“Who did he wish to contact? Was it his wife? What did you tell him?”
“Avay wiz your pesky questions.” The woman flounced the fringe of her crimson shawl at Nellie. “Madame Olga does not betray her customers.”
“Oh, you don’t, do you? You merely light a candle and pretend to call up the spirits and feed your customers a lot of folderol in exchange for five shillings.
Madame Olga sputtered. “How dare you! Vhat cheek!”
Realising her mistake, Nellie raised her hand. “I beg your pardon, I only came here to transact a little business. Look, I will pay you if you can tell me what the gentleman asked of you. A couple of shillings is all I have, but—”
“Leave at once, whoever you are!”
“But I need to know—”
“Vhy do you hide behind zat veil? Vhat are you concealing?” The woman’s hand shot out and snatched hold of Nellie’s veil. Using her gloved hand, Nellie grabbed the woman’s wrist. A spontaneous reaction caused her thumb to trigger the two claws which gouged into Madame Olga’s flesh.
“Eek!” Madame Olga let out an ear-splitting squeal and reared to her feet, her solid frame knocking the flimsy table over Nellie. As Nellie tumbled to the floor, the woman shrieked, “Tibor! Tibor!”
The curtain behind Madame Olga exploded as a giant ogre charged into the room. Small, mad eyes sunk into the craggy buttresses of his head fastened on Nellie as she struggled to get to her feet.
“Knife! She’s got a bleeding knife,” Madame Olga screamed, her foreign accent disappearing under the pressure of the situation. “Get ’er, Tibor.”
The behemoth tossed aside the fallen table. Nellie backed away on all fours, air wheezing past her tight throat. With the mammoth blocking her exit, she appeared to be trapped. Tibor sniggered as her predicament became apparent, but his chortle cut off as the main door to the apartment crashed open without warning. Julian rushed headlong into the room, driven on by the momentum of his shoulder charge.
He glanced wildly around the room. “Nellie! Are you hurt?”
Tibor growled at the fresh intruder. “Julian, watch out,” Nellie cried out as the brute lowered his head and charged towards Julian.
At the last second Julian jumped out of the way, and Tibor crashed into the doorframe with a shuddering thud.
“Here, can you stand?” Julian held out his hand towards her, wincing as she clasped it. “Do you mind retracting the claws? They’re rather uncomfortable digging into me.”
“Sorry.” Quickly she sheathed her weapons. In her heightened state, she was not fully in control of herself. Julian’s crashing into the room had set her heart leaping, and the grasp of his hand on hers kept it hammering at a topsy-turvy rate. “But how on earth did you know I was here?”
“Murderers! Robbers!” Madame Olga shrieked.
Julian ignored the medium while keeping a wary eye on Tibor who was heaving himself to his feet. “Simple. I followed you.”
“You followed me! How…why…?”
“Get them, Tibor.” The spiritualist shook her fists in rage, causing her shawls to flap around her like vulture’s wings. “Get them both.”
“I knew you’d been sneaking out at night.” He picked up a small stool as Tibor ominously cricked his neck from side to side and smacked his meaty fists together. “Gareth has been helping you, hasn’t he?”
A guilty blush heated her cheeks. “Only to procure a horse for the night. He did not—mind, he’s coming!”
Tibor thundered towards them. Her warning was superfluous as Julian had already taken the measure of their opponent. He unceremoniously pushed Nellie to one side before brandishing the stool as though he were a lion-tamer. The wooden floorboards shuddered as Tibor stampeded forward, a snorting, bellowing buffalo. Julian held his ground, and at the last second he darted sideways and swung the stool at Tibor’s head.
Bits of wood flew in the air as the stool shattered against the giant’s gleaming skull. He roared and shook his head. Madame Olga screeched like a banshee.
“I think we should leave,” Julian said.
Nellie hung back. “But I still need to ask her about—about…”
Julian sighed. “You mean Pip? You’ve been following him for several nights, have you not?”
The weary accusation in his tone made her bite her lip. She was about to speak when Tibor let out a high- pitched squeal and pawed at his screwed-up eyes. The ogre became a babe, blubbering unintelligibly while tears streamed down the boulders of his cheeks.
“You’ve blinded my poor Tibor.” Balling up her fists, Madame Olga rained blows on Julian’s shoulder. “Monster! Barbarian!”
Shrugging her off, Julian moved towards the weeping man. “I’m a doctor. Sit down and let me have a look.”
At his authoritative tone, the man sank down into a chair, submissive as a lamb. His massive shoulders shook like jelly, and he moaned as Julian persuaded him to lift his head.
“A large jug of clean water, if you please,” he ordered Madame Olga. She obeyed him without a word and returned with an earthenware pot. He proceeded to flush out Tibor’s eyes with water, while Madame Olga hovered close by, anxiously kneading the man’s shoulder. Finally, when the giant sat up blinking, his vision restored, she muttered something to him, he nodded, heaved himself out of the chair and disappeared behind the curtain.
“You can apply a chamomile compress to his eyes,” Julian instructed Madame Olga. “That should help ease any lingering discomfort.”
The woman nodded, her manner far more subdued. “Thank you. The poor sod has a lot of trouble with his eyes sometimes.” By now the medium had dropped all pretence at being foreign. Flouncing back her scarves, she slid her gaze towards Nellie. “So you know this veiled one and her prying questions?”
“She didn’t mean to upset you. She was merely seeking some information regarding the gentleman who visited you earlier.” He paused, then dug into the pocket of his coat and drew out a handful of coins. “Perhaps this will help with your memory.”
In a flash the coins disappeared into the folds of the woman’s shawls. She gestured towards the fallen table. “Why don’t we sit?”
Julian righted the table and chairs, and they all sat. Madame Olga repositioned the scarf on her hair, pushed up her jingling bracelets, and crossed her arms over her plump bosom.
“The gentleman calls himself Pip Barchester, but I’d bet a tenner that’s a false name. My clients often want to remain anonymous. He comes here several times a week, usually during the day, but at night too. He doesn’t stay long. He gets nervous, can’t keep still.”
“And what does he ask you to do?”
“First couple of visits ’twas his late mama he wished to talk with. I didn’t see him for a bit, but he started visiting again with a vengeance, and ever since then it’s just been the one thing. Always wants to get in contact with his dead wife. Nellie Barchester, she was.”
Nellie gulped audibly, but Julian did not look at her. “Go on,” he said to the medium.
“He tells her how sorry he is that she’s dead, how sorry she met with such a terrible end, how awful he feels about everything. He gets quite upset.”
The heavy veil pressed down on Nellie like a shroud. She felt a scream building up inside her. Next to her, Julian’s hand was a granite fist on his knee.
“And what do you tell him?” Nellie blurted out.
“I tell him his wife is at peace, that she loves him dearly and harbours no ill feelings towards him.”
“And he
Madame Olga shrugged. “My clients come to me for absolution, forgiveness, for peace of mind. I give them what they seek. I need to put food on the table,” she added defensively as she registered their disapproval. “And besides, I’m being paid to soothe Mr. Barchester’s fears.”
“What do you mean?” Julian retorted.
“Last week a man came here. Said he was Mr. Barchester’s father, and he was very worried about his son
