I Put a Spell on You (26 page)

She certainly had.

“I’m not sure I understand what it is you’re telling me,” I said, looking at her across her very neat desk. “Can you say it again?”

Claire gave me a sympathetic nod.

“We’ve traced the computer that was used to send the email, and that deleted the database,” she said, moving her screen so I could see it. She pointed to a string of numbers. “This is the IP address.”

I looked at her blankly.

“It’s like a fingerprint,” Claire explained. “Every computer has a different one. And this one is registered to Esme McLeod.”

My stomach lurched.

“Esme McLeod,” I repeated.

“Is she a relation?”

“She’s my cousin,” I whispered.

“Is she likely to have done something like this?”

I shook my head.

“Three months ago I’d have said no,” I told her. “But lately, she’s been cheating on her fiancé, acting so strangely. It’s not her fault but I’m not sure what she’d do.”

“Well, there’s obviously nothing I can do about this,” Claire said. “She’s not done anything illegal. But you might want to have a chat with her.”

“I will,” I said. With shaking hands, I gathered my stuff and looped my handbag over my arm. I thanked Claire, promised Louise I’d ring her later, and headed for home.

My relationship with Esme had been full of ups and downs. Being ten years apart in age meant we’d not exactly been friends when we were growing up. Instead she kind of hero-worshipped me and I thought of her as the little sister I’d always wanted. I enjoyed her company and when we fell out when she was about sixteen, I missed her. Last year, we’d really rebuilt our friendship and – perhaps mistakenly – I had gone back to thinking of her as a kind of sister.

Now, even though I knew she was enchanted and not herself, I felt hollow with betrayal. Was this to do with the enchantment? Was someone else – my dad, perhaps? –pulling her strings? But even if they were, I knew how magic worked. It used emotions and feelings and energy that were already there. Could this be building on feelings of resentment that Esme had about me, but had kept hidden? She’d always been a bit jealous of me, but she was successful, beautiful, engaged to a great guy – there was no reason for her to destroy my business. Mind you, I thought, as I made myself a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table, there was no reason for her to destroy her relationship with Jamie, either. She’d gone rogue.

I found her at home, unpacking her overnight bag.

“What did she say?” she asked. “Did Louise know anything about your dad?

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Oh that would be handy,” I said. “It all being my dad’s fault.”

Esme looked startled.

“Very convenient, isn’t it?” I continued. “Having someone else to put the blame on? I know it was you.”

“What was me?” said Esme, her eyes wide.

“I know for a fact you were the one who deleted my client list,” I said. “And sent the email saying we were closed. Lou’s friend in the police traced it all back to your computer.”

Esme looked at me with an odd expression on her face.

“So straight away you assume it was me?” she said. “It couldn’t possibly be that someone took my laptop? I’ve barely opened it for a week, it could have been anywhere. This makes no sense, Harry.”

She had a point, but Claire had been so matter of fact, and I’d spent my walk home coming up with reasons for Esme to do it, and now I couldn’t really think of any other options.

“Well,” I said icily. “It makes a lot more sense than my long-lost dad turning up.”

“Of course it does,” Esme said. “Why would you believe me, when you can put your faith in the man who never wanted to know you?”

“Harry,” she said. She came over to me and took my hands in hers. “None of this makes sense, but I promise you I had nothing to do with any of it. In fact, I’m convinced now that this thing with Xander is part of it.”

I looked at her. She was still very pale, but her cheeks were bright red.

I shook my head. This was all too much.

“I don’t understand,” I said, close to tears. “Why would my dad do this?”

“I don’t know,” Esme admitted. “I don’t even know if it’s him. But he’s the best suspect we’ve got at the moment.”

She stood up.

“Where’s your phone?” she asked suddenly.

I gestured wearily to the worktop. She picked it up and handed it to me.

“Ring Louise,” she said. “Get her to come round. I don’t want you to be by yourself.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to see Xander,” she said. “I need to get something precious that belongs to him and then I need to break this enchantment.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not. But I don’t know what else to do.”

She picked up her coat, then gave me an awkward hug.

“Ring Louise,” she said again.

