The Other Side of Midnight Read online

  I sighed into the lonely quiet of my sitting room. I looked around at the narrow chintz sofa, the heavy draperies over the front window, the plum velvet curtain hanging artfully over the door to the corridor. In the middle of the room was the session table, a simple square with a flowered tablecloth and wooden chairs on opposite sides. Every piece in the room had been picked out by my mother.

  “At least he paid me in advance,” I said to no one.

  The room stared silently back at me. Theatrical, my mother had called the decor, yet respectable. It’s the sort of look that works best.

  The Fantastique. That was what my mother had called herself. It had made my father uneasy and the neighbors had never approved, but séances were a very lucrative business. For as long as I had memory, there had been a small hand-painted sign in the window next to our front door, a crystal ball with striped rays emanating from it. THE FANTASTIQUE, it read. PSYCHIC MEDIUM. SPIRIT COMMUNICATION. DO YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD? Everyone, it seemed, had someone dead they wanted to talk to.

  “It looks a bit like a sunset,” I’d said to my mother of that painted crystal ball when I’d been old enough to notice.

  “It’s theatrical, yet respectable,” she’d replied. “It’s the sort of look that works best.”

  Then my father died in the war, and my mother and I were left alone in our little house in St. John’s Wood, my mother grieving and, eventually, sick. She taught me everything she knew. And when she died three years ago, what was I to do? Her clients still needed someone. The money was good enough, and steady. I was beholden to no one. Now The Fantastique was me.

  But I meant to get the sign changed. The Fantastique now found lost things; that was her only offering. She didn’t do séances anymore.

  I left the sitting room through the velvet curtain and went up the small staircase to my bedroom on the first floor. I undid my dress—a custom creation, dripping in black jet beads, that had been my mother’s—and set it carefully in the wardrobe. It was The Fantastique’s only costume. I disposed of my stockings and heels and untied the black scarf wound in my hair. I brushed out my short waves with a silver-backed brush. Then I tied a silk wrapper over my underthings and went barefoot to the kitchen, making a stop in the lav to wash the makeup from my face.

  Supper was set on the table, a dome placed over it. I removed the dome and looked at a chop, a potato, and cooked carrots. I had a daily woman who came, cleaned, prepared a few meals, and left again, always while I was working. She didn’t mind me and I didn’t mind her. I paid her on time and she ensured I had a bottle of wine uncorked by supper. It worked out well enough.

  I sat and ate in silence. Work always made me ravenous, if it didn’t give me headaches. I cleaned the plate of every crumb, trying not to think of Mr. Baker, of the sadness in his eyes. I wondered whether I should buy a gramophone to break the silence. But no, the image of a girl alone listening to a gramophone seemed a lonely one.

  After supper, I poured myself my first glass of wine for the night and took up my cigarettes. It was the first week of September, with summer just beginning to let go, and the cold and dark not yet arrived. Night had fallen when I stepped into my tiny back garden, and there was no breath of heat on the breeze, but the stars were clear and the air that slid down the neck of my wrapper was warm enough to be soothing.

  I lit a cigarette, and in the flare of the match I saw a man at the back gate.

  I stilled. He stood in the lane that ran behind the row of houses, the wrought-iron fence barely reaching to his chest. He loomed as tall as he had in my sitting room.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Baker.

  I couldn’t see him in the darkness after the match died, but I didn’t hear him move any closer. “I can scream,” I said, my voice curiously calm. “There are neighbors in every direction.”

  “I don’t mean to frighten you,” he said from his place in the dark. “Really I don’t. You needn’t scream.”

  I took a drag of my cigarette, thinking. I was still close to my back door, close enough to duck inside if he came at me. I hadn’t been lying about the neighbors. I wasn’t friends with any of them, but they would at least come to investigate if I screamed. I felt horribly vulnerable in my wrapper and bare feet, the makeup scrubbed from my face. “Look,” I said. “Just leave. I don’t know how else to make this clear. I’m not selling what you’re buying.”

  “Dear God, it’s nothing like that.” Even through his desperation, he sounded disgusted. “I apologize for what happened . . . in there. I was rather shocked. I hadn’t expected . . .”

  “The truth? Of course you didn’t.”

  “I can explain all of it,” he said. “You’re right—the brooch was a lie. I had a good reason. I had to see you for myself, see what kind of person you are. It was important.”

  I sipped my wine. I still wanted nothing to do with whatever drove him, but I was a little curious despite myself. Perhaps I’d find out why a powerful man had taken the trouble to come to a paid psychic on a Tuesday night. “And did I pass?”

  He made a hoarse sound that was almost a laugh; it was unpracticed, as if it was a sound he’d never made before. “You find lost things,” he said at last. “You really do.”

  “It’s my specialty, yes.”

  “You knew what I was thinking. Exactly what—” He cut himself off, then made the hoarse sound again, only this time it sounded like grief. “Ellie Winter,” he said. “You have to find my sister.”

  I shook my head, a senseless weight of dread filling my stomach. “No. Oh, no. I don’t find people. I made that clear to you from the beginning. I make it clear to every customer.”

  “I know. You told me.”

