When Agatha heard the doorbell, she thought it might be a salesperson or somebody canvassing for votes. No one she knew pushed the button as hard or for so long.
She crept to the spyhole and saw a bald man, his face globed like a fishbowl, waiting on the step. He was smartly dressed in a blue suit with an electric sheen, all three single-breasted buttons done up, and a black tie and white shirt. No clipboard or folder. Some instinct told her not to open the door. But when he rang the bell again, even longer and louder than before, she wondered if he might be a potential client.
He rang again, his face bulging as he moved closer to the spyhole, as if he knew she was watching him. His suit moved with him like some reptilian skin and Agatha thought it must be tailor-made. His tie and shirt looked expensive too. She smoothed down her grey hair and turned the Chubb lock.
The man beamed at her when she opened the door, holding out a large manicured slab of a hand, a silver cufflink emerging from his sleeve jacket and winking in the early evening sunlight. So big and solid, he was like a statue come alive. He kept staring, his thumb cocked back like a trigger and his fingers fused and ready to fire, grinning, as though Agatha was expected to do him the honour of shaking his hand.
She could still feel his grip after it was gone.
Suddenly, she wanted to shut the door, but before she could—
‘I’m Mason,’ he boomed, stepping up on to the white marble step, nostrils flared like a bull ready to charge. ‘A little birdy told me you help people.’
Agatha looked beyond him. A blue BMW was parked on the other side of the road, the windows too dark to see if there was anyone else inside. The colour clashed with Mason’s blue suit and it made her feel dizzy and she coughed and cleared her throat.
‘Can I ask where you heard that?’
‘A friend of a friend,’ said Mason, and his hands made a bird shape and fluttered all around. ‘A little birdy, like I said.’
Agatha was cold in his shadow. She moved to one side, into the rays of low sun coming past him, and Mason stepped inside the house, like an old friend for whom it was the most natural thing in the world. The soles of his black leather shoes hissed on the carpet as he took a few paces and then turned round. He put his arms behind his back and studied her.
‘I’m afraid I only see clients in the mornings unless they’re regulars,’ she said.
‘I just need five minutes of your time,’ said Mason and folded his arms.
They sat in the study, at the small card table Agatha used for readings.
She took a breath and then smiled. ‘So how can I help you, Mr Mason?’
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and placed a silver signet ring on the green felt between them. ‘I need to know more about this ring. I found it and want to return it to its rightful owner.’
Agatha licked her lips. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?’
Mason grinned. ‘So you are psychic then.’
‘People tend to be economical with the truth their first time. I need to know your real motive for coming. To help with my sight.’
‘So you think it’s my first time seeing a psychic?’
When Agatha swallowed, her throat seemed lined with tiny shards of glass. ‘I’m presuming it is, going by what most new clients tell me.’
Mason nodded, picking up the ring, which was far too small for any of his fingers. ‘It belonged to a man I knew. I’d like to know more about him.’
‘So you didn’t know him that well?’
Mason’s eyes flicked up at her and something swelled in his jaw, but then it disappeared and he smiled, holding out the ring in the flat of his palm, as though there was no more time to discuss it.
It was lighter than she had imagined. And colder. She half expected it to melt in the warmth of her hand like a snowflake.
‘I’m looking for a good psychic to help a friend of mine,’ continued Mason. ‘He’s having trouble finding the right person he needs so I thought I’d rally round and help him out. He doesn’t think there’s anyone out there for him, but I believe there is. Fate always lends a hand when it’s required. So this . . .’ and he nodded at the ring, ‘. . . this is a kind of test to find someone. That’s why I looked you up.’ He plucked a black notebook from the inside pocket of his suit and flipped it open. ‘See? You’re number one on my list,’ he said, pointing to her name at the top of a column.
She was aware of Mason’s heavy breathing. The velvet sounds as his nostrils flared. He was wearing a woody cologne, but there was something else beneath it, something she couldn’t quite place. Like blood or the coppery smell of an old coin.
Closing her eyes, she tried to forget the man in front of her. Instead, she found a space and drifted into it as her fist closed round the ring.
When she looked again, Mason was still staring back. She shook her head and a tiny ticking started in his jaw then stopped and his right leg began tapping immediately.
‘I’m afraid I’m not getting anything,’ said Agatha.
‘There’s no need to be afraid.’ Mason leant back in the chair and the joints creaked. ‘We all have our off days, don’t we? Doesn’t look like you have that many though.’
‘I’m sorry?’
Mason looked around. ‘This is a nice gaff. Business can’t be too bad.’
‘My husband was a lawyer.’
‘But he’s not now.’
When Agatha forced herself not to look away, Mason grinned as though everything was working out perfectly.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Mason, but sometimes I just don’t get the right feeling.’ She placed the ring on the desk between them. ‘The connection doesn’t work like a switch. I can’t turn it on and off like a light.’
‘Sometimes I wish I was psychic. It would make things a whole lot easier in my line of work. I’d know who was lying to me.’
‘And what work is that?’
‘You tell me.’ He stared at Agatha. Eyes like marbles. His foot stopping mid-tap. And, for a moment, there was just the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Then Mason blinked, shook his head and smiled. ‘I’ve run a few scams in my time too.’ And his eyebrows moved up and down like they were on strings.
Mason picked up the ring and put it in his pocket and stood up. He took a wad of money from inside his suit jacket, licked his finger and drew out a fifty-pound note and slapped it on the table like a bet.
‘That’s not necessary. I only accept payment from satisfied clients,’ Agatha said, keen to get rid of him.
‘Oh, I’m satisfied.’ And Mason grinned and drew a line through her name in the notebook with a pencil he had found in his suit pocket.
He pushed the note further across the table, pinning it with a forefinger, and turning the tip of his fingernail white. ‘I know what certain people in my line of work would think if they ever knew I was here.’
Agatha opened her mouth. Then closed it. She slid the note out from underneath Mason’s large finger and put it in her cardigan pocket.
After closing the front door, she listened to him crunching over the gravel and then she slid the chain across the door. Looking through the spyhole, she watched him go, bulge-backed in the glass like a troll as he lumbered away. On the far side of the road a door of the blue BMW opened. By the time Agatha had walked into the living room and nudged back the curtain with a finger to get a better look, the door had already shut and Mason had vanished.
The BMW remained parked there and Agatha kept wishing it would drive away. But it didn’t. The faint smell of Mason’s cologne wouldn’t leave either and she opened the back door to flush it out of the house.
She hid the red fifty-pound note deep in a drawer full of odd buttons and offcuts of material, the nubs of pencils and little nests of string.
When she peered out of the window again, keeping close to the wall so as not to be seen, she saw the BMW’s bonnet was up and two large men were standing beside it. One of the men had a hump on his back, which grew as he leant over the engine and started tinkering with the hoses.
Both of them looked up suddenly when one of the rear passenger doors opened and Mason appeared and pointed at something back down the street. When the two men turned round, Agatha pressed her face closer to the window to see what Mason was pointing at.
It was Rosie.
And she was walking up the street towards the house with a boy.