First Among Equals

by Katherine Hayton

  The gambit to play on Mrs Pettigrew’s affections didn’t pay off, and Emily turned to the task of what to wear. She settled on a long, flowing sundress covered in enormous flowers of red and yellow—the pattern much cheerier than she felt.

  “Hoo-roo,” Crystal called out from the front door, followed by a round of knocking. “I’ve just left the car idling, so I’ll get back to it.”

  Emily grabbed her purse and phone off the counter and walked outside, taking satisfaction in slamming the door in the ghost’s face. Not that it mattered to Mrs Pettigrew, who just walked straight through the wood.

  “Oh, this is an earlier start than I’m used to, for sure,” Crystal said as they joined her in the car.

  “Sorry. I never even thought to say that we’d be fine going along to the house on our own.”

  “Never you mind.” The medium pulled to a stop at the intersection. “It’ll be worth it to get a gander inside the place. I’ve often picked Hilda up from outside or dropped her off, but she’s never once invited me inside.”

  “Because we told her she wasn’t allowed riff-raff,” Mrs Pettigrew snapped, back on form from her earlier smugness. “Honestly, with the kind of friend that woman has, we’d be at constant risk of theft.”

  Emily flapped a hand at her for silence. “What’s Hilda like when she’s not at work?”

  “Grumpy, when she’s not just ill-tempered.” Crystal grinned. “Most of the felting club is like that. It’s not so much a circle of friends as a group of people who gather together once a week to talk about how dreadful the rest of the town is.”

  Emily burst out laughing, feeling the first hint of a good mood catching up to her. “It actually sounds quite fun.”

  Crystal hitched an eyebrow in her direction. “You should come along some time.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about felting.”

  “You don’t need to. It’s easy enough to pick up the basics and what we’re really there for isn’t dependent on needlework.”

  “Yes, you should go.” Mrs Pettigrew’s voice was so snide it slunk around the car for a few seconds before weaselling into Emily’s ear. “How else will Crystal pump you for information?”

  Emily flapped her hand at the ghost again, wishing the gesture held the power to flick her away.

  “I’ll just park here,” Crystal said as she pulled the car up to the curb, around the corner from the Pettigrew’s house. “I think it’s probably best if we wait until we know the family’s left before we barrel right up to the door.”

  “If they come this way,” the ghost grumbled. “It’d be a pity if they took any other of the dozen streets leading off Barbell Road.”

  It felt like winning a scratch ticket when Nathaniel and Gregory passed them by a few minutes later. Emily couldn’t resist turning a beaming smile towards the ghost, only to find her looking resolutely away.

  “Clock’s ticking,” Crystal said, starting the car and driving them the short distance to the door. “Let’s see what the official reports can tell us.”

  When they walked inside, Hilda presented the same gruff façade as she’d done the last time she and Emily met—almost a week ago now she realised with a start. She bustled them through into the kitchen, obviously the place she felt most comfortable, and offered them a hot drink.

  “Get her to make you a hot chocolate,” Mrs Pettigrew insisted, face alight with pleasure. “They’re the best thing you’ve ever tasted, especially for a diet drink. I lived on those over winter when I was trying to shed a few pounds.”

  Although a diet hot chocolate sounded appalling, the genuine enthusiasm threw Emily, and she followed the ghost’s advice. Crystal thought it sounded divine as well, so they soon sat, cupping their hands around the hot drinks as though it were the middle of winter, rather than a warm morning in early summer.

  On her first sip, Emily was a convert. “This is delicious. How do you make it so thick and creamy?”

  “By using cream.” Hilda reached back into the fridge and held out the clotted cream container. “This stuff’s the best, though if you’re in a pinch, pouring cream works, too.”

  “What?” Mrs Pettigrew’s fury could be read in one word. She smoothed down the sides of her dress, her hands hovering a moment on the curve of her lower belly. “That sneak. She told me it was diet. No wonder I gained weight at the drop of a hat!”

  Emily hid her smile in another big gulp of the chocolate drink.

  “I’ll go and fetch the papers,” Hilda said. “Mr Pettigrew’s kept them on his desktop since he received them. No wonder his business is in a slump.”

  She strode off, not a movement wasted as she collected a folder of paper and spread it out in front of the group. “Here we go. The report starts off with the summary findings, in the public interest, then goes back through all the details.”

  “Did the coroner spend a long time investigating?” Crystal asked.

  “Goodness, no. I think he had a good idea just from the pathologist’s report submitted after her autopsy.” She shrugged. “You can see the date of the final opinion.”

  Emily looked over to Crystal who nodded. “It’s from a week later.” She held Emily’s gaze for a moment, then turned back to Hilda. “Would you mind leaving us alone with the report? Only, we’ll need some time to digest the results and discuss them. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your job just to watch us do that.”

  “It’s my day off,” Hilda said, as though this explained why she could hang out with them.

  After another second’s awkward pause, Crystal inclined her head. “Then you must have a ton of things you want to get on with. How are you going with that new method for felting Glynda showed us? I tried it using an old bamboo bathing mat.”

