by Will Harker
“Who told you?”
“The fortune teller.” She lifted her face to the washed-out sky and her smile became so radiant I thought I caught a glimpse of the young mother she’d once been. “She asked us to call her Aunt Tilda. She promised that I’d hold my little girl in my arms again. That on All Hallows’ Day, Debbie would find her way back to us, through water and wood, until the red eye guided her home. She wanted us to know that Darrel Everwood was wrong about Debbie—wrong about everything.”
Anne looked over to where the psychic remained, staring back at us.
“The dead do speak,” she insisted. “But not to him. They never did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Standing there, looking at Debbie Chambers’ shell of a father and a somehow still hopeful mother, I remembered Everwood’s accusation that this couple had murdered their daughter and that their subsequent hounding of him was simply a campaign designed to divert suspicion.
I’d met many child-killers in my time on the force. They ranged from the worst sadists imaginable to the most devoted of parents who, nursing a terminally-ill child, had been unable to bear its suffering any longer. But in the Chambers’ pain, I didn’t sense the callous inhumanity of the former, nor the poignant peace that had settled over the latter.
These people were tortured with doubt, with questions, with what-ifs, with shadows on the wall that wouldn’t let them rest. Just like Miss Rowell seemed to project her sense of anger and betrayal onto Darrel Everwood for the sins of her husband, so the Chambers used him as a target for their guilt. He was their poppet, if you like, an effigy they could stab at when the trauma of what they’d done became too much. That he deserved all of their venom wasn’t the point.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told them. “You couldn’t have watched her every second of every day. John, Anne, listen to me. I’ve known men like the one who took your daughter. He’d have become fixated on her, stalked you as a family, learned your routines. He’d have found his chance sooner or later.”
John blinked at me as if coming out of a daze. “Not my fault?” he said through clenched teeth. His body started to shake, tears flicking from the corners of his eyes. “She was my daughter. It was my job to watch her, always.”
“No.” I took hold of his arms, steadying him. “It was your job to care for her and love her, and you did that. You’re still doing it, both of you. But chasing after Everwood, trying to make him pay for the shitty thing he did, that isn’t helping Debbie or yourselves.”
Anne smoothed her husband’s hair from his brow. “Listen to him, love.”
“But we should’ve been watching her,” he insisted. “It was me who told her to go and play outside. She didn’t even want to. Said she was enjoying playing tea parties with her teddies in her room. But she was such a demanding girl and we’d hardly any time to ourselves and I only—”
“We were having sex when she was taken,” Anne said. “For the first time in weeks. Just a moment to ourselves, and then afterwards…”
I nodded. In their minds, the act that had brought their daughter into the world had then taken her from it. I could easily picture the days and weeks that followed. I’d seen it a dozen times in similar cases—a maelstrom of unspoken recrimination battering at what they had imagined to be the solid walls of their marriage. When the diversions of police and media interest faded and they found themselves strangers, pottering around in a house full of ghosts, then a frosty word, an icy look could easily insinuate itself into tiny fissures until slowly, slowly those walls began to break apart.
That was, until the mixed blessing of the physic exploded into their empty life. The little candle they’d passed between each other, sheltering it even as they drifted apart—Darrel Everwood had threatened to blow it out for good. To leave them utterly in the dark. And for a time, he’d succeeded.
Without a word, one morning Anne Chambers had handed over the safe-keeping of that flame to her husband. She’d seen him off to work and then, perhaps taking one last look inside her daughter’s bedroom, had gone and drawn herself a hot bath, removing a blade from her husband’s razor and laying it on the side of the tub. I didn’t believe that John had accidentally forgotten his briefcase and returned home just in time. Where the people we love are concerned, we’re all detectives, to a greater or a lesser degree, and sometimes, just sometimes, we’re lucky too. I think John Chambers had noticed something that morning before he left for work—a passing clue that had made him turn back.
