I smiled at the irony of her last words, wondering if it was a deep-felt but subconscious plea. I watched as she poured tea, then coffee for herself and me, the perfume she wore today – Chanel No 19, I suspected – almost as powerful as the coffee aroma. She kept up a barrage of noise-speak about the changeable weather, how difficult it was to find good housekeepers, the price of lemons and other nonsense I couldn’t be bothered to take in, all of it a verbal discharge of her own nervousness. I waited for a break in the flow.
‘Mrs Ripstone . . .’
‘Shelly, please.’
‘Shelly, can you remember the names of any of the doctors or nurses who attended you in maternity?’
Her still-pretty face took on a blank expression, then frowned in concentration.
‘The midwife, maybe?’ I suggested helpfully, hopefully.
‘It was such a long time ago.’ She closed her eyes and after a lengthy pause, began to say slowly, ‘Doctor . . . Doctor . . . Rhanji . . . Rhamsi . . . Rham . . . ? Oh, I don’t know. Was it Djani? He was Asian, I know that. A young man, very nice hands, I seem to remember, long fingers, almost feminine.’
‘It’s okay, I can probably check with NHS records. Anyone else you can think of, perhaps not on the medical staff?’ I wanted an independent witness, someone who was around at the time and who knew Shelly had been pregnant and had had the child, someone over whom the medics had no influence. Because if the baby really had ‘disappeared’ then the medical authorities, for whatever reason, would want the matter kept quiet.
Shelly was slowly shaking her head, her eyes open once more. I sipped coffee and waited. The clairvoyant drank her tea.
‘There was someone . . .’ Shelly said after a while, the memory dredged up as if from a deep well. ‘I think he was another doctor, although he didn’t wear a white coat, or anything like that. Very . . . very distinguished looking. Like an actor, you know? I remember thinking that at the time. But I can’t place him, I think I only saw him twice. He never even spoke, although he did examine me. No, I don’t think I was even told his name.’
I put the coffee cup on the glass table and took out a notepad and pen. Quickly I scribbled down the selection of names she’d applied to the Asian obstetrician under the heading of Royal General Hospital, Dartford. ‘Try to think, will you?’ I urged. ‘Just try to give me some more names. I mean, who else did you have conversations with?’
‘I was an unmarried mother in a ward full of happily married mothers. None of them were very much bothered about me.’
The ‘good old days’, I mused. How things have changed.
‘Well, what about your own relatives? They must have visited you.’
‘I left home at fifteen, Mr Dismas. I haven’t seen my parents, or brothers and sister, since. For all I know, and for all I care, my mother and father could be dead.’
Groaning inwardly, I lowered the pad. At this rate I couldn’t find corroboration that she had even been pregnant, let alone lost a baby. Louise Broomfield, following our exchange attentively, placed her teacup and saucer on the table close to my coffee cup. The spoon in the saucer rattled against china.
‘Look,’ I persisted. ‘How about the midwife? You must have had plenty of contact with her.’
The spoon in the saucer clinked against the empty cup again and I saw the clairvoyant look down at it.
‘Of course, yes.’ Shelly had brightened a little. ‘She was very kind to me. In fact, she was the one who delivered the baby, because the young doctor was out of the delivery room at the time.’
‘The midwife actually made the delivery?’
‘That’s what midwives are for, Mr Dismas. But she needed help at the end. That’s why she sent for the other doctor, the older one.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because I was having trouble with the birth, I suppose.’
‘No, I mean why didn’t she call for the normal doctor?’
‘I’ve no idea. I think the other one was more senior, or a specialist or something.’
Now Louise Broomfield’s empty cup rattled along with the teaspoon in the saucer and I assumed a heavy lorry passing by on the main road outside the house had caused a vibration.
‘You’re sure you can’t remember his name, this senior doctor?’ I said.
A firm shake of the head. ‘I told you, I didn’t even know it then. I never saw him again after my little boy was born.’
