by Helen Smith
“Nothing,” said Edmund.
Ian jingled the few remaining coins in his pocket. “Where’s the jeopardy? You shouldn’t make a wager unless you stand to lose.”
“You shouldn’t make a wager unless you think you’ll win,” said Edmund. “But that’s not the point. OK, tell you what. If nobody wins, I’ll make a donation to charity.” He called over to Tim. “What’s that charity you’re thinking of setting up, in the name of your boy?”
“Liam’s Foundation. We might do something in Kenya, with the Colonel.”
“I don’t want your money,” said the Colonel to Edmund. “Wrought from blasphemy.”
“I didn’t charge anyone to see the trick that you found so blasphemous,” said Edmund. “But it’s up to you.”
“I think we do want it,” said Tim.
Now Hilary spoke up. “No, you don’t.”
The Colonel said, “I’ve made up my mind, Hilary. I’m going to Africa.”
“You can’t go. We’ve Trina to think of.”
“Why can’t I come with you?” Trina looked from the Colonel to Hilary. “Lions and tigers, yeah? I want to come to Africa.”
The Colonel smiled at their protégé. “I’ve had this out with Hilary, many times. It’s no place for a woman.”
“Forget Africa,” Hilary pleaded. “Think of what we could achieve here.”
If the Colonel’s unsuccessful attempts to baptize people on the beach that afternoon were anything to go by, Emily thought they would probably achieve very little. But she, like everyone else in that corner of the bar, was trying to pretend she wasn’t listening.
“It’s a sign, meeting Gerald and Tim,” said the Colonel. “I’m supposed to go to Africa.”
Now Trina weighed in. “You’re like God’s needy girlfriend. Wanting him to show you he loves you all the time. Wanting a sign before you do anything. What sign was it made you almost drown me this afternoon?”
“Trina!” Hilary jogged the table as she half-rose in her seat, knocking over the beermat construction and spilling half an inch out of the top of the drinks that she and Trina had left there.
Tim and the Colonel picked up the scattered beermats. Hilary grabbed the drinks and put them on the floor. Chris found a cloth and mopped up the puddles of orange juice and lemonade on the table. He tried to make a joke of it. “There goes Tim’s school in Africa. The big bad wolf has blown your house down, Tim.”
“Well, if I’m the big bad wolf,” Hilary said as she set the drinks back on the table, “that makes you the three little pigs, then, doesn’t it?”
Trina picked up her glass and tipped it up to her mouth, gulping down the fizzy orange mixture. As she drained her drink, she drummed at the leg of her chair with the heel of her boot, absentmindedly, like a much younger child finishing its bottle of milk and kicking its heels contentedly in its sleepsuit.
Emily wondered how far Trina would have to go back in her life to remember a time when she was happy. Before she was ten? Before she was six? When she was a toddler? When she was a baby drinking milk from a bottle?
Trina set her empty glass down and wiped her mouth with her hand. “I’m going for a bath.”
Hilary nodded, barely acknowledging her. She had a question for Edmund. “What happens to the money if something happens to you?”
“Well then, it’s null and void. I can’t write a cheque if I’m dead, can I?”
“Unless you come through in a séance with your bank details,” said Chris.
Edmund grinned at him. “If something happens to me this weekend, you have to promise me you’ll call on the services of one of our psychic friends. I’ll do my best to make an appearance.”
Hilary ignored their banter. She put her hand on the Colonel’s arm. “What if I could persuade him to go into the water? Would you stay behind then?”
The Colonel was surprised. “You mean Edmund?”
Edmund and Chris thought this was a great joke.
But Hilary was serious. “What if I can save his soul? What if I can make him walk into the water to get blessed?”
Edmund laughed. “Well, then I’d write you a cheque myself, Hilary.”
“Why don’t you do it now?” she said. “Postdate it and give it to me. If it doesn’t happen, you can ask for it back.”
There were excited murmurs from the remaining onlookers in the bar. After Edmund’s trick that evening, adrenaline levels had begun to lower again, but the body longs for another thrill. The levels were going back up.
