Chapter 5
Lara was woken by the sound of her mobile and was on her feet searching for it before she was fully conscious.
She found it vibrating on the bedroom windowsill and simultaneously registered that it was Mike the plant man calling and that she must have stumbled upstairs to bed sometime during the night.
Had last night all been a dream? She didn’t have time to consider this, she needed to stop her phone that was now trilling and drilling into her brain.
‘Hi, Mike, what’s up?’ she asked, once she had managed to get the phone the right way up.
‘Morning! Sorry it’s so early, but I know you wanted white hyacinth bulbs today but the growers only had purple and pink. I’m dropping them off now. Do you want me to leave a mixture?’ The plant man’s voice reverberated in Lara’s ear.
Lara looked out across her frosty garden to where she could just see the hooded figure of Mike waving to her from the lean-to at the back of the shop.
It must be really cold she thought, Mike wore shorts pretty much all year round, but today he was in boots and trousers.
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ Lara replied. ‘So it’s not shorts weather then? ’ she added.
‘Gawd, no. Been at the market since four and it’s bloody perishing,’ Mike responded before returning to his van.
It really was freezing Lara thought, suddenly noticing she was dressed in an odd array of yesterday’s underwear, a T-shirt and one sock.
Still, despite the cold she stayed where she was, staring out at the silhouette of the apple trees, sharp and dark, against the shimmering lawn and frosted flowerbeds.
She rested her head on the icy glass hoping to ease the headache that was now coming at her in persistent waves.
She was reluctant to move as with movement came the prospect of facing what had happened yesterday.
Was she slowly going mad? Perhaps, she thought, these things start with conversations in your head and end up with hallucinations.
Lara straightened up. Whatever it was, it would be better to face it showered, and with coffee inside her.
Half an hour later Lara came down the stairs and into the small hallway off the kitchen.
She was wearing her normal uniform of jeans and jumper, but this morning had added a cashmere scarf and fingerless mittens in her favourite sage-green.
She had also carefully braided her hair in a loose French plait.
As she pushed the kitchen door open fully she spoke out loud in the hope that hearing her own voice would calm her, ‘I can’t believe I’m dressing for a ghost,’ she grumbled.
However, it seemed that the ghost had made an effort too, for sitting at the kitchen table was Abigail, wearing an elegant dress of amber crepe.
The top of the dress was hidden by a neat, tailored jacket in midnight-blue velvet with a high upstanding collar.
On her curls sat a small pillbox hat in the same midnight blue and at her throat Abigail had a cream silk scarf knotted in the manner of a man’s cravat.
A line of gilded buttons decorated the side of her hat and were repeated on the tightly fitting cuffs of her jacket.
The gold was also picked out in the cording on her velvet half boots that rested on the rung of Lara’s kitchen chair.
‘I hope you slept well?’ Abigail enquired politely to fill the gap caused by Lara’s stunned silence.
‘So you are real!’ Lara breathed.
‘Ah, that is a somewhat complex supposition and it rather depends on your point of view,’ said Abigail, taking Lara literally.
‘To you I am real. I was also very real to Sheik Al-Khalid, Betty Roberts, Lady Foster and Jimmy Stevenson to name but a few. However to the people shopping for furniture yesterday or to the gentleman who just delivered your plants, I fear I would not be real. For the Bishop of Durham… well, let’s say I am undecided. ’
Lara was distracted from the next thing she had meant to say. ‘How can you be undecided?’ she enquired, fascinated.
‘My experience, and it is extensive,’ mused Abigail, ‘suggests that there are some people who cannot see me, but who get a sense of me.’
Lara made as if to sit down, question upon question crowding her mind, but Abigail held up her hand. ‘I think the best plan is for you to have breakfast and get ready for your day and you can talk to me as you do so. It would not do to neglect your health or your work.’
Lara shrugged and turned to put the kettle on, saying under her breath as she did so, ‘You sound like my mother.’
Abigail smoothed out her sleeves with all the appearance of someone who had not heard her.
‘So,’ Lara said, as she reached for her favourite mug, ‘are you a sort of detective? Is that what you do?’
‘Not exactly,’ Abigail tried to explain. ‘We have been drawn together because of our mutual experience of death. As I said last night, I can help you if you wish me to, and naturally, because I have helped people before, you could say that I do have expertise in this area.’
