by Helen Smith
Emily pointed to the wheelchair. There was a sturdy room service menu and a wine menu stacked on the seat, both in hard-backed folders designed to withstand wear and tear from hungry, thirsty guests. “If she got her into the wheelchair, I’m thinking she maybe used those as a ramp so she was high enough to tip her into the bath. Or, I don’t know, Hilary could have just told her to get in and then hit her over the head. She was pretty befuddled. Hilary probably gave her some sleeping pills mixed in with the drink.”
Madame Nova protested again. “Not feeb…not beef…not beduddled.”
Out at sea, with the lifeboat still more than half a mile away, Hilary was making an attempt to stand on the surfboard. She wobbled a bit, but she managed it, arms outstretched.
“Oh my goodness,” said Sarah. “It looks…it looks as if…”
It looked as if she was walking on water. The surfboard lay on top of the water beneath her feet, but it was barely visible. The sun was low in the sky, climbing behind her. For a few moments, as she stood on the water, it bathed her in beautiful gold light.
Then she fell into the sea. She struggled. The coastguard’s boat was too far away to reach her. She went under, then bobbed up again. Then she went under. She drowned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE PASSWORD
They went back down to the Riviera Lounge and had breakfast. What else could they do? The press were outside. The police were inside and would be wanting to interview them. Gerald still had a conference to run. They were hungry. Even Madame Nova insisted on joining them, having refused a ride to the hospital in an ambulance, and having received a begrudging all-clear from the paramedics who’d been called to attend her. She had dark glasses on. She was drinking coffee. She had bruises coming up that would rival Emily’s. Only Joseph Seppardi was still in his room, tired out from the séance the night before. And yes, Mandy Miller had called up to check on him. He was all right.
The marbles were beginning to run clockwise. Gerald had his newspaper open, making an attempt at the cryptic crossword. Plates were piled high with sausages, egg and bacon. Talk turned to what people planned to do after they left Torquay.
Tim and Sarah would be going to Africa with Chris and the Colonel, setting up a foundation to bring safe water to people without access to it, combining digging boreholes with providing education through theater.
“In memory of Liam and Trina,” said the Colonel. “Using water to bring blessings to people. Just, you know, in a different way.”
“I thought our Liam brought us here to find other people to help,” said Sarah. “And he did, in a way. But he wanted to help us, too. He wanted us to find friends.” She flushed. “I know how it sounds. But we were so lonely and lost. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves back in Northampton, did we, Tim?”
Tim put his hand to the top of his head, patted his hair, found reassurance there. “I, uh. It’s good to have someone to work with, you know? I can work with the Colonel.”
“Colonel,” asked Emily. “Why do people call you that? Were you ever in the military?”
“It’s a nickname I picked up in university.” He smiled, a little bashfully. “I was very fond of fried chicken.”
In his way, the Colonel was as charismatic as Edmund Zenon had been, and as handsome—but with more humility. His eyes were as blue as the tiles in a swimming pool. There was humor and courage in his face. He had an orator’s voice and a soldier’s broad shoulders. It had been easy to believe he had led glorious campaigns overseas. There was nothing pious or pompous about him. Whatever you had done that you were ashamed of, he’d probably seen it or done it and beaten it. He was unshockable and nonjudgmental. He was the doctor you’d trust to tell you you were dying, he was the friend you’d trust to dig your grave. But there was no denying it: the revelation about his nickname diminished him slightly.
“And what language were you speaking, when Edmund was doing his trick by the pier? Was it an ancient curse?”
Dr. Muriel answered, chuckling. “He was speaking Welsh. Dros ben llestri means ‘going over the top,’ doesn’t it? I don’t know about the other one.”
“Chware’n troi’n chwerw—is that what I said? It means ‘play turns to spite,’ as near as I can explain it. It’s something you’ll say to a group of children when they’re too boisterous; you can see it’s getting out of hand.” The Colonel looked very sad. “Something I don’t understand about Hilary. Why go to all the trouble of faking Edmund’s death like that, and then just go paddling off into the sea?”
It was Madame Nova who answered. “She never could stick at anything. She’s been an actress, an activist, a Hare Krishna. She’s been one of those people who don’t eat anything—whatever they’re called, they get their nutrition from the air? Obviously that didn’t last long. The search for meaning was the thread that ran through her life. She was eager to learn from other people, she was looking for a guru. At one time, she even considered herself an acolyte of Edmund Zenon—she bought his books, she went to his shows. I suppose, in the end, you could say she realized she was responsible for her own salvation.”
“It’s so awful that she took three people with her,” said Sarah. “Really awful.”
“As journeys of self-discovery go, it’s not exactly Eat, Pray, Love, is it?” remarked Dr. Muriel.
“Why kill them?” said the Colonel. “We were supposed to be giving a new life to people. We were supposed to be helping people.”
“I think she thought she was helping Trina,” said Emily. “She was disposing of her, because she was no longer useful. But she did it by sending her to ‘a better place.’ She was frightened of Peg. She thought she had special powers and she might tune in and discover what Hilary had done. With Edmund, she was responding to a challenge she had seen in his walking-on-water picture, repeated in the bar when they made that wager that she could get him to walk into the water to get blessed. I think she thought she was doing that one for God.”
The Colonel sighed, very deeply. There were tears in his blue eyes. “I’m ashamed I didn’t see it and try to stop her. I thought she was good.”
“Why did she go out there dressed in your clothes?” Gerald said to Madame Nova.