  “I don’t have anything bamboo. Besides, I just like sewing the patches together to form patterns. The smell of lanolin makes me too sick to start the entire process from scratch.”

  As Emily took another sip of her hot chocolate, Hilda finally understood the sub-text. “I’ll head upstairs to get some sewing done, then. Gregory needs a set of name tags sewn into his new jeans.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs Pettigrew said, full snark-mode engaged. “It’s what all the cool young men are sporting this year. Name tags in the hem of their jeans.”

  When the housekeeper had left, Emily pulled her phone out and took a picture of each piece of paper in the folder. “I’d hate to think we get interrupted in a few minutes and lose our chance to read it through when we’re this close.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to matter,” Crystal said.

  The expression on her face gave Emily pause, and she tucked away her phone. It was the same look her doctor wore just before he told her a piece of bad news. She’d seen it a lot in the past year.

  She didn’t want to ask but summoned up her courage. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “The findings say your ghost friend was taking medication with dizziness as its primary side effect. There was no sign of foul play on the scene. He concluded she fell down the stairs, hit her head, and died.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “What a load of rubbish,” Mrs Pettigrew exclaimed. She reached out a hand to turn the pages of the report, then issued a foul invective under her breath.

  Emily chewed on her thumbnail for a minute, frowning. “And he was sure?”

  “I don’t know about all the doctor jargon but that’s his finding. As Hilda said, he reached the conclusion so fast, it doesn’t appear he was in any doubt.”

  “I wasn’t taking medication,” the ghost said, holding her hands out to either side. “At least, not that was prescribed to me. Occasionally I indulged in a few odds and ends, just to get a better response to life than my factory settings.”

  “Is that how Gregory got into prescription drugs?” Emily asked. She pressed a hand against her lower belly. A strange sensation was building there. Cold and hard. Despite the heat of the day and the warm drink she’d just finished, a shiver ran the lengt
h of her spine.

  Crystal raised an eyebrow but kept her mouth closed. Mrs Pettigrew didn’t deign to give a response beyond a snort. Emily supposed that was another denial.

  “What medication was she taking to cause the dizziness?”

  “It’s called Losartan. Apparently, it’s prescribed to reduce blood pressure.”

  Emily giggled. “I’d have thought the people around Mrs Pettigrew would’ve required that more than she did.”

  “I don’t remember taking these drugs.” The ghost tilted her chin up and folded her arms. “Those are pills for old people. Not someone as young and vibrant as me.”

  “You’re not young and vibrant, you’re dead.”

  Crystal gave her a sharp look, then shrugged. “If you’ve finished taking photos, we should probably give these to Hilda to put away before she gets in any trouble.” She shuffled the pages back together and shut the folder, hopping down from the chair. “Don’t get into too heated an argument while I’m gone. The walls have ears.”

  She pointed toward the window and Emily saw the flash of movement as Abraham walked out of view. A flush crept up her neck from her collarbone. If he decided to tackle them for answers, she had no good reason to be here. That Hilda invited them wouldn’t hold up since this was her employer’s residence, not hers.

  “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  Emily turned, her mouth falling open. Mrs Pettigrew’s voice sounded nervous, anxious even. “Don’t believe what?”

  “That I fell.”

  She shrugged, pulling her mouth down at the corners. “I don’t see how a coroner could tell the difference between a person falling down the stairs or being pushed.”

  “And I’m serious that I don’t remember taking any medication.”

  “I believe you.” Emily stared at the downcast figure. “But you don’t have a lot of memories from around that time, do you? It’s possible you’d begun shortly before you died, and it’s just forgotten.”

  “Is that what happened with your crash?”

  Emily pulled back, her hands rising to clench on a level with her chest. “There’s the accident itself.” The jolting warmth of spilled petrol filled her nostrils. Rich. Sickening. Pain crashed in on her from every side. “But the stuff for a few weeks before and after is gone.”

  “I guess given how long ago it happened, those memories aren’t coming back.”

  “Yeah. I think they’re gone for good.” Emily bit her thumbnail, then forced her hand down to her side. “There’s also the chance you don’t—”

  “Come on, then,” Crystal said, coming back inside the room in a cloud of good humour. “Let’s get out of here while the going’s good. I can hear the call of hash browns, leading me astray.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Ugh. More carbs.”

  “For goodness’ sake,” Emily said, rolling her eyes but feeling a rush of good cheer. “It’s not like you have to eat them.”

  “You know, I’m coming around to the opinion that talking to ghosts isn’t as sweet a deal as I might once have believed,” Crystal said, looping her arm through Emily’s. “Every time I hear part of your conversation, it makes me glad I can’t listen to the other person’s point of view.”

  “Rude!” Mrs Pettigrew stated in hot defence.

  “Yes, you are,” Emily agreed. “I think that was rather her point.”

  Whatever momentary affliction Mrs Pettigrew had suffered upon seeing the report of her death had lifted by the next morning. As Emily shifted boxes and cleaned the contents in search of treasure, the ghost kept up a non-stop stream of insulting guesses as to what the original owners could have been thinking to buy such worthless rubbish.

