Grave Stones (The Falconer Files Book 9) Page 5

  She wouldn’t even have to get herself anything to eat before she went out, as she was being taken out to dinner, and she was impatient for eight o’clock, when she would be picked up from her own door instead of having to drive herself into the market town. She wouldn’t even have to bed down on a sofa or floor tonight, because she would be dropped back right to her own doorstep, with no uncomfortable night to look forward to.

  In fact, if things worked out well enough, she might even have a very good night to look forward to. It had been a long time since she had spent the night with anyone but her teddy bear, and her stomach gave a little flip of anticipation as she imagined how romantically the evening might end.

  Tutting with impatience, she tripped upstairs eagerly to begin her toilette, and transform herself from a weekday office girl into a luscious night-time temptress, giggling with glee at the thought.

  At roughly the same hour, Rev. Florrie was back at the church hall, lugging trestle tables off a stack at the back of the room and assembling them in an oblong horseshoe shape, so that people could get to the food from both sides. As usual, no one had volunteered to help her, but if she did a good enough job motivating this parish and increasing her congregation over the coming year, maybe this would be the only time she had to cope single-handed.

  As she hauled and erected, she imagined what things would be like in the future, with many willing volunteers on hand to help out, all happy to be working together and looking forward to the reward that their efforts would bring. Rev. Florrie was an eternal optimist, and always looked for the best in people.

  Look at the way she had won over old Miss Keighley-Armstrong at Manor Gate. The old girl had walked out of her Induction service and refused to set foot in the church ever again, until she had started including her on her parish visiting rounds. It really hadn’t taken long to talk her into coming back to services, as it was obvious that she missed them, and was only cutting off her own nose to spite her face. And that had soon lured back that vinegar-faced Asquith woman.

  She’d even persuaded Lettice to attend this little soirée, provided she was chauffeured there and back, which was no real imposition on Florrie’s time, and would, in fact, give her a breather from being assaulted from all sides with different conversations. As she moved on to setting out the folding chairs in sociable little groups, she sent up a silent prayer that everything would go well, and maybe change some people’s opinions of women vicars.

  As she came to the end of her task, Kevin and Keith Yaxley arrived, a noisy collection of gangling teenaged limbs, speakers, turntables, and enough loud chatter to herald a small crowd of people entering the hall. ‘Hello, you two,’ she hailed them over the hubbub. ‘Do you want to set up on the stage?’

  ‘Thanks, Vicar,’ they chanted in unison, and turned their heavily burdened way towards the small flight of wooden steps that let up to the small stage, at the other end of the hall.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, if you like. I’ve just about finished here, and I know you’ll want to make a load of sound checks just to make sure that everything’s in working order for later.’

  ‘Nice one, Vicar.’ They really were uncanny, the way they so often spoke together: and they were only fraternal twins after all, she thought, not identical ones.

  ‘If I leave the key with you, will you promise to lock up behind you, and put the key through The Rectory letterbox?’ she asked.

  ‘No problem, Vicar.’ There they were, at it again. It was quite unnerving, and she’d be glad to get out of here, not least because she didn’t want to be subjected to the sort of noise they were bound to make before declaring themselves satisfied.

  ‘See you later then, lads,’ she called, walking through the door into the sunshine.

  ‘Laters,’ in unison, floated out after her, as the twins confirmed her parting comment, and she gave a tiny shudder at their uncanny connection.

  Gwendolyn Galton removed a large bowl from her fridge and looked at it in assessment. Yes, it looked like the jelly had set properly, encasing, as it did, chunks of fruit and slices of cake. That would just leave the custard, cream, and hundreds and thousands.

  The custard she could deal with straight away, as it only involved opening four cans – it was to be a very large trifle – and pouring their contents over the bright red surface. The cream she would whip afterwards, putting it in the fridge for a while before she added it. The hundreds and thousands could wait.

  The trifle was the least of her worries at the moment. Tomorrow was her big day. She’d already loaded her car, stuffing it to maximum capacity with all her carefully packed stock, and would have to leave at about five the next morning so as not to be too late to get a good pitch. This was one of the biggest antiques fairs in the area, and they were only held every quarter.

  She attended all of the not-too-distant fairs in the area, but these quarterly fairs were enormous and, if she was lucky, she could make as much in a day at one of those as she could in the rest of the quarter with the smaller ones, so they were very important to her general financial situation.

  At this relatively early point in the year, the local ones were just beginning to appear again, November to the end of January being almost blank as far as opportunities for her to sell were concerned. For one thing, the weather was usually inclement, and for another, people were more concerned with preparations for and physically recovering from Christmas.

  The previous year had not been a good one, buyers pulling in their horns because of the general economic downturn, and she sincerely hoped that there would be an easing in the near future, as she’d already had to raid what meagre savings she had accrued over the summer months just to keep her head above water, what with the utility bills going up so much, and the bitterly cold and prolonged winter the country had just endured.

  Wearing her usual ‘rough’ clothes of jeans and an Aran sweater so venerable that it was matted, in places from wear, her long silver-white hair held back with a ‘scrunchie’, she transferred box after box to the boot of her car, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t chosen to deal in something inconveniently unwieldy, like furniture. The thought of having to transport antique tables, chairs, sideboards, and beds around was too grim to contemplate, working, as she did, alone.

