Hands of the Ripper (7 page)

‘Of course, it would be lovely to have you join us one night. In fact, our next meeting is on Friday, unless you’re …’

‘Friday would be lovely. Whereabouts are you?’

Alasdair presented a business card in a manner that was just a little too polished and official. Golding’s manner was far superior, John thought, never letting the unsavoury taint of business fall on things. The address, in Richmond no less, would have been far better scribbled on a scrap of paper or discarded bus ticket. A business card just looked blatant and misplaced. Certainly it prompted him to ask his next question.

‘How much is it? I mean … sorry to have to ask but teachers don’t earn a fortune.’

‘Oh please,’ Golding squeezed his arm, ‘what must you think of me? This isn’t business, I charge what I do in order to cover my expenses and keep food on the table. I think it’s important that I give all of my time to the cause which means, sadly, I must earn a living from it. Albeit a meagre one.’

Meagre? Living in Richmond? John thought. Come off it.

‘I make no charge at my special meetings, if people
wish
to make a donation then … well … that is always appreciated. But really, the important thing for me is just spreading the important message of everlasting life and love.’

‘I understand completely,’ John assured her. The rain began to fall again and this stirred the group to life.

‘Can I offer you a lift, John?’ Golding asked. ‘I often drop Sandy off at the closest tube station, happy to do the same for you. It’s not a night for walking.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, ‘but thank you. I’ve a taxi booked so I’d better wait for it.’

‘See you Friday then.’ And with that the three of them dashed towards their car and John huddled beneath the awning in front of the hall to watch them go.

He didn’t have a taxi booked but had wanted to save the added awkwardness of being trapped in the car with the three of them. He waited for them to leave and then began to jog up the road, trying to stick closely to the buildings and the scant shelter they offered.

Uxbridge Road was thinned out by the weather, the traffic sailed the shallow river in both directions but the pavement was all but empty. Discarded takeaway packaging swirled in the gutters. Old newspapers clung to the paving stones as if someone had been interrupted in the art of covering the whole street in papier mâché. The world felt distorted by the weather, as if so much rain had fallen that everything had simply begun to melt. He was soaked through by the time the tube was in sight. Crossing the road he paused for a moment, bathed in the lights of the stationary traffic, a straggling fish picked-out in the beam of a submersible’s
searchlight
. Metres away, standing on the pavement he had just vacated, was his wife, the water slicking her nightdress to her skin just as the fevered sweats had. Her hair clung to her small, grey skull as if desperate to crush it, it plastered most of her face but he could tell that her lips were moving. She was talking to him. Telling him something.

First one driver beat his horn then a handful of others joined in, pulling John’s attention back to the crossing where the lights had changed. He dashed across to the opposite side, the most impatient drivers narrowly missing him as they drove on. Looking back there was no sign of Jane. By the time he reached the entrance to Ealing Broadway he had just about convinced himself that there never had been.

Four

Hearing Voices

THE HOUSE WAS
oppressively normal. Far back from the river and the more ostentatious, expensive homes it stood as part of a smoky grey brick terrace. In fact, John thought, luxurious postcode aside, it wasn’t that different from his own home. It was surrounded by limp privet, beaten into submission by the rain like over-blanched spinach.

John pushed open the small wooden gate, painted a particularly sickly light blue, and noticed one slight concession to the mystical: next to the plastic number plaque there was a crescent moon. It was made from plastic and the silver veneer had begun to wear off from the rubbing of reverent thumbs to expose pearlescent white beneath.

Closing the gate behind him he jogged up to the front door. Beneath the porch he took a moment to rub the rain from his face and smooth back his hair, squeezing the water into rivers that ran down his neck.

He felt perversely comfortable at what he might find beyond that door. While he could no longer guarantee the safety of his own home, or even the streets he
walked
, there was one place he was fairly sure ghosts did not walk and that was alongside Aida Golding. Whatever the evening might promise, whatever cons or unpleasantness she held in store, he was sure that it would all be theatre. A dark reflection waddled towards him through the smoked glass window in the door and he found himself remembering the apparition he had seen through the door of the shower. The memory robbed him of his confidence. The lock was drawn. A security chain was rattled loose. To his left, amongst the shining-wet creepers of the ivy, he became aware of pale flesh, sliding and squirming against the leaves. Was that a pair of eyes watching him, as fat and glistening as fruit?

