waiting for me to move it. By the way, has Evan found any of those white worms?”
“What?” Michelle said. “White worms? Yuk. Are they in your garden?”
“No, they’re in Reading,” Colette said. “At the last sighting. A man was digging in his garden and there they were on the end of his spade, huge writhing clusters of them. Did Constable Wossname not mention it?”
Michelle shook her head. She looked as if she might throw up.
“I can’t think why he didn’t. It’s been in all the papers. The poor man’s had to board his property up. Now he’s asking for an investigation. Thing with worms is, they travel underground, they’ll be heading out in search of a food source, and of course being radioactive they won’t hang about, they’ll be scorching along like buggery. Excuse my language, but being the police he ought to have warned you really.”
“Oh God,” Michelle said. “Evan didn’t mention it either. Didn’t want to scare me, I suppose. What can we do? Shall I ring the council?”
“You ask for pest control, I think. And then they come out with very fine mesh nets, and fence all around your garden with them.”
“Are you having them?”
“Oh yes. Same time as we get the decking, to save digging up twice near the house.”
“Do you have to pay?”
“’Fraid so. But it’s worth it, wouldn’t you say?”
She went back into the house and said, “Al, I’ve told Michelle that gross poisoned worms are going to come and eat her kiddiwinks.”
Al looked up, frowning, from her tarot spread. “Why did you do that?”
“Just to see her shit herself.” Then she remembered. “By the way, that dream I had, it wasn’t a dream. When Evan got up this morning he saw some bloke messing around near the shed.”
Alison laid the cards down. Her situation, she saw, needed a rethink. I’ll have that rethink, she decided, when Colette goes out.
In the kitchen, out of Colette’s earshot, the breakfast dishes were chinking together; a little spirit woman was pushing them around on the worktop, wanting to help, wanting to wash up for them but not knowing how. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she was saying, “have you seen Maureen Harrison?”
Honestly, Al thought. A spirit guide is wasted on Colette. I ought to take time out and lay hold of Maureen Harrison and send her zinging to the next stage, out of Colette’s way, and then grab her poor little friend and catapult her after. It would be doing them a favour, in the long run. But she imagined their frail flesh shrinking inside the baggy sleeves of their cardigans (where their cardigans would be) as her strong psychic grip fell on their arms; she imagined the old pair weeping and struggling, snapping their feeble bones under her hand. Muscular tactics were seldom any use, she had found, when you needed to send a spirit over. You call it firm action and you think it’s for their own good, but they don’t think so. Especially not the older generation. She knows psychics who will call in a clergyman at the least excuse. But that’s like sending the bailiffs in; it shames them. It’s like dosing them with a laxative when they can’t get to their commode.
The telephone rang. Al lifted the receiver and said loudly, “Hello, and how’s Natasha this fine morning? And the Tsars? Good, good.” She dropped her voice confidingly. “Hi, Mandy, how are you, love?”
She smirked to herself. Who needs caller display? Colette, that’s who. She saw Colette scowl at her: as if she were taking some mean advantage.
When Colette left the room she said to Mandy, “Guess what? I thought Colette had seen a spirit.”
“And had she?”
“It seems not. It looks like it was a burglar.”
“Oh dear, anything taken?”
“No, he didn’t get in. Just walked about outside.”
“Why did she think he was a spirit?”
“It was last night. She thought she was dreaming. It was me who thought it was a spirit. When she said, I saw a man outside by moonlight, I thought I’d got a new guide.”
“No sign of Morris coming back?”
“None, thankfully.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Only I have nightmares, Al wanted to say; but who doesn’t, in our trade?
“So did you ring the police?” Mandy said. “Because it’s awful down here on the coast. Your teeth aren’t safe in your head.”
“No, I didn’t bother. There’s nothing to tell them. I think I saw him myself. He didn’t look harmful. If it was the same man. Unless there are different men wandering around our garden. Which is possible, of course.”
“Don’t take any chances,” Mandy said. “Anyway, Al, I won’t take up your morning, let’s cut to the chase. There’s a new psychic supplier opened down in Cornwall, and they’ve got a very keen price list with some special introductory offers. Also, for a limited period they’re doing free postage and packaging. Cara put me on to them. She’s got some excellent runes and she says they’re going down very well with her regulars. You want a change, don’t you, from time to time? A change is as good as a rest.”
Alison scribbled down the details. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll pass it on to Colette. You’re a good mate, Mand. I wish I saw more of you.”
“Drive down,” Mandy said. “We’ll have a girl’s night out.”
“I couldn’t. I don’t drive anymore.”
