Chapter 4
‘I would like to talk to you about Lady Porter. Or rather,’ Abigail corrected, ‘I would like you to tell me about her. But first I will explain why I am here.’ She stood up and moved back a few steps and cast Lara an appraising look as if to reassure herself that she was able to absorb what she was about to say, then she took the seat opposite her.
‘I am here because I am a Kindred Spirit. In this instance, your Kindred Spirit. Ghosts like myself do not haunt particular places or buildings. Instead we are drawn to a very specific combination of powerful emotions that resonate deep within us. For me, it is the pain and anguish that you feel at your friend’s death.
I understand your state of mind as you question this, in the same way that I know my own mind.
Those circles that you follow as you consider the impossible thought – was she murdered?
– are as familiar to me as the blood that once flowed in my veins.
What resonates with me is the isolation you feel, as the only person who believes this.
This I comprehend, like few could. I said that you sent for me.
In a way I was speaking the truth. Part of you called out to me.
It was a silent, unconscious message that touched a particular part of my spirit.
You could not help but call. I could not help but answer.
’ Abigail stopped for a moment and looked longingly at the glass of wine that now stood untouched in front of Lara.
At moments like these she would have done much for a fortifying glass of Madeira.
‘Like you, I know what it is to believe someone close to you has been murdered. I understand that unique position of contemplating murder, when others don’t or won’t.
It is this that binds us together. This is why you do not fear me.
’ Abigail continued with great emphasis, ‘I could never do you any harm. But what I can do, while you need me, is help you.’
Lara at last seemed to come to life and said quietly, ‘While you need me but don’t want me, I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, I must go.’ She brushed her hair back from her face and looked at Abigail. ‘Nanny McPhee,’ she added, as if this explained it all.
‘Is Nanny McPhee a member of your domestic staff?’ Abigail asked, frowning, looking doubtfully around at the messy sitting room. Standards, she thought, had clearly changed since the days when she had commanded a household.
‘No,’ Lara managed a smile. ‘She’s a character in a film. It’s what she says.’
‘I do love films.’ Abigail said rather wistfully, thinking back to another investigation which had included several visits to a cinema.
‘And yes,’ she continued, pulling herself back to the matter at hand, ‘there does seem to be some truth in what Miss McPhee says. You will doubtless be pleased to hear that I will not be with you forever.’
‘What you said earlier, you were right, you know,’ Lara said to her, ‘I have been talking to myself a bit. Well, a lot actually. It would be wonderful to be able to talk to someone else about Lady Porter.’ She half smiled. ‘Even to a ghost.’
Abigail nodded encouragingly.
‘I first met her, Lady Porter,’ Lara began, ‘when I’d been living here for about ten months.
I’d moved down from London when I couldn’t bear it in the City any longer.
’ She looked up. ‘I did a peculiar type of job to do with the stock market – long hours, masses of pressure. I seemed to spend most of my life on the phone to places like Kuwait and Mumbai. I had no personal life. In the end I hated it.’ She turned to stare into the flames of the fire as if gathering strength from them.
‘As a student I had worked all my Saturdays and holidays in a flower shop. So that, plus an evening course in floristry, convinced me that this was the fresh start I needed. Maybe it was a good idea, I don’t know anymore.
I do love it but I’m so tired all the time.
’ Lara felt acutely self-conscious but battled on.
‘If I think about how na?ve I was when I started, and yet how full of myself...’ She grimaced.
‘I soon realised that people round here are really good gardeners and I began to see I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.
But I didn’t want them to think I was this fool from London, coming down and taking on the business, so I tried to bluff my way through it.
I certainly wouldn’t ask for help… And don’t,’ Lara said, changing tack suddenly, ‘say that I should have listened to my mother more.’
Abigail made soothing noises. ‘I would not dream of doing such a thing,’ she said untruthfully, glancing at Lara’s mother’s photograph.
‘Anyway,’ Lara continued, ‘while I certainly didn’t make friends, I was just beginning to find my feet with the business and I might have got over a rubbish start, but then I blew it all by getting involved with Julian Armstrong.’
