PRELUDE TO MURDER: A Rex Graves Mystery

by C. S. Challinor

  “It must be hard for you to get involved,” Helen said.

  “But it is my calling, my vocation, and I feel I must use my gift to bring peace to the ones left behind.”

  “Certainly,” Rex acknowledged, eager to proceed. He had waited a week to discover more about the deceased Gladstone couple. He waited a few more minutes while the psychic finished her herbal tea and told them how charming Lydia had been when they met on the plane. They had found themselves sitting next to each other in a row of three seats. Tom had been dosing during the short trip across northern France and the Channel, and Lydia had engaged her fellow passenger in conversation. When she found out the Frenchwoman’s profession, she launched into her grief over the loss of her father and how she had heard his voice in her dreams. She asked Madame Mathilde if there was a way to reach him in the other world. Unfortunately, the psychic concluded with a desolate shrug, that séance had not come to pass due to Lydia’s untimely demise.

  “But, of course, she and her father are together now, and that is a consolation,” she added.

  “Did you foresee Lydia’s death?” Helen enquired.

  “I had a sense of foreboding,” Madame Mathilde replied. “But I always feel that when I fly.”

  Rex refrained from smiling and looking at Helen to see her reaction. He cleared his throat. “If we’re ready, shall we commence?” he asked the three women seated at the table.

  Chapter 10

  With apparent concentration, Madame Mathilde fondled the cream cashmere cardigan that had belonged to Lydia and ran gentle fingers through the pages of her diary. She placed the journal on the table in front of her and let the garment slip to her lap. She held out a hand to the women either side of her and bid everyone let their minds go blank so they might alter their awareness and be open to the spirit they were hoping to summon. Easier said than done, Rex thought, clasping Helen’s left hand and Cheryl’s right. Miming the psychic, the young woman bowed her head and closed her eyes tight. Rex tried to think of grey nothingness, as he did when trying to get to sleep and rid his mind of obtrusive, reoccurring thoughts after a long and fraught workday. He could hear everyone’s breathing and tried to regulate his.

  “Do you have a message for your friend, Shereel?” Madame Mathilde asked at last. “Speak up, my child.”

  “I miss you, Lydia!” Cheryl blurted. “I need to know what happened. I want to help!” She started sobbing.

  “It is no use,” Madame Mathilde said after a while. “I cannot get a connection.” She glanced at Rex with pinched lips as though he were somehow at fault.

  Cheryl's narrow shoulders slumped.

  “Would it help if I were to leave the room?” Rex asked. “Perhaps Lydia’s spirit is not receptive to me?”

  “It is not that,” the psychic replied. “It is the atmosphere. Somewhere more familiar might be better. Was Lydia ever at this house?” she asked Helen.

  “She only ever came to the front door, that I remember. When we went jogging.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot summon her, perhaps because she is a new spirit. She is being reticent, I think.”

  “What if we go over to her house?” Cheryl suggested. “I have a key. The electricity is still on.”

  Madame Mathilde nodded approval. “But I believe the spirits prefer candles.”

  “We can take these candles. Anyway, Lydia has some in her house. She has loads around her bath.”

  Rex coughed to interrupt them. “That's trespassing,” he warned.

  “She was my best friend! I want—need!—to find out what happened to her.” Cheryl turned back to Madame Mathilde. “What do you say?”

  “It would be more appropriate to try there,” the psychic agreed. “Anyway, it is your fee, or rather, Mr. Graves’, and I will comply with his wishes.”

  Cheryl gazed in appeal at Rex. He glanced at Helen who shrugged. “Aye, all right, but the police would not look kindly on our holding a séance at a crime scene.”

  “It’s been weeks. Anyway, they won't find out unless a neighbour reports us,” Cheryl said. “I’m sure Lydia’s mum wouldn’t mind. And Tom’s parents are back home in Berkshire.”

  “Then let us go,” Madame Mathilde directed, rising from the table.