“What date would I put on it?” said Edmund. “If you’re hoping for a deathbed conversion, I might have spent all the money in my account by then. I’m hoping for a long and eventful life.”
“Monday,” said Hilary. “Easter Monday. The holiest day in the calendar.”
“That’s the first of April this year, isn’t it?” said Edmund. “It may be the holiest day but it’s also, by coincidence this time round, the most amusing.” The idea seemed to appeal to him. Perhaps it was only the juxtaposition of the day and the date that made him do it. Perhaps he liked a wager as much as cheese-faced Ian. Each of his tricks and performances was a kind of gamble in its way, after all, Emily thought. He said, “I’ll bring the cheque down to breakfast tomorrow—Saturday. You’ll have two days to make me see the light. The money’s yours, if you can do it. Unless someone gets in before you and proves the existence of the paranormal tomorrow.”
“We could set up a church here,” said Hilary to the Colonel. “You and me, with your money and the money I get from Edmund. You could preach inside. We’d get hundreds of people coming to listen.”
“You’re an extraordinary woman, Hilary,” the Colonel told her. “I take my hat off to you. For all I know, you might just do it. Heaven knows, you’re the one with the ambition and the drive. You’re the one who’s been doing all the organizing. If you end up with Edmund’s money, do something for yourself and Trina with it. Set yourselves up with a nice little home. It’s not enough to buy a place, but it’ll give you the rent for a few years. Trina could finish school.”
“In other words,” said Hilary sourly, “you’re still going to Africa.”
“Look,” said Gerald. “Nothing’s going to happen to Edmund.”
Peg saw an opportunity—finally—to bring the conversation back to herself. “Why don’t I make sure? Emily, got your notebook, dear? If Edmund’s in any danger—which I very much doubt, given the success of my positivity circle—then I can tune in and find out.”
“I want no part of it,” said Hilary.
“Nor me,” said the Colonel.
Peg ignored them, appealing to the enthusiasts among her small audience. “I have had some success in cases like this in the past, tuning in directly to the mind of the murderer.” She didn’t give examples. “I’ll soon be able to tell you if anyone wishes Edmund any harm.”
Joseph Seppardi cleared his throat. They looked over at him. “It’s dangerous, what you’re suggesting. Opening up a telepathic channel is like any other communication: it’s a two-way process. You can listen, but you may not be able to control what you let in.”
“Thank you, Joseph. I’ll take your concerns on board,” said Peg, in the manner of a woman who has been given advice about how to make gravy in her own kitchen. “Ready, Emily?”
Sarah said, “Please don’t start without me. I must just pop to the loo.”
There were murmurings from various people who thought they might do the same.
Emily watched as Hilary stopped to talk to Madame Nova on her way out of the bar. “You can have Trina’s bed tonight, Vivienne. Room number ten. It’s close to the elevator, so you’ll be able to access it in your wheelchair without too much effort. I’ll go and sort out the campervan. Trina can sleep in that if I move the placards.”
Vivienne.
“I’m fine,” said Madame Nova.
As Sarah had left Madame Nova unattended for a moment, Emily went and sat next to her. “Do you two know each other?
You and Hilary.”
Madame Nova was more or less sober now, but she looked tired. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Which, of course, meant yes.
“Let’s have a comfort break,” said Peg, “so those who need to can go and spend a penny. Back here in five minutes or we’ll start without you.”
Women and men scurried off to use the facilities in the hotel—to the lobby, to the spa one level below, or back to their own rooms. Presently they all returned, even the Colonel and Hilary, who took bar stools side by side, far enough away from Peg to make it obvious they disapproved—but close enough to hear what was going on. Joseph Seppardi was there, and Bobby Blue Suit, both taking a professional interest.
“Emily, dear? Ready?” Peg put her palms flat on the arms of her chair. She took a deep breath. “Quiet, please, while I try to connect with a troubled mind.”
Emily and Dr. Muriel made eye contact with each other. Dr. Muriel raised her eyebrows, amused. Then Emily opened her notebook and sat with pen poised, ready to take notes.