Chapter 39

I didn’t ring Louise. I waited until I heard Esme’s footsteps scuff down the stairs and the main door slam shut, echoing round the stony stairwell, then I went into the hall and took down the mirror again. Then I went into my bedroom, picked up my spell book and sat down on the floor, the mirror and the book on the carpet in front of me.

I wouldn’t say spell books are alive, exactly, that would clearly be ridiculous. But they do tend to pick up on emotions and energies and mine were obviously working overtime. I leafed through the pages trying to find the spell I’d used for the mirror divination before, but just as I was feeling jittery and out of sorts, the book was the same. The pages flapped in an invisible breeze, and some of the words even scuttled away from my fingers. Eventually, I gave up.

“You do it,” I said out loud, laying the book on the floor and taking my hands away. Straight away the book flopped open – on exactly the right page.

“Should have done it like that the first time,” I muttered, scanning the page for the right words.

Finding the bit I needed, I spoke the spell and the air began to shimmer. Just like last time, the surface of the mirror heaved and swirled and in a quavering voice I spoke.

“Show me Dhani Fergus, now,” I said. There was a beat, then the mirror began to clear.

Through the mist I saw an older man – still handsome, but slightly ragged round the edges – talking to a smartly-dressed woman about his own age. With my heart beating faster, I studied him closely. It was the first time in all my thirty-eight years that I’d seen my father, the man who’d created me, at least biologically. I felt a bit odd as I watched him, like I should be feeling something that I wasn’t.

I had inherited his dark hair and swarthy complexion and his height – that was no surprise, but it explained why I looked nothing like petite, blonde Mum, Esme and Tess. But there was a look in his eye that I didn’t recognise. It was a gleam of duplicity. Of plotting something. I leaned over the mirror and watched more.

There was no sound, like before, but I could see what was happening. Dhani, my dad, was in what seemed to be an antiques shop. It was full of interesting-looking bits and pieces and I longed to have a rummage – clearly it wasn’t just my dad’s hair colour I’d inherited. The woman was holding a pair of carved wooden bookends, and as I watched, she shook her head and put them down on the counter. She didn’t want to buy them. But my dad’s eyes narrowed, and he took the woman’s hand. She looked uncomfortable but she didn’t take her hand away. Instead she listened to Dhani, then threw her head back and laughed. I saw the air around him shimmer, only slightly, but I could see it, as he talked.

Suddenly, the woman made an ‘oh what the heck’ gesture with her hand and Dhani grinned at her. He started to wrap up the bookends, and the woman handed over her credit card.

I sat back on my heels. I’d seen enough. If my dad’s business was doing well then I knew why – he was clearly using his witchcraft to bolster his sales technique – and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Another thought struck me and I leaned over the mirror again.

“Show me Dhani Fergus and his family, now,” I said. I wasn’t even sure if he had a family, but I wanted to know.

The mirror heaved, then cleared and I saw Dhani again. This time he was sitting at the shop counter reading a newspaper –
The Scotsman
, I noticed. Did he live in Scotland? I thought with a jolt. Could he even be in Edinburgh? Maybe I’d walked past him in the street without knowing. The thought made me feel unsteady. In the mirror, Dhani looked up as the door opened and a woman and a little girl came into the shop.

The woman was about my age – maybe a fraction older – though at first glance she looked much younger. She wore skinny jeans, boots with vertiginous heels and a fluffy white jumper that hugged her curves. Her blonde hair was carefully tonged into curls and her make-up was heavy, but immaculate. I peered at her closely. Could she be a sister I’d never known about?

The little girl, who looked about eleven – I was fairly vague when it came to children’s ages – ducked behind the counter and sat down next to Dhani. He ruffled her hair in a slightly distracted way, then gave his attention to the woman, who seemed to be annoyed about something. She leaned over, picked up the girl’s foot and showed him her shoe. He looked mutinous, but then he opened the till, took out a wad of notes and handed it over. The woman stuffed it into her handbag, kissed the little girl, and left the shop, slamming the door behind her.

I’d seen enough.

“Show me Dhani’s daughter,” I said. “Show me my sister.”

The mirror clouded over and cleared again, showing me the same picture as before – Dhani and the little girl sitting at the counter. I frowned.

