by Unknown
“No way!” said Chris. “No way.”
“I’ll see you back at the hotel,” Emily told them. “I just wanted to let you know about Edmund.”
The three men raised their glasses in drinking-up gestures, to show that they would finish their pints and join her.
As she left the Lamb and Dragon, Emily had the sense of being watched. There! Over on the other side of the street, close enough to keep an eye on the door to the pub, but far enough away that he wouldn’t be noticed unless you were looking for him; as embarrassed and superfluous as a man waiting for his wife to try on a dress in a department store changing room: Joseph Seppardi.
Emily crossed the street to tell him what had happened.
“Have you told Sarah?” he asked her.
Emily hadn’t. She hadn’t seen her since the earlier Tim-in-a-ditch nonsense.
“I can’t watch both of them. I thought she’d be safe with that fortune-teller. The one who drinks too much.” Joseph began to walk quickly, away from the pub. If he wanted to go back to the hotel, he was going in the wrong direction. He had long legs. Emily scampered to keep up with him. “She’s vulnerable,” he said. “They’re both vulnerable. People prey on them. You know why the Colonel’s called the Colonel?”
“No.” Emily was getting slightly breathless. Where were they going?
“You ask him next time you see him. Put it this way: I wouldn’t want him in charge of the search and rescue mission.”
They stopped in front of A Little of What You Fancy. The shop was in darkness but there was a light on in the back, coming from the storeroom.
Joseph stood by the door to the shop, his long face miserable in the shadows. Emily shivered. It wasn’t a crime to have a miserable face—though you’d never know it if you had ever tried to get on a country bus with one, as Emily had when she was a teenager, because country bus drivers like to say “cheer up” to anyone who isn’t beaming with joy at stepping aboard their vehicle. (London bus drivers, of course, try to ignore their passengers altogether.) And there was nothing wrong with having a long face, either—otherwise why would people be so fond of horses? No, Emily decided. It was his otherworldliness that bothered her. She found him creepy.
“Are we looking for Sarah?” Emily whispered.
Joseph held his hand up. No answer.
Emily started to feel alarmed. “What’s happened? What have you done with her?”
Still no answer. Joseph opened the door and went into the shop. Emily followed him. The novelty items Madame Nova stocked—the sparkly wings and the wands, the wigs, even the moustaches—were transformed in the shadows into treasures plundered from a fairy kingdom, kept out of sight in a dilapidated museum by an eccentric custodian. The darkness gave life to the things in the shop, rather than taking it away, as it did in fairy tales. On a shelf at head-height, Emily passed a giant rat with wary eyes. Like the rat bought as a prop by the professor from Hamelin, this one was made of gray fun fur. The wary eyes were plastic. But it seemed to breathe as the light from outside flickered along its length. Emily shuddered and moved on.
As she approached the storeroom through the darkened shop, Emily tried to prepare herself for something unpleasant. In the past twenty-four hours she had seen two women dead in their bath. She hoped she wouldn’t see anything as awful as that, but she wanted to be ready, just in case. The sight she saw now was unexpected, though it was not unpleasant. It was Sarah, in the storeroom, in a towering wig.
She was sitting on a low stool in her ordinary clothes. The wig she wore was bright yellow and looked to be about two foot tall. There was a cuckoo clock in the front panel. Though Joseph Seppardi was as surprised as Emily by her appearance, Sarah didn’t seem surprised to see either of them. She turned very, very slowly in their direction, keeping her neck stiff, opening her eyes wide and wrinkling her forehead, deploying the tiny little muscles under her scalp to keep the wig in place.
“Edmund’s gone into the water,” Emily said. “We don’t think he’s coming back.”
Sarah thought about this for a moment. “There was one time I washed Liam’s favorite cuddly toy in the washing machine when he was a toddler. It was filthy dirty and sticky and that. It came out clean and fluffy. You think they’ll be pleased. But when you hand it over, they cry, because it smells different. I don’t know how much of his senses Liam’s got, wherever he is. I can’t see or hear him. I need Joseph for that. But I don’t want to risk him not recognizing me. I wouldn’t want to go into the water to come out reborn, though Hilary told me I should do it.”
