Chapter 5
Lili yawned, exhausted even though it was only Wednesday.
Thank goodness it was almost time to close.
She’d decided not to text Em’s number again until she’d completed her investigations and found out exactly who – or what – she was dealing with.
Lili had a plan in place that would kick off as soon as she cashed up and could get to that wellness and craft fair that ran from two until seven.
At lunchtime, needing fresh air, she’d popped into the She Sells café, right on the harbour front – such a pretty setting, with pastel houses dotted across the surrounding hillside.
The other café she frequented, Crystoffees, wasn’t quite as big.
Its name was a fusion of the words ‘crystal’ and ‘coffee’ because half of its floor space was given over to the crystal-selling side that Em had once managed, always carrying a lump of citrine in her pocket on work days, saying it gave her energy, not that Em needed extra.
At least not until the months before her death.
Sean, her long-term boyfriend – well, long for her at six months – had been hiding a secret.
His parting gift, on their last night together, had been to give her whiplash from a car accident.
He’d been driving and inadvertently let slip his betrayal after Em questioned him about why he hadn’t returned her call the evening before.
He’d mounted the pavement and crashed into a lamppost. Despite having physiotherapy, it left her with backache for months.
For the first time in her life, dynamo Em couldn’t rush around, go clubbing, swim in the sea, or do a little dance every time something pleased her, from a half-price cocktail to getting her wages.
Ohhhh .
Lili’s breath caught as a memory came back from when Em’s back was bad.
She was on painkillers and dwelling on Sean’s lies.
The two of them had been sitting in the back garden, chuckling at a seagull stomping on the lawn to draw out worms. There’d been a right hullabaloo at the front of the house.
A canoe had fallen off the top of a passing car.
‘Remember the canoe man, John Darwin, who went missing and faked his death, Lili? He was all over the news when we were little.’
‘We made up stories about the fantastical lands we would disappear to.’
‘Wouldn’t it be great to disappear for a while?’ she’d muttered. ‘No social media. No responsibilities. No stupid ex-boyfriends or useless physio appointments.’
A burst of joy made Lili glow from head to toe. She’d not taken Em seriously at the time, but what if that had been the beginning of her friend making a plan? What if Colin and Shirl were wrong?
Tommo came downstairs from the stockroom of the shop, his loud footsteps bringing her back to the present, those footsteps also quicker than normal.
He looked like a fisherman with his wispy white hair and beard, the baggy corduroy trousers and his trademark colourful braces.
Countless villagers seemed to have cleared out their lofts last weekend.
Black dustbin bags had been left in the car park out the back, full of musty-smelling books, clothes, ornaments and toys.
Retired Tommo had only just finished sorting through them.
He volunteered frequently since losing his husband.
He’d never forgotten a period in his life when he’d been homeless and had had to couch-surf.
He was in today, and he’d heaved the bags upstairs on his back, one by one, like a diligent Santa.
Only difference was he rode a motorbike and not a sleigh and would never have delivered presents in time due to his frequent cigarette breaks.
Eagerly, Tommo held out a worn-looking green book with a duck on the front. He gave a raspy cough, not due to smoking, he’d insist, but supposed pollution from the nearby harbour. ‘A Beatrix Potter first edition! I’d bet my last stick of rock that this is worth something.’
Lili examined the inside. ‘Wow, you could be right!’ They pored over the dates inside and Lili looked it up on her phone. ‘Let’s get it properly priced.’ Rare finds, by the staff, never landed on the shelf, but were sold off by Ware comfortable made it easy to lie.
Her mum and dad had proved that and Lili had sworn, at a young age, amidst the sobs that racked her chest in bed night after night as they argued, that she’d never fall into the same trap as her parents.
The single life was safer.
‘I’m not here for a reading!’ she blurted out.
Spiritual readings were a load of gobbledygook.
Lili had watched a programme about them once.
How fraudulent fortune tellers, mediums, seers, whatever, studied clients for giveaway reactions, analysed body language, used broad statements and asked leading questions.
Em had been less cynical and Lili was doing her best to keep an open mind and work her way through her list.
The man’s face broke into a smile. ‘Please sit down,’ he said with a warm London accent. ‘My name’s Greg.’
‘Oh… um, I’m Lili.’ She perched on the chair.
He tilted his head. ‘Why are you here, Lili?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to already know?’ she countered, unable to stop herself. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude… I’ve never done anything like this before.’
He gave an infectious laugh. ‘Believe me, people have said much worse.’
Her shoulders eased. ‘It’s my best friend. Em. It was the anniversary of her death on Saturday, and…’ Oh God. This sounded stupid, but she explained about the texts and how she was investigating them. ‘I’m trying to eliminate all possibilities. I went on the internet and have drawn up a list of?—’
‘Ah, the internet. The great all-knowing that has the answer to everything.’
‘Now and then it does. You learn to spot the BS, right?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t criticising you, we all do it. I tried to lose weight last year. Read some advice about detoxing with lemon water every morning. My dentist was horrified. The acid corrodes enamel.’
Lili relaxed. ‘So… I read a case of a woman getting texts from her dead boyfriend. Eventually a psychic texted and said the boyfriend’s spirit was passing the words on to her and she was merely acting as a conductor; said she needed paying for any further time.
Is this likely do you think? His death had been in the papers as he was a B-list celebrity.
Do you think it was more likely the girlfriend was being scammed? No offence to your profession…’
‘Every profession has charlatans.’ He took a minute.
‘Technically, someone acting as conductor in that way is possible, but I don’t think it would happen out of the blue like that.
For a start, us psychics do indeed have to eat.
I think they’d have contacted you first, as themselves, before you got these texts, and charged you a fee upfront.
I mean, it’s not like they get paid by the dead. ’
A smile flickered across her face. ‘Fair enough.’
‘More importantly, they’d have found out first if you wanted to hear from your loved one. Not everyone does. It’s too upsetting. Nah. It doesn’t add up. I’m sorry, Lili, but I’d be very surprised if these texts were from Em’s spirit.’
She took out her purse. ‘Thanks for your time. How much do I owe you?’ She looked around for a notice with a price.
He stood up. ‘Nothing.’
She got to her feet. ‘But…’
‘I’ve not earned any money by contacting a spirit, with the help of a photo of the deceased one usually.
This hasn’t been that kind of consultation.
All we’ve done is chat, and I’d be a rich man if I charged people for every time I did that.
Mum always said I had more to say than a bird during the dawn chorus. ’
‘Why do you need the photo?’ asked Lili. ‘Don’t you just ask the room “who’s there?” Or have I watched too many movies?’
‘The face is everything about a person. It holds their true identity. Expressions give a clue as to how their energy flows, as do the eyes, which many believe are portals to the soul. I can pick up a lot from a shot – as long as it isn’t a robotic passport one.
’ He smiled, shook her hand and Lili left. In a blur.
Oh. My. God.
Perhaps her views on people like Greg were wrong.
He’d dropped the word ‘passport’ into the conversation, a clue perhaps that Em was travelling.
More importantly, he’d talked about the importance of a person’s face.
His actual words were ‘it holds their true identity’.
That must have been his way of saying that Colin and Shirl’s apparent identification of the body was irrelevant, his way of encouraging Lili not to give up.
This was the strongest proof she had yet – the psychic knew , he did, that Em wasn’t dead.