Harvest

by Steve Merrifield

  Kelly Mason was a local policewoman. He didn’t know her, but he had seen her in the lift and collecting her post on the ground floor. He had found her flat number easily enough from her mailbox in the lobby. Perhaps she had a perspective, possibly some thoughts of her own from a resident’s point of view. She might even be involved in the case. Now he stood at her door, unsure and wondering how far his charm would get him.

  The door opened suddenly and Craig gave the woman that stood there an obvious second look. The Kelly he knew looked dowdy, plain, her uniform being her defining feature. The woman in the doorway was a youthful woman looking to be on the verge of thirty with dark amber eyes and faint freckles dusting her flushed cheeks, while her brunette hair, normally in an efficient tight bun behind her hat, now fell about her face in long chocolate waves. She usually seemed shapeless, almost devoid of sex under her layers of uniform and the baggy luminous yellow jacket, but now in black trousers and a tight roll-neck jumper, slack at her neck, she had a figure.

  Kelly frowned uncertainly at him as if she never had visitors, and now she did her neck and cheeks burned in a creeping red blush. “I think you have the wrong flat,” she said.

  “Kelly?” He stared at her, almost seeking reassurance that it was really the plain woman he had seen before. “Sorry – let me explain… I’m a journalist…”

  “Haven’t I seen you about before?” she said, trying to place him. “The photographer for the Gazette?”

  “Yeah,” Craig admitted, surprised she knew him. “I do some work for the Gazette when I get it. I’m trying to get into the writing side.” He shook his head in frustration with himself; she didn’t need his life story. “You don’t know me. I live in this block. Craig Digby”

  “I thought that was it. I have seen you coming and going.”

  He held his hands up in surrender and cut in. “Yeah, don’t worry. You haven’t arrested me before.”

  She laughed pleasantly. “What brings you to me?”

  He dared himself to ask what he wanted. “It’s just that I’ve heard a lot about the Chambers case. I’ve interviewed the mother and was wondering if you had any dealings in the case, and if you could spare me a few minutes for some questions yourself?”

  Kelly looked strangely dejected and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mr Digby,” she said with authority. “I am a liaison for the Chambers and the station as I am local, but I can’t talk to you about any details. It’s more than my job’s worth – and I don’t think it’s right. The family needs time and space to themselves.”

  “I’m not asking for anything confidential. Just an interview on the police aspect, that’s all,” he tried hopefully.

  A shrill pinging from within her flat interrupted their conversation; Kelly briefly cast a distracted look over her shoulder, and relaxed her tone. “That’s my dinner… I don’t think there’s much I can actually tell you that’s not already been in the papers.”

  “Well, how about another time?” he persisted. “From the perspective of a person living in the block with the duties you have at the station and what it’s like with this on your doorstep? Nothing about the case specifically, and I wouldn’t do anything with it until after you’ve read through whatever I have written.”

  She seemed to be in pained thought for a moment and looked at him awkwardly, her decision apparently made more difficult by the urgent pings of her waiting microwave meal. “Oh, okay. But some other time – I have a frozen curry calling me!” She smiled humbly and closed the door on him without saying goodbye.

  Chapter Six

  Rachel rested on her recliner within the cosy half-light of her lounge and used her remote control to flick through the television channels. She munched on cheese and crackers with a glass of sherry at her side while she searched for something to watch. The kitten perched on her leg, leaning over to the table and lapped from a glass of water. The cold light from the television flickered and broke into the corners of the room where the standard lamp didn’t reach.

  She thought of her phone, and didn’t know why. She wondered at the randomness of the thought until it rang abruptly.

  Startled, she dropped part of her cracker on to her chest. Rachel pulled the kitten close to her so she didn’t tip it from her lap as she reached for the handset. The kitten crawled up her and began picking at the cracker from under her chin, oblivious to the difficulty Rachel had in guiding the phone cable around the animal so she could get the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?” she said. Before the person could speak she was distracted by the sound of ruffled paper from beside her chair, and strained over the arm of the chair to investigate. A pile of newspapers that had been stacked there had tumbled onto their side and she was greeted with the headline that had been within the middle of the pile: “CHILD MISSING FROM BED.”

  “Hello, you don’t know me but my name is Claire Chambers…” the voice on the phone started.

  Rachel pulled the paper up on to her lap and scanned the page, seeing the woman’s name in print before her.

  “The little girl’s mother?”

  There was a hesitation as Claire adjusted to her name being recognised. “Yes… That’s right.”

  “I’m so very sorry to read about all that’s happened.” Rachel winced at the banality of her words. She could hear Claire swallow.

  “The spiritualist church you attend recommended I talk with you. No one has come forward with anything, no one saw anything. It’s been nearly three weeks. I don’t know what made me call. It’s just we are so desperate. I don’t know what you can do, or even what you do. We were… I was just wondering…”

  Rachel looked about her room, squinting briefly into the gloom at the television as her programme came back on. She knew what Claire wanted to know. “Don’t worry, dear. I could come and see you tomorrow if you like. However, you must understand in this circumstance I won’t undertake any attempt at contact and I don’t give certainties. I can come and see what I can feel, see if I can offer any other insight around what has happened. It won’t help you with the police though, as I am sure you know; all I can give you is a little faith and hope. If that’s enough for you then I will gladly visit you.”