“You told Anne that this was your fight now,” I said. “To hold Everwood to account, to make sure no one suffered again like you had. It was a project you could work on together, a mission to live for. And a way to unload a little of that awful guilt you carry.”
“And I’m tired of it, John,” Anne told him. “We have our hope again, don’t we? It’s enough.”
“But I don’t believe it,” he cried. “That old woman, how could she know anything?”
“You visited my aunt on the night she was killed,” I said. “Do you remember what time that was?”
“It was just after eight o’clock,” Anne said. “That bodyguard of Everwood’s had thrown us off the fairground earlier but we came back.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d read an interview with Darrel Everwood’s ex-fiancée, the one in which she said he was a fraud. She mentioned a book about a celebrity psychic from years ago that had prompted him to get into the racket. That was the word she used, ‘racket.’ She said he’d had no interest in the paranormal until he read about this woman’s life and saw how much money she’d made from it. He knew he could use the skills he’d learned as a magician to replicate most of the psychic’s tricks.
“Anyway, the interview piqued my interest. It took a while, I had to do a little digging in old newspaper articles, but eventually, I found the name of the woman and the book—Hearing the Dead: The Story of Genevieve Bell. Again, it took some time, but I finally tracked down a copy and saw the name of your aunt mentioned in one of the early chapters. We thought,” she glanced at John, “I thought, if we could consult the medium who’d inspired the original Genevieve Bell then we might get a real psychic’s opinion on what had happened to Debbie.”
“The original Genevieve Bell,” I murmured. “Did you try to contact her too?”
Anne shook her head. “We tried writing but she never answered. By the time we thought of actually just turning up at her house, she was dead.”
“How did my aunt seem to you during the reading?”
“Very calm. Very kind.” Anne frowned. “But resigned, in a way. As if she’d made up her mind to accept something.”
I nodded, recalling Tilda’s words from the night before her death. Whatever happens, it’s nobody’s fault. I want you to remember that. Had she known what was coming for her? And if she had, might she have accepted her fate as some kind of justice?
“Did you notice anything unusual in the tent or outside it when you left? Anyone hanging around, maybe?”
John shook his head. He seemed more composed. “I don’t think so. But then almost everyone except us was in costume—vampires, werewolves, ghosts, Frankenstein monsters, superheroes—we would’ve been the ones who stuck out like a sore thumb. Might even have saved us a few quid on the gate if we’d bothered to dress up.”
“My dad announced the half-price costume concession that morning,” I said slowly, then turned my attention back to the Chambers. “And afterwards, when you heard about the murder?”
“We were terrified,” Anne said. “After Debbie’s disappearance, we’d naturally come under police suspicion. All parents do in such cases, I think. Plus, we’d heard that Everwood was spreading a rumour that we’d had something to do with it. I had an entire search history on my computer at home, full of stories about Genevieve Bell and Darrel and Tilda and fake medium exposés. And there we were, two apparently unhinged parents visiting a fortune teller just minutes before she was brutally murdered.�
�
“And Genevieve’s book?” I said eagerly. “Do you happen to have your copy with you?”
“I’m sorry, no. We’re staying at a local hotel and the book is back at home.” She turned to John. “Which is where we should be. Not persecuting that ignorant, stupid man, but waiting for Debbie to come home to us. Just two more days, John, and we’ll see our girl again.”
He looked me square in the face. “Do you believe that, Mr Jericho? That your aunt could really see such a thing?”
I thought back to my childhood, to those short years of unquestioning belief before all the monsters and miracles are stripped away from us. Back then, I had believed without question in my mother’s bedtime stories, in my father’s invincibility, in Aunt Tilda’s third eye that could see into veiled worlds and futures yet to come.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” I told them. “But if you feel you need my help at any time, please call.”
I pulled a page from the notebook in my back pocket, scribbled my number, and handed it to Anne Chambers. Together, they then turned and walked away down the forest road.
