All Things Undying (10 page)

The focus then shifted to Susan, hands clasped behind her back, studying Prince Philip's portrait. Suddenly she raised a hand. Sniffed. ‘I smell smoke.' She waved in the direction of the Quarterdeck. ‘What's behind those doors?'

Rather than answer, Richard smiled enigmatically and held the door open for her. She hustled through, trailed by the cameraman and the soundman, his boom making a cameo appearance in one of the shots. As Susan moved to the center of the great hall, the camera took full advantage of the opportunity, zeroed in on her face, creased with concern, then arched up to take in the dark-timbered vaulted ceiling. It swept around the gallery, known as the poop deck, that surrounding the Quarterdeck on three sides, and would likely have examined the intricate wrought ironwork of the balustrades in more detail had not Susan pressed a hand to her throat, and said, ‘The smoke is really intense in here.'

The cameraman was on the case. He followed the medium to the far end of the room where a statue of His Majesty King George V stood wearing a heavy overcoat of marble. She stroked the marble, gazed thoughtfully into the old king's face as if listening to what he had to say, then turned to Richard who waited silently, hands clasped in front of him. ‘This area was bombed, wasn't it? A direct hit?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is that when this happened?' she asked, touching the hem of the king's coat where a triangular piece of marble appeared to be missing.

Richard nodded, then, as if remembering that there was a camera in the room, said, ‘Yes.'

‘I'm thinking the college was very lucky,' Susan continued, her hand still resting lightly on King George's overcoat. ‘I don't feel death here.'

‘Fortunately, the bomb fell on a day when the cadets were not in residence. Otherwise . . .' Richard shuddered. ‘It could have been a lot worse.'

Susan bowed slightly at the waist. ‘Thank God.' After a respectful moment of silence, she led the little group back the way they had come.

‘They're heading for the chapel,' Alison whispered, freezing the action on a frame of Susan with her mouth forming an O. ‘Watch this.'

I would like to have seen what Susan ‘saw' in the chapel, containing as it did many historical objects, including an altar cloth made from the same bolt of cloth as Queen Victoria's wedding gown. But before she got anywhere near the chapel, however, Susan stopped dead in her tracks. She pressed a hand to her chest, breathed heavily. ‘Oh, my goodness!'

Nobody said anything. A jet plane roared overhead, stealing the silence, but for some reason, the post-production people hadn't edited the noise out.

‘There's a woman here,' Susan said after the noise of the jet had faded away. ‘She's wearing a uniform.'

Considering they were standing in a Navy school, that was a safe bet.

‘I'm getting an H. Helen?' Susan squinted thoughtfully into the camera. ‘No, not Helen. It's Ellen!'

The camera swung quickly from Susan back to Richard in order to catch his reaction. Viewers were not disappointed. Richard's eyebrows shot upwards, then returned to a neutral position. He said nothing.

The camera swung back to Susan whose head was cocked at that angle I now recognized, when she seemed to be taking counsel from spirits in the great beyond. ‘Ellen says she's dying of embarrassment. Does that mean anything to you?'

The camera swung back in time to catch the corners of Richard's mouth twitching upwards in what might pass for a smile. Still, he said nothing.

‘It means something to me!' I yelled at the television screen.

Alison glared at me. ‘Shhhh!'

‘The plaque is right behind her, Alison. She can't help but notice it.'

‘They covered it up, silly. You'll see in a minute.'

Sure enough, when the camera panned back, the bronze plaque that commemorated the event that cost Ellen Whittall her life had been covered with a dark cloth, taped to the wall with duct tape. Crafty Richard! He might agree to let a medium troop around the college with her entourage, but he had been careful to even up the odds. Susan had many talents, but I didn't think X-ray vision was among them.‘She's doing this.' Susan traced a circle in the air. ‘She wants me to turn around.'

