‘Thank you,’ he said, gathering it up into a ball.
Keisha reached down for her handbag and set it into her lap. She made sure it was zipped tight at the top, and started to stand.
Garfield said, ‘No, don’t go yet.’
‘I can’t see what possible point there would be in staying any longer, Mr Garfield. It’s clear you think I’m some kind of con artist. I’ve been at this too long to take offence. Some people react like that, and think what I do is a sham. If that’s your conclusion, then I’m happy to be on my way.’
She was thinking, Don’t ask me to give you back the money.
‘Did I offend you? I’m very sorry if I did that.’ He didn’t look at all sincere.
‘You just accused me of having someone standing by to – to lie to you about my successes. Wouldn’t you expect me to take offence at that?’
He was still pacing, still fondling the robe, doing something with it, as if it was a mound of clay that he was shaping into something. Keisha watched as he took a few steps one way, then the other. It struck her that this was how he formed his thoughts, by making these little journeys around the room.
‘You are very clever, I have to give you that,’ he said.
Keisha said nothing. She was starting to get an inkling of what was going on. She should have caught on a little sooner.
‘Very, very clever,’ he said, stepping over to the window, and pulling back the curtain to get a look at the street. This meant he was standing off to one side and slightly behind Keisha, and she had to twist around in her chair to see him. ‘I’d like to apologise. Forget what I just said. Why don’t you carry on, let me hear some more about your vision.’
‘Mr Garfield, I’m not sure—’
‘No, no, please, go on.’
Keisha put her bag back down on the carpet and rested her hands by her thighs on the seat cushion. ‘Would you like me to start again with the ice, or move on to something else?’
‘Why don’t you just say whatever comes into your head.’
Keisha had a bad feeling. She couldn’t recall dealing with anyone like this before, who’d seemingly lost interest in what she had to say, wanted her to leave, then had a change of heart. Judging by his tone now, she didn’t believe he was even interested in anything else she had to say.
He just didn’t want her to leave.
Something was very wrong here. Suddenly she thought she knew why.
It’s him. He did it.
It explained his strange behaviour. Keisha wanted to kick herself for not realising it sooner. She’d been at this long enough, of course, to know that when a wife was murdered – or missing – the husband was always a prime suspect. It wasn’t very often that people were killed by strangers. They were killed by people they knew. Wives were killed by husbands. Husbands were killed by wives.
The man had moved away from the window, and was taking a route behind Keisha’s chair. She was going to have to turn around to keep her eye on him.
‘On second thought, sure, tell me about the ice.’
The televised news conference had put her on the wrong track. She’d figured, first of all, that if the police had suspected strongly that Garfield had killed his wife, they’d have never let him go before the cameras. Would they? She had to admit, he was good. Those tears looked real. The way he took his pregnant daughter into his arms to comfort her, that was pretty convincing, too.
It had never occurred to Keisha before that the people she preyed upon could be anything other than innocent. Guilty people often made the best targets. They could be so eager to prove that they were as much in the dark as everyone else that they leaped at the chance to pay to hear what she had to say.
They would tell themselves, I look so innocent. A real murderer would never do this, right?
Maybe that explained why, at first, Garfield had agreed to listen to her. But something had happened during their conversation. Things had shifted. He’d become anxious. Had she actually hit on something by accident?
Was it when she said his wife was cold? Or was it when she said something about the car being off the road? Had those comments been close enough to the truth to make Garfield think that she was on to something?
It was time for Keisha to leave. Maybe – and she couldn’t believe she was even thinking of this – she should even give him back his money. Perhaps she should say something like, ‘You know what? Whatever vision I may have had, it’s gone. I’m not picking up anything. The signals have faded. The flashes, they’re over. So I think the best thing to do would be for me to return your money and I’ll just be on my—’
But just then, there was a flash of pink before her eyes. It was not a vision this time, though. It was the sash, from the robe.
And now Garfield was looping it around her neck and drawing it tight.
Ten
Melissa