Lara turned to face Abigail. ‘Is it always murder you’re involved in?’ she asked, a small catch in her voice.
Abigail rose and moved over to the window where she watched the birds in the garden in the early morning light.
‘We are linked by the pain and uncertainty that you feel,’ she said without turning around, ‘if we go down this path together we may discover murder. We may not.’ Abigail paused.
‘You also have to consider the possibility that you may uncover something you wish you had left buried.’
‘But I want to know for certain,’ Lara pleaded, ‘I think Lady Porter deserves that.’
‘Very well,’ Abigail said, turning back into the room. ‘What else would you like to know?’
‘Can I meet any of the people you’ve helped before? Betty, I think you said, or Jimmy?’ Lara enquired.
Abigail chuckled. ‘I believe they would have been delighted to meet you, but they have been dead for many years now. My detective work, as you call it, has taken place over a period of more than 190 years, since my own death at twenty-seven.’
Lara looked surprised. ‘I’m three years older than you are… were,’ she said. ‘I got the impression you were older.’ Lara looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.’
‘Not at all,’ Abigail responded pleasantly, ‘you would be amazed how murder ages one.’
Lara was about to ask another question but cut her words short and looked distractedly about her.
‘I must send Becky a text and tell her to pick up the van,’ she said.
Lara reached for her phone and started tapping the screen.
‘I’ll tell her to come in a bit later than normal so we can talk in the shop. ’
‘What is a text?’ Abigail asked with great interest when Lara had finished.
‘It’s a type of message,’ Lara replied slowly. ‘When exactly was it that you were last around being a…’ Lara wasn’t quite sure what to call it, ‘doing your spirit, detective, ghosty thing?’ she ended feebly.
‘July 1991,’ Abigail replied precisely. ‘I recall I was rather impressed by Take That and we went to the cinema to see the film Thelma and Louise, which I thoroughly enjoyed.’
Lara looked shaken. ‘I think you’ll find a lot has changed since 1991,’ she said kindly, if somewhat patronisingly.
‘Not as much as since 1834 I’ll wager,’ responded Abigail with the air of one clinching an argument.
‘Right, I’m ready,’ said Lara, changing the subject. ‘Could you just pass me the lists that are stuck to the fridge?’
‘No,’ Abigail said briefly.
Lara looked at her strangely. ‘Please would you pass me the lists,’ she tried again, thinking that this increasingly reminded her of her childhood.
‘No,’ said Abigail again – but interpreting the look on Lara’s face – added, ‘I would be glad to pass them to you if I could.’
‘What?’ Lara exclaimed. ‘Can’t you pick things up?’
Abigail shook her head.
Lara sat down heavily on the stool nearest to her. ‘So let’s get this straight. We are going to investigate a possible murder and you can’t lift anything, open anything, or basically move anything around?’
Abigail nodded calmly.
‘So what about walking through walls?’ Lara tried again.
‘Goodness me, no,’ Abigail said emphatically.
Lara got up and strode over to the fridge, grabbing the lists for herself.
‘But I don’t get it,’ she said with some agitation, ‘how did you get in here? And what exactly can you do to help? Or am I supposed to flounder around on my own? It’s like being thrown overboard without a life jacket.
’ The more she thought about it the more worried Lara became.
She continued pacing up and down the kitchen, and it was only on her third circuit that she realised Abigail had completely disappeared and that the room was empty.
‘Now what am I supposed to do?’ Lara declared to the room in general.
As Lara turned back towards the window, she heard a cough from outside the back door.
Lara flung open the door declaring loudly as she did so, ‘And you still haven’t told me your name! ’
‘Well, it’s Barbara,’ the short plump woman standing there replied uncertainly.
She then continued with more assurance, ‘But I think we’ll stick with “Mrs Sutton” if it’s all the same to you.
’ Mrs Sutton, church flower arranger and local gossip, cast Lara an odd look before adding, ‘I thought I might call by to collect the lilies for the church.’
‘Lilies!’ said Lara with more force than she had intended.
Mrs Sutton started and Lara tried to get a hold of herself.
She said as calmly as she could, ‘That’s fine, Mrs Sutton.
I’m just going over to the shop now to start unpacking the order.
Come with me and I’m sure I can find your lilies for you. ’