  Helen went to turn the ceiling light back on. Rex blew out the candles, leaving tendrils of smoke. The psychic retrieved the red bag and put Lydia’s diary and cardigan in it. Helen added the candelabra and lighter. When they had all donned coats and jackets, they trooped outside, deciding it would draw less attention if they walked. The Gladstone house wasn’t far.

  The air felt sharp with cold and the stars shone stark and bright. The homes they passed were mothballed in silence, with only an occasional window faintly lit behind a curtain. No dog barked and no cars entered the cul-de-sac. As they made their way, with Rex and the psychic leading the small group, Madame Mathilde asked him details about the Gladstone case.

  “I only know what I read in the papers,” she explained. “I recognized their photos immediately. They were an attractive couple. Who would have wanted to harm them, if that is what happened? And by using antifreeze… It is very strange. I hope Lydia will be able to reveal something.”

  “As do I. But antifreeze poisoning is not so very uncommon,” Rex said, speaking from professional experience, having prosecuted two murder cases where radiator coolant had been used.

  Upon approaching the Gladstone house, everyone grew quiet. He now regretted agreeing to Cheryl’s bringing in Madame Mathilde for a séance. He had no truck with psychics, mediums, mentalists, or however else they referred to themselves. He gave Helen a significant look over his shoulder.

  Cheryl caught it. “It’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Lydia would want this. She’d want the person who did this to her and Tom to be brought to justice.”

  Rex was growing doubtful they would find out anything useful and thought how embarrassing it would be if they were caught in the victims’ house, which was still swathed in sagging police tape. However, Cheryl had already been inside rummaging for the diary, which she had essentially stolen from the property, whether it had been Lydia’s wish for her friend to retrieve it or not. Cheryl drew a bunch of keys from her pocket and slid one into the front door lock. Rex looked about the street. There was no one in view. They all four slipped into the dark hallway, and Cheryl closed the door softly behind them. The chill air seemed unnaturally still, as though waiting with suspended breath. Helen took Rex’s hand, and he squeezed it reassuringly. Yet even he felt the presence of death in the house in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

  “Brrr, it is cold,” Madame Mathilde murmured, the first to speak. “The heating must be off.”

  Cheryl switched on the torch she had brought from her car and flashed its beam down the wide marble-tiled hallway. “We can use Tom’s study at the back of the house. It’s the most private room downstairs and has an electric fire.”

  When they were gathered in the study she drew the heavy curtains across the windows overlooking the back garden and lit the four candles in the candelabra, which she placed on a card table by the window. The surrounding furniture and ornaments jumped into relief in the glow of the tapering flames. The logs in the fireplace, when switched on, burned a warm amber and gave off a comforting heat.

  “Merci, Shereel,” Madame Mathilde said, though nobody removed their outer layers of clothing. It was as though no one wanted to make themselves appear too much at home in this sinister house.

  Chapter 11

  Tom’s study was a quintessentially masculine room furnished at one end with a heavy desk and a burgundy leather executive chair missing its padded seat, which Rex guessed had been removed by the crime scene investigators. He recalled with discomfort that Tom’s body had been found slumped in that chair. On closer inspection, he could make out the powdery residue of fingerprint dust on its back and arms, and likewise on the desk. He warned the others not to touch either item of furniture and as l
ittle as possible of the rest of the room.

  A photo of Tom with Lydia and his two children posing on a picnic blanket sat on the desk. Hannah was an adorable blonde pre-schooler, her older half-brother a shyly smiling boy who more resembled Daniel than Tom, in Rex’s opinion.

  Standing in the deceased’s study made him feel even more of an intruder. The light from the fireplace and candles illuminated a collection of framed certificates and awards on the walls and a bag of golf clubs in a shadowy corner by the door. Rex crossed to the tall bookcase to gain a better sense of Tom Gladstone and, peering at the spines, saw titles mainly related to business and history, interspersed with biographies of world leaders. On one shelf stood an assortment of liqueur bottles on a silver tray, along with a stainless steel ice bucket equipped with tongs.