  Claire gushed gratefully and began to arrange a time to go and see her the next day. Rachel turned the folded paper over to see the bottom of the front page and the cat licked her cheek for more crumbs. Rachel gave a sad smile at the school picture of the happy-looking girl presented on the page. Although she couldn’t see it in the thick shadows of the room, Rachel’s thoughts focussed on the framed birth certificate on the mantelpiece and the darkness closed in around her in a great swell at the thought of the aged piece of paper.

  Rachel’s eyes travelled up the body of the east tower that grew from the ground before her. Looking at the top drained her sense of balance and a brief glance to the summit was all she could manage without her vision swimming. The sun blazed from behind the building, melting the rigid horizon of the roof and casting the face of the building into shadow. She looked back down sharply and blinked away the disorientation before taking the steps up to the main door above the abandoned arcade of shops at the tower’s base.

  Rachel had been to this building once before, but she hadn’t got past the front door that day. She had been turned away by a disconnected voice over the intercom – told not to come back. The rejection was still a fresh knife wound. All Rachel had wanted to do was tell her that she was here for her if she had need of her, but she had wanted nothing from Rachel.

  She slipped her bifocals on and studied the entry system closely before she typed in the flat number for Claire Chambers and introduced herself to the crackling voice that responded. The voice cut out and the door buzzed, Rachel pushed but it refused to open. She pressed for Claire’s flat, “Sorry, me and technology, I can’t get it to open.”

  The intercom gave a muffled reply, apologising for the problem. “You just wait there and I’ll come and get you, you’ll never find the flat anyway. I
’ll be down in a second.”

  Rachel looked about her. The thick shadow of the building reached across the small grassy area surrounding the flats and across the road, blanketing the houses beyond in a dark shroud. She turned back to the glass of the door and was startled by a set of eyes staring back at her. Greying eyes, tinged with yellow, but soft and watery like melting ice. The skin around them hung pink and sagging. The man’s hair was thick with grease and scruffily side-parted; his beard was short and greying, the bristly curls matted with saliva slug-trails glistening around withered lips that grimaced around yellow and black teeth. His breath clouded the glass between them; breath she was sure would be foul and made her glad of the barrier. His long coat hung from multiple layers of clothing, a heavy burden in spite of the summer warmth that made him look bigger than he probably was.

  Rachel smiled at him as gently and as genuinely as she could and pointed to the handle. “Could you let me in?” she mouthed hopefully.

  He stared back at her. Not even following the direction of her pointing finger. “Go away…” he barked, bowing his head forward and glaring up at her with menace in his eyes. She half-expected him to growl and bare his teeth like a wild dog. His eyes were rich with a hatred she didn’t understand. Rachel was routed by his threatening glare and retreated a few steps.

  She was relieved when a young man peered over the older man’s shoulder, frowned and appeared to start questioning his behaviour. The old man didn’t flinch from his posturing standoff. Feeling her confidence return with the arrival of the lad she stepped back towards the glass and motioned to him that she was trying to get in.

  He said something with humour to the old man, and when that failed to move him he leaned closer to the glass and called through it; “Have you been buzzed in?”

  “Yes, Claire Chambers buzzed me in but it didn’t work. She’s coming down now.” Her mention of the Chambers seemed to spur him on in getting rid of the glaring old man. He approached the situation with humour and when that failed he resorted to a firmness of face and probably tone which he looked uncomfortable with. Finally the old man stepped away but his eyes remained on Rachel. She avoided them and scanned the rows of letterboxes in the lobby, knowing that Catherine’s would be one of them. Perhaps she could leave a note? No, she had written letters before to Cat and had yet to receive a reply.

  The young man rolled his eyes at her and pressed the buzzer. Rachel stepped back up and pushed at it but it remained firm and rattled in its place. It refused to budge even when the young man pulled it from inside. He dug deep into his trouser pocket and pulled out his keys to the building, he signalled to the letterbox and poked them through for Rachel. She tried several keys until she found the right one and unlocked the door and the man yanked it open for her.

  “There you go,” he announced, stepping aside for her to enter.

  Rachel smiled appreciatively and stepped in. As her foot crossed the threshold she thought how odd it was that she had come here a year ago only to be turned away, and now her “gift” had brought her here. To anyone else it might be dismissed as coincidence, but she lived in a different world, with different explanations.

  The intercom rasped viciously and a growl of angry static grated harshly on her ears, startling her. Sparks flew from the metal speaker grille in an angry flare and Rachel cowered away and stumbled against the doorframe. The young man caught her arm, supported her into the building and sheltered her from any other possible sparks. She thanked him and stared back at the smoking intercom that increased her sense of being unwelcome.