  Wanda Warwick must have been standing just the other side of her front door, thought Krystal Yaxley, with the speed with which she had answered her knock. Krystal had made a great effort with her appearance, as she had let the way she presented herself slip since Kenneth had up and left them, and felt glad that Wanda appeared to have done the same.

  The tarot card reader was dressed all in black, her pale complexion emphasised with face powder, her eye-shadow dark and smoky and her lips coated with a dark plum lipstick. She had little clips in her hair with stars and moons on them, and her fingers dripped with chunky silver and semi-precious stoned rings.

  ‘Do come in and make yourself comfortable, Krystal,’ intoned the hostess. ‘You don’t mind my informality in calling you Krystal, do you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ concurred Krystal, surprised to hear her voice somewhat shaky had hesitant.

  ‘And you must call me Wanda,’ she was exhorted. ‘We need a relaxed atmosphere to let things flow, otherwise my communion with the cards will be patchy, and I might get mixed messages.’

  It all sounded very esoteric to Krystal, and she stepped over the threshold with trepidation. What had she got herself into? Did she really want to give this weird woman forty quid of what little funds she still possessed? And why was it necessary to burn so many candles when there was bright sunshine outside? There must have been twenty of them scattered around the little room, flickering in vain contest with the sunlight that streamed in through the windows.

  Wanda gave her no more time for thought, and immediately ushered her to an armchair in front of a tiny grate, which glowed red with the comfort of a real fire. ‘Always so relaxing and homely, don’t you think, a real fire?’ she ask
ed rhetorically, then continued, ‘And, of course, fire being one of the elements, it should help in communing with whatever is out there, as assistance.

  ‘You’ll probably notice during our time together that on the mantel is a bowl of earth and a bowl of water. What with the draught that creeps in under the front door, that gives us all the elements: earth, air, fire, and water – very necessary for a good reading. Now, make yourself comfortable, and just try to relax.’

  Krystal sat bunched up in the chair, a ball of tension. She was out of her comfort zone here, and believed that relaxation was completely out of the question but, when Wanda said she always did a reading with a glass of home-made wine, she felt a little happier.

  Pouring a dark fluid into two glasses, Wanda informed her that this was a blackberry and elderberry concoction that she had made just over a year ago. ‘The two fruits aren’t in season together, so I froze the elderberries until the blackberries were ripe. I thought the combination of the two seasons might make a difference to its psychic potency,’ she finished, passing a glass to Krystal.

  Taking a sip, Krystal thought it might have made a difference to the physical potency as well. It was like fruity firewater and by the time she was only halfway down the glass, her muscles could not keep up the unequal struggle anymore, and she began to unknot herself.

  When both glasses had been drained, Wanda went to a low cupboard to the left of the hearth and extracted a wooden box covered with symbols that meant nothing to Krystal, but impressed her nonetheless. The cards proved to be wrapped in a piece of black velvet cloth when Wanda removed them, and she then proceeded to shuffle them a few times, fondling them as she did so as if she were caressing an old friend.

  Seeing Krystal watching her intently, she smiled and explained, ‘I need to keep them within my influence, so I need to handle them often. It’s a bit like charging a battery, to give it an everyday analogy. They need to know that they’re still mine, otherwise they won’t respond properly.

  When the cards had been spread out in a large half-circle on the table, Krystal chose the number requested of her, then handed them to Wanda without looking at them, as she had been instructed. ‘Sorry about that,’ Wanda explained, ‘but you could unsuspectingly imbue them with your own personality, and they would become confused.

  As she spoke, she dealt the chosen cards into a cross shape, with a few other small piles above, below, and to left and right in groups of three, still face down. She then riffled through the remaining cards and extracted one, placing it in the middle of the shape. ‘As I thought,’ she stated. ‘The card that I had decided would work best as your significator was still in the pack of unchosen cards, so I shall place it here, to represent you.

  ‘We’re now going to take a look at the first four sets of cards. These represent,’ she intoned, ‘what is behind you.’ Here, she indicated the group of three cards to the left. Pointing to the three to the right of the grouping, she added, ‘and what is before you.’ Moving her indicating finger to the three topmost cards, she said, ‘These cards represent what has influence over you, and this group here,’ moving her hand to the bottom three, ‘are what’s below you, meaning that these are things that you can have influence over. I’ll explain the other groups as we go along.’

  Krystal was now thoroughly relaxed, partly because of the singsong, soothing character that Wanda’s voice had taken on, partly to do with the half-full second glass of home-made wine that sat by her right hand. She had a feeling that this was exactly what she should be doing at this difficult point in her life, and was more than half-hypnotised by the atmosphere and the scent from two incense sticks that Wanda had lit, just before she had removed the cards from their home in the cupboard.

  The next half hour passed peacefully, as Wanda turned over trios of cards, considered each one on its own, then the three together, to get a group meaning. She listened as Wanda outlined the present difficulties in her life, exclaiming that there were very few cards in the suit of cups, which meant her burdens would not disappear in the near future, but with ingenuity and hard work, she would eventually arrive on the other side of this problematic phase, a better person.