  “Ah, tenez, une bouteille d’Absinthe,” Madame Mathilde noted at his side. “In the past, Absinthe was referred to as ‘la fée verte,’ the green fairy, owing to its colour and reputed psychoactive properties.” She reached towards the bottle, which Tom and Lydia had brought back from Paris, before withdrawing her hand at Rex’s instruction. “Bon,” she announced, turning away from the bookshelf. “Shall we try again?”

  Rex sensed rather than observed his companions’ apprehension. They arranged themselves as before, with him seated opposite Madame Mathilde, and they prepared their minds as previously instructed.

  “Lydia, come to us,” the psychic intoned. “We come with good intentions. Manifest your presence, my child.” Madame Mathilde fell into a trance-like state. Her face appeared transfigured, aglow in the light of the candles. Nothing happened for a while. Suddenly she gasped. Her manicured hands, released from her partners’, fluttered above the table. Rex and Helen exchanged surreptitious glances. “Yes, I feel your presence now. You are among friends, do not be afraid. Speak to me, Lydia. Tell me what happened in this house!” She paused. “I sense a cold heart,” she pursued. “And a fiery one. I see a redhead, a broken circle. A reconnection. And—” The psychic gave a sudden jolt in her chair, and her eyes flew open.

  Rex who had been watching all this time through his eyelashes, rose from the table and groped for the light switch over by the door. “Whatever is the matter?” he asked the Frenchwoman seated still and silent as stone.

  She drew a deep breath, as though she had been under water for too long. “At first I felt the usual frisson, alerting me to the presence of a spirit hovering in the room. I picked up on a dark energy. Then I saw the images of which I spoke. The visitation did not last long, but it was intense. There is evil in this house, of that I am sure.”

  Cheryl cringed in her chair. “Did you see Lydia?”

  “Only the glimpse of a smile, cruel and hard.” Madame Mathilde shivered, and then added, “Can’t be sure whose it was. I am sorry.”

  “Should we try summoning Tom for answers?” Helen asked. “His possessions are all over the room.”

  The psychic remained mute, apparently reluctant to proceed.

  “Aye, we’ve come this far.” Rex, who had been secretly recording the audio on his phone, decided he had not yet received his penny’s worth out of the séance.

  Madame Mathilde nodded briefly. “D’accord,” she agreed with grim purpose.

  Rex turned off the light. They linked hands again around the table. Cheryl gripped Rex’s fingers, her eyes scrunched closed. She was obviously terrified. He pressed her hand in his and did the same with Helen’s. This had better not be a hoax, he thought. Though generally a good judge of character, he found it hard to get a read on Madame Mathilde.

  “Tom,” the psychic called out, causing the three others to jump. “We have come for answers. There is something not right. I feel your spirits are restless and trapped. Am I correct?”

  The golf bag in the corner of the study toppled over with a dull thud and clatter of iron. Cheryl let out a cry. Everyone looked over to where the noise had emanated, except Madame Mathilde who was deep in a trance. “You are troubled, Tom. Yes, mon ami, I can feel your rage.” This time a large tome slid backwards on the bookshelf landing heavily on the wood. Either there was a poltergeist in the room or they were experiencing an earthquake tremor. Rex could not decide which was more probable. Cheryl glanced at him in alarm, tightening her grip of his hand. He motioned with his mouth to keep quiet. He and the two women turned their attention back to the psychic. The candles went out suddenly and Rex could see only her silhouette backlit by the fire in the smoky silence.

  “Ce n’est pas possible!” she declared, shaking herself out of her trance. She snatched her hands from those beside her and put the knuckles to her cheeks. “C’est diabolique.”

  “What is not possible?” Helen asked in dismay while Rex went for the light switch. “What is diabolical?”

  “We must leave at once,” Madame Mathilde responded, scrambling to her feet.