I have observed that in buildings designed exclusively to accommodate men, women's restrooms are often tucked away in odd, out-of-the-way places, in closets, for example, or under staircases. When Susan did as the spirit instructed, she found herself facing the ladies' restroom, squirreled away in a corner just off the elegant entrance hall. The camera caught her smiling in amusement, then her face grew serious. ‘You poor thing!' she soothed. Susan glanced over her shoulder and out into our sitting room. ‘Ellen's telling me she was in the loo when the bomb exploded. She's saying she had higher aspirations when she joined the military than dying with her knickers around her knees.'

‘So!' said Alison, pausing the program at the point where Richard's bemused face filled the screen. ‘What do you think about
that
?'

‘I think it makes for interesting television,' I answered, channeling Paul, ‘but the fact that a Wren was the only casualty of the bombing is common knowledge. I think it's even mentioned in the BRNC brochure.'

Alison pouted like a three-year-old. ‘But everybody doesn't know about the loo.'

‘
I
know about it.'

‘Yes, but you've spent time at the college. Susan's never been.' Alison waved the remote. ‘Until now.'

‘Point taken, but . . .' I thought the show we'd just seen was one of the least convincing demonstrations of Susan Parker's talents as a medium. However, watching Susan communicate with the restless spirit of a victim of World War Two (or not!) had given me an idea. ‘Does Susan do a walkabout like this on every show?'

‘Oh, yes,' Alison said. ‘You'd be amazed how many haunted places there are in Britain.'

Considering that the history of the country went back to before the Stone Age, I could believe it. One Celt runs an iron sword through another and a restless spirit is born. ‘If she's open to suggestions, I think I have an idea for her show.'

Alison was sorting through some DVDs on the end table. She looked up. ‘Oh? What's that?'

‘What if she were to go to Torcross? She could stroll along the beach at Slapton Sands and see if she encounters any of the soldiers or sailors who died there. If
any
spirit is restless, it ought to be one of those poor guys. Dark, cold, wet, severely burned. They were a long, long way from home when the end came.'

Alison pressed her hands together and clapped silently. ‘Brilliant!'

I bowed my head in mock modesty. ‘Thank you.' I didn't know how Cathy Yates felt about medium-slash-clairvoyants, but if the idea captured Susan Parker's imagination, and the people on the London end of
Dead Reckoning
agreed, I'd have something positive to tell the American.

Or maybe Cathy would think I was as nutty as a fruitcake.

I hadn't known Cathy very long, but when it came to uncovering information about her father, I figured Cathy would leave no stone unturned, no matter how unconventional.

And I was betting that Susan would go for it, too.

EIGHT

Lady Elaine Fairchilde,
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

E
arly the following morning, I was awakened in our room at Horn Hill House by my iPhone vibrating like a dentist's drill on the bedside table. I fumbled for it, thumbed the screen on.

‘Mumpf.'

‘It's Alison, Hannah. I was able to bag three tickets to Susan's live show in Paignton on Wednesday night!' she bubbled. ‘Do you and Paul want to go?'

‘Let me check.' I touched mute, then nudged my husband awake. When I asked him the question, he groaned, covered his eyes with his hand and said, ‘I'd rather crawl naked through a nest of fire ants.'

‘I'll take that as a no, then.'

Paul raised himself up on one elbow. ‘Besides, I'm sailing
Biding Thyme
to Cowes with Jon, remember?'

Back on the phone, I skipped the part about the fire ants and reminded Alison that Susan's show would conflict with my husband's plans to help her husband sail
Biding Thym
e to victory at Cowes.

‘Blimey! I was so excited, I completely forgot! Well, never mind. I'll figure something out.'

‘Do you want me to ask Janet Brelsford if she'd like to join us?'

‘Uh, no. I've just had a radical idea, Hannah. I'm going to ask my dad!'

If you'd asked my opinion, I'd have said that Stephen Bailey would be down on the ground along with Paul, crawling through that nest of fire ants, but it was Alison's ticket, so I kept my opinion to myself. Besides, Alison was volunteering to drive. ‘The show starts at seven, Hannah, so we'll pick you up at half five.'