  “No exceptions, Mr. Baker.”

  “My name isn’t Baker,” he said. “It’s Sutter. George Sutter.”

  There was a long beat of silence in which I stared into the dark and hoped I was wrong and none of this was happening, not ever.

  “My sister is—” The man at my gate stumbled over the words. “My sister was Gloria Sutter.”

  My cigarette fell to the ground. “Gloria is missing?”

  “Gloria is dead.”

  My vision blurred, black circles overlapping black circles.

  “She got herself murdered,” he said. “But before it happened, she left me a note. It said, ‘Tell Ellie Winter to find me.’ Now, what do you think that means?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was lowering slowly to the paving stones in my garden, my knees giving way almost gracefully, the wineglass clinking to the ground and rolling away. George Sutter said something else, but I didn’t hear it. I had raised my arms and locked my hands behind my head, squeezing my arms over my ears, blocking out the world and everything in it. I closed my eyes and felt the cool silk of my dressing gown against my cheek, and I never wanted to get up and feel anything else again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I suppose I made a hash of this,” said George Sutter as he stood awkwardly in my kitchen. “I didn’t foresee that it would upset you quite so much.”

  I was seated at the table, where he’d ushered me to get us out of sight of the neighbors. I blinked my dry eyes and felt the world come slowly back into focus. “It was something of a shock,” I said.

  “You seemed quite distressed.” He stayed standing, close to the door to the back garden, as if my emotion was contagious. And though his expression was as controlled as ever, I thought I saw a hint of disapproval. “I didn’t know you were friends.”

  “We weren’t.”

  He waited, but when I didn’t elaborate, he said, “You were in the same business, and I know how competitive Gloria was. You were rivals?”

  I looked up at him. “I find lost things,” I said. “Gloria was a spirit medium, communicating with the dead from the other side.”

  “Soldiers, yes,” he said.


  “That is not the same business,” I told him firmly. “Not at all.”

  He frowned. “If you say so. But you knew each other?”

  “We were acquainted.” I felt in control enough now to force the words through my lips. “When did she die?”

  “Last night.” He looked away, his lips thinning. “She was at one of her . . . sessions. A ghost hunt in a house.”

  I shook my head. “Gloria didn’t do ghost hunts. She did séances. In the privacy of her own rooms. Are you saying she was on location?”

  Now he looked confused. “She was at some sort of session, or so I was told.”

  “At a private home? With a group of others?”

  “Yes.”

  I digested this. “And what happened?”

  The misery I’d glimpsed in my sitting room came over his face again. “Someone stabbed her,” he said, his voice flat. “A single wound to the heart. Then he dumped her body in a nearby pond.”

  I set my hands on the kitchen table, feeling the coolness of the wood on my palms. I took a shaky breath.

  Sutter finally grasped the second kitchen chair, the one my mother had always sat in, and lowered himself onto it. “What about the note?” he asked me. “‘Tell Ellie Winter to find me.’ What does that mean?”

  I looked at him for a long moment. “You don’t know much about what your sister did for a living, do you?”

  He regarded me steadily back. “We weren’t close.”

  “Gloria told me her family disowned her,” I said. “After her other brothers died in the war.”

  His control had returned, and now I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “There were three others, yes.”

  That explained the shadow I’d seen over the little boy with the soldiers. Three brothers, all of them dead in the mud of France. Gloria had almost never spoken of it. “You two were the only ones left, and you weren’t speaking.”

  He showed no flicker of emotion. “My parents disowned Gloria when she took up her . . . profession during the war. Taking money from people and pretending to talk to their loved ones. It was ghoulish—she made a living from grief. It cut my parents to the bone. After our brothers died, it was too much for them to forgive.” His tone implied he agreed with this wholeheartedly. “And, of course, she simply had to be so . . . showy. Going to wild parties with her lovers, getting her photograph in the papers. It was shameless. She never cared about the rest of the family, never cared about anything but herself. She never once asked our family for forgiveness. Having a good time was the only thing that mattered.”

  Perhaps he was right. I never did any of those kinds of things, of course. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  George continued. “Last year our mother died, and our father is now in a hospital for the elderly. Age has taken his faculties. Neither one of them had spoken to Gloria in years.”

  I didn’t give him the usual expression of sympathy; something told me it wouldn’t be welcomed. “So now she’s dead,” I said, “and you’re all that’s left.”

  “In any meaningful sense, yes.” His gaze rested sharply on me. “But you didn’t answer my question. What does the note mean?”

  I took a breath. “Finding people is what Gloria did,” I said. “It is the term she used. You’d go to her to find your husband, find your son.”

  He looked at me in disbelief. “Among the dead,” he said. “Find them on the other side.”

  “Yes. Those who died in the war were her specialty.”

  “Specialty.”

  “It takes effort,” I explained. “The exact soul you’re looking for may not be there, may not hear you calling. It may be wandering lost. In that case, Gloria would find it. And then she’d communicate with it.”

  “And you believe all of this?”

  “Gloria,” I said carefully, “had a great many satisfied customers.”

  George grunted. “And can you . . . do this thing? Can you find her?”