‘But he was there at the birth.’
‘I already said.’
I pondered on this a moment. ‘Okay, tell me more about the midwife. You say she was kind to you and you had lots of long chats. Surely you can recall her name?’
Shelly made a grumbling-groaning sound, frustrated by her poor memory. ‘I remember she had a foreign accent. She was German or something.’
‘You think she was German?’
‘I’m not sure. Probably.’
‘Think of her name.’
‘I’m trying to,’ she complained. ‘Why would that help anyway?’
‘Because if I can trace the midwife she might verify your story.’
‘You don’t believe me?’ She sounded mortified.
I changed tack. ‘She could validate the birth when I asked for a search of the records.’
The clairvoyant interrupted. ‘Surely the midwife will have brought hundreds, perhaps even thousands of babies into the world. Why should she remember Shelly giving birth, especially all that time ago?’
‘You got me there. But it’s all we’ve got.’ I noticed Louise looked very pale. ‘If I can find the woman and show her a photograph of Mrs Ripstone, then maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember her stay at the hospital. With luck she might also remember what happened to the baby. Are you okay, Louise?’
The clairvoyant looked momentarily surprised. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You’ve suddenly lost colour.’
Her hand went to her cheek as if she might feel the draining of blood. The teaspoon inexplicably slipped over the edge of the saucer and we all glanced at it, and then at each other.
Louise’s eyelids drooped and she closed them completely. ‘I can hear them,’ she announced quietly.
I sighed and shrugged dismissively; I wasn’t into that kind of thing and was more interested in discovering the identity of Shelly Ripstone née Teasdale’s midwife.
You said she wasn’t English, possibly that she was German, so did she have a foreign-sounding name?’
Shelly screwed her face up again in concentration. ‘I don’t . . . wait . . . it’s there, I can . . . No, it’s gone. I almost had it’
My head cocked to one side as I listened, not to the widow, but to something distant, something like whispers from another room. I looked around and saw nothing unusual. I glanced towards the empty doorway leading into the hall, glimpsed parts of a dining table and chairs in the room opposite, a corner of an etched mirror, probably Venetian or facsimile of.
They’re here,’ the clairvoyant said in a soft breath.
‘Who’s here?’ Shelly was alarmed. She craned her neck, trying to see into the hall. ‘I can’t see anyone.’
‘Can’t you hear the noise?’ I asked her.
Bewildered, she returned my stare. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
But I could, and so could Louise Broomfield. Whispers, slowly increasing in volume, a jumble of agitated murmurings, and they were not from another room: these sounds were there among us. My coffee cup, along with Shelly’s and Louise’s teacup, began to vibrate on the glass table and the portrait of the widow and her late husband above the mantelpiece began to tilt. Suddenly the teacup, with saucer, slid across the coffee table and fell to the floor, dregs of tea and tealeaves spotting the russet carpet.
The whispering became ever louder, the sounds swirling around the room as if borne by some fierce gale.
The clairvoyant reached across to grab my hand. You can hear them too.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
The voices
? Yes, I can hear the voices.’ I snatched my hand away – her touch had been too cold. ‘Who are they? What are they? What do they want from us?’ I think my voice cracked a little.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I can’t understand what they’re trying to say. They’re so frightened, too frightened to make sense.’
‘They’re frightened? They’re scaring the hell out of me.’
I looked around the room, this way and that, trying to locate the source. But the voices were ever-moving, never settling, not even becoming united. The long drapes at the windows were fluttering, fresh flowers on a side table were trembling in their vase.
‘Christ, make them go away, Louise,’ I appealed. ‘Isn’t that what you do? Don’t you control this sort of thing?’ I was perplexed, curious, and fearful all at the same time.
‘I can’t. It would be wrong to make them. They’re trying so hard . . . so hard . . . to tell me . . . No. It’s you they want to tell, not me. Please listen to them, Dis.’
