
‘Well, she claimed to talk to different people and that she could see different people. The doctors at the time put her into this awful place. My heart went out to her. We weren’t allowed to visit her there. Cold baths, steam baths, all that kind of thing. Dad rescued her in the end and she came home so quiet, it was like another person. The stuff they gave her smelt awful and in the end our doctor changed her medication. But she didn’t take it. Then she met Ron. She was only 15. We thought maybe that would settle her, especially after the children came. But no, he didn’t make her feel secure enough.’ She stopped there and took another piece of cake.
‘Yes, it was insecurity most of the time. And just attention seeking, you reckon, eh Mum?’ Dad got in his pennyworth at this point.
‘Well, I was quicker at school and so on, but then I wasn’t day-dreaming all these people, was I?’
Peter came back into the room then. I could smell the nicotine and felt sure he had had more than one cigarette.
How could these two sisters be so very different? One the epitome of sensitivity and the other, my mother, like a bull in a china shop, mouth working away ahead of the brain! I hadn’t however heard any of this before, about her earlier life. So little had been spoken at her funeral, when you would expect to hear any revelations I knew now why they were so reluctant for me to visit, until of course they had no sway and I could make my own choices.
My poor, lovely aunt. For the first time, I began to wonder about this kind of ‘illness’. Yes, it would be well labelled these days. But was it an illness or was she suppressing something else? Something she had been ‘blessed’ with, that had been turned into a curse due to other peoples’ ignorance? How many people had suffered horrors due to medical ignorance? Not that long ago, epileptics were beaten to drive out their ‘‘devils’’, women that got pregnant, as in my own situation, but out of wedlock, could be sent to asylums and forgotten about.
The conversation turned to the usual drivel. The cost of food stuffs. The poor quality of tradesmen these days. Yes, and naturally the current weather. I sighed with relief and my head ached when they finally left.
Next time could only be when the baby had arrived, no sooner for sure!
There was an email from Daniel the following week:, they had reduced to once a week now with apologies.
But this email was a shocking one. Robson had been found dead.
I felt strange on reading it. I should have felt relieved but I needed to know how and where, before I could allow myself that pleasure.
Peter told me he had handed in his notice at the M.O.D. I was surprised at this but he informed me, rather shamefacedly, that the insurance on Alison had paid out. His grandchild was due any time now and his step daughter, by his first marriage, had told him that the pub owner, who was also her employer, was looking for a partner and an influx of cash to keep him going. Peter was going to visit as soon as he felt I was safe enough to leave and Daniel had given the okay for him to do so. He was hoping to join her there and become a publican.
Another factor, he explained, in making this decision, was that he had had more than enough of authorities and officialdom to last him to the end of his days.
I told him I thought he would make a wonderful publican. He had the right personality and that winning smile! He seemed pleased that I was so encouraging about this new enterprise.
‘We’ll always keep in touch though, eh, Lulabell!’
‘Try stopping me!’ I said hugging him tight. He seemed thinner than ever and there was me piling on the pounds. Daniel would take one look at me and walk back out the door, I felt sure.
Peter and I were watching some silly quiz on television when the door buzzer sounded. He went to look though the spy hole and came back in, grinning from ear to ear.
I looked up and saw Inspector Tate standing there with a very serious expression on his face. Fortunately for my nerves, it didn’t last long.
‘There’s a member of my team here who wishes to ask you some very pertinent questions, Miss,’ he said, but he couldn’t help himself from chuckling at the end of his sentence.
Daniel came into the room, his eyes finding mine in a flash.
I leapt up, my arms open wide. Nothing and no one else in that room mattered or even existed in that instant.
I don’t remember them leaving or saying goodbye. Maybe I said it automatically. He sat with me, his arm around my shoulders, my head resting on his, taking in his wonderful, masculine scent. It was like no other.
I have no idea even now where Peter went for the rest of that evening but after some coffee and as soon as Daniel had seen the scan photo, which he laughingly agreed with me looked very much like a waving jelly, we snuggled up together in my bed. After we had made love, oh so gently now, we had plenty of talking to do.
Robson aka De Vere aka Klein had been followed back to his ‘lair’ and killed there.
Daniel told me more of the story. He said that his mother loved natural surroundings. She hated towns and city life. His father, the Count, had a wooden shack built especially for her, with all the mod cons, in the middle of one of the pine forests he had bought, near Roquefort, midst the Moors of Gascony. He said it was a beautiful, peaceful spot and they often went there. The pine forests were man made and anyone could now buy in to them.