‘Mr Pritchard, welcome.’ It was Alasdair who opened the door, stepping to one side to allow John in from the rain. ‘If you could leave your coat there.’ The young man gestured vaguely at a hatstand and stood to one side while John shucked his wet waterproofs and hung them up.

John scrubbed his shoes on the coconut-hair doormat and then followed Alasdair deeper into the house.

He paid as close attention as time allowed, walking through the entrance hall. He wanted to take this opportunity to glean as much information about Golding as he could. The place was decorated in DIY store Edwardian, wipeable, dark green wallpaper and polystyrene cornicing. The black and white floor tiles looked original enough, he decided, though the slender rug that lay down the middle of them was catalogue at best. He looked at the pictures on the wall. They were all
prints
, no photos, nothing personal. A watercolour of angels in flight, a fantastical meadow of the sort that unicorns have been known to trot through, a stylised rainbow’s arc surrounded by stars. It was all washed-out New Age, with not a single hint of soulfulness. The images could have been printed on cheap greeting cards or a mail-order series of decorative plates. John had no doubt they were as much window dressing as everything else.

They passed the stairs and John glanced up quickly, on the off chance of seeing something. There was the slight creak of a floorboard and he realised that someone was standing directly above him. He caught sight of a young boy’s face before Alasdair took his arm and led him – somewhat forcefully – into a large dining room.

The Edwardian theme continued – a perfect theatrical set for mediumship, John thought, so much easier to believe in spirits when they hover over dark walnut and antimacassars rather than Formica and glass. In the corner a massive pot plant stroked at the black and white faux velvet wallpaper. The central table was so dark as to almost be black. The brilliant white of the doily in the centre was the only thing that stopped a wrought-iron trivet from vanishing against its background. The trivet was weighed down with teapot, cups, milk jug and a large fruitcake, gutted already by a large bread-knife, the fruity gore of sultanas and raisins sticking glutinously to its blade. The walls were again covered with prints and a large mirror on the wall facing the door allowed John to see what a poor sight he was, thanks to his walk in the rain.

‘Good evening, John!’ said Aida Golding, getting up from the table and coming over to shake his hand. ‘So glad the wet didn’t keep you away.’

‘We’d never do anything at the moment if we let the weather stop us.’

‘Too true, let me introduce you to the others.’

‘I’m distinctly uncomfortable with this,’ announced a man at the table. He was rubbing at his face and it took John a few moments to recognise him. It was a face he was used to seeing in newspapers and during hastily snatched television interviews outside Parliament.

‘Don’t mind Lord Probert,’ said Golding, ‘he gets twitchy in company. Don’t you, dear?’

‘I’m not accustomed to having my private matters discussed in public,’ he muttered. ‘I thought this was to be a private reading, I’m paying enough.’

‘I don’t do one-to-one readings, dear,’ she replied, glossing over the subject of payment John noticed, ‘I need the energy of a group to achieve the best results. I can assure you everyone here is quite discreet.’

‘They all say that,’ the nervous peer replied, ‘then before you know it you’re all over the bloody tabloids.’

‘I can assure you I wouldn’t discuss anything that goes on here,’ said an elderly man sat opposite Probert. ‘As far as I’m concerned these matters have all the sanctity of the confessional and I would certainly treat them as such.’

‘Our envoy from God,’ said Golding to John. ‘Father Goss has the best interests of our souls in mind this evening.’

‘A relief I’m sure,’ scoffed Probert, ‘and who’s he?’ He pointed at John.

‘I’m a step down the social ladder,’ John replied with a smile, ‘John Pritchard, teacher.’

‘Of psychology, no less!’ laughed Golding, ‘so our brains are to be well-looked after too!’

‘A psychologist?’ said Father Goss, ‘I don’t know about that …’

‘A teacher,’ John repeated, ‘and as we’re all here in a personal capacity rather than a professional one, does it really matter?’

‘The man has a point,’ said Probert. ‘Sit down, will you? The sooner you get your feet under the table the sooner we can get on with this.’

‘We still have a couple more guests to arrive, Lord Probert,’ said Golding. ‘Have some more tea, why don’t you? It’ll help you relax.’

‘Tea?’ the lord scoffed. ‘It takes more than that to help me wind down.’

