Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (18 page)

I scooted over to her house and thumped on the door. After several minutes, Petar opened it. His hair was mussed and there were crackly bits of sleepy in his eyes. He’d been having a Sunday siesta.

“I need to see Mirela.”

He glared at me. “She not here.”

“Is she at work?”

“No. She came back from work after early shift. Headache. Stan say she’s for chop if she take one more sickie.” He lifted his hand like a blade and drew it across his neck.

“If she’s got a headache, why has she gone out?”

“No idea.”

“Let me in, will you? I want to check for myself.”

“You don’t believe me, Sabbie
Daar
?”

“Don’t
you
start calling me that.” I took a leaf out of Eric Atkinson’s book and shouldered my way past him. I was tensed, ready for the grip of his arm or a return shove from his sharper shoulder. But he stood where he was and watched me climb the stairs. “She is out. Why you not believe me?”

I was at Mirela’s door before I realized it could be locked. If she had any sense, she’d lock it every time she left the premises. But the handle turned and the door slid inwards.

Petar had told the truth, for once in his life. Mirela was not at home. A sneaky thought arrived unbidden in my head. This might be my chance to read the letter from Kizzy. In fact, once the body had been identified, it would surely belong to the police investigation. All I wanted was a quick peek before it got handed over to forensics. That thought made me wary of touching it. I pulled my biker’s gloves back on. The first place to look was obviously her canvas suitcase. I took a step towards the chair it had lain on, and stopped dead. The suitcase was not there. I dipped down to check under the bed. There was nothing but fluff. I opened the cheap plastic doors of the wardrobe. My heart lurched. Above my head, hangers dangled freely. Mirela had finished her packing.

I began pulling open the drawers to the small bedside dresser, my gloves slipping on the tiny handles. They weren’t empty, but half-filled with the dross that people leave behind when they move on. I took the chair, climbed on it, and checked the top of the wardrobe. There was no letter lying there, either.

If she’s gone, she’ll have taken the letter.

I tried to piece together what was happening. Mirela seemed sure she’d booked a flight for early this coming Wednesday. Had she been fibbing because she wanted to be left alone to do her own travelling? The ticket was at the airport, apparently, so I’d never seen it. Had she changed her plans because she’d worked out that Kizzy might be the body at Hinkley Point? The news was very fresh; she might not have heard it at all.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. It gave way under me, like cheap mattresses do. Mirela hadn’t made her bed before she’d left, but I could hardly blame her for that. My hand played with the crumpled heap of bedding before I lifted blankets and sheet to the foot of the bed. One sock, faded pink. I imagined Mirela looking for it when she came to put on the pair and blinked away a thin film of tears.

A hammering sounded along the hollow hallway downstairs. I leapt off the bed, aware that I was an uninvited guest in this room … in this house. I stood in the doorway, listening to the muffled exchange below.

“We’d like to speak to Mirela Brouviche.”

My body went into standstill. That was Rey’s voice.

“She not here.” Petar was back on doorman duty.

I looked at the bed and thought about the forgotten sock.

In two strides, I was tossing the pillows aside. They were thin foam, stained with hair grease and the sweat of many sleepers. Trapped beneath the fitted sheet was the outline of something rectangular. An envelope.

“She
is
out!” I heard Petar call. There were police boots on the stairs. Without thinking further, I pulled the sheet free, stuffed the envelope into my pocket, and ran from the room.

I met Rey as he took the turn in the staircase. I was standing at the top of them, looking down on the spikes of his hair and the pale scalp showing beneath. He paused as he saw me then came up the rest of the stairs two at a time, a uniformed female officer following on and Petar, the opportunist, keeping a certain distance behind her.

“What are you doing here, Sabbie?”

“I came to see Mirela.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to contact me.”

“I didn’t know that.” I was trying to stop shaking—or at least prevent Rey from seeing that I was shaking. “I phoned the help line. I told them all I knew.”

“And then you came here.”

“I thought Mirela might need a friend.” I tried glaring at him. “To support her when the police came storming in.”

He gestured to the officer, who was waiting by his side, as if primed for instruction. “This is Sally. She’s here as support officer for victims’ families and loved ones. She’s here to support Mirela.” I watched his lids close over reddish eyes. “Not that you can’t support her too, of course.”

