the door.
‘Did you try my coffee too?’
Nightingale went back to her desk and picked up his cup. ‘No. And I didn’t touch the croissant either.’ He sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. ‘So what are you doing later this evening?’
‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I thought I’d buy you dinner. By way of apology.’
‘You don’t have to.’ She held out the muffin. ‘This is enough. Even if you did nibble it.’
‘I want to. You can choose the restaurant.’
Jenny grinned. ‘Money no object?’
‘If that means you accept my apology, sure.’ He took another sip of his coffee. ‘Just one thing, can you make it near Marylebone?’
Jenny sighed. ‘Why?’
‘I need to swing by a meeting there.’
‘What sort of meeting, Jack?’
‘A spiritualist group.’ He walked away from her desk towards his office. ‘Mrs Steadman at the Wicca Woman shop in Camden recommended it. It’ll be fun,’ he said. He stopped and looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got to be there by seven thirty.’
‘We? Now it’s “we”, is it?’
‘It always is,’ said Nightingale. He grinned. ‘You know I’d be lost without you.’
23
The Marylebone Spiritualist Association met in a community centre not far from Madame Tussauds waxwork museum. Three Asian youths in baggy jeans and hoodies were standing outside smoking and Nightingale caught a whiff of cannabis as he and Jenny walked past them. The double doors opened into a reception area where an elderly black man in a shabby blue suit was sitting at a desk. Near him there was an easel supporting a board on which white plastic letters had been stuck to announce ‘Marylebone Spiritualist Association — Guest Medium Neil Morgan. Starts 7.30 p.m.’
‘We’re here for the MSA meeting,’ Nightingale told the man.
‘Five pounds each,’ he said and smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken and stained teeth. Nightingale handed him a ten-pound note. The man took it and pushed a clipboard towards him. Nightingale picked up a pen and added their names to the list, then the man nodded at a door to the left. As Nightingale and Jenny headed in that direction two middle-aged women in long coats and black hats came in from outside, deep in conversation. Nightingale opened the door and let Jenny go in first. The room was kitted out for sports with a wooden floor, basketball hoops at either end and two table-tennis tables that had been pushed against one wall. Orange plastic chairs had been lined up in the middle of the room, ten rows wide and five rows deep, facing a wooden lectern. There were blue screens on either side of the lectern. There were no religious symbols to be seen, though there was a vase of plastic flowers on a small table in front of the lectern.
‘I thought it would be more like a church,’ said Nightingale. ‘I thought there’d be crosses and stuff.’
‘Clearly not,’ said Jenny. ‘Anyway, I thought the Church frowned on things like this.’
‘Things like what?’
‘Talking to the dead,’ whispered Jenny. ‘Because that’s what we’re here to do, aren’t we?’
There were more than a dozen people sitting on the chairs, mostly pensioners by the look of them. Nightingale looked at his watch. It was seven twenty. ‘Front or back?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘I’m guessing at school you were always sitting at the front, right?’
‘While you were at the back with the rest of the troublemakers?’
‘Let’s compromise and sit in the middle,’ he said.
‘I thought the idea was to see if we could contact Sophie. Wouldn’t it be better to sit at the front? Aren’t you more likely to be noticed that way?’
‘Excuse me,’ said a voice behind them. Nightingale and Jenny moved apart to allow a short man in a dark green anorak to squeeze between them. He sat in the back row.
‘He’d be a troublemaker, then, would he?’ Nightingale asked Jenny.
‘Behave,’ said Jenny. She shuffled along the third row of seats and sat close to the middle.
An elderly woman in a fur coat came through the door, followed by two middle-aged men wearing suits. The men sat at the front, with an empty seat between them, while the woman went to stand at the lectern.
Over the next five minutes another couple of dozen people arrived, most of them elderly but there was a sprinkling of teenagers and also a young couple, the woman holding a baby that couldn’t have been more than six months old.
At seven thirty the woman in the fur coat went outside and returned a few minutes later with a young man in his late twenties. He was wearing a green corduroy jacket, black trousers that were an inch too short and scuffed brown shoes. One of the men in suits picked up a chair and placed it next to the lectern and the young man sat down. He kept his head lowered and every few seconds flicked his hair away from his eyes. He had his hands clasped together but Nightingale could see that his nails were bitten to the quick.
There was a buzz of excitement among the audience, but it disappeared as the woman in the fur coat walked over to the lectern again. She had far too much make-up on, Nightingale realised, and her bright red lipstick had slipped over the outline of her lips. She smiled at the audience. There was a smear of lipstick across her left canine tooth. ‘We are very fortunate today to have one of England’s most skilled mediums with us,’ she said. She had a soft, regal voice that made Nightingale think of cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off and croquet on the lawn. ‘Neil Morgan is from Leicester and has stopped off to address us on his way over to America, where he will be touring a dozen cities. We’re very lucky to have him.’ She nodded at the man sitting on her left. He was staring at the floor by his feet. ‘Neil has told me that he is feeling a little tired this evening but nevertheless he is happy to give us the benefit of his talent.’
The audience clapped politely. Jenny clapped along with them but Nightingale sat with his arms folded. Jenny flashed him a withering look and he reluctantly clapped his hands a few times.
The woman waited for the applause to die down, then said a short prayer. Everyone bowed their head and when she finished there were several ‘Amens’ from the audience.
‘So, with no further ado, I’ll leave it to Neil,’ said the woman. She smiled at Morgan. He stood up, avoiding eye contact with her as she took her place at the front of the audience.
The medium took a deep breath, still staring at the floor. He hadn’t looked up since he’d taken his place behind the lectern, and Nightingale was starting to wonder if he’d been struck dumb with stage fright, but then he suddenly shuddered and straightened up. He cocked his head on one side like an inquisitive budgerigar and then pointed at an elderly woman sitting on the left of the room with a large handbag perched on her lap. ‘I’m seeing a man. He’s bald and he keeps rubbing his head as if he has a headache.’
‘My father — is it my father?’ she asked. ‘He passed away from a stroke.’
‘A long time ago, yes?’ said the medium.
The woman nodded. ‘Forty years ago.’ She frowned as she did the calculation in her head. ‘Forty-three years ago.’
The medium nodded encouragingly. ‘Yes, he said he passed over a long time ago and that he’s happy now with his wife. Your mother passed over too?’
Nightingale leaned towards Jenny. ‘If she didn’t she’d be more than a hundred by now,’ he whispered.
Jenny frowned at him and pressed her finger to her lips.
The old lady was nodding.
‘Your father says he loves you and he says he and your mother are watching over you. He says your health isn’t good at the moment but you’re not to worry about him.’ He smiled. ‘He says you need to eat more fresh fruit. Can you take that?’
The old lady smiled gratefully. ‘Yes, I can take that,’ she said.