“I don’t think it was a baptism. Edmund had his stage clothes on. It might have been a trick that went wrong.”
“You could say that about life, couldn’t you? Put it on my headstone: ‘It might have been a trick that went wrong.’”
Was everyone going to end up looking and sounding like a movie star? First Madame Nova in her sunglasses and flamboyant leopard-skin cloak. Now Sarah—sensible, ordinary, very nice Sarah—sitting here wearing a wig and wanting an aphorism on her headstone. Emily looked over at Joseph Seppardi, standing quietly in front of a display of comedy false teeth. His face was expressionless.
She turned back to Sarah. “Why are you wearing that wig, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Sarah held up the keys to the shop. “Madame Nova said it would make me feel better. Said she comes into the back of her shop and tries on the wigs when she needs to cheer herself up.”
Well, at least she hadn’t suggested Sarah get herself a couple of bottles of Merlot. “Has it worked?”
Sarah smiled. “Yes, it has, a bit. You know, we came to Torquay because Liam said we should. And then he just went quiet on us when we got here.”
Emily glanced over at Joseph again. No reaction.
“When Liam was a little boy, I used to say that if anything ever happened to him, I’d just walk out the door—not even shut it behind me—I’d just walk out the door and keep on walking until I reached the sea, and then I’d walk into it, and I’d still keep walking. I wouldn’t care about anything. I wouldn’t want to live. He was still a boy when he died, though he was old enough to have a job. I didn’t walk out the door when I heard the news. When it came down to it, I didn’t want to leave Tim. But sometimes I feel like I’ve walked through a door in my mind…like I’ve walked away from my sanity.”
Emily looked at Sarah, sitting there in Madame Nova’s wig, smiling vaguely. She spoke gently. “Well, if you didn’t shut the door behind you, you can find your way back in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE SÉANCE
Sarah removed the wig and stored it carefully in the back of Madame Nova’s shop. She left with Emily and Joseph Seppardi, the three of them walking back to the hotel with the sound of the coastguards’ helicopter overhead, its powerful light still searching the waves for signs of Edmund Zenon.
When they got back to the hotel, Dr. Muriel and Gerald were in the Riviera Lounge with Chris, the Colonel and Tim.
“Edmund’s top hat and cape were found floating on the waves,” Gerald told them. “But there’s no sign of the man himself.”
“We don’t know that Edmund’s dead,” said Dr. Muriel, “so let’s hold on to that. Perhaps he’s hiding to see what people will say about him. It’s another storytelling event?”
Chris smiled at her. The smile said, “No.”
“There’s an impromptu positivity circle going on in the Winston Churchill room, if anyone wants to join in,” Gerald said. “Otherwise do join us for a drink here.”
Emily didn’t want a drink. She wanted to write up her notes. It would be noisy in the Riviera Lounge, so she decided to slip into the Winston Churchill room. The flip charts and conference paraphernalia had been moved to one side. A leaderless circle of women with pixie haircuts and silver rings sat disconsolately on blue velvet straight-backed chairs, trying to avert the outcome that had been determined for Edmund Zenon by fate or God or some human murderer. The women were hu
mming, their eyes closed.
Emily sat at the side of the room. As she opened her notebook, she thought how empty it seemed without Peg. Peg and Edmund, in their different ways, had been charismatic figures. Had they been killed for their beliefs? If so, whoever was responsible was a miserable person if they preferred a world without interesting characters in it, so that only people with the same beliefs remained. But what beliefs would those be?
The notes Emily was making began to look like an obituary for Peg and Edmund. And what about Trina? No one could say she had been charismatic, though she had been memorable. Up there on the whiteboard, transformed into a star-bound rocket with a hashtag on it, Trina’s antiauthoritarian graffiti served as a memorial of sorts.
The humming in the room had become a series of long, pulsing nasal sounds that were getting louder and more purposeful, as if the Winston Churchill room were an engine room for the universe, and the universe was a ship, and the noise alone could drive them all to a place where they could be useful. It seemed to Emily, as she closed her notebook and tiptoed off to the Riviera Lounge, that the need to be useful was a powerful motivator in most people.