‘We don’t have any alcohol in the house, I’m afraid. I don’t approve.’

‘Only one kind of spirit in this place!’ joked Father Goss. Nobody laughed.

The doorbell rang.

‘There we are,’ said Golding as Alasdair sidled away to let in the newcomer. ‘We’ll be started in a minute.’

They sat in silence around the table as Alasdair’s footsteps passed down the hall to the front door. There was the sound of the door being opened and then the familiar voice of Henry’s widow rolled in from the wet outdoors.

‘I shouldn’t be out and about in this,’ she said, ‘if Henry were alive he would never have allowed it. Catch my death in this I will.’

At least then she’d find marital conversation a little easier, thought John.

Alasdair showed her in and Golding introduced her as Mrs. Davinia Harris. John realised it was the first time he’d been offered her name; she was a woman who defined herself by her relationship to the dead before anything else.

‘This is lovely,’ she said, taking a seat, ‘very nice. I’m sure Henry will be only too happy to join us here.’

‘I’m sure he will too,’ John announced, his voice sounding more sincere than what he felt.

‘Is that everyone?’ asked Probert.

‘Just one more,’ said Golding. ‘Our group wouldn’t be complete without Sandy.’

John noticed Davinia Harris’s eyes roll. ‘Sandy’s coming is she? Well there’s a surprise …’

‘Sandy’s energy is very much in tune with my own,’ said Golding. ‘I find her presence extremely energising.’

And informative, no doubt, thought John.

‘It’s good to see you here at least,’ Davinia said to John. ‘Finally got a message, didn’t you?’

John wasn’t going to argue that, in the present company at least. ‘I did.’

‘I was so pleased, I told Aida as much didn’t I?’

‘You did, dear, you did.’

‘I’d told her all about you and wouldn’t it be a shame if you weren’t to get a message?’

Well, that solved that mystery, John thought. With
Davinia
Harris around, everybody knew your business.

‘I am heartened to hear that you’re already a successful recipient of our host’s skills,’ said Father Goss leaning towards John with a diluted smile. ‘I have yet to experience the fruits of her efforts first hand.’

‘I didn’t think we’d met before,’ said Davinia, ‘and I attend most of Aida’s demonstrations.’

‘Oh, I’m not completely new to all this,’ the cleric admitted, ‘in fact it’s something of a specialist subject, though no doubt my parishioners would be alarmed at the thought! But then what is the job of a priest if it’s not to pierce the veil between life and death?’

What indeed? John thought, not the most religious of men.

‘So refreshing to find an open-minded vicar,’ said Davinia.

‘Well, we papal-minded ecclesiastics tend to be more open to the wider possibilities of the universe,’ Father Goss said, ‘I’m of the old church, the original you might say!’

Davinia was clearly confused by this. ‘Oh … what church is that then?’

‘He’s saying he’s Catholic,’ Probert explained, evidently becoming more impatient by the moment.

‘Oh,’ Davinia replied as if someone had just said something unmentionable. ‘Them.’

The doorbell rang one last time and Aida Golding was clearly glad of the distraction. ‘And that makes a full complement,’ she said. ‘We can shortly begin. Let me just refresh the pot.’

She reached for the teapot but Probert grasped her
hand
. ‘To hell with tea, can we not just get on with this!’

The look she gave the peer then was John’s first glimpse of the real Aida Golding beneath the cosy knitted surface. ‘You forget yourself,’ she said. ‘You are a guest in my home, not I in yours.’

Probert matched her look for a long moment. Clearly, he was not a man used to backing down, but eventually he released her hand and smiled. ‘You’re quite right, of course,’ he said. ‘Forgive me my enthusiasm.’

‘Of course, dear.’

Aida walked out of the room and Probert settled back into his seat. John noticed how viciously his manicured nails dug into the wood of the chair’s arm. A dangerous man, he decided. Like all people who are accustomed to getting whatever they want from life he didn’t take the word ‘no’ well. He tried to remember what he knew of the man, recalling heated tabloid headlines and building a picture of the man’s public persona. There had been affairs, he remembered, but worse than that … a scandal he couldn’t put his finger on. He could picture the man’s snarling face, elbowing a photographer aside. Crowds on courtroom steps, placards thrust skywards as protesters roared their disapproval. All the window-dressing but none of the details.