Robson aka all the other names, finally accepted this place as payment against some debts t
hat the Count had incurred, no doubt due to deliberate double dealings by Robson.
He loved the place and would use it as his final retreat when other places, such as the house in Cromer and a dwelling in London, were too ‘hot’ as Daniel described it to me.
Robson had been found in the chalet cum shack, dead on the floor. He had been dead over a week and though it was not a scene that Daniel intended lingering on nor would he go into any further detail, I had to know how.
‘But tell me HOW?’ I pleaded with him.
‘How? No, Louisa, the unborn baby, your sleep…’
I just knew. ‘Daniel’,’ I stated, ‘he was hit over the head, wasn’t he?
‘Okay, okay, if you must know. Yes, he was battered and badly. They aren’t sure what the weapon was yet. But he’s dead alright. No one could have survived that. I guess he was proving too much of a ‘leak’ for the syndicate.’
I shivered and he felt it and pulled me closer to him.
‘I wish you hadn’t asked me.’
‘How was this place … decorated?’ I enquired, keeping my voice calm so that he would not become too reluctant to tell.
‘Decorated? Dear girl…. ‘ he frowned with some confusion at what seemed an odd question.
‘Well, they took some bits and pieces there from the chateau of course. Rugs, china, tall backed chairs… things to make it more home from home.’
‘Candelabra?’
He pulled himself up in the bed and looked intensely at me.
‘Yes, I guess so. I haven’t been there for some time. I was studying of course. Jacques was taken there by Pa after she died.’
I didn’t want to alarm him so I quickly asked if he had some happy times there.
‘One or two. We took the cat with us.’ He smiled remembering it.’ Lovely Persian. She wouldn’t go out because it meant stepping on the pine cones. Madame didn’t like that! We called her Madame.’
I snuggled back against him, hoping to encourage more confidences. He turned and kissed me.
‘So we had to use some grit and mud indoors. She would climb the trees though and cry as if she couldn’t get back down, every single time - for Jacques to rescue her.’
‘I didn’t mean to …’ I said, seeing his eyes fill with tears.
‘It’s okay, Louisa. He was only small of course but he could shimmy up a pine tree like a monkey.’
‘I’ll make us some coffee?’ I offered.
‘No, No let me talk. You need to know and I want you to know. But I’ll miss out the gory bits, Louisa.’ He said, placing his hand gently on my stomach and rubbing at our baby inside.
‘Robson had been a family friend and associate for many years. So he easily persuaded Pa, playing on trust, and had him immersed in fraudulent schemes, insider deals. He played on his financial losses. We had a housekeeper called Veronica Klein. We had no idea of the connection with Robson then. Although, he had recommended her. We have only just found out that was his real name and she was his wife.
To add to Papa’s woes, Jacques became ill. He grew feverish and seemed to be hallucinating.
My ‘skills’ I hasten to add, had not really surfaced then and I was away for most of this time. Doctors came and they decided he was developing a psychosis. They could see no physical cause for his sudden screaming, or the fevers or his odd bodily actions. He was taken to a nursing home. I never saw the place as everything happened so quickly after his admission.
Papa summoned me back from France, informing me that my little brother was past all hope. He was dying and they didn’t know from what. One doctor claimed it was some kind of tropical disease. He and the other doctor disappeared later on and were never seen again. We tried to check them out only to discover they didn’t exist according to the medical council, probably weren’t doctors at all. When I got back, it was all over and there was some controversy as to how his body was found. They said he died due to a ‘misadventure’. Papa agreed he should lie next to Mama and we awaited shipment of the body. The body went missing, Louisa.’
‘Oh my God! How? Why?’
‘You’d be surprised what money can buy- silence, lies, missing files, you name it. Shortly after that, Papa supposedly committed suicide. A few days later, he was found, body dangling out of his bed and by Veronica Klein. Everyone said it had all proved too much for him and how ill he had been looking, even before Jacques had been taken from him. He didn’t commit suicide. He left no note for one thing and he was Roman Catholic. There was a mix up and as we arrived at the chapel of rest, we were taken aside and told how sorry they were etc, but his body had already been cremated. They thought he was the one who had no family and that no service was to be held. There was supposed to be an autopsy on Pa too. Staff working at the funeral parlour were thoroughly questioned but all said the same thing-there had been no notes to say otherwise. Robson had been to see him of course, before I ever got there. He consoled me saying, how at peace he looked. He had overdosed on some sleeping tablets that no one seemed to be aware of being prescribed for him. He would have fallen into a deep sleep, Robson told me. I took comfort from this but later I would realise Robson’s cunning. The police however were not satisfied with any of the so-called facts.