Alison and her father were waiting at the foot of Horn Hill in a sleek blue Prius pulled to the curb in the little lay-by directly opposite Khrua Thai Restaurant. I didn't recognize them until Alison gave a light tap on the horn, then waved at me from the window.

‘What happened to your Micra?' I asked as I climbed into the back seat of the Prius.

‘It began begging for a new transmission,' Alison explained, checking the wing mirror and letting a minibus pass before pulling out into Higher Street. ‘Jon said no way were we going to throw more money at it. This is Dad's car.' She smiled at her father who was belted so securely into the front passenger seat that I thought he was in danger of getting gangrene from the waist down. White hair tamed and slicked back, he wore a striped shirt and a checked sports coat, both patterns at war with a yellow paisley tie. ‘Dad's letting me drive for a change.'

‘I have to confess I'm surprised to see you, Mr Bailey. You seemed like such a skeptic the other day.'

‘Ulterior motives,' Bailey mumbled. ‘Haven't seen the Palace since they finished the renovations back in oh-seven. Hear they did a smashing job.'

Alison grunted. ‘Dad thinks I need a chaperone.'

Ably chaperoned by the two of us, Alison drove in a clockwise direction through town, taking the long way around to the foot of Coombe Road where we waited at the Floating Bridge Inn, engine idling, for the Higher Ferry, a newly commissioned, state-of-the-art vessel that had been in service only a couple of months. During the short three-minute ride across the Dart, I stepped out of the car briefly to watch in fascination as the ferry was pulled across the river on stout steel cables. Once we reached the Kingswear side and were on our way again, I loosened my seat belt and leaned over the back of Alison's seat, speaking into her left ear. ‘Do you think they'll be taping Susan's show for television?'

‘They usually do, but only the best bits will make it to the telly.'

‘What do you expect, Alison?' grumped her father from the passenger seat. ‘They're not going to show her being wrong on the telly, now, are they?'

‘True enough,' I said. ‘That's why I think it will be interesting to see what she does in front of a live audience. She'll be on stage for two hours, performing without a net, as it were.'

‘Complete and unexpurgated,' Alison added.

‘There will be shills,' her father proclaimed in the same confident tone of voice that God must have used when he said, ‘Let there be light.'

‘I've seen only a bit of that one show you captured on video, Alison. What are they generally like?'

‘It's an hour long, and they're usually in three parts. First, there's a pre-arranged reading. I remember one . . .' She paused, lightly braking to take a curve at a more prudent speed. ‘Susan didn't know anything about the woman, had never met her, but she brought a message from the woman's husband, a soldier who'd been killed in Afghanistan. It was a private detail about a silver bracelet he'd given her on the last night they'd spent together before he was deployed. The woman was in tears, and so was I.'

Bailey exploded. ‘Bollocks!'

‘You didn't
see
it, Dad. Susan was amazing.'

‘You said three segments?' I asked, trying to keep the conversation on track.

‘Right. There's the part where she walks up to strangers in shops or on the street – like what happened to you, Hannah, but with cameras. Then she'll go somewhere that's haunted, and my God, we do have a lot of places like that in England, don't we, Dad?'

‘Henges, circles and barrows. England's got more haunted places than dogs have fleas.'

‘And they're not all crumbling ruins, either, with wailing damsels or ghostly knights in armor clattering around the courtyards on horseback,' Alison continued. ‘This couple in a semi-detatched in St Albans complained to Susan about objects constantly being moved. One photograph, in particular, kept ending up face down on the mantel. Susan said it was their dead son trying to get their attention. He'd committed suicide. Or so they thought,' she added mysteriously.

‘And?' I prodded.

Alison shot a quick glance over her shoulder. ‘Turns out he wasn't alone when he passed.'

‘So that Parker woman said,' muttered Alison's father.

‘So she said.'

Stephen Bailey loosened his seatbelt and swiveled in his seat so he could face me. ‘You can see why I'm coming along on this little excursion, can't you? Jon aids and abets her in all this nonsense. Someone has to grab Alison's ankles and pull her back down to earth when she goes off like this.'