  “Are we in danger?” Cheryl tipped the card table as she sprang from her chair in a panic. Rex caught the candelabra before the candles could burn the green baize, but hot wax dripped onto it. The freckles stood out in the young woman’s face. “It was murder, wasn’t it?” she asked Madame Mathilde.

  “Murder most violent,” the psychic replied, holding the variegated green scarf to her throat. “But my visions were muddled. Let us go!”

  Cheryl stuffed Lydia’s cardigan and diary into the bag and Rex turned off the electric fire. Silently, they left the house. As they proceeded down the street, Rex entreated the psychic for more details. All he had thus far was her report of a redhead, a circle, a cruel smile, an irate husband, and her conviction that intentional murder had been perpetrated at the residence. She declined to answer his entreaty, visibly shaken by the séance and tightening her black cloak around her.

  Frustrated by her reticent attitude and suspecting her words to be a load of paranormal mumbo-jumbo, Rex asked Helen the colour of Tom’s ex-wife’s hair. Natalie had been the only known visitor to the house that fateful Sunday night.

  “Red,” Helen told him.

  Now, how could the psychic have known that? he wondered.

  Chapter 12

  When the four of them returned to Helen’s house, Madame Mathilde cordially took her leave after accepting the envelope Rex handed to her containing her fee. She proffered her business card in case he knew of anyone who might benefit from her services and, still agitated by what she had experienced during the séances, got into her car and drove off without further delay.

  “Fancy a nightcap?” Helen asked Cheryl.

  “If you really don’t mind. I feel too shaky to drive just yet, but I won’t stay long. I have to work in the morning.”

  “What do you do?” Rex asked their guest when they were comfortably seated in the living room. He decided to keep off the subject of the séances for now in view of her frame of mind.

  “Event planning for businesses,” the young woman replied. “Lydia and I started the company together. Then she got offered the marketing position at Fruité Furniture and a share in the profits, since it was her brainchild. It was better paid, so I totally understood why she chose to do that.”

  “So you’re on your own now?”

  “I have an assistant, but it’s not the same. First I lose my business partner and then my best friend,” Cheryl lamented.

  Helen offered a few words of sympathy while Rex went off to the kitchen to prepare coffee.

  “So, what did you make of Madame Mathilde?” he asked Cheryl who seemed more composed when he returned to the sitting room. “Do you think she was having us on?”

  “Oh, not at all. I’m sure it was real. Did you see how affected she was?”

  Or else the French psychic was a consummate actress, he thought, stirring his coffee. However, some of the night’s proceedings were not explained away so lightly. “She had her back to the golf clubs and bookcase,” he mused aloud. “Unless she pulled magic strings, I don’t see how she could have made those objects fall over. Or the candles go out.”


  “She could have blown them out while we weren’t looking,” Helen said.

  “I was peeping the whole time. Something supernatural had to have been going on, or else some very clever trickery. But she was holding your and Cheryl’s hand.”

  “It was spooky.” Helen rubbed her upper arms. “I did feel something—like we weren’t alone. As though someone unseen were in the room.”

  “Perhaps there was.”

  “So much for bringing messages of comfort from the dead,” Cheryl said from one end of the sofa, where her tiny frame was ensconced in a pile of cushions. “That’s what I thought spiritualists did. I was hoping Lydia would communicate with me. And yet something Madame Mathilde said struck a chord.”

  “What was that?” Rex asked, leaning forward in his armchair.

  “When she saw someone’s smile. Lydia did have a certain smile, not cruel, exactly, but full of…how can I put it?”

  “Malice?” Helen suggested. “Or is that overstating it?”

  “Maybe wicked would be more accurate. But in a playful sort of way. It was when she got one up on someone… Like the time she overheard a young intern talking in the break room about how Tom had French-kissed her under the mistletoe at the Christmas party when no one was looking. Lydia told me she went out to the parking lot right then and there and keyed her car. I was a bit shocked that she would react that way; you know, wilfully causing damage to someone’s property, but she was provoked, she said. Still, it was more Tom’s fault than the intern’s.”