“Show me Dhani’s daughter,” I said again. Nothing happened. Slowly realisation dawned. I’d assumed the woman was my sister, and the little girl her daughter. But it seemed I’d been wrong. That little girl – who was at least twenty-five years younger than me – was my sister.

Quickly, I stood up. I felt like I’d opened something that I couldn’t close. I’d been happy all these years knowing nothing about my father and now I’d seen him and I wasn’t sure I liked what I’d seen.

I waved my hand over the mirror to clear the glass, then picked it up and took it back out to the hall to hang it up. Listlessly, I wandered into the living room and put on the TV, flicking through the channels until I found an old episode of Kirsty and Phil. Then I lay on the sofa and thought about what I’d seen.

Dhani seemed to be a clichéd old hippie, I thought, who was trading on his good looks and his witchcraft. He seemed distinctly uninterested in his daughter – I thought of the way he’d ruffled her hair then ignored her – and he’d obviously done something to upset her mother. It certainly didn’t look as though they were a couple any more – if they’d ever been. When I saw him, I felt nothing. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t have any urge to get to know him. He was completely separate from me. I felt no pull to him at all. But, all that aside, the one thing I hadn’t seen in the mirror was any evidence that he even knew of my existence. And, more to the point, any evidence that he was the one who was trying to hurt me. I wasn’t convinced by Esme’s theory at all.

I wondered if Ez had found Xander. Would she manage to break the enchantment? Was Xander enchanted, too? Mind you, with his weakness for women it probably hadn’t been necessary to enchant him. Thoughts whirled round in my head – the business, my dad, Esme, Xander, Louise – and I realised that my overwhelming emotion was actually exhaustion. I muted Kirsty and Phil, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

I woke up when Esme slammed the front door and stomped into the room.

“I can’t find him,” she said. “He’s not at work and he’s not answering his phone.”

“He’s probably got a date,” I said, a bit unfairly and simply because I was annoyed at being woken up.

Esme shot me a fierce look.

“If I can’t find Xander and break this enchantment then we should see if we can find out why your dad is doing this,” she said.

I sat up.

“I don’t think it’s him,” I said. “I’ve watched him in the mirror – he just seems like a sad, aging old playboy, not someone with a forty-year-old grudge.”

“Really?” she said. She sat down next to me. “Man, I was so sure we’d cracked it.”

“Well, I only watched him for a few minutes,” I said, not wanting to disappoint her. “I suppose it could be him – or someone else from India. Have you still got those letters?”

“Ooh, yes.” Esme dug around in her bag and produced the package of papers. She dumped them in my lap.

“You start reading,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

I untied the ribbon holding the letters together and sorted through them until I found the one with the earliest postmark. Then I pulled the thin airmail paper from the envelope and started to read…

Chapter 40

Friday, March 10. 1972

Dear Tess

I almost didn’t stay, you know. When I got off the bus, hot and sweaty, tired and sick to death of all the people I’d travelled with, all I could think about was how soon I could leave.

Shannon, one of the girls from the bus, came bounding over, her bangles jangling.

“We’re going to find a hostel,” she said. “Coming?”

I just shook my head. I was overwhelmed by the heat and the dust, and the people. Everywhere. I just wanted to walk by myself and work out how to leave.

I hoiked my rucksack onto my back and set off. I didn’t care where I was going. Really, I just wanted to be away from the people I’d shared the minibus with for three weeks.

But, as I walked, something odd happened. The sun burned through my smock and warmed my Scottish skin and relaxed my aching muscles. Gradually I realised the hubbub wasn’t so threatening; it was just chatter and people going about their business. 
And by the time I reached the small hotel I’d picked from random out of the guidebook, my bones aching with exhaustion, I knew I was going to love India.

My room was small but clean with a double bed draped with an embroidered bedspread, and one wicker chair in the corner. A fan hung from the ceiling, and I pulled the cord. It juddered a bit but the cool air it spread was so welcome. The bathroom was across the hall from my room. It was also basic, with a cracked sink, a loo and a tap fixed high up on the wall. I turned it on and stood under the water. It wasn’t warm but I didn’t care. I stood there for ages, washing off sweat and dust and the dirt from my journey.