“Emma!” It was Alice, the girl she and Dr. Muriel had met on the train on the way down to Torquay. “We’ve got your friend’s forty pounds, me and Ben. For the ticket?”
“How did you get into the hotel? You’re not staying here, are you?”
“I said Muriel was my auntie. That girl on reception let us in. Said she’d send security after us if we weren’t back in five minutes.”
We?
“I’m here with Ben. What’s that humming all about, then? Those women in that room?”
“Edmund. He’s gone missing.”
“So it’s true! We heard the helicopters. There’s loads of rumors going round at the Lamb and Dragon.”
Alice explained that, after getting into the hotel, she and Ben had split up to investigate. Alice had been drawn to the positivity circle by the sound of the humming, Ben had gone to the bar and the restaurant. Emily couldn’t blame them for using the repayment of the debt as a cover for coming to the Hotel Majestic to try to find out what had happened to their hero. As for the sleuthing, well perhaps it came naturally to young British people? Emily almost felt proud.
When Emily and Alice got to the Riviera Lounge, they found Ben there with the others. Dr. Muriel had £40 stacked in front of her in £1 coins, silver coins and coppers. Ben was wearing his I believe…in Edmund Zenon T-shirt, recent events changing the ironic slogan into a naïvely hopeful statement. Gerald was checking his Twitter updates. The others were talking about having a séance.
“I didn’t know the man,” Joseph Seppardi was saying. “I mostly deal with bereaved family members. He has to want to talk to you. I’d rather not do it.”
“You have to!” said Sarah. “He promised Chris last night he’d try to get through.”
“That was a joke,” said Chris.
“So what else are we going do, except sit here all night, waiting for news?” said Tim. “We may as well do something. I vote we go up to his room and see if Joe can contact him.”
“I’m in,” said Dr. Muriel. “I’ve a bottle of Scotch upstairs. I’ll fetch it and meet you there.”
“He’s not really dead, though, is he?” said Alice. “This is part of it? This is part of the trick?”
“It doesn’t look good,” said Dr. Muriel.
“He’ll come back,” said Ben. He bit the inside of his mouth, the hollows under his cheekbones emphasizing the pallor of his gaunt face. “He has to. You know how he showed up in the Poisson d’Avril restaurant last time? Poisson d’Avril means April Fool. The first of April, that’s Monday—Easter Monday. He’ll come back again. I’m not…I know it sounds deluded. But it isn’t. He’ll come back. It’s a code. A joke for his fans.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” said Dr. Muriel kindly.
Derek the security guard appeared and beckoned to Alice and Ben. Time to leave. Emily couldn’t see what harm they could do by staying, if Gerald’s celebrity guest was dead. But Derek had his orders. He shepherded Alice and Ben from the hotel.
“How about it, Joseph?” said Tim when they had gone.
Joseph sighed. “I’d need something of Edmund’s if I were to try to make contact.”
“We could go up to his room,” said Chris. “All his stuff’s still lying around.”
“You should ask someone else, if Joseph doesn’t want to do it,” said Gerald. “Give the man a break.”
Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. “All the best psychics have already had a go in the Ballroom today. All except Joseph. None of them passed the test. Joseph talks to our Liam. I know he does. Maybe that’s why Liam brought us here. To get in touch with Edmund, find out what’s happened.” She seemed to have found her way back to normality—or her version of it—after the earlier wobble in A Little of What You Fancy. She had a mission, and it was the reason Liam had brought her here: to help Edmund’s friends.
“I won’t join you,” said Gerald. He looked gray and tired. “I need to be up early tomorrow; the conference continues. I’ll call you if there’s any news.”
In Edmund’s room, Tim put Joseph in the only armchair, positioned with his back to the French windows and balcony. Unsure which of Edmund’s possessions would best help him to tune in to the man, Tim went around the room selecting things at random, piling Joseph’s lap with a T-shirt, a pair of socks, a toothbrush, a comb and a copy of Don’t Believe the Hype, so that he looked as though he’d just come back from an impulse-buying spree at a jumble sale.
