Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (10 page)

Then one night, a fox got in. A fox, hen-keepers tell me, will always eventually get in, whatever you do. I was left with three hens, which became nine when a farmer called Sandy gave me some chicks. One of those sadly died from a mysterious chicken illness and another turned out to be a very cocky male … definitely a Kaiser. I called the new girls after pop singers. Don’t know if that was irony, because I’m never sure what that is. So now I have six hens to talk to: Florence, Emili, Jessie, Rihanna, and the final two of the old-timers Melissa and Ginger.

“What am I going to do about Drea?” I asked the hens. Seeing her in Papa Bulgaria on Sunday evening, and stupidly sending the mustard-gas preacher up to her house, had started me thinking again. The journey I took for her still made me shiver. I thought about her reaction to what I’d said in Papa Bulgaria. She must think I was even weirder than before. But if she could read the letter I’d put so much thought into, I was sure she’d understand.

There were a ton of things needing doing in the garden on a dry early winter’s day like this one if I was going to eat next year, most urgently, spreading the pile of horse manure I’d got free from a riding stable. When it had arrived in old horse food bags, I’d piled it into a steaming heap. But now it was dry and crumbly and ready for the veg beds. I pulled on some gardening gloves and got to grips with it.

Once my muck had been spread, I took a shower and printed out a copy of Drea’s letter. Over my breakfast egg, I read it through. It looked innocuous to me; Andy couldn’t have read it properly before tearing it into pieces and demanding I never speak to his wife again. But every weekday Andy was at work in his insurance office.

I placed six of my eggs in a box and shrugged myself into my coat.

The gate squeaked as I walked up Drea’s side path. She opened the door before I could knock and stared at me without speaking—without even altering her expression. She examined me as if I was a rather unloved pet who had gone missing and returned smelling of the sewers. I wasn’t sure if she was going to kick me off the path or offer a saucer of milk.

“I’ve brought you some eggs,” I began, thrusting them forwards.

She took them without complaint—without acknowledgement—hugging the box to her solar plexus. It was the first time I’d seen her without her outdoor garments, but I wasn’t surprised that she was wrapped warmly in a hip-length cardi over a high-necked shirt of mauve brushed cotton and a flared tartan skirt.

“I don’t mean to quarrel with you, Drea, or persuade you of anything. Or pry into your business, but—”

“Don’t mean to pry?” Her tone was mocking, but it quavered.

“I do realize that you might not want to see the results of my shamanic journey, but it is part of my Reiki treatment. I’ve brought over a letter explaining some of what I saw in your otherworld. When we talked the other night … I didn’t make much sense …”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you want to help.” She looked preternaturally cold, as if haunted. Her ice temple spirit world was not far away. “You can’t help. You
can’t.
”

“I guess that’s true. But I do feel that … that you need help, Drea.”

“Please—don’t—interfere. You don’t know about me. You don’t know anything.”

I leaned away. A swift kick from her lace-up house shoes seemed in the offing. “It’s your husband, isn’t? You’re terrified of him. I do understand.”

“How did you …” Her eyes widened. “You talked to him. And you knew … about the baby.” Her cold hand slid round my wrist. “It’s bad, seeing things,
knowing
things. It’s a sin.”

“I don’t see into the future as such Drea, but on a shamanic journey, time disappears all together. I get sensations, images, symbols. Read my letter and you’ll see.”

She was biting her lower lip. “I thought I was safe here. It’s a nice place, isn’t it, Bridgwater?”

“Oh great,” I said, hoping sarcasm wasn’t creeping into my voice. Nightlife: pathetic. Shops: limited. Other facilities: they closed the swimming pool and keep promising to replace it. Then I thought about the atmosphere in town, and the solidarity of the carnival, how local people work to make it a winner every year. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. It’s a nice place.”

“I’d be sad to go. I don’t want to go.”

“I saw a snake,” I said. “He talked about changing homes—moving on.”

“A snake? There was a snake?”

I swallowed. “The snake told me that duty and purpose can change.”

“But the snake has a creeping mind.” Her voice had turned to steel. “The most accursed animal of the field.”

There was a silence. My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. It felt as if I’d tumbled into a puzzle maze and had no idea of the exit. I made a decision to stuff the letter into my pocket, but in that second she snatched it out of my hand.

