He sounded almost relieved. “How many of your appointments did you cancel today?”
I finally lowered my gaze, righted my head, and looked at him. “All of them.”
He nodded, and his eyes gleamed, whether from satisfaction or excitement I could not tell. “Exactly,” he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
My mother had been a spirit medium since before I was born. She’d been orphaned by age twenty, her parents of artistic vagabond stock, and she’d set up shop doing séances and performing spirit writing. It had been a better way to earn money than char work, she told me, as long as you were careful about it. And she had been good. Very, very good.
My father, a young postal clerk from a good family, had met her in a pastry shop and fallen in love with her. He didn’t care what she did for a living. It was only after they’d married and settled in the house in St. John’s Wood that my mother bought the beaded dress, had the sign painted for the window, and began business as The Fantastique. She stopped doing group séances, which had a taste of seediness to them, and replaced them with discreet one-on-one consultations. It was her stab at respectability, at trying to appease the neighborhood for my father’s sake without giving up her work. I learned from my earliest years to be quiet when Mama was working.
And she did keep it respectable, remarkably so. Her client list was discreet and carefully chosen; as a child I watched well-dressed men and women of obvious class and money come and go from our little house. We got appointment requests from well-trained assistants and underlings. I became accustomed to the sight of a sleek carriage—or, increasingly, a motorcar—pulling up our lane, steered by a uniformed driver, stopping just long enough for a beautiful woman or gray-haired gentleman to alight before it pulled away again, reappearing only after the appointed hour.
It was all very civilized, if you didn’t think about the things I witnessed in our little sitting room. The things I saw.
My own talent became evident by school age. I’d thought it would please her; I didn’t know that having the powers I had made one a freak, a pariah. But my mother knew. She must have known, from very early on, what kind of life I would have. And so she gave me an education of a different sort.
I watched the birds alight on Nelson’s statue, flitter off, and land again.
You have a talent, a sensitivity.
I smoothed my hand over my handbag, where I’d placed the envelope George Sutter had given me. It contained a small stack of banknotes—a retainer, he’d called it, to replace the business I’d lose during the investigation. I had just curled my fingers around it, preparing to rise, when the man on the bench across from me lowered his newspaper with its lurid headline and stood. He tossed the paper on the seat behind him, adjusted the brim of his hat, and came sauntering toward me, his hands in the pockets of his coat. My mouth went dry and everything stopped.
He paused in front of me, looking down at me, his knees almost touching mine. “Ellie Winter,” he said.
For a second I was speechless. I could do nothing but stare. He was as strong as I remembered, his shoulders bulky under the fabric of his jacket. His dark suit fit him perfectly, the shirt beneath it crisp white. I knew that his hair beneath the hat was dark blond and kept shorter than the current fashion. When he put his hands in his pockets—an ungentlemanly pose—his arms flexed and curled, and he looked almost menacing, looming over me with a lazy grace. His blue-gray eyes flickered down over me and up again, disintegrating my respectable blue suit as if it were a wisp of cloth.
I stared back at him, trying not to let my cheeks flame. “An unusual group of so-called scientists and untrustworthy researchers,” the papers had said about the New Society for the Furtherance of Psychical Research. I was looking at one of those untrustworthy researchers now. Its top researcher, in fact. The one who had, three years before, investigated both my mother and me.
“James Hawley,” I managed, my throat tight. “What the hell do you want?”
He shook his head, not bothering to tut at my language. His voice was deep and smooth. “He’s a ghost,” he said, “that friend of yours. Sutter. Did you know that?”
“Pardon me?”
He lifted his gaze away from seeing through my clothes and looked around the square, taking in the surrounding buildings. “I can’t find out who he works for,” he said. “I’ve tried. No one is talking. I thought Scotland Yard at first, but now I’m not so certain. Now I think he may be MI5.”
That was curious; I imagined that when James questioned people, they usually talked—women because he was so handsome, men because of the size of his arms. “Why are you here?” I asked him, suspicious. “Are you following me?”
“Actually, I was following Sutter. Or I was trying to. He’s as slippery as a fish.”
“Then why aren’t you following him now?”
“Because you’re more interesting than he is.”
“Very funny.” My cheeks flushed this time, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want James Hawley’s attention. I patted my handbag, looking fruitlessly for a cigarette. “I take it you’re still working for the New Society.”
“I am,” he said, watching my hands. “And you’re still in St. John’s Wood, taking clients and staying respectable.” He motioned at my handbag. “I don’t think you have any cigs in that thing, though you do have the money Sutter gave you.”
My gaze shot up to his. He was watching me carefully, his eyes shaded under the brim of his hat. “My money is my business, James,” I said. “Though I know you don’t agree.”