Emily and Chris propped themselves up on the bed, as chaste as a courting couple in a Doris Day movie. Dr. Muriel was allocated the upright chair that went with the desk, and Tim and Sarah sat on pillows on the floor. Dr. Muriel had a sideways view of the windows. Chris and Emily looked directly at Joseph, and behind him the balcony—and beyond it the road to the town, and beyond that the sea, through the French windows. Out on the moonlit path that ran along the low sea wall, Emily could see Bobby Blue Suit with his dachshunds, walking down toward the town and then, once business was taken care of, turning around and heading back across the road to the hotel.
The whisky that Dr. Muriel had brought with her was a single malt from the Isle of Islay. It had a distinctive, peaty flavor. It was like drinking a bonfire; flames, then the taste of smoke. Everyone except Joseph had a tumbler of it, then they settled down to see what he could do.
He spoke solemnly. “I know that some of you don’t believe in this. You don’t have to believe. But you have to be prepared to listen, and Edmund—if he’s out there—has to be prepared to come here to say something to you.”
“It’s our only chance to find out what’s happened,” said Sarah, breathlessly.
“Well,” said Dr. Muriel, “Emily’s very good at solving mysteries. And, of course, there’s always the police.”
“I need more time,” Emily admitted.
“Shh,” Sarah said. “Let’s listen to Joseph.”
Joseph put his hands together under his chin, resting his elbows on the armrests of his chair. “It may not be Edmund who comes here. He may send someone else…Let us prepare.”
He told them they didn’t have to join hands to create a circle. “This isn’t a game of Ring a Ring o’ Roses.” But it seemed natural for Chris to take Emily’s hand. Tim and Sarah held hands, too. It was quiet in the room for a long time. In the quiet and the darkness—there was only a small lamp on in the room, and outside, the full moon—it was like meditating. Everyone seemed to get lost in their thoughts.
“There’s someone here,” said Joseph.
Emily felt excited. Everyone sat up, waiting. You didn’t have to believe in it to appreciate the theater of it. She felt Chris tense beside her, hoping it wouldn’t be Edmund, because if it was someone else, Edmund might still be alive.
Joseph milked the pause like a judge in a television talent show.
“It’s a lady,” he continued, eventually. “She’s showing me something. A…wedding gown. A beautiful white wedding gown with a long train, made of lace. And she’s getting into a car. Lovely old thing. Looks like a Rolls-Royce. She’s getting in the car with her husband. It must be her wedding day. Her brothers are there. Michael. Anyone know Michael?”
“Is it something to do with Peg?” Sarah asked.
Joseph thought not. Everyone else agreed.
Emily let go of Chris’s hand and wrote down everything Joseph had said. Then her attention drifted to the path by the sea wall. She saw Sarah pushing Madame Nova up the hill in her wheelchair, wrapped up in her leopard-skin cloak, moving from the hotel toward the top of the cliffs, in the opposite direction from the town. No, not Sarah. Sarah was here in the room. It must be Hilary, doing her sisterly duty. Perhaps she put the same faith in the restorative properties of the sea air as Dr. Muriel and was using it to ward off Madame Nova’s impending hangover.
The lady Joseph connected with had no news of Edmund Zenon.
“Do you have anything to tell us? Any message?” Sarah was disappointed. If Joseph didn’t come up with something, Emily suspected she’d be off to Madame Nova’s shop for another session with the wig tomorrow.
“There is something,” said Joseph. “She’s showing me. I don’t hear it. One moment while I try to interpret it.”
Emily looked around the room. Everyone was getting restless, even Tim. Only Sarah seemed convinced that Joseph might still prove he could connect with someone in the spirit world.
“I’m seeing…I’m seeing a big book, like an encyclopedia. I’m seeing tears. A sad face.”
“Tears of a clown?” Chris suggested.
“No, it’s…tragedy.”
Ah. Very apt. Everyone nodded.
“And then I’m getting running around. Chasing.”
“Benny Hill?” said Chris. “The comedian?”
“No. It’s…I’ve got a big book, a sad face, running around or laughing or…Hold on. She’s showing me a tombstone. A cemetery.”