The next day was Saturday. Simon had an extra hour in bed and then got up and went in to work to look through the notes before he was due at his nephew’s football match in the afternoon.
Surprisingly, his superintendent was in.
“Everything all right, sir?” Simon asked, poking a head round his open office door.
The man frowned up at him from the report he was reading. Simon could see his own handwriting. The Fortescue case, then. “Not really, no,” the Super said. “We had to let that girl go, did we? Just reading through the file.”
“Yes, sir. Thursday afternoon. Clear alibi. The witness must have mistaken her for someone else. She didn’t see the woman, just heard her voice.” Simon went properly into the room and sat down as his boss waved him to a chair.
“Hmmm. That’s good I suppose. Don’t want her family breathing down my neck. But now I’ve got the family of the deceased to worry about.”
And of course the necessity of solving a murder and bringing justice to the victim, Simon added silently to himself. But that was less important than the Super being harassed by people wanting answers and the politics of the situation.
“Have you got anyone else in mind?” The Superintendent asked.
“Not so far,” Simon said. “I’m wondering about one of the friends staying at the house. One of them says she heard Miss Hall-Bridges come back. Mrs Leamington, that’s my witness. Two options…she could be lying and have done it herself. Or she could have heard the other one, Miss Royce, talking to the victim and she could be the murderer. I’m not particularly keen on either of them. They’re too…” He trailed off.
“Calm?” the other man supplied.
Simon gave a bark of laughter. “Not in the least, sir. Quite the opposite. But they’re…ordinary ladies, if you see what I mean. Lots of chatter. They certainly don’t come across as clever enough to lie. And not large or particularly strong-looking.”
“Still,” the Superintendent mused. “In the heat of the moment, perhaps?”
“Possible,” Simon said. “I need to ask more questions. I was going to get the paperwork in order this morning so we know where we’re up to. See if anything else falls out of it. Hope it does.”
The other man made a harrumphing noise. “Well, that sounds sensible.” He collected up the paperwork and handed it over to Simon, rising as he did so. “Here you are. I’m off. I only popped in whilst Nancy went to the hairdresser. We’re off to Lyme Regis for lunch, I’m told. Can’t see the point of having your hair done before you go for a drive in a windy car, but…women. You know.”
Simon smiled at him. He knew the other man adored his wife. “Have a lovely afternoon, sir. I’ll see you on Monday, hopefully with a bit more news.”
He retreated to his office with the file.
The trouble was, there was nothing there. Mrs Leamington’s account was clear. She’d heard a woman talking with Mrs Fortescue about holding another séance. But Lucy Hall-Bridges had been safely tucked up in bed with Dr Marks all night. And regardless, she’d left the house that evening with a rising bruise on her jaw and a strong inclination not to be involved in any of their experiments with the Ouija.
The only other person it was likely Mrs Leamington had overheard was Miss Royce. And why would Miss Royce approach her friend in that manner? They’d literally just said goodnight after what they had told him was a successful sitting.
Unless…he leafed back through his notes to Lucille Hall-Bridges’ account of her evening…unless something had gone wrong during the second séance. He stared at the page, thinking back to the conversation at Courtfield House last night and the speculation he and Walter had indulged in on the way home from the pub. The official notes only said Miss Hall-Bridges felt uncomfortable and she and Dr Marks and Harriet Lonsdale had taken their leave after Mrs Fortescue had struck Miss Hall-Bridges. He had sent a constable to speak to Miss Lonsdale and her statement corroborated.
However.
The lights, the doorway, the figure she’d seen…what if that had happened again when the three ladies sat again after Dr Marks and Miss Lucy had gone home? They said they’d spoken to Colonel Fortescue (deceased)…He leafed back through to Miss Royce’s statement. How she’d ‘channelled him’ for Mrs Fortescue.
He stared into space for a moment or two and then picked up the telephone. “The Society for Psychical Research, London, please,” he told the operator. “No, I don’t know the number. Yes, I’ll hold.”
A couple of hours later, he was still staring into space, processing what he’d learned.
“Channelling” involved letting a spirit inside you, apparently. Or at the very least, close to you. Close enough that their words came out of the medium’s mouth and sometimes they took on the appearance of the deceased.
But…what if it wasn’t Colonel Fortescue that Miss Royce had been channelling? What if it was…something else? Whatever Miss Hall-Bridges had witnessed earlier in the evening?
He got out the little brown book—he’d taken to carrying it around tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket, never putting it down anywhere at work where anyone else could find it—and leafed through to the part near the back, where the horrific description of the gelatinous creature that came out of the border and took on the appearance of the author’s friend was written out. He read it all through again.
Then he put the book back inside his jacket, tidied up the Fortescue files and put them away, and went off to watch his nephew play football as he’d promised.
He was abstracted and fidgety the whole time and failed to realise the game was over until Mary came up to him and shook his arm. “Are you coming home?” she said. “I’ve made a fruitcake for tea.”
He went through the motions and accompanied them home, said all the right things to Paul, who’d scored two goals and executed a slick foul the referee had missed but Simon hadn’t, and sat with his dad for a bit. When it was time to go back to his lodgings, he borrowed the shop delivery van to drive up to Bradfield and talk to Walter. It would be past seven by the time he got there and evening surgery would have finished.
He kidded himself on the journey that it was purely professional, to discuss this crazed idea he’d come up with about Miss Royce being dissolved and replaced with…a jelly-monster-thing. But it wasn’t, quite. His mind had been going back to soft lips and a moonlit armful of grumpy nurse all day, in between staring into space and pondering the supernatural.
The road bumped by under the wheels of the badly sprung Model-T van.
He didn’t really know what he was doing with Walter. He just knew he liked him, like he’d told him last night. The sarcasm, the confidence about himself. The way he wasn’t scared to say what he thought. Simon would like very much to take him to bed properly and discover more. He deeply regretted yesterday’s misunderstanding…it had been very good of Kennett to give him another chance, both to go to the pub and the interlude on the walk home.
That meant he must be interested in further encounters, didn’t it? Or at the very least to get to know Simon better. Simon would settle for a new friend if it came down to it. Life was too short to dismiss people you fancied out of hand just because they didn’t fancy you back.
Walter did fancy him back, though. That had been very clear last night. And yesterday morning, when it came down to it. He’d said so.
The van jolted over a pothole and the steering wheel jumped in his grip, bringing him back to the present. He was nearly there.