Peg breathed quietly for about half a minute without speaking. It was quite a long time; it was almost meditative. Emily began to feel sleepy.
Peg said, “I’m getting a woman in danger.”
“Oh, Peg.” It was Edmund. “Just for once, couldn’t you give it a rest?” But he also stayed to watch.
Peg continued, eyes closed. She spoke hesitantly, but with authority. “Might be a girl…A young woman, under water.”
“You’re replaying the events of the afternoon,” suggested Gerald. “The near-drowning of the Colonel and the young girl.”
Peg said, “I wasn’t even there.”
“Where is Trina?” said Sarah. “She can’t still be in the bath?”
Peg opened her eyes and stared. She looked frightened.
Hilary looked at Peg’s stricken face. Then she jumped from her stool and raced through the lobby and up the stairs. Emily and Peg followed her, taking the stairs as fast as they could.
When they reached room number ten, Hilary opened the door and rushed in. As Trina was supposed to be in the bath, Peg and Emily stayed outside to preserve her modesty, heads bent, listening, half-horrified, like nineteenth-century expectant fathers, to what was going on inside. They heard Hilary hammering on the bathroom door and calling out to Trina. Nothing.
They went in and stood next to Hilary. Emily said, “Maybe she’s got headphones on? Does she listen to music?”
“On what?” snapped Hilary. “She’s a homeless itinerant. She didn’t even have a decent toothbrush when I picked her up. Never mind an iPod.”
“I’ll see if they’ve something at Reception to open the door.” Peg picked up the phone and dialed Reception, but the night porter wasn’t answering.
“I’ll go and get some of the men from the bar.” Emily raced back down the stairs and came back with Chris and the Colonel—and Dr. Muriel, who didn’t approve of gender-biased calls for help and came up swinging her cane.
Chris and the Colonel shouldered open the bathroom door, then hung back, slightly embarrassed. Hilary rushed in, the busy midwife, Peg and Emily behind her. The Jacuzzi function on the bath was churning the bubbles up nicely in a full-to-the-brim, cooling bath. No sign of Trina.
Hilary reached in under the foamy water and brought up two white shoulders, topped by a lifeless, lolling head.
“Oh my days!” said Peg, her voice almost a wail. She helped Hilary bring Trina out of the bath, lay her on the floor and wrap her in a towel like a newborn.
“How did you know?” said Hilary.
In the bedroom, Emily heard Chris calling for an ambulance on his mobile phone, saying it might be too late, describing the condition of the girl. It was too late. That word “might” was just Chris’s way of trying to keep her in this world.
“How did you know?” Hilary said again.
“I felt it,” said Peg. Then she started to cry.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE LOST PROPERTY OFFICE
When they got back to the bar, the atmosphere was chaotic. While paramedics worked in vain upstairs to revive Trina, even before they pronounced her dead and removed the body, people began to speculate about what had happened and why.
“She was a funny little thing. Did she have any family?” Peg asked Hilary. Despite their differing views on the occult, and whether or not Peg was an evil representative of it, Peg and Hilary had been drawn together by the experience of discovering Trina and taking her body from the bath. There was a truce between them now.
“She said not,” said Hilary. “No parents alive, anyway. There’ll be paperwork to do. I expect the police will try to track down a member of her family.”
“You were her carer, were you?” Sarah’s eyes were red and her nose swollen where she had been crying. “I admire you for that. Me and Tim thought of fostering after…after…Poor little lamb! What was she? Couldn’t have been more than fifteen?”
“She was nineteen; malnourished and poorly educated, so she seemed younger. I realize that not everyone here will agree with what I have to say, but knowing that she left this life by slipping under the water is quite comforting. It was a tribute to us, I think. To the Colonel. She was accepting a final blessing before she died. She’s in a better place.”
Trina was in the hospital morgue. She was in the hell-vote-sluice. Emily didn’t think she was in a better place at all.
Sarah didn’t think so, either. “You don’t think she did it on purpose?”
“It was an accident, surely?” The Colonel appealed to the room, as if he thought they were accusing him—as if Trina had died earlier that day in the sea, not in the hotel bathroom. “When someone in my care goes under the water, I want them to come back up alive.”