“She isn’t here, Rey.”

“Okay. We can wait. Unless you have an idea where we might find her.”

“I think she’s done a runner.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Rey. “It’s the criminal who does the runner.”

“Which is her room?” Sally spoke for the first time, but she directed her question at Petar.

He pointed to the open door. “That one. But she’s out.”

“She’s gone,” I said.

Rey gave Sally a look. “Take them downstairs. Get the story. I’ll be with you soon.” He walked into Mirela’s room and closed the door behind him silently.

He hadn’t really looked at me at all.

seventeen

At twenty past eight
the following morning, I scooted over to the Agency of Change. I had an appointment at the police station at nine a.m. I’d been charged with the duty of identifying the body in the absence of Mirela. Before that, I needed to see Fergus. He probably knew the bad news: that Mirela had gone and Kizzy had been found. That Kizzy was dead. But I had a task for him.

I parked and went into the Polska Café, where Fergus had said he’d meet me before starting work upstairs. There he was, in his dark corner, a latte in front of him. I didn’t think my stomach would keep breakfast down so I bypassed the woman behind the counter, who I could recall Fergus called Maria. “Hi,” I said, taking the seat opposite him. I’d not gone into details in my text, and now I wasn’t sure how to start.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Not good, Fergus. Have you seen the news?”

“The local news?”

“All the news.” I’d been hoping he’d’ve put two and two together. “They found a body. By the power station.”

“Hinkley Point?”

“Yes. Fergus—I think it’s Kizzy.”

He blinked, as if only half awake. “Jesus and Mary.”

“They’re asking me to ID the body. But surely, you knew her more officially than me—”

At that moment, Maria, smiling like a babushka, placed a cup of tea in front of me. “On the house,” she said.

“That’s so kind,” I said, but the woman was already heading to the counter.

“It’s the way with the Polish, over here,” said Fergus. “They feel they’ve been offered kindness. They offer kindness back.”

Fergus tended to simplify things, and sometimes romanticize things too. I took a sip of my tea. “It’s so sad. But now I’m scared for Mirela. She’s missing, Fergus. I heard about Kizzy on the evening news and I went straight round. So did the police. But she’d taken off. Piecing things together, it looks like she walked out of her accommodation yesterday after getting home from her early shift. She’d packed all her things and left with them.”

“She’d heard the news?”

“That’s the odd thing. According to her house mate, she was gone before the news broke.”

“Do you think she suspected something like this was about to happen?”

I had wondered that, but it had taken Fergus to put it into words. Had Mirela disappeared because she simply
knew?
Did she have second sight after all?

“I’m thinking, Sabbie, that it’s possible Mirela always knew Kizzy was dead.”

It was a dreadful thought—one I preferred not to dwell on. “She was distraught at Kizzy’s disappearance.”

“Okay, but what do we know about her after all? Only what she chose to tell us.”

I swallowed. “There’s a police alert out. Check a news site on your office computer, Fergus. They’re scouring the West Country for her.”

“Because she has information? Or is at risk?”

For some reason, my heart was thudding. I hated the way his mind was working. I took an A4 envelope from my bag and slid it over the table. “I found this under her pillow. It’s from Kizzy. It might be the last thing she wrote.”

Fergus turned it over in his hand. “This is an old envelope addressed to you.”

“It’s inside. Don’t touch it without putting on gloves. Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but I shouldn’t have it, not really. It’s evidence. I’ll have to give it to the police.”

“Holy mother of Jesus, Sabbie, what’re you playing at?” He put the envelope down as if it was wired to give out shocks. “I’m not going to say that the police play fair with immigrants, but at the agency we have a policy of always playing fair with them. I instigated it, when I arrived here. When dealing with people who break rules, we stick to the rules like superglue.”

I put my head on one side and tried to look cute. “You think I’m too nosey for my own good, don’t you?”

He smiled. It was his first smile since I sat down—I’d been watching for one … waiting for one. “The word
bloodhound
does come to mind, so it does.”

How right he was. I never could keep my wet nose out of things. Sniffing round the staff at Papa … snooping at Belinda’s Bunnies … trailing a copper at a carnival. And reading what I shouldn’t: a folded square of paper under a floor cushion … a letter under a pillow. I was more curious than a cat, and look what happened there. Why couldn’t I keep things simple? Report to the police and hand over anything I thought might be relevant. Let them deal with it. Let them solve things.