“Drea,” I began. The door closed with a judder.

At least she hadn’t kicked me down the path like a mangy cat.

nine

At one in the
afternoon,
Papa Bulgaria had a row of hungry people
on the embroidered cushions and Mirela was caught up with a queue of customers. I raised my hand in salute, but she hardly had the time to wave back. We’d agreed to meet after she’d finished work, anyhow.

Stanislaus was leaning against the counter with an order sheet in his hand, making himself heard above the TV
.
“Excuse me,” I said, but he ignored me so I tapped him on one clearly defined shoulder blade. He turned his head, flicking his hair as he did so. “I’m here to see Mr. Papazov.”

“Oh, you,” he said. He lifted a hinged flap and I passed into the business side of the room. “Sabbie
Daar
.”

“Yes.”

“The friend of the Brouviches.”

“That’s right.”

He pointed to a door to one side of the shop. “Up the stairs. Knock on door of the office. Mr. Papazov is waiting for you.”

He managed to make it sound as if I was dreadfully late. I guess I was a couple of minutes overdue, but I became less and less keen with the entire idea each step I took up the grimy staircase. At the top, I knocked on the door as instructed and waited until I heard a grunt.

Behind a heavy desk, squeezed into one of those faux Victorian swivel chairs, was a thickset man with looming eyebrows and a jowl that would not have looked out of place on a bull mastiff. On the desk before him were a laptop, a pile of ledgers, an extremely fancy cordless phone, and a small crystal wine glass filled with a liquid the colour of mouthwash. Behind him, on the top of a filling cabinet next to a grimy window, was an old-fashioned cassette player, covered with fluff and smears of food. Music flowed from it, the sort of tune that makes you want to twirl until your skirts fly out in a circle—if you’ve got skirts to twirl, that is. I guessed that somewhere there was a cupboard of these cassettes from the old days that no one had thought to replace with something more digital.

“The music is good,” I said.

“Why do you want job here?” growled Mr. Papazov. His accent wasn’t as pushed into the background as Stan’s, but nevertheless, this was a businessman who might chat to someone from the County Council with ease. He clicked shut the slim lid of the laptop and glared at me. His eyes were faded brown but penetrating.

By trying to peer into me, he’d offered a glimpse of the internal Papa. I felt faintly sick. I’d brought to mind Fergus Quigg’s words …
Papazov has a nasty reputation
. I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was too dry to do the job.

“Er … Kizzy and Mirela. They told me there are good jobs here.”

Papazov seemed to swallow this whole. Maybe he actually believed that his staff were content, or maybe he was just good at closing down his reactions. “So, you need a job bad?”

“Yeah,” I lied, playing the part. “Just part-time though.” It seemed like a contradiction, but he didn’t query it.

“You ever done work like this?”

“I’ve got pub experience.”

“There are two daily shifts. Eleven a.m. to five, and four p.m. to ten. The roster is worked out by Stanislaus.”

“I wouldn’t want to do more than three shifts a week. Earlier in the week, rather than later.” I gave myself a mental poke. I wasn’t planning to work here at all. Just snoop around.

“Many of my staff do double shifts for more money.”

I nodded. I bet they did. With all their earnings stolen away from them, Mr. Papazov’s workforce became a company of slaves.

“Where d’you live, now? You want better accommodation?”

“No, I’m okay for housing, thank you.”

“You live local? You know the area?”

“Yes, well, I’ve lived here a few years.”

“Serve or scoot?”

“What?”

“Locals can earn more by delivering.”

“Right. How much more?”

“We like hard workers. Harder work, more pay. Can you ride scoot?”

“What? Oh … ride a scooter.” My cheeks lost their warmth. My past relationship with two-wheeled vehicles was chequered to say the least. “I’ve owned a Honda bike.”

“You’ve got UK licence?”

I scrabbled in my bag, pushing the contents round … purse, gloves, picture of all the Davidsons outside the caravan, half a bag of imperial mints. When I finally flapped my licence in front of him, he hardly glanced at it.

“I’ll give you a very nice scoot for delivering,” he growled. “Ver’ cheap second-hand cost—six hundred and fifty all in.”

“You’re telling me I pay for this scooter?”

