There was no answer, and unlike at Davies’s flat I heard no shuffled movements inside. I rapped again. She’s not here, I thought, and then, unbidden: She’s dead. Someone killed her, and she’s lying dead in there.
The thought stopped me. Suddenly I could picture it, not through my powers, but through my overactive imagination. I could see a body splayed on the floor, arms sprawled, the bare feet strangely helpless, the back arched by the body’s last desperate attempt to grab something, to rise. And the stillness, the clock ticking unheeded, the slow seeping of blood onto the floor.
My headache throbbed. I took one step back, and then another, and then I was descending the stairs, my heels clicking crisply on the risers. My pace quickened as I passed landing after landing. I saw and heard no one. The dust floated undisturbed in the beams of sunlight coming through the windows on the landings.
Finally I stepped out the front door onto the stoop, gulping the fresh September air. I was a superstitious fool. The woman had been out, that was all, shopping or visiting a friend. A practicing psychic might have been home seeing clients, but not if business was bad. I’d never had the power to see through closed doors; what I’d seen was imagination, nothing more.
A man stood on the front path waiting for me. I froze, taking in the familiar figure in dark suit and hat. James.
He reached up to the brim of his hat, tilting it back to get a better look at me. As always, he was in no hurry, as if he’d been standing there all day. His muscled shoulders were incongruous under the lines of his jacket.
“Trying to have your fortune told?” he said.
“Yes, of course,” I managed. “That’s very clever.”
He glanced past my shoulder. “I take it Ramona wasn’t home.”
There was no point in lying. “No, she wasn’t.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Apparently she was there the night Gloria died.” I took a step down, coming closer to him. “What do you know about her? Why are you here?”
“A lucky guess.” He looked at me, curious. “Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not.” I would rather die than admit how relieved I was to see him, to see anyone. “Everything is fine.”
James pulled himself up a step. Level with me now, he looked down at me. He was close enough that I could smell shaving soap. He was almost ridiculously attractive, his features even, his eyes calm and intelligent, his lips a firm line. I’d seen that handsome face up close once before, smelled that familiar shaving soap, under circumstances that were rather humiliating. I didn’t like to recall it, and I wondered whether he remembered it at all. With the luck I had with men—with James—he most likely remembered it perfectly. Chin up, Ellie. He’s just a man.
James nodded toward the building behind me, the movement emphasizing the line of his jaw. “Do you know where she is?”
“How would I?” I replied.
He gave me half a smile at that. He was different from the man he’d been three years before, though I couldn’t put my finger on how. A little sadder, perhaps. “Her real name is Joyce Gowther,” he said. “She’s from Norfolk, twenty-nine years old. Her father owns a small brewery, though she hasn’t seen him in years, since she came to London to take up acting.”
I stared at him, openmouthed. He kept the smile, watching me, and didn’t move away.
“Acting must not have worked out for her,” he continued, “because a few years later she surfaced as Ramona, spirit medium and fortune-teller. She’s never been married, doesn’t seem to have many clients. She was at the séance with Gloria, as you heard, though I don’t know why. The police questioned her until about eleven o’clock yesterday morning.”
I bit my lip. “All right, that’s useful. Thank you.”
He leaned closer and I tried not to jump away. “Admit it,” he said, his voice quiet. “We want the same thing, Ellie, and you could use a partner.”
I hear he drinks too much, or he used to, Davies had said. Perhaps he did. I’d never seen any evidence of it, and since I’d first met him in a bar on Gerrard Street in which all of us were drunk except him, I had reason to know. James Hawley, the mystery. I raised my eyes to his.
“Why?” I asked him. “Gloria is gone. She’s been nothing to you for years, and I never was anything to you at all. Why are you here?”
A frown crossed his forehead, but his expression gave nothing away. “Have luncheon with me,” he said.
“Luncheon?”
He shrugged. “It’s lunchtime. You’re hungry.”
I glanced behind me at Ramona’s ramshackle building, its dirty stoop and blank windows. I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten since I’d left the house that morning. I could practically hear Gloria’s voice in my head. Who gives a damn what happened three years ago? You can have luncheon with a man who melts your insides, or you can go off alone. Darling, sometimes you’re an idiot.
“Very well,” I said finally. “Luncheon. You lead the way.”
CHAPTER NINE
James found us a place on the Streatham High Road, a restaurant smelling of freshly baked bread and coffee and populated with small tables and booths. It was half empty, and we took a seat at a booth by the front windows, looking out onto the street, the cracked leather of the seat threatening to snag the backs of my stockings as I adjusted my skirt.
“Be honest,” I said to him as the waiter brought tea. “Do you know where Ramona is?”
“No,” said James. He took off his hat and dropped it onto the seat next to him, briefly running a hand through his hair. It was dark blond, just as I remembered, and he’d kept the length shorter than most men did. It sat soft and sleek against his head, the temples pressed from his hat, and if he wore any hair cream, I couldn’t detect it. “Though I’ll have an answer of some kind tomorrow night at nine o’clock.”
“What happens tomorrow at nine o’clock?”