  When it came to turning over the final three cards, which represented the probable outcome of things, Krystal, who was almost drifting off, heard a sharp intake of breath, and sat up straight to see Wanda’s hand frozen above the cards, a look of incomprehension on her face.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, as Wanda’s face described a mask of surprise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, honestly puzzled.

  ‘Well, what do they mean?’ Krystal was completely alert now.

  ‘I don’t know! These cards can’t be yours! Something must have interfered with the atmosphere when you were choosing.’

  Krystal looked at the three cards in question: one showed a tower with two people tumbling from it, the second, a skeleton holding a long-handled shovel, the third, a large sword which stretched the whole length of the card. ‘Are they bad?’ she asked, a little catch in her voice.

  ‘Individually, no; but grouped together like this … I simply don’t understand it. These cards shouldn’t be together. The choice must have been contaminated.’

  ‘Well, what are they, and what do they mean?’ Krystal was now feeling a little worried.

  ‘I’ll tell you, but these cards were definitely not meant for you. In a minute I’ll get you to draw three others, for these three don’t coalesce with the others you chose. This one,’ she almost whispered, pointing to the first of the three, ‘is called The Tower, and usually indicates either some sort of tremendous upheaval in the subject’s life, or even their downfall.’

  Pointing to the middle card, she continued, ‘And this card is Death, but does not usually represent its literal meaning. It usually indicates a profound change – a complete turnaround in the subject’s life. Together with the Ace of Swords, though.’ Here, she pointed to the third and final card. ‘I just don’t know. I’ve never had that combination before in all the years I’ve been reading. It seems to indicate something really calamitous, but I know these cards don’t indicate anything in your life. Choose three more cards.’

  Rising shakily from her chair, Krystal refused as politely as she could manage, rummaged in her bag for the two twenty-pound notes that represented her payment for the reading, and left as hastily as possible. That’d teach her to have faith in some damned charlatan who just wanted to get her hands on other people’s money. She’d just have to find herself a job: it didn’t matter what. She just needed something to keep the larder ticking over while she rallied her resources.

  At least this afternoon had taught her something: a fool and his or her money are soon parted. Walking across the road to her own home, her steps were determined. No one but she could get her little family back on its feet. There would be no divine intervention, no matter how much she longed for some.

  Back in the sitting room of her little cottage, appropriately named ‘The Ace of Cups’, Wanda was still sitting in her seat at the table she used for readings. She was totally nonplussed. The cards simply shouldn’t have come out like that. Something was very awry.

  Suddenly the scent of the incense smelled cloying and overpowering, as if it would curdle her mind if it managed to get into her head. Jumping to her feet, she extinguished the little that was left of them, and the candles, and opened both the windows and the front door to clear away the smell, suddenly sickened by it.

  She felt decidedly wobbly, and a tiny susurration of fear fluttered at her heart and in her stomach, as she whispered to herself, ‘Something wicked this way comes.’ There was definitely evil in the air, but even she, a Wiccan and tarot reader, had no inkling of what was to come in the near future, and what an effect it would have on her business.

  Wrapping her arms around her body as if she were cold, Wanda made off to the kitchen to throw together a large bowl of salad as her offering for the evening. That and a couple of Fre
nch sticks she had bought that morning were the simplest things to take along, and should be welcome enough, as she suspected that most people would bring sweet things.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday evening – Castle Farthing

  A minibus taxi drew up outside The Fisherman’s Flies at seven o’clock precisely, and the driver gave three sharp toots on the horn, as instructed by the passenger who had sat in front with him. ‘Back at closing time as arranged,’ the passenger said, and the minibus disgorged its cargo of six assorted Carmichaels.

  The first to get out was Merc, almost as tall as his younger brother Davey and equally as broad. Next out was Ham, a midget in comparison at five feet nine, joined immediately by Rome; a man of just over six feet in height, but slimly built: at a distance, and in a bad light, he looked rather like a human string bean. The girls emerged next, first Juliet, tall for a woman, and impeccably turned out as her profession demanded, then Imogen, a squat dumpy figure who didn’t give a fig what she looked like, as long as she had her books and her job.

  The Carmichaels senior were totally disparate in appearance, Mr Carmichael being a tiny man of below-average height, who had fallen instantly in love with his wife when he first set eyes on her Valkyrie-like stature. She was very nearly six feet herself, and generously built, four of their children taking after her, two after her husband. Of the seventh, there was no judgement as of yet, he being so young. Ma Carmichael alone was present with her offspring, her husband having nobly stayed at home to babysit little Harry.

  At the sound of the horn, a door opened on the other side of the village green, and the long arm of the law, in the form of DC Carmichael, came loping across it, almost forgetting about the pond in his eagerness to join his family. Tonight, the Carmichaels were en fete to celebrate the births of two new family members, an occasion postponed for far too long. The regulars of The Fisherman’s Flies wouldn’t know what had hit them when this ill-assorted gaggle invaded its normally peaceful atmosphere.