Laura Lee Guhrke (22 page)

“It’s already half past six,” he shouted to her, “and we have to make the train. If we don’t, there isn’t another one until morning.”

“We won’t miss the train,” she called back to him as she ran up the curving staircase at the far end of the hall. “Get a carriage. I’ll he right back.”

Mick turned to the parlormaid, who was staring at him in bewilderment. “Get a carriage,” he told her. “At once.”

The girl departed immediately to follow his orders. Mick remained in the entrance hall, pacing, impatient, trying to sort this out. If Sophie had found out about a second murder and had decided to tell him about it, why would she do so in such an extraordinary way? He could not understand any of this.

When Sophie came back down, he had the door open before she even reached it. She followed him through the front door and out to the carriage waiting in the drive. “I told Auntie I had a vision of another murder,” she told him as they climbed into the waiting carriage. “I’m sure I don’t know what Mama will think.”

“Probably that you’ve eloped with that appalling policeman.”

Sophie looked at him in horror as the carriage began to move. “That’s exactly what she’ll think. Oh, dear. I hope Auntie makes up a convincing story. If she thinks we’ve eloped, I’ll never live it down.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just-—”

“Don’t worry,” he broke in, “I’ll tell her that I, in my duty as a detective of Scotland Yard, made you go back to London as a material witness to a crime.”

Sophie groaned. “Lovely. That will make her feel so much better about the whole thing. Still, it can’t be helped.”

“Look at it this way,” he said, settling back in his seat. “If you’re wrong about this murder, I’ll be in serious trouble with my superintendent.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“You may be sure of that,” he muttered as the carriage pulled onto the main road, “but I’m not.”

The carriage ride from Parkfair to the train station at Windsor was about twenty minutes. Mick did not ask Sophie any questions. She knew he was waiting for her to tell him what she knew, but she wanted to wait
until they were on the train. Then there would be plenty of time to tell him everything.

Because of the number of Ascot attendees who had only come for opening day, the line for tickets to London was long and the process wretchedly slow. They barely made the train, jumping on board just seconds before the final whistle blew and the train pulled out of the station.

Mick led her through the crowded train coach, making for a pair of seats near the back. When he moved aside, Sophie slid over to the inside seat. “What time is it?” she asked, glancing up at him.

He pulled out his watch. “Four minutes past seven,” he told her, and put the timepiece back in his pocket.

“Your watch must gain a bit.” Without thinking, she added, “Probably because it belonged to your father, and it’s so old.”

That stopped him cold. He stood there in the aisle, staring at her in astonishment.

“How do you know about my watch?”

“I just know.”

An elderly woman came up behind Mick, nudging him with her cane to move out of the aisle, and he sat down beside Sophie, still looking a bit stunned. “You can’t possibly know it belonged to my father.” He turned in his seat to face her. “No one knows that for certain, not even me.”

“I do. I know it. Your mother had it when she died, didn’t she?”

She watched a shadow cross his face, a shadow of anger. “All right, Sophie, I’ve had enough rigmarole about psychics and spiritualists and all that rot. You’ve
obviously investigated my background, got someone at the orphanage to tell you about the watch, thinking that will make me believe in these powers of yours. It won’t work.”

Sophie stared at him, and she wanted to scream with frustration. “You still think I’m involved in some plot to kill you? You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever known in my life.” She was becoming angry herself. “Once you get an idea in your head, you just can’t rid yourself of it. That particular character flaw would seem to me to be a great handicap to a detective.”

He ignored the jibe. “Did you really think pulling this little trick about my watch would convince me of anything?”

“I doubt anything would convince you,” she shot back. “I could predict an earthquake for tomorrow and you’d twist everything around and find some ridiculous, convoluted explanation. You just refuse to face facts.”

“The fact that you are psychic, you mean?”

She ignored the sarcastic tone of his voice. “The idea that I have that kind of power scares you. You are a man who loathes even the idea of being frightened of something, so you deny its existence.”

“You say I twist things around?” he countered, also raising his voice. “Woman, when it comes to that, you are far better than I. And so far, I haven’t been all that impressed with these so-called powers of yours. They seem very convenient to me.”

“Well, they’re damned inconvenient to me!”

Sophie turned away from him and found every person in the train car staring back at them over the tops
of their seats. Some were laughing, some were frowning at such a public display of emotion, and some were looking at them with rather dubious curiosity as if wondering whether the pair had escaped from the nearest asylum. Sophie bit her lip and sank down in her seat.

She knew how hard these things were for most people to understand. Even she did not always understand the images that came to her or the things she just knew. She also knew she and Mick had to work together. She just wished he would stop regarding her as a suspect and start regarding her as an ally.

“So, arc you going to tell me about this murder?”

Mick’s voice broke into her thoughts, and she opened her eyes. “Yes, but the more accusatory and suspicious you are, the less likely it is that I’ll remember details. So be nice.”

He muttered an oath under his breath, then held up his hands, palms outward in a gesture of truce. “Fine. Just tell me anything you can.”

She closed her eyes, trying to relax and concentrate at the same time. “I see a man. He’s lying on some cobblestones, on his side with his back to me.”

“What’s he wearing?”

“A dark suit. He’s a policeman like you.”

“How do you know? Is he wearing a uniform?”

“No, but I’m sure he’s a police officer. His hat is lying nearby, and it looks crushed, as if someone stepped on it.” She paused, trying to hone in on the image that was fading in and out of her mind. “He’s dead, but—” She opened her eyes to look at Mick. “How much blood is there when someone gets shot?”

“It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Where on the body that person’s been shot and with what sort of weapon.”