Madame Nova took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Maybe it was her way of taking me with her. She was determined to have a reconciliation.”
Tim’s explanation was more prosaic. “I think the pockets in the cloak may have been concealing something heavy that helped her drown.”
“Wine bottles, I expect,” said Madame Nova, as if everyone carried wine bottles in the pockets of their clothes.
Gerald was still trying to get it all straight in his head. “You were trying to warn us with your predictions and your phone call?”
“I knew that if Hilary came to Torquay, it wouldn’t end well.”
“But how did you know she would come?”
A coffee-bitter smile. “It wasn’t my psychic powers, if that’s what you mean. She called me and told me she’d come. So I started my campaign. I wanted you to cancel the conference. I wanted Edmund to call off his challenge. I didn’t even know about the trick he had planned. I saw the picture of a man standing on water and I thought, what happens next? And, of course, if he was an ordinary man, he would drown. I thought if I said it, other people would think that when they saw the poster, too, and they’d be frightened and join their voices with mine. But they didn’t.”
They sat in silence, thinking about Hilary. Like Edmund’s walking-on-water picture, her death had a slightly different meaning for them all.
Then Dr. Muriel changed the subject. “How’s your crossword going, Gerald? You seem to be getting on better with it than usual, today.”
“I’m struggling with two down. Eight letters. The clue is: The unfunny brother gives a lesson in two acts on a rush hour defeat.”
Dr. Muriel turned the newspaper so the crossword faced her. “The unfunny brother, I think, is Karl Marx.”
> Gerald picked up his pencil and turned the crossword back. “Two acts refers to that famous quote of his, then? History repeats itself. First as tragedy, then as farce.”
Sarah said, “How odd. We had that last night. That’s what Joseph said in the séance.”
“That is odd,” Dr. Muriel agreed.
“A rush hour defeat could be Waterloo station, couldn’t it?” Emily suggested.
Dr. Muriel turned the paper back again. “Eight letters. I think the answer’s Napoleon. That quote from Marx was about Napoleon Bonaparte and his useless nephew, also called Napoleon. The former—the famous one—was of course defeated at Waterloo.”
“Napoleon? But it can’t be!” Gerald looked as if…well, he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Well, blow me down,” he said.
Dr. Muriel spoke patiently. “What is it, Gerald?”
“Nothing.”
“You sound as if Napoleon is some kind of secret password.” As soon as Dr. Muriel said it, she and Emily looked at each other, struck by the same thought: Lady Lacey Carmichael. Hadn’t she given, and asked for, a password? They could see from Gerald’s face that they were right. Napoleon was Lady Lacey’s password. So what did it mean if Joseph Seppardi had sort of, almost, come up with it last night?
Gerald said, “I don’t think Joseph’s interested in Edmund’s fifty thousand pounds.”
Sarah hadn’t been in the Ballroom and didn’t know about Lady Lacey Carmichael and the secret password. She didn’t know that Joseph might have been eligible for the money based on his performance last night, if Edmund weren’t already dead. But she wanted to vouch for her friend. “He only cares about helping people.”
Emily got out her notebook and looked over the notes from last night’s séance.
A lady in lace had connected with Joseph. She had shown him a car. Michael. A husband. Brothers. Lady Lacey Carmichael, who had lost her husband and brothers in the war.
“About that,” said Madame Nova.
About what?
Madame Nova opened her handbag and took a piece of paper from it. It was Edmund’s cheque, made out to Hilary. “She left it in the room upstairs. What do you want me to do with it? Should I tear it up?”
Tim said, “Well, I’m not sure of the legalities. But wouldn’t it pass to you as her nearest relative?”
“Fifty thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money.” Madame Nova looked from the Colonel to Chris, from Sarah to Tim—all of them trying to look virtuous, hoping she would choose to donate to their cause. “That would buy a lot of wigs.” Madame Nova put the cheque in her handbag. She closed the clasp on it, firmly.
Gerald looked over at Emily. “Thank you for agreeing to come down here to make the report for our trustees. Without your observations and deductions, I’m not sure we’d ever have known exactly what happened. I’m just sorry you’ll be back to your old job on Tuesday.”
But Emily wasn’t sorry. She was rather looking forward to it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Terry Goodman, Anh Schluep, David Downing, Jon Ford, Sarah Rodriguez Pratt, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Danielle Marshall, Gracie Doyle and everyone at Thomas & Mercer who has been involved in the publication of this book, from design and production to editorial, marketing and publicity. There are so many people who have worked hard to make this book a success. Thanks to every one of you.
Thanks to my agent, David Hale Smith. I’m glad you’re on my side.
My daughter, Lauren, read the manuscript and gave me notes on it. I borrowed her dimples and her sweet nature for the character of Emily in the book. I love you, Lauren.
Last year I went to CrimeFest in Bristol and Bouchercon in Albany, and I enjoyed them both very much. I’d like to thank the organizers for inviting me to take part in these events. If I had known that crime-writing conventions could be so much fun, I would have started writing crime fiction years ago.
I have had a lot of support over the years from reviewers and book bloggers. To everyone who has been kind enough to review one of my books, including this one, thank you.
And thanks to you for reading Beyond Belief. I’m proud of this book and it means a lot to me that you have taken the time to read it. I hope you enjoyed it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Photoespero, 2011
British novelist Helen Smith’s previous titles include Alison Wonderland, Being Light and The Miracle Inspector, as well as the Emily Castles mystery series. She lives in London.