Tiny sugar grains hopped and danced in their little China bowl. My coffee cup glided towards me over the glass, coming to rest precariously on the table’s chrome lip.
‘What’s happening?’ Shelly was sitting bolt upright, clutching the arms of her chair, her hands like claws over the ends. ‘What’s moving everything? Please make it stop, Louise.’
It was then that the voices seemed to find entry into my own head and they began their circling in my mind, the confused cacophony almost overwhelming, the excited whisperings and mutterings becoming thunderous. I clapped my hands to my head and shook myself, trying to rid my mind of the demons, afraid they would drive me mad with their incessant babbling, but instead, I sank into them, became a captive inside my own head, joining with their mutterings as though I were part of them, that their anguish was also mine. I leapt to my feet, fingers pressed tight against my temples, and was aware that the clairvoyant was reaching up to me, trying to calm me; but the voices inside drowned her words, and she seemed a long way away from me, beyond assisting.
I rocked on my heels, afraid for my sanity, the intrusion becoming too much to bear. I called out, not a word, just a sound, anything to counteract that inner noise, but it made no difference, the voices continued their tirade.
Louise was on her feet and Shelly had pushed herself further back in her seat as if trying to get as far away from me as possible, the horror on her face frightening me even more. I twisted my body as though that might help loosen the voices from their fierce grip, but still they persisted, tormenting me with their harangue. Louise held on to me and I saw her lips moving, but couldn’t hear her words, didn’t want to hear her words, because she was to blame for all this: innocent, even matronly, though she appeared, she was the catalyst, she was the one drawing these strange forces to me. I knew it, I could feel it! She had evoked those terrible sounds of wings that had haunted us the previous night, whatever sensory powers she really did possess had induced or provoked the phenomenon! But then I remembered the reflections in the mirrors. On neither occasion had Louise Broomfield been present. Christ, I hadn’t even known her!
It was the thought of those mirrors that sent me fleeing from the room and across the hall into the dining-room beyond.
On the wall opposite the door, mounted above a polished, walnut sideboard containing silver-framed photographs, candlesticks and a full fruit bowl, was the Venetian-styled mirror whose edge I had glimpsed from the lounge earlier. Fake or not, it was a magnificent piece with carved, bevelled edges, the tall oval centre framed by etched flower motifs and topped by an ornate mosaic floral design. Standing across the room from it, the long, walnut dining table between, I saw my own unpleasant image reflected in the glass.
But even as I watched, a new sound was rising not just inside my head but in the room itself. It came like approaching thunder, growing louder and louder, a low rumbling that began to drown the urgent whispered voices. Before my eyes, my reflection began to fade and in its place there appeared thousands of small fluttering creatures, birds of all kinds that flew against the glass as though trapped in the dimension on the other side. Their wings beat against the clear barrier, creating the noise: there were no screeches, no chirps, only the thrashing of those agitated feathered wings and the shifting of air.
I felt the presence of the clairvoyant and Shelly Ripstone, who had followed me into the room, felt them beside me, looking at my face and not at the mirror. Only then did they follow my gaze and look, themselves, into the chaos inside the glass.
Yet when I glanced away to see their faces, perhaps seeking assurance that I was not hallucinating, was not going insane, I realized they did not see the same as I in the mirror, for their expressions held no surprise, no wonder, but merely puzzlement. I faced the mirror again and saw that the images were fading, gradually vanishing, the noise – the flurry of wings, the turbulent air, the voices – abating.
In a few moments, the room was quiet again, and in the mirror was only the reflection of Louise, Shelly and myself.
But as Shelly Ripstone stared at herself, she was speaking, her voice almost distant as though she spoke only to herself and perhaps unconsciously.
‘I remember now,’ she said. ‘I remember the midwife’s name.’
She seemed to snap out of her distracted mood. She turned to us.
‘It was Vogel. The midwife’s name was Helda – no, Hildegarde – Vogel. God, it’s clear as day now. Hildegarde Vogel.’