“It is yours to keep. Keep and drive when you like. There’s no markings on scoot, just the helmet. We give you the helmet,” Papazov added, as if he was Santa.

“And … is there paperwork? To say I keep the scoot—er—scooter?”

A scooter was a tempting proposition, cheaper to drive than my Mini, and infinitely better than my stolen bicycle. I thought about the morality of getting deliberately caught up in Mr. Papazov’s grimy game for at least half a second. He was ripping off his employees and I didn’t see anything very wrong in ripping him off as well.

“Of course, paperwork.” Papazov’s voice grated along in a low gear, sounding faintly and disconcertingly Russian.

“What’s the arrangement? How much of my wage will you take out to pay for the scooter?”

“You’ll need to ask my son. He deals with wages.”

“Your son?”

“Stanislaus.”

I followed him down the bare painted stairs.

Mr. Papazov opened the door to the kitchen with one shoulder. The smell was overpowering as spices burst and meats seared. The gleam from the surfaces made me blink. The room was fully tiled from ceiling to floor in white and lit with fluorescent strips. The worktops were equipped with a large sink and several gas burners, and there was a long stainless-steel island in the centre filled with chopping boards and sharp knives.

“It’s very clean,” I said.

“You think Bulgarian kitchen would be dirty?”

“No, no, of course I didn’t—”

“You think we are
all
gypsies here?”

“You mean Roma?”

“Roma?
Tsiganski
. Gypsies. Like your friends.” To my horror, he tossed his head away from me and spat on the gleaming tiles. “Dirty, lazy beggars.”

It took me a second or two to realize he was using the words in their literal sense. “Mirela and Kizzy don’t beg.”

“Ha!” He flashed a glance at me. “You do not understand them at all. You are not their friends. They
have
no friends.” He raised his voice. “ Jimmy! Clear this up!”

A young boy in a white apron and little white cap skidded past with a J-Cloth and a spray gun of cleaner and bent over the gob of spit.

Papazov strode over to the far side of the kitchen, where a deliverer was sorting through the takeaways in their white, green, and red cardboard boxes. “Max! Take Highgate order first.” He snatched a cardboard box from the delivery guy’s hands and pointed him to another pile. “Soup and mix salad; be fast to keep hot. Petar! Careful not to break.”

At a pair of sinks under the window, the lanky lad from Mirela’s lodgings was aproned up over a t-shirt with damp sleeve hems. Bubbles floated from the water in the sink. Petar was the washer-up in this establishment. I grinned. The lowest of the low.

Stanislaus came into the kitchen behind us holding a bundle of orders. I saw him half glower at his father and thought that Mr. Papazov probably didn’t work here very often, but when he did, he threw his weight around without knowing what was going on.

Papazov turned to Stan. “You want that I hire this one?”

“Yeah, cool.” Stanislaus grinned at me. “Come over here, I’ll show you ropes.”

I was still watching the young cook mop up the spit. The elder Mr. Papazov had snatched his apron strings and hauled him upright almost before he’d finished the job. “Jimmy,” he said, yanking him over to where a chopping board sat on a working top. “This batch. This pork for the Kavarma. How you cut this? It is completely wrong.”

“But,” said Jimmy. “I didn’t do it.” His Somerset accent seemed to blur the words, but then I realized he was shaking with fear. He was skinny, even for his age, half the girth of the middle-aged Papazov.

The older man brought back his arm. I could see the boy knew, long seconds before the fist struck his jaw, that he would be hit. He didn’t duck or step away. He took the punishment. This wasn’t the first time.

“Who prepare this meat?”

The boy flinched at the words, as if they held more pain than had the blow. “Me. I’ll do it again.”

“Good.”

I stood motionless, gripping my bag much tighter than it needed. My heart beat was filling my entire chest cavity.

“Good boy, Jimmy.” He ruffled the boy’s hair with plump fingers bound tight with gold rings.

Suddenly Stanislaus was beside me. He flicked at his fringe and a shock of blue shot through the hair like the flit of a butterfly. He spoke in fast Bulgarian to his father and Papazov replied, his voice the sound of beach pebbles moving under the force of the tide.