“Of course it was an accident,” said Hilary.
“Poor little mite,” Sarah said. “Peg, you could get in touch with Trina and ask her what happened?”
From the expressions on their faces, both Edmund and Joseph Seppardi thought this was a terrible idea, though for different reasons.
“I’m better at connecting with the minds of the living,” Peg admitted. “What did I say about Trina before it happened, Emily? Did you write it down?”
Emily had left her handbag in the bar when she went upstairs. She went over to it now. Her notebook was gone.
“How very odd,” said Dr. Muriel. “The receptacle of all your wisdom. You could ask the night porter if it’s been handed in.”
“I will. And then I need to go to bed.” Emily wanted to be alone to recover from the evening’s disturbing events.
“I’m not sure I shall sleep tonight,” said Dr. Muriel. “I wish I had some sleeping tablets.”
Dr. Muriel, who set so much store by the restorative effects of the Torquay sea air? If she was going to resort to sleeping pills, she must be pretty upset, too.
“What brand do you want?” said Peg. “I could let you have a Zopiclone.”
“Temazepam, if you need it,” said Madame Nova.
“I’ve got Nightowl,” said Sarah, taking a foil blister pack from her handbag. “It’s an antihistamine. It’s very good.”
Dr. Muriel accepted a Nightowl tablet and carried it in her hand with her on her way up to bed.
Sarah took hold of the handles of Madame Nova’s wheelchair. “You want to stay with me tonight? I’ll put Tim in with Joe.” She pushed her new friend toward the elevator, not waiting for an answer.
Emily’s small bedroom in the eaves would have been filled with ghosts if she believed in them—the hotel’s promotional literature explained that wounded soldiers had been housed in the rooms on the top floor during the Second World War. But Emily wasn’t thinking of ghosts. She went to sleep and dreamed of drowning.
She saw Trina in a white dress, standing up to her chest in the waves, cursing Edmund Zenon in a language Emily didn’t understand. Given her lack of education, Trina probably wouldn’t understand it, either. But this was a dream, and dre
ams have their own logic. Trina put her hand up in a fist and tapped on the air in front of her with her knuckles, toc toc, toc toc, to attract Emily’s attention. Emily turned over in bed. If Trina was going to drown in front of her, she didn’t want to see it. Then Trina opened her mouth and began to make an inarticulate sound like a car alarm, with a persistent wail. Wah WAH! Wah WAH! Wah WAH! Trina was trying to warn Emily about something. But what?
She woke to realize she wasn’t developing psychic powers that were enabling her to communicate with the dead. The sound she was hearing was the bedside telephone, not a car alarm. The person who was trying to reach her was not Trina but one of the staff at the hotel, calling to tell her that her notebook had been taken to the Lost Property Office if she’d like to come down for it. Emily checked the time on her mobile phone. Three o’clock in the morning! The notebook could wait.
But she couldn’t get back to sleep. She decided to go down and fetch the notebook. She wanted to write down her thoughts about what had happened to Trina, to try to make sense of it.
Emily got dressed and went downstairs. She felt bleary eyed and groggy. The hotel was eerily dark and quiet. She felt none of the excited anticipation she had felt as she checked into her room earlier that day. The emptiness was disconcerting, the shadows malevolent.
She went to Reception but the night porter was not there. He had left a note to say he was doing his rounds and would be back shortly. There was a number to dial for anyone wanting urgent attention. Ah well. She was heading back to her room when she saw him coming out of the Ballroom. She asked about the notebook.
“I didn’t call you.”
“No. It was a woman. She said it had been handed in to Lost Property.”
“That’s down by the spa in the basement. I’d have to unlock it for you.”
“Do you mind?”
He probably did mind. But he said it was no trouble at all. Emily reflected that if she were a night porter she’d be glad of interruptions in the long, boring nights, so she didn’t feel bad about troubling him. But then, as he led the way down the steps to the basement, she thought that he probably had a really good book to read and then she was sorry for disturbing him.