“What does it say?” asked Fergus, unable to help himself.

I managed a laugh, but it didn’t cheer me up. “I have no idea. It’s entirely in Cyrillic script.”

I saw Fergus’s eyebrows rise up.

“I was hoping you’d know a translator.”

“It would take me a while, Sabbie.”

“Could you do a photocopy? I’m going to get into serious trouble if I don’t hand it in quickly.”

Fergus didn’t move. He was staring across the table at me, as if he’d had a shift in perspective. Had he thought of me as all law-abiding and incorruptible? Was he reviewing his Sabbie Dare file and updating it?

“One thing really worries me,” I said, keeping my face looped into a smile. “The fact Mirela left this letter behind. She emptied her wardrobe and drawers, but she left the letter under her pillows. As if she had to leave so quickly, it slipped her mind. But I’m positive it would not slip her mind. So I’m wondering if she was forced to go.”

“You think someone bundled her out of her digs?”

“Petar said he saw her leave on her own. He’s a total heel, though, he could be lying.”

“Perhaps she wanted to leave it behind,” said Fergus.

“Why would she do that? It must be a treasure for her.”

“I’m thinking that if there’s an address in the letter, Mirela might go there.”

“So she’d need the address …”

“You can always note an address down. But if you don’t know where you’re going … or what you’ll find there … you might like to leave something to show someone else the way.”

A curl of hope rose inside me. Had she thought ahead? Left a message? We’d only know that when the letter was translated.

But there was a postmark.

Gloria always examined an envelope first, often turning one in her hands when it arrived in the post, asking,
whoever can this be from?
I had taken a tip from her before I’d slid the letter into my bigger envelope last night. I’d examined the frank. It was in faint red ink, and I’d had to switch on my reading lamp to give myself more light. Bit by bit, I’d made out the date of posting—a couple of days before I’d seen Mirela in her room, where she’d told me she was flying home. I noticed that the letter had been sorted and franked in Puriton. That felt strange; the town of Puriton was hardy five miles away. And in the margin of the single piece of paper inside the envelope—which I’d examined for short seconds—was a smudge of brown. I was still wondering about that.

I was staring into vacant space as I thought this through, focusing vaguely on the woman ordering at the counter. She was beautiful, I thought, high cheekbones and hair like a swinging curtain of chestnut brown. She was chatting to Maria, smiling at a comment as she gave her order. She moved on, sitting at a small table.

There was something familiar about the girl. Slowly it registered that I was staring at the woman I’d seen in here with Rey. Abbott’s bereaved girlfriend.

“You okay?” asked Fergus, waving a hand in front my face.

I gave myself a shake. “Sorry.”

“Why are you staring at Kate? Do you know her?”

“Do
you
know her?”

“She’s an old client of Juke’s. I’ve seen her pop into the office. I know her well enough to say hi to.”

“Sometimes I think Bridgwater is like a village; everyone has a link to everyone.”

“That’s so. You could have fun with diagrams, should you please. I link to the Agency, you link to a completely other culture, and we met through the Brouviches.”

“Who link to Papa Bulgaria.” I gave a hearty sigh.

“You’ve kept in touch with that lot?” Fergus asked, not quite a question. I’d never bothered to tell him I actually worked for the takeaway, but now I realized I had a fair amount to share which involved them.

“My original plan was to extract information,” I said, glossing over the desperate need to earn some extra cash. “And I have spoken to most of the staff now about Kizzy. But I’m getting very mixed messages.” I watched Fergus’s brow darken. “I’m desperate to get out of there, but they’ve tied me into that scooter agreement.”

If Fergus’d had feathers, he’d’ve preened them. I could see he was dying to point out that he’d warned me about this, right from the start. I hated his smug look. I eased the conversation back to the essentials.

“I have to be on my way. Any chance of getting a photocopy of the letter for me? Once the police have got it, they won’t be keen to let us know what it says.”

Fergus took the hint. “I’ll do it now, so I will. Stay and finish your tea.”