“Okay, Sabbie
Daar
,” said Stan. “I’ll show you the scoots. Trial ride.” He put a hand on my shoulder. It felt like he wanted to run it over my breast.

“I don’t think I’ll bother showing you my driving skills,” I said. “I’ve got eyes in my head. The staff get hit. Why would I want to be hit?”

“No one would hit a nice girl like you.” Stan’s customary cocktail stick bobbed up and down. “But if workers are lazy, yeah, they need to know. They take the blame, of course.”

Jimmy
had
taken the blame; I was sure he hadn’t cut that meat.

“I haven’t been told my wage,” I demanded. “What’s the pay rate? Is it in my contract? How much would I actually take home at the end of the month?”

His pace slowed. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“Mirela told me she got paid well and it was nice here.”

Stan gave a deep sigh as if I represented all the trials in his life. “You earn eight pounds an hour as well as keeping the vehicle. The scooter payment is ten percent of its value per month. It’s tax-and-insured ready to drive and in ten months, you own it outright.”

I pointed to a Yamaha parked right under the shelter. It had to be at least 900cc and its black and brushed gold paintwork shone. “I’ll have that one,” I joked.

“That one is not for the staff.” Clearly, Stan could not take a joke.

“Is it yours, Stan?”

“No. It’s parked, that’s all. This one will be yours.”

Stan was ushering me towards a rather yellowy white scooter that needed a good wash. I could guess that the market price for this old beast was nearer five hundred pounds. A thought came to me as I looked it over. “Is this the scooter Kizzy drove?”

“Why?” said Stan. “You sentimental over things like that?”

“I … I just wondered if she took her scooter with her.” Although, looking at the lightweight frame, it would have taken her weeks to get to Bristol, let alone London.

“She’s not ready for the roads of Bridgwater. She serves in the shop.”

“D’you know where she’s gone?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I don’t like the gypsies any more than my dad.”

“Why do you employ them then, Stan?”

“Why d’you think?”

“Because they’re cheap?”

“Hard work pays here,” he said, echoing her father. “That’s all you need to remember.”

“Would you give Kizzy her job back if she wanted it?”

“Why should I? She upped and left us short. If she breezed in now, I’d sack her on the spot.”

Suddenly I was even more determined to find out what the staff here really knew about Kizzy. I stuck a leg over the seat of the scooter. “Let’s get on with this.”

_____

I met Mirela at half-seven outside the police station. It was raining hard, with a fast wind, the sort of weather that makes you feel a lot wetter than you actually are and a lot colder than you’d like to be. Mirela must have waited for a while, her face was so wet from rain it looked like she’d been crying. Maybe she had. Distress was rising from her in waves. I gave her a hug and felt her shoulders tremble.

“You okay about this?”

She nodded. Reporting Kizzy as a missing person had been a condition I’d given her; I could see she’d become determined, even though she looked terrified of entering a police station. She was very different than her sister. I doubted that Kizzy would have searched so hard for Mirela if the tables had been turned.

A clerk filled in a standard Missing Person’s form. He asked for Kizzy’s details plus a lot more about the sisters’ status in the UK. It was plain that he didn’t give a toss and reinforced this by telling us the police would not make an effort to find an adult who had announced she was going away before disappearing.

“Is Detective Inspector Rey Buckley on duty?”

“I’ve no idea, miss. Why d’you ask?”

“I think I mentioned Kizzy Brouviche to him. When he interviewed me about Gary Abbott’s death.”

The words
Gary Abbott’s death
fired up his responses. He left immediately and within half a minute, he’d returned with Rey.

Rey managed a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Usually they glittered with a greenish tint, but this evening they were a dull brown. The stubble around his chin was transforming into a beard. I didn’t think Rey would look good with a beard.

“This is Mirela Brouviche,” I began. “She’s the sister of the Roma.”

He hadn’t taken us anywhere private. We were standing in the reception area. At gone eight p.m. it was quiet. Most of the staff had already left for the day, and Rey’s posture was reminding me that had been his plan too.

“What Roma?”

“The one that nicked Abbott’s phone.”

Mirela’s eyes flashed. When the occasion called for it, she could be as hot-blooded a gypsy as her sister. “Brouviches do not steal!”

“She might have needed to, Mirela. She might have needed the money … to make a journey, or pay for glamour photos.”