12
Like most big town centres nowadays, getting to a specific place in Dartford had been screwed up royally by its one-way traffic system and I was forced to use a car park some distance away from where I wanted to be. Walking long stretches was always a problem for me and after the beating I’d taken on the beach the previous night, the bruising and stiffness in my limbs didn’t help much. It even hurt when I breathed too deeply, although I didn’t believe I’d fractured ribs – one particular kick I’d taken while I was down had merely left its mark, a deep purple and yellow contusion over my left rib cage. The afternoon was hot too, which had a draining effect on my energy as I walked.
Grumbling to myself all the way, I eventually reached my destination, the road where the Dartford General had once stood. It was a broad, busy thoroughfare with metal railings on either side to prevent idiots, children and dogs from running out into the traffic. On the spot where apparently the hospital in which Shelly Ripstone/Teasdale claimed to have given birth had stood was a massive, granite and glass office block, an insurance company’s name and logo over the main doors. I lingered outside awhile, leaning against the pavement rail, catching my breath and resting my legs, inspecting the territory at the same time.
On this side of the main road were mainly other offices, these broken up by a couple of estate agents, a betting shop and a bank, all of which looked comparatively new – at least built within the last ten years, that is. On the opposite side of the road, though, I saw what I had hoped to find. It was a longshot, but all I had.
That morning, my client had been quite certain of the midwife’s name. Hildegarde Vogel, a little, thin woman, not at all robust as you might expect one of her profession to be. And very kind. Shelly had impressed that on me: she recalled that Hildegarde had been very kind to her.
Both Louise Broomfield and the widow had been shaken by the mysterious storm that had erupted inside the Ripstone house, and further worried by my actions during it. Why had I fled to the dining-room to gawp into an ordinary if fancy mirror on the wall there? I told them both of the tiny birds I had seen trapped inside the glass and although Shelly had stared at me as if I were mad, the clairvoyant had merely nodded her head, not in comprehension, but in belief. The message was becoming stronger, she informed me. Somehow it would eventually make sense to us.
Shelly Ripstone was pouring herself a large gin and tonic when I left the house, while the clairvoyant tried to assure her that all would be well, that while the phenomenon might be unusual, there was no evil in
tent to it. I wondered how she could be so sure.
When I got back to the office, I had spent some time on the phone, checking out the midwife’s identity with the NHS, and after being transferred from one office to another, finally learned that yes, there had been someone on the Dartford General’s staff who went by that name. The records said she had been transfered from the Prince Albert Hospital in Hackney, in fact, their records did not go back beyond ten years, so she was only just on their list. Did I know that the Dartford General had burnt down? Ms Vogel certainly wasn’t on the NHS list any more, so if she had left the service there would be no record of her current address. Great. Another dead-end.
However, there are certain processes you can go through to trace an adult missing person: checking the electoral roll of the area where the person was last known to have resided is one, scouring through the local telephone directories is another. Or you can use specialist computer tracing companies, which are linked into data bases all over the country. Unfortunately, their services are very expensive. Speaking for myself, I liked to use the method that had rarely let me down: local enquiries, visiting the missing person’s old neighbourhood and asking around. It’s surprising what you can dig up by personal contact, which is why I found myself in Dartford on that hot summer’s afternoon.
I had to walk further along the road to reach a break in the pavement barrier where a pedestrian crossing would get me over the lively main road, my limp quite pronounced by now. I hobbled across, feeling the glares of drivers forced to stop – not their impatience, but their curiosity – then retraced my steps to a spot almost opposite the insurance block. The shop I sought out was a tobacconist/newsagent/confectioner and although it had obviously been modernized some time within the last decade, I was hoping the shop itself had been around for a lot longer. A lottery ticket sign was on the window and through the plate-glass I could see magazine displays and stacked shelves full of sweets and chocolate. Just the kind of place that would be frequented by staff and visitors alike from the hospital that had once stood opposite, particularly if there had been no railings to prevent easy access.