Abigail raised her eyebrows enquiringly at her.
Lara drew a deep breath, wondering where to begin.
She decided on a question. ‘Have you ever met a man who makes you feel sexy, attractive… funny even…?’ She did not wait for an answer.
Once Lara had started she wanted to get the humiliation over with as quickly as possible.
It also occurred to her that it felt surprisingly easy to talk to this woman.
‘A man,’ she continued, plunging back into her story, ‘who you find mind numbingly attractive?’ Lara now turned and studied Abigail, who was looking into the fire, but could not read the expression on her face.
‘It’s awful. To start with, I used to pretend I had flower deliveries to make just in the hope of seeing him driving around in his Range Rover. ’
Abigail looked at her swiftly, but again said nothing.
Lara picked at a loose thread on a cushion.
‘I just wish I knew what he really wanted.’ She shook her head.
‘Sometimes I think I’m just one of a long line of women he’s made a move on.
Then there are times when I think I’ve got under his skin.
Anyway, we’re having this undignified fling and for a while I thought I was his girlfriend, especially when I started hanging around with his friends.
If I’m honest I didn’t really like them much but I convinced myself that they were more like the people I used know.
’ Lara looked up. ‘And the stupid thing was they were just the sort of people I was trying to get away from in London.’
‘What is happening between you now?’ Abigail asked, although she instinctively knew the answer.
‘Julian is contacting me less and less and sometimes when we meet he acts like nothing has really gone on between us. Then he messages me late at night and… I know I’m an idiot to go back for more, he is just so…
’ Lara couldn’t finish. ‘It’s been dragging on like this for months,’ Lara confessed in shame.
‘Do you think he could be our murderer?’ Abigail asked hopefully, perking up.
Lara laughed. ‘No, but if you would like to wreak revenge on him for being a complete shit, feel free.’
Abigail did not answer but looked thoughtful.
‘Anyway,’ Lara continued, ‘too late, I began to work out that he wasn’t that popular, or at least not with the few people I’d met, who I would have liked to get to know.
So I guess they assume I’m just like him.
Plus they see me as a complete fool for falling for him.
’ Lara took a deep breath, in the manner of one making a full confession (maybe, she thought, you did that with ghosts?) ‘And the worst of it is that when I see him, I still feel myself weakening and then I find it hard to be angry with him.’
‘Oh, I think we can do something about that,’ Abigail said, as one warming to a task. ‘But tell me, how does Julian fit in with Lady Porter?’
‘It all started to unravel about three months after I started doing her flowers,’ Lara recommenced her story.
‘She loved having them all around the house and liked me to come in and arrange them for her. Mrs M, her housekeeper, was good at keeping the plants alive but not so good at seeing what colours would look good where. It was fun. Lady Porter would follow me around the house chatting and then we would drink really strong espressos and eat Florentines in her kitchen. Sometimes Mrs M would join us, and that was fun too. They were so different but seemed really close. I guess she had worked for her for years.’ Lara could picture the sunny room, the three of them at the table, and almost feel the breeze from the French windows that opened into the garden.
‘With all the stuff going on with Julian, Lady Porter noticed how awful I looked and asked me about it. And suddenly I was crying and I couldn’t seem to stop.
She was so kind, and funny at the same time.
’ Lara felt her eyes filling up. ‘She had lived her early life in India and when we were alone, she was always telling me stories about her time there. You know the sort of thing…’ then thought, perhaps this ghost didn’t.
She knew so little about her. After hesitating, Lara continued, ‘Tigers, elephants, the days of the Raj. She made it sound like a fairy story. Anyway, Lady Porter decided that what I needed was a Pink Gin, it was what she always drank as a young woman. And it became quite a habit, so I would often pop in for one after work. That’s how we became friends.
She was my only friend really. She lives in…
lived in Gillmore House, which is a large Georgian house that overlooks the Market Square, opposite my shop.
Lady Porter was in her seventies, but was very stylish, and I never felt the age difference. ’
‘I think she sounds like a lady of rare breeding. And very thoughtful,’ Abigail said appreciatively.