I had started to sense things a couple of years earlier and when I sensed one particular crime and place, which had been baffling police and was even shown on television, I contacted them . I was so incensed by the whole thing, I just had to. I was nervous about how they would react, quite expecting them to laugh or decide I was unstable. To my surprise they listened to me. I went through various tests and surprised them further. I was proved right about some crime evidence and it was then I realised my real career lay there.
I have never been wrong yet. I don’t always sense anything of course and Robson proves the point. Good job really, otherwise I don’t suppose I could have kept his confidence as long as I did. There are other ways of helping the police.’
‘My poor love. I know it sounds trite, but I am so very sorry,’ was all I could find to say.
‘We finally got our man, or someone did, and the police are making arrests even now. Our man betrayed a few others. No scruples with the criminal classes when the chips are down. But as to finding Jacques body, the police are still baffled. It could be the same man at the mortuary who mixed up the papers on Papa of course. He won’t see daylight again except from a prison exercise yard.’
‘Come closer, Louisa. I need to get to grips with …’ he began and we wriggled back under the duvet for another half hour.
It was good to have him with me and to be able to comfort him with my love.
Peter had been shopping for us and Daniel had gone to see Mr Tate.
I was putting the packets away in the cupboard.
‘Louisa.’ He said rather quietly.
‘Pete?’
‘You asked me some time back if Marston Place meant anything to me? Do you remember?’
‘Yes, I do’. I had had the same dream a week or so since, with the lady sitting at a table, and wearing the locket. I had told no one of it.
‘I looked it up. Some closed files again. It seems its some boarded up manor house, half way between that dodgy nursing home that Ma went to. The one that was closed down. Suspicious deaths and so on.’
‘Is it now! You have been told to leave well alone, Pete! Sit down a minute’.
He obeyed.
‘That place Pete, is the same nursing home where Daniel’s brother was taken and died. Where Aunt was put for some time. Where that photo shows the front door. You said the police had placed it.’
He nodded in agreement.
‘I wonder if Ma met this little chap? She would have been a comfort, for sure. She couldn’t resist children, especially if they were in some kind of trouble. Big softie she was,’ he said looking deep in thought.
‘I was guessing the same thing. Robson was in that photo too- he was the man the police have found dead. The man Daniel has been working to expose
alongside them.’
‘Is Daniel one of those special coppers, then?’
‘He helps the police, best he can. I can’t tell you more just yet.’ I was beginning to think it might be best not to tell him anything about Daniel’s psychical work, and Peter’s moving away would make it easier too. I didn’t want to have secrets from my cousin but I knew him well and I didn’t think he would be able to cope with this news and certainly not cope if I told him more of my premonition- like dreams. He was a good but fairly simple, straightforward soul.
Hadn’t he had enough to cope with; losing his wife so tragically and then a mother who had been plagued by what he chose to call her ‘nerves’? I truly believed he wouldn’t be able to take much more on board. I would consult Daniel naturally, but felt sure he would concur.
‘I wonder why the photograph was even taken?’ he queried.
‘A roll call one, I guess. Daniel thinks it ironic as it has proved so useful. You know, the kind of thing you see hanging on the wall in institutions and never really look at. Past Chairmen, Presidents, etc.’
‘You could be right. And Ma held on to it. But I wonder…’
‘I guess we’ll never know the depth of her involvement yet I cannot believe it was anything but curiosity as to what Uncle was involved in. Nothing more sinister. Maybe she found them in his paperwork when he died and just hung on to them?’ He nodded again in agreement.
‘So, what else have you discovered about Marston Place? ‘ I continued for I was intrigued but daren’t show it.
‘It’s in police hands now. Someone must have given them the connection, as my source tells me there is an op on to open the place up and a search warrant has been granted. Seems the owners are abroad and no one can trace them. I wonder how they heard about it, did you tell them something? Where did you hear of it?’
‘Daniel.’ I lied quickly. ‘He said there was some connection. It was on an email or was it when we met that time? I don’t recall. This baby is making me a bit dim!’