“He has been shot. I know that for certain. But there’s so much blood. It’s just like what I saw with you.” She shuddered, cold all of a sudden.

“Why is it like what you saw with me?” he asked. “How is it the same?”

“In the dream I had about you, I hadn’t realized you’d been shot. All the blood made me think or a knife, but I didn’t actually see a knife. Of course, I don’t always see everything. It isn’t like one clear photograph, it’s more like a series of photographs flashed before my eyes, none there long enough for me to get all the details at once. But then, I have very few visions of violent death. Usually it’s just someone old dying peacefully in bed. Or something trivial, like knowing the boy who delivers the fish is in love with our maid, Hannah. She thinks of him as a friend, but—” She broke off. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I do that sometimes.”

“Yes, I know.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes again. “I see blood all over the ground by his body, but I don’t know what wound it’s coming from.” She stopped, unable to go on. What she had just seen was too horrific to describe. Her stomach twisted.

“What is it?” Mick leaned closer to her, brushing loose tendrils of hair back from her cheek to better see her profile. “You’re white as chalk. What is it?”

“Dear God,” she whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth, afraid she was going to be sick. She opened
her eyes and turned to look at Mick, “He has no heart,” she choked from behind her hand.

“What?”

“He has no heart.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Are you speaking poetically or-—”

“No, no, no. I mean exactly what I’m saying. His heart is gone. It’s been . . . cut out with a knife.” She wrapped her arms around herself and doubled over in her seat. “Why?” she moaned. “Why do these things happen? Why do I have to see them?”

Mick looked at her hunched over in her seat and felt a glimmer of doubt. Even as he tried to tell himself she was playing some sort of game, he wanted to comfort her, soothe her. He wanted to tell her not to say any more, to tell her everything was going to be all right. He moved his arm as if to wrap it around her, as if to carry out that impulse to hold her until her nightmarish visions had stopped, then he jerked back.

What was it about this woman that made him lose his head? Now he was starting to believe in spiritualists. He leaned back against his seat and combed his hands through his hair, trying to think like the detective he was. What else did she know?

He turned his head to look at her again. She was still doubled over in her seat, shaking. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Sophie?”

The moment she sat up, he pulled his hand back. Touching her did not help him think. It only made him want to comfort her, and a detective damn well didn’t comfort a material witness in a murder case.

She was crying, and being Sophie, she’d probably lost her handkerchief. He pulled out a square of neatly folded linen. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her.

“Thank you.” She accepted the handkerchief and began dabbing at her face, then put the piece of linen in her pocket. “Maybe you should just ask me questions, and I’ll try to answer them.”

“Do you have any idea where the murder is going to happen?”

He didn’t expect an answer to that question, but to his surprise, she nodded in the affirmative. “Oh, yes. It’s somewhere near the Covent Garden Market. I saw the flower girls.”

He knew immediately what she meant. Flower girls went there in the evenings to buy the last of the day’s flowers, getting them at a cheap price because they weren’t as fresh by the end of the day. They made bouquets and posies tied up with ribbon to sell in front of the Royal Opera House and the theaters and music halls of Drury Lane during the evening. “So it’s near the market. That’s still very vague. Do you know the exact location?”

“I’m afraid not. I didn’t see a street sign or anything. In fact, that in itself is odd. Quite often, there’s something to go by, a landmark, if you will.” She stiffened. “Horses.”

“Horses? What do horses have to do with it?”

“I don’t know, but I keep getting a strong impression of horses. Not real horses, if you understand me. They represent something. Three horses. I keep sensing three horses.”

Mick frowned. “There’s a pub near Covent Garden Market called the Three Horses. Do you mean that?”

“It could be that. But the body isn’t in a pub. It’s in an alley.”

“What else do you—” He cleared his throat. “What else do you see?”

“There’s hate. Lots and lots of hate. It’s like black dust in the air.”

He made a sound of disbelief. “You mean London coal soot.”

She shook her head and turned toward him, trying to explain. “No, no. You don’t understand. The image of black is an aura. Auras arc visual symbols of very strong emotions or energy. When I first met you, you had no aura at all, which meant you were going to die very soon, unless I stopped it. When I see an aura of black, that is always a feeling of hate. Evil, too, sometimes.”

She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. “I don’t remember any more.”

He knew he couldn’t push her any further. He sat back in his seat and went over what she had told him.

Sometimes I can read minds
.

He just couldn’t swallow it. No one could read someone else’s thoughts. She claimed to be psychic, and she was very convincing. There were times when she did seem to sense the future or read his mind.

But wasn’t that what phony psychics always seemed able to do? Weren’t all of them good at sizing people up and determining, as if by spirit guidance, what another person was like? They took your measure, determined your character, then said things that made
you feel as if they understood you, felt your pain, read your mind.

On the other hand, there were things here he just couldn’t explain. His theory all along had been that she was protecting the identity of someone she knew who had murderous intentions. But he couldn’t find any connection between anyone she knew and himself. Even more important, he was coming to know Sophie and understand her character, and he just couldn’t see her trying to protect someone who would do anything as horrible as what she had just described.

Nothing seemed to make sense now, but Mick knew one thing for certain. If he didn’t figure out the truth, someone was going to die. It might even be him.

Twelve
 

The journey from Windsor to Paddington Station usually took a little over an hour, but when they were about halfway to London, the train slowed for no apparent reason and came to a stop. The conductor came through, explaining that during the rainstorm that afternoon, powerful winds had felled several ancient walnut trees across the tracks. They would have to be removed, and several pieces of badly mangled track would need to be replaced before they could continue. He explained there would be about an hour’s delay, though they would try to make up a bit of the time during the remainder of the trip.