I watched until they disappeared among the trees. Something they’d said about their visit to Tilda’s nagged at me. Not the extraordinary claim that their daughter would soon return to them, but a detail so bland in comparison it was difficult to draw it from my memory. It seemed to link up with a comment someone else had made in recent days. Not about the case itself—or at least not obviously—just a stray passing remark.
It was no good. Maybe if my brain hadn’t been so fried with last night’s booze and sleeping pills, I might have realised the significance of what the Chambers had just told me. Would it have saved lives in the end? I’m not sure. I might have dismissed it anyway as a flimsy coincidence. Suggestive perhaps, but no more than that. In any case, I now had to roll the dice with Darrel Everwood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Walking back towards the medium and his PA, I considered my reaction to what had probably been Aunt Tilda’s final prediction. It had come from a kinder, more generous place than Everwood’s pronouncement of death—I doubted Tilda had even taken any money from the Chambers—but in its effect, it could prove even more devastating. Every hope of these shattered people now rested on an old woman’s conviction that their daughter would somehow return to them. When that failed to happen? I didn’t like to think about the consequences.
“Well?” Everwood asked as I approached.
“They’ve had their say,” I told him. “I think they’ll stay away from you from now on. No need to involve the police.”
I could see him visibly deflate. “Thank Christ. I told you we should have sorted a face-to-face with them months ago,” he sneered at Deepal. “But no, you thought that would just ‘inflame interpersonal tensions’ or whatever PR drivel was spewing from your lips that day. And now look—they’ve vandalised my bloody car again.” He strode over to the Bentley and kicked a monogrammed cowboy boot against his punctured tyre. “I said to Nicky they’d done the first one, but he wouldn’t have it. Said it was just a stray nail on the driveway.”
“Where is your bodyguard?” I asked.
“I sent him on an errand,” Everwood said. “Never around when I need him. Anyway, I’m very grateful for what you did, Mr–?”
“Jericho.”
“Jericho from the fair?” He frowned. “I thought you’d be older.”
“You’re thinking of my dad. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk to you, Mr Everwood. It was my aunt who was killed the other night and I wondered if I could get your insight into the murder. She was a psychic, too. A fortune teller. I don’t know much about these things personally, but wouldn’t gifted people like yourselves have an intuition about each other? If something bad had happened while you were in the same vicinity, you might feel the passing of their soul or whatever?”
“Not intuition,” Everwood objected. “Knowledge. Accurate, professional knowledge. So Tilda Urnshaw was your aunt?”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Deepal interjected, throwing me an annoyed glance. “I’m sure Mr Thorn would have something to say about it.”
“Seb’s my manager, not my employer,” Everwood shot back. “I can make my own decisions about who I talk to. It would be my pleasure to meet with you, Mr Jericho.”
“Do you have a spare five minutes now?” I suggested. “I mean, unless your personal assistant has any objections?”
Everwood took the bait. “She can shove her objections where the sun don’t shine. Deepal, you wait here for Nick and get him straight on that fucking tyre again.” He threw his arm around my shoulder and I almost choked on the reek of expensive cologne. “Me and my new mate are off for a chinwag. Do not disturb.”
Keys clearly being for lesser mortals, Everwood’s trailer was accessed by a palm-print reader. His biometrics scanned, the medium tripped up the stairs and into an almost absurd level of luxury. Granite countertops, lighted makeup table, crocodile leather upholstery, an entertainment system that took up a third of the floorspace, even a low-hanging chandelier to crack your skull against. Everwood waved me onto the couch while he flicked the switch on a complicated-looking coffee machine.
“Can I get you one?” he asked, that stage cockney accent slipping already.
“No, I’m good.”
“So you wanted to know…?” His brow corrugated, as if he’d already forgotten who I was and what I was doing there.
“I happened to catch sight of you on the night my aunt died,” I told him. “Part of my job is fairground security, patrolling the site, that sort of thing. I was passing when Deepal told you what had happened to Tilda. You seemed upset.”
