The Red Lion sat a little shy of Prestwick’s ancient cross, at the top end of the main street. When he looked around him, Valentine thought Prestwick was what Ayr had once been: a nice place where people wanted to live and raise families. He hoped the town wasn’t, one day, going to suffer the same fate as its larger neighbour, but he knew that was the curse of modernity. Nothing was out of bounds any more, and the world around him was being deconstructed in a way he sometimes felt helpless to even interpret.
He went into the pub and ordered a bottle of still water, taking it to a small seating area with comfortable, well-upholstered chairs. The detective always arrived early, and always slotted himself in the corner. He liked to acclimatise himself, and have a vantage point in any new territory. He put this down to police training but conceded it might just be an intrinsic trait.
Valentine was pouring the bottled water into a tall glass when he heard Hugh Crosbie addressing him.
‘Good evening, Bob.’ Crosbie draped his jacket over the back of the chair.
‘Hugh, thanks for coming.’
Crosbie didn’t reply. He sat down, crossed his legs and started gazing all around him. For a few seconds he seemed lost in reverie and then he spoke softly, ‘Hmn, geraniums.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, nothing. Don’t mind me.’
A waitress, still in her teens, approached with a bar tray pressed to her hip and drew Crosbie’s attention. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Tell me something first, are there geraniums on display somewhere?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I definitely smell geraniums.’
The girl smiled politely, indicating some bafflement. She glanced at Valentine and then back to Crosbie. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘Just a lemonade, please. No ice.’
As the waitress retreated to the bar Valentine felt his stomach cramping. Approaching the esoteric with Crosbie had always terrified him, but now it was for a completely different reason. He’d changed since those early days following his stabbing, when he found himself questioning his sanity. If he’d been told then that he would come round to the notion of communing with a spiritual dimension, he would have laughed. But here he was, with Crosbie again, and he didn’t even need DI McCormack to give him a push.
‘I really appreciate you helping me out like this again, Hugh,’ he said.
Crosbie smiled. The waitress returned with his drink, placing the glass and a white napkin on the table in front of them. He nodded his appreciation as she backed away. ‘And how can I be of assistance this time, Bob?’
Valentine paused. ‘It’s hard to know where to begin.’
‘I find the start is generally the best place.’
Their last meeting had been a practical one: Valentine had detailed his experiences and his trouble accepting them. He had expected to be told a load of mumbo jumbo but had, in the end, found himself reassured. Something was happening to him that he didn’t understand, was beyond his frame of reference, beyond even logic itself. Valentine still couldn’t rationalise what he had seen but he had moved beyond questioning it, if only because the questioning nature of his mind changed nothing.
‘When we last met, you told me to abandon my scepticism,’ said the detective.
‘I told you to accept it,’ Crosbie corrected him. ‘It’s not going to go anywhere. You need to let it be and pay no heed to it.’
‘I think I found your advice useful. I’ve stopped looking for answers where there clearly are none.’
‘Open-mindedness is the key to understanding this phenomenon, Bob. There is no worldly solution. I know that must be difficult to come to terms with for a man whose life is so clearly wedded to logic and the pursuit of truth.’
Crosbie sipped from his glass and then returned it to the table. There was an assuredness about the man that was calming. He inspired confidence. Valentine imagined Crosbie being able to coolly direct troops while bombs were going off all around him; his strength was a silent presence between them.
‘I feel like I’ve entered a new stage,’ Valentine said, ‘like I’m quite receptive now. I think I’m ready to hear more of your explanation. Maybe not all, but maybe one day I will be.’
‘Sounds to me like you’re reaching out to your higher self.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Each of us has a part of our being that can act as a link between the spiritual and physical dimensions,’ said Crosbie. ‘There’s a reservoir of higher knowledge beyond our own that can provide guidance to us. The closer you get to your higher self, Bob, the more you’ll be able to access this understanding.’
Valentine started to play with his shirt cuff. ‘Did Sylvia mention why I wanted to see you?’
‘She mentioned the dreams, yes.’
‘They’re not really dreams, it’s like I’m awake. I know I’m dreaming, but I’m within the dream at the same time. Does that make any sense?’
‘You’re lucid dreaming,’ Crosbie said. ‘You have freedom of choice to direct the action and outcome of the experience. These states are not uncommon, and they always happen for a reason.’
‘Can you explain that?’
Crosbie leaned closer, balancing his elbows on the flat of his thighs. ‘Your mind is at its most receptive to intuition in the sleep state. When you receive a communication in this way it’s to make an impact on you. You’re being shown something important – don’t ignore any messages that come to you this way.’
The image of Abbie McGarvie returned to clog Valentine’s thoughts. He knew the girl had appeared in his dream on the night she had died, but he had seen her since then too. He knew the girl wanted to be seen, to show herself to him. But it wasn’t like the other times he’d had these visions. This time felt different, the girl was anxious, troubled. She wanted him to know something – he didn’t know what that was, but he knew she wouldn’t stop until he did know.
‘Hugh, the girl I saw in that dream showed up in my waking life.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s very interesting. Can you tell me more?’
‘The night she appeared in my dream was the night she died, but then she showed up a short time later when I was at the chapel of rest.’
Crosbie eased back into his chair, his earlier look of irritable distraction replaced with a concentrated scowl. ‘It sounds like the girl’s spirit is in limbo between worlds.’
Valentine shrugged. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, some more colourful commentators might say she’s trapped on the Bridge of Souls, which is the path to the afterlife. A soul can be trapped between worlds because they believe they have unfinished business here.’
‘Business with me?’
‘That’s why she’s coming to you, Bob, because you’re receptive but also because you can make a change she wants. She knows that, and you should too.’
‘So what do I do now?’
Crosbie pinched the tip of his nose to suppress a sneeze. ‘I think you should try and engage this girl.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ask her what she wants. Otherwise, you might find she hangs around for a very long time indeed.’
Crosbie was pinching his nose again, a sneeze queuing behind his fingers, when the waitress reappeared. ‘I asked about those geraniums,’ she said.
‘My boss says we haven’t had geraniums in the bar for more than a year, not since his wife passed away. She used to love them.’ She leaned closer. ‘He got a bit teary thinking about that, so he’s off to get some from the florist now to sit on the bar.’
Crosbie smiled at the waitress and patted her on the arm. ‘I think she’d like that. No, I know she definitely would.’