  I felt a brief note of panic as I thought of the sign next to my front door. “Mr. Sutter, I told you. That is not what I do.”

  “And yet she seemed to think you could do it.”

  I rubbed my eyes, suddenly more exhausted than I could ever remember being. That wasn’t who I was anymore. I had decided on that years ago, and if I hadn’t exactly been happy since, at least my life had been quiet and peaceful. “Mr. Sutter, I’m very sorry for your loss, but your family disowned Gloria. You think she was a fraud of the worst kind. I’m not certain exactly what you want from me, and, frankly, I don’t even know if I want to help you at all.”

  He seemed to think this over. He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded me. “Gloria and I had not spoken in seven years,” he said. “I have a town house here in London, but it is under renovation, so I have been staying at a hotel. The hotel is called the King Richard. It is not the fanciest hotel in London, nor is it the lowest. It’s modest and it’s near where I need to be for work, which is why I chose it.”

  I raised my eyebrows and stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

  “Gloria knew nothing of this, of course,” he said. “And yet last night, when I arrived at my hotel after supper at my club, I found that note I speak of. It had been left for me at the front desk. Gloria’s note. I’m a careful man, Miss Winter, and I’ve examined the note thoroughly. It is most definitely in her handwriting. The clerk at the front desk described her in every detail—Gloria was rather unforgettable, as you know. There is no chance of fraud in this case. Gloria knew where I was. She could have left a note for you directly, but she didn’t. She left it for me, communicating with me for the first time in seven years. And six hours after she left that note, she was dead.”

  “And what of the people who were with her last night?” I said. “What of the police?”

  “Scotland Yard is involved, yes. They have interviewed the people who were with her—low characters, all of them. A murder weapon has not been found, and an arrest has not been made. They claim they have no cause for an arrest as of yet.”

  “Then you should let them do their jobs.”

  “Gloria wanted you involved.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. Everything was closing in on me. “No.”

  “I believe you’ll find me a very persistent man, Miss Winter. And I have some connections in law and government that you may find unpleasant to deal with.”

  “What does that mean? What connections?”

  “My meaning is clear enough, I think.” He regarded me impassively. I wondered who he worked for, where he’d collected such power. I’d never broken a law in my life, but a pulse of unease went down my back. I didn’t want complications; I wanted simplicity. Something told me that no matter what I did, I wasn’t going to get my wish.

  “Why did you come here?” I was almost trembling with a sudden spurt of anger. “Why did you pretend to be Mr. Baker? What did you think you would accomplish?”

  He uncrossed his arms, frowning. “I had never heard of you before I received the note, of course.” The “of course” was dismissive, as if it were ridiculous to think a man so important could have heard of me. “I checked into who you were and discovered that you are some kind of psychic. I assumed you were a fraud, as most psychics are. Before I involved you in my sister’s case, I wanted to meet you for myself.”

  “And I just had to go and prove myself to you, didn’t I?” I said bitterly. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Sutter, but I will not help you. I do not find people on the other side. I do not speak to the dead. I won’t do it for you, or for Gloria, or for anyone.” I pushed back my chair and stood. “It’s late. Please leave.”

  He sighed, as if my continued denial was a wearisome chore. “Miss Winter—”

  “You may not have a reputation to protect, but I do,” I said. “I can’t have a man in my home
this late. The neighbors only barely tolerate me as it is.”

  He looked surprised. “I have a wife and children, Miss Winter. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Despite my agitation, I tried to picture this man, so perfectly contained, siring children on any woman. I failed. “I only keep what reputation I have with great care. And so I am again asking you to leave.”

  He remained in his chair, looking up at me. “I have no wish to compromise you. I will leave on one condition.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That you meet me tomorrow, after you’ve had the night to rest and think. I’ll be in Trafalgar Square at ten o’clock. Surely there can be no impropriety in public at that hour.”

  I should have said no. I should have stayed firm. But I wavered. Perhaps it was because I wanted him to leave. Perhaps it wasn’t.

  “Miss Winter?” he said again, as inexorable as a schoolteacher.

  I swallowed and nodded. His expression relaxed, almost imperceptibly, and he nodded in return.

  “Good night, then.”

  I closed my eyes as the garden door shut behind him. Under my eyelids, black circles overlapped black circles again. It was a vortex, pulling, pulling. Gloria’s vortex.

  Tell Ellie Winter to find me.

  Alone in my kitchen, I put my head in my hands.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was in the newspapers the next morning, of course. I read the headlines in the newsstands as I made my way to the tube to meet George Sutter, unable to stop myself from pausing. NOTORIOUS “PSYCHIC MEDIUM” FOUND DEAD, read one. And on another: SPIRIT MEDIUM MURDERED DURING SCANDALOUS SÉANCE. Gloria had been a favorite of the popular press, and everyone from the Mirror to the Daily Mail had splashed her death somewhere on the front page, complete with pictures and insinuations of outré behavior. The more staid and conservative Times stayed out of the muck, carrying headlines about a factory bombing in Manchester. TWO DEAD, BOMBER UNKNOWN, it read. NO OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN CLAIMED. The Times had never been the paper for scandals.