“Did I?” He pulled the little espresso cup from the tray, downed its scalding contents without flinching, and immediately refilled. “Well, it was a shock, I suppose.”
“Did you know my aunt, then?”
“Know her?” The machine clanked, gurgled, dribbled into the cup. “Not personally. I’d heard of her, of course.”
“From where?”
Throwing back the coffee, he moved to the rear of the trailer, returning a few moments later with a tattered, well-loved paperback. I recognised the book immediately—a dandelion-yellow cover with black, curling font and a photograph on the front of a teenage girl, her gloved hands raised in a defensive posture. Everwood handed the book to me almost reverently.
“You know what my ex has been saying about me?” he asked, dropping into a chair. “Well, the only part of her bullshit story that’s even vaguely true is that I did read Genevieve Bell’s book, and yes, you could say it inspired me. Not to fake my psychic abilities, but to help people. That was what Genevieve did, right up until the day she died. Used her God-given gifts to comfort grieving families and to let them know there is something beyond all this pain and misery.”
“So you were never a children’s party magician?” I asked, slipping the book into a gap between two crocodile-covered cushions.
“I was, as it happens. So what if I once made a living entertaining a load of snotty-nosed brats? I was too young then to realise I already had a gold mine up here.” He tapped his temple. “I’d always heard voices, right from when my mum kicked me down the stairs when I was a nipper and I hit my head on the skirting. Concussion, two days in hospital. After that, our flat was spook central. Saw me granny first, sitting in her old chair by the window, smoking them little Russian cigarettes that had ended up killing her three years before. I could even smell the fucking things, so don’t tell me I’ve made all this up. You ask Deepal, ask Nick, ask any of them.”
The espressos were clearly having an effect. I held up a soothing hand. “I believe you, Darrel. Don’t forget, my aunt was a psychic too.”
Mollified, he shuffled back into his chair. “Sorry. No offence. It’s just, when you’re surrounded by haters, it’s hard to relax. What was I saying?”
“About how the book inspired you?”
“
Right.” He rubbed his hands together. “So my mum died when I was eighteen—drunk herself to death, at last, the nasty cow—and from then, I was pretty much on me own. The magic stuff was ticking along, nothing special. Then I read the book, and I saw how this little girl, who could do the same things I could, had made a mint out of it. I started making notes, following things up, putting out feelers, and before you know it, I’ve got my first psychic gig lined up. I signed with a manager, and within a year or two, I’m packing theatres up West and there’s even talk of my own TV show.” He started laughing—a high, hysterical, hyena-like chuckle. “I bless the day my mother booted me down them stairs. Must have dislodged a psychic screw, so Seb Thorn says.”
I wondered if his partner-manager knew very well what effect that injury might have had on his client. Almost every psychopath I’d ever met had suffered some form of head trauma in their early years. Hearing voices wasn’t an unusual symptom.
“The one thing I didn’t cotton onto was how it all ended for Genevieve,” Everwood went on. “How the public attention got too much for her and she had to hide herself away. There was a lesson there, if only I’d listened.”
“And it was in the book that you first heard about my aunt?”
He nodded. “Tilda Urnshaw. She was like the Obi-Wan to Genevieve’s Luke Skywalker.” He cackled. “I was looking forward to meeting her.”
“You knew she travelled with us?”
“I’d looked up the fair’s website when we did the deal with your father. The show’s going to look spectacular, by the way. Introductory drone shots of the fair, then zooming in on the house, the Ghost Seekers theme kicking in. Always something creepy about a carnival, isn’t there? And then a haunted house is the Halloween double-whammy. Anyway, I saw Tilda’s name and photograph on your website. Recognised it straight away from that chapter in Hearing the Dead. I was even thinking of paying her a visit the night we arrived, just as soon as Nick got back from his patrol.”