I watched him go, thinking back to the first time I’d sat opposite him at this identical table. He’d seduced me with his intriguing chat-up lines delivered in his gorgeous accent. Then he’d rejected me soon as he realized they hadn’t worked first time round. Now he was acting as if things were back at the start and there had been no pursuit, no flirting, no heavy snogging. I turned my tea round and round in my fingers. That was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? To regain a professional relationship with him? But it made me feel cautious of the fellow from Ireland. And the connection with Gary Abbott’s girlfriend seemed all the more puzzling because of that.

I got up from my seat and carried my cup over to Kate’s table.

“Excuse me? Would you be Kate?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She gave me a glimmer of a questioning smile, but I felt enough welcome to grab the back of the other chair.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Her eyes become bleak. “No one.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you like this,” I said, sitting opposite her. “Only, it was me, who went to the police—Rey Buckley—after the carnival. I saw Gary drop his mobile in the street.”

“You knew Gary?”

“Not well. I was … my name’s Sabbie Dare. Gary interviewed me a couple of times over the case that gave him his promotion.”

“Ah … yes. He was proud, to be sergeant.” Her accent was delightful. Within it I pictured vast plains, primeval forests, and rugged peaks.

“I can understand if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s too shocking.”

She nodded, using the movement of the nod to look me up and down. “One moment, he was my life. Then poof!”

“Not in your life.”

“No life.”

“And no warning.”

She shrugged. “Gary didn’t believe in warnings. He used to say, ‘never warn the bugg—’ ” She swallowed the word. “Sorry, he did swear sometimes!”

“The element of surprise,” I suggested. “Was that what he was good at?”

“I don’t know about his work. But he was a surprising guy. Funny, tender, generous. A good father to a boy who was not his own.”

I listened without comment. The description hardly resembled the Abbott who had grilled me—who had damn near spat on me—earlier in the year. It reminded me that people present a different face when they’re at work.

“I’m so sorry, Kate. You must miss him unbearably.”

“I would have liked to say all these things at his funeral,” Kate went on, “but …”

“The police element did swamp it.”

“I am not good at talking.”

“And they can talk at you, can’t they?”

“Even his friends in the force. They keep asking … did he say anything that might help? I say; nothing.
Nic nie.
I don’t think they believe me.”

“But it’s the truth?”

She took a while to answer. “You are questioning me now.”

I sat back in my chair. “I have no right. You don’t even know me. But, you see, I’m caught up. Because I’ve been less than helpful in the investigation. I found his mobile but it was stolen from me at the carnival, and Rey Buckley hasn’t forgiven me. He wants the person who did this so bad. I haven’t forgiven myself, come to that. Me and my mate were pissed out of our skulls by time the squibbing started; we were mucking about. I saw Gary run up the lane to St. Mary’s church. Maybe the fireworks masked the gun shot. But no one seems to know what he was doing there. He wasn’t watching the fireworks. I saw him run. It was like … I knew, Kate, straight away. He was running like a copper.”

She smiled, soft and sad. “Good.”

“Good?”

“I don’t want my Gary to be dead because of something that was bad luck, something he was just in the way of. If he has to die, he would want to die in the saddle.”

“In the saddle?” It didn’t seem like a phrase Kate would use. “Is that what Gary said?”

“Yes.” She glanced up and I followed her gaze. Fergus was pushing open the café door, the letter back in its envelope, and Maria was heading our way with a plated Polish breakfast. I eased myself up.

“Yes,” she repeated. “It is what he said before we left for the carnival.”

_____

Rey strode along the corridors of Musgrove Hospital in Taunton, skidding on his heel as we reached a sign that said
Morgue
. I reeled after him.

Sensations bounced off the walls. I was aware of a smell, vague but rotten, like cabbages left to moulder at the bottom of a vegetable patch, and I was sure the temperature was lower than the air outside, as if someone had opened the door to a very large freezer and allowed the cold to seep out.

It was all my imagination, of course. The chiller sections of the morgue were confined to slide in and slide out coffins that took up whole walls of some room somewhere, like giant filing cabinets. Only when you slid out a coffin would your breath show in the room. Yes, the cold and the smell were my imagination.

My heart heaved as I skittered along the polished floor. We were heading, far too quickly, into the depths of the morgue. Any moment now, Rey would stop, go into a filing cabinet room and draw out a coffin on its runners. Then he’d stand judiciously back from the chill and the stench as I bent over the body.