  In the lift Rachel struggled to compose herself and focus on the small talk that Claire Chambers was making with her. Claire was talking about the building, about tower blocks in general, giving examples of how different The Heights were to the stereotypes of high-rise flats, selling her the community and the views. It struck Rachel as rehearsed, something she did with new guests to make them feel at ease, or to ease her own discomfort with the stereotype, but her pained grin and glistening eyes that accompanied her description of the friendly community within the tower told a different story. Rachel didn’t normally like colluding with the games people play. Beyond her ability to talk to the dead and see the past she had developed a keen psychological insight from spending so much time with people in pain. It wasn’t a psychology you might find in a text book, it was a mix of the otherworld intuition, keen observation and listening and a first hand understanding of grief, pain and hopelessness. Rachel didn’t need a text book to understand those things. After a short while of talking with someone she could imagine things from their perspective and quickly spot inconsistencies in what they said or how they acted. She would sow her conversation with musings and wonderings from her perspective, inviting the other person to own the thoughts as their own, to encourage them to challenge themselves, to be honest with themselves. However, Rachel could see that Claire was desperate to believe in the community spirit of the building, and still shaken from the incident at the door Rachel also needed to believe it was a safe place to be.

  Catherine had demanded that Rachel stay away from her and the building, and as much as Rachel wanted a reunion she didn’t want it to happen in front of Claire, Cat had so much resentment for her. If the dread of that hadn’t been enough to unsettle her, when Claire had emerged from the lift, the old man, Harry as she now knew he was called had retreated but hissed a final warning in her face; “Your type aren’t welcome here.” What did he mean? How could he know about her abilities? She could also sense something, some presence in the air, but the emotions the building conjured within her and the shock of her encounter at the main door made it impossible to concentrate. She was also distracted by the large mosaic panel that took up almost an entire wall of the lobby. It was a crude gaudy display of rich colours, it reminded her of the mosaics at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station, yet there weren’t any individual pictures, just patterns of colour that weaved in and out. She had examined it further while she had chatted with the young man that had come to her aide. She had seen something in the mosaic. Areas of the mosaic where the colours deviated by subtle degrees creating a discrete shape. When she walked to the lift with Claire she had tried to take in the mosaic as a whole, to see the shape for what it was but lost the image within the twists and angles of the pattern.

  The lift stopped and her thoughts, like the ghostly image within the mosaic, were lost to concentrate more on Claire as they walked to her flat.

  Rachel wiped her feet on the mat as Claire shut the door behind them.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Lovely! Milk, three sugars. Thank you.”

  Claire walked over to the kitchen.

  A man’s voice greeted Rachel from the lounge. “Sweet tooth.”

  She found the man sitting on a sofa leaning forward on his knees so he could see her more clearly round the doorway. He looked her over warily.

  “I need all the energy rushes I can get,” she puffed and smiled disarmingly. “You must be Mr Chambers.” She navigated the coffee table and extended her hand.

  He stood to his full height, which was several inches over Rachel’s, and took her hand. She was unsure if she was meant to feel intimidated.

  “Call me Brian.”

  She let his hand go and looked about her. The flat was bright and airy and very clean, almost too clean. “It’s a lovely home you both have.” She looked to Brian as he sat down. He didn’t say anything. He was a big man, not fat but stocky, judging by the heavy pads she had felt on his hand, a manual worker. He offered a smile from a fresh smooth face, he looked to be a youthful thirty-something, but his eyes looked switched off. They were the eyes of an old man hardened to everything the world could throw at him and judging by his solid posture and his strained body language he had a hardened attitude towards her, and these niceties was just politeness.

  Rachel turned on her heels as she heard the welcome interruption of rattling crockery. Claire entered with a t
ray of tea and biscuits, shooting her husband a disapproving look.

  “Please, Rachel, take a seat.” Claire’s tone berated Brian for not offering earlier.

  Rachel sat in the armchair opposite the sofa.

  Claire settled next to Brian and served the drinks. Rachel took the cup and saucer and stirred the drink before resting the spoon gently at the side.

  Brian was the first to speak. “This was Claire’s idea, not mine. To be quite frank I don’t believe in mumbo-jumbo.”

  Claire shot him a killing look.

  Rachel ignored him momentarily and took a sip of her tea. “I am glad you don’t believe in mumbo-jumbo. Nor do I. I’m not a witch – although I can have a temper on me.” She smiled. “I do believe in spirits and that there is an afterlife if you want to call it that. It is just a view that physical death isn’t the end, that sometimes, for whatever reason or science behind it an aspect of us remains after the body dies, and some of us are fortunate enough to be able to communicate with these essences, these spirits. And we use that ability to help those left behind. So, I won’t be chanting and lighting incense and you will be quite pleased that I left my broomstick at home.” She finished her matter-of-fact statement with a nod to Claire. “Lovely tea.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just that it’s been a hard time for us.” Brian took Claire’s hand in his. “I don’t want anything that is going to make life harder for us.”