  “Is there a printer around?” Emily asked Pete when she walked downstairs, before heading out to lunch. “I took some photos, and I’d like to grab some copies.”

  “For reading in bed later,” Mrs Pettigrew suggested. A comment that earned her an afternoon of being ignored.

  “Try the library,” he suggested, and Emily felt like smacking her head. Of course.

  “You’re not going to spread those things around town, are you?” the ghost asked. “Because that’s my private business, you know.”

  The thought had never occurred to Emily, but she took her pleasure in not responding. While falling asleep the night before, it had occurred to her she should ask a doctor about the findings and how they could be challenged. Since she had an appointment with her neurologist just before her physio session with Joanne, she might be able to swing it.

  “I don’t know,” Mr Robertson said, his head nodding before his mind seemed to catch up with the fact he’d agreed. “Unless it overlaps with my area of expertise, it’ll be a pretty general overview. No better than what you’d get with your local GP but a lot more expensive.”

  “She died of a head injury,” Emily said, handing across the folder of printed images. “It struck a chord with me because of the similarities.”

  The neurologist sighed and took out the first page. When he frowned, Emily held her breath, awaiting bad news.

  “These aren’t a coroner’s findings,” he said, taking her by surprise. Once again, the full force of her disability struck her. No matter how many ways she found around it, the sneaky handicap was always there, waiting to expose her as a useless old woman again.

  “What are they?”

  “It appears to be a list of items. Napkins and holders, a painting, a set of Wedgewood china.” He scanned the list while Emily stared in confusion. “It’s an accounting of household goods of some kind, but I’m not sure for what.”

  Mrs Pettigrew waved a hand in front of Emily’s face to gain her attention. “Perhaps suggest he look at more than the first page,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “Are they all an inventory?”

  Emily didn’t give the ghost the satisfaction of sharing a glance with her when the doctor turned the page and his eyes lit with recognition. “Okay, here we go.”

  The man gave the report all his attention. Emily stared at her hands as he checked through the pages, clicking her fingernails against each other. The findings might be a wild goose chase but if it took up the entire appointment, it would grant her a reprieve.

  At her physio appointments, Joanne was a nag and a nuisance. She was also easy to talk with and could relate when Emily had genuine complaints. Mr Robertson didn’t have the same easy-going nature. He didn’t couch bad news in an easy smile and a hand on the arm. He just delivered it in the same deadpan voice as he greeted her or asked her how she’d been feeling.

  “This seems pretty straight-forward,” the doctor said, closing the folder and pushing it back across the table.

  Only five minutes. Darn it. That still left plenty of time.

  “Is there a way the information could be wrong?”

  Mr Robertson shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. When she fell, the pattern of the stair left an imprint on the back of her head.” He didn’t appear to notice Emily’s wince, raising his hand to touch the area in question. “If the injuries had been sustained another way, the wound wouldn’t have that distinct marking.”

  “But she could’ve been pushed, couldn’t she?” Emily clutched her hands together tighter until the knuckles protested. “There’s no way of knowing if she slipped or if the fall was…” She paused, searching for a more delicate way of phrasing what she wanted to say. “Deliberate.”

  “She was prescribed a medication where dizziness is a common side effect. Her son heard her fall and found her at the bottom of the stairs.” He paused for a second, then jerked his hand for her to return the folder.

  “The prescription for the drugs was made a fortnight before the accident. That’s a prime period for patients to display side effects if they’re going to have a reaction to their medication. It was filled the same day as the script was written. There was evidence in her blood test showing she’d consumed the drug.” He closed the folder again and pushed it
back toward Emily.

  “It might not be as exciting as someone shoving her down the stairs, but the evidence is compelling. I’ve no difficulty seeing why the coroner returned the verdict he did.”

  Neither did Emily. She still couldn’t look at the ghost standing beside her.

  “Are you happy with my opinion or would you like to stall on your tests for a while longer?”

  Caught out. Emily gave a small smile. Today was the closest to human the neurologist had ever been.

  “Good.” He ran through the routine tests, having her touch her nose or tug on her ear, with her eyes open, then again when closed. She drew hands on a clock, showing the time as ten minutes to eleven. He had her peer in different directions and push her hand against resistance, up and down, side to side.

  “And what were the three words I gave you at the beginning of the appointment?”

  Emily opened her mouth to answer, the words sitting right on the tip of her tongue, then… Nothing. They’d gone.

  She leaned forward, brushing a piece of imaginary fluff off her trouser leg. “Just a second, I’m feeling a bit hot.”

  “Mm. At the end of the day, the air conditioning sometimes gets a bit lazy.”

  “Come on. Answer the man so we can get out of here.” Mrs Pettigrew said, walking over and poking her head through the door to look outside the office. “I want to see if Peanut’s turned up yet.”

  Emily bit her lip, chewing at it so hard a metallic tang filled her mouth. She released it, not wanting to bite it clean through. There’d been an animal. A cat? Or was that just because the ghost had mentioned Peanut? One of the words related to something in the room. Furniture? Carpet? The lamp?

  “I’m not sure I heard them clearly.”

  “Okay. That happens. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mrs Pettigrew stared at her. “Just tell him.”