1 – The real reason for the scéances

Five minutes earlier and my phone would have rung in the middle of a séance and interrupted the rambling monologue of a Strasbourg magistrate. He had been dead for ninety-seven years and, in his own words, bored to death by it all. I apologised to Madame d’Honville and took the call on the balcony. “Papa?”

“I met some friends of yours who work for Virginia Bruck. An old business associate of yours apparently.”

“Is that what she said?”

“What kind of business? And that’s a rhetorical question.”

“I know. She’s from Wurzburg.”

“I checked. Checked everything. I’d like to say she’s quite a dame, but this isn’t the time to be flippant.”

“Was that Humphrey Bogart?”

“Frodo, she’s wanted in connection with the Munich hotel fire and the earthquake in Rigolato.”

“I don’t think she caused the fire in Munich.”

“Well what about Rigolato?”

I waved to Madame d’Honville’s bony head peering from the darkness of her apartment. “Rigolato. I wouldn’t rule that out.”

“Why does she want to speak to you now, Frodo? I thought you turned away from all that.”

“I have. They obviously have other ideas.”

“Well, make your mind up. I’ve already had my car damaged because of you and your associates.”

“What? How?”

“A demon fell on it.”

Madame d’Honville hesitated before opening the French doors of the balcony. “A problem, Christine?”

“No. My father says a demon fell on his car.”

“Ah. Is he. . . .” She pointed to her temple.

“No, no. He has a vivid imagination.” We both heard my father’s distant voice.

“I do not have a vivid imagination, Frodo.”

“Frodo? Who is Frodo, Christine?”

I covered the phone with my hand. “It’s his pet name for me. His favourite film is Lord of the Rings. All three of them. I don’t have big feet, but something else reminds him of a Hobbit.”

“I see.”

“I don’t smoke a pipe either, madame. May I. . . .” I waved the phone.

“Oh, yes. Excuse me. Goodbye, monsieur,” she called.

“Who the hell was that, Frodo?”

“A client, papa. A woman has to earn a living. Is your car insured against falling demons?”

“Speak to Virginia Bruck, Frodo. I’ve met them. They tried to sell me a film prop. They’re not exactly subtle.”

“What prop?”

“One of the books from Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. Never mind the book, Frodo. Do something about these people.” He lowered his voice. “They make your mother look like the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“I will. I promise, but I’ve got other things to think about.”

“Like what?”

“Papa, I’m allowed a bit of privacy, am I not? I have other priorities. Virginia Bruck is not at the top of the list.”

“She’ll put herself at the top of your list whether you like it or not. What’s so important anyway?”

“You’re like a ferret.”

“What are you up to, Frodo?”

“Necromancy, papa.”

He groaned. “Whatever. Dare I ask why?”

“I want to learn, but it isn’t on anyone’s curriculum at the moment.”

“Why do you want to raise the dead, Frodo? Are you lonely? Why don’t you join a club like normal people?”

“It’s a private project.” I think he would have approved of my motives, in theory if not in practice, but his rationality had limits.

“I’m not asking. It’s too late. I’m going to bed.”

“Have fun.”

Madame d’Honville’s dress sense matched the décor of her drawing room. Camouflaged and quiet, she sat unseen until the wallpaper moved and the spectral image of Madam Grace d’Honville, well-to-do widow and charity organiser, emerged from the pattern. “Oh, you’re there,” I said.

“It’s very dark, Christine. The light bulb failed just as you arrived.”

“You need to get the electrics checked. All these gadgets failing to work. The place is a deathtrap.”

“Yes. Everything was fine earlier today.” She tipped forward slightly when she laughed. “It must be you, Christine.”

“Imagine that. A jinx.”

Madam d’Honville giggled. “You have a mischievous sense of humour, Christine. I suspect one day you’ll be a poltergeist yourself. Moving the ornaments around, picking things up and replacing them where they can’t be found.”

“I’d like to think so.” Before I could make an excuse to leave, Madame d’Honville poured two delicate glasses of orange flavoured liqueur. The bright aroma swept across the dim room and she shivered when she handed me a glass and sat in the opposite chair.

“How did you receive the calling, Christine?”

“Calling?”

“Yes. To contact the dead.”

“Well, I suppose it just comes to you. Like hunger. You have to satisfy it.” I hunched forward to match her body language. “You can’t ignore a soul in distress.”

“No.”

“I think the first time the spirits spoke to me was in the cathedral in Rheims.”

“Was it really?”

“Yes. I suppose some might have attributed it to Jesus, like a revelation or something, but it soon became apparent it was a priest, a chaplain I think, his French was difficult to understand.”

Madame d’Honville sipped her liqueur through lips defined by a minuscule amount of lipstick.

“But he said to me, Frieda, Christine, he said, Christine, you have a destiny to search for those souls who are embarking on the wrong journey.”

“The wrong journey?”

“Yes. Souls who come back to life. They take various forms, but they have one thing in common. They were dead, but refused to lie.”

“And have you found any?”

“No.”

“No? None at all?”

“Zero. Perhaps I misunderstood what the French priest had said, but I’ve been conducting these conversations for a while now and still haven’t spoken to anyone who knows of a soul returning to life.” Not a drop of liqueur went down my throat, but I could tell Madame d’Honville was angling for a refill. “Don’t you find it fascinating though? That the dead can be brought back to life?”

“Yes and no.”

“Why?”

“I wouldn’t want my husband walking through the door. I’ve become accustomed to living alone now. I like the solitude.”

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do for them all to come back. Place is overcrowded as it is.”

“Yes. Would you like another liqueur, Christine?”

“No, thank you. I’m not a big fan of oranges. I’ve always preferred apples, to be honest.”

On the way out, Madam d’Honville rummaged through a writing bureau, found an ancient cheque book and tore out one of the pages. “I’ve added a little extra to your fee, Christine.”

“No need to do that.”

“I insist. It was a fascinating evening.”

“You need the money to fix your electrics.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I have a nephew who can do that for me.”

“Okay.” The Paris sky sat low and heavy, weighted down with dense cloud burdened by a legion of demons waiting to plunge on unsuspecting car drivers.

“It looks like rain again,” said Madame d’Honville hugging herself. “It rains so much these days. It must be climate warming. Have you ordered a taxi, Christine, or do you prefer to walk?”

“I prefer walking these days. It clears my mind.”

She ran a scarlet-tipped finger across the line of her top lip. “Oh, be careful. A woman alone at night, Christine.”

I stopped her. “You don’t have to worry about me,” and offered a final smile. Folding the cheque and slipping it into the pocket of my coat I headed to the nearest street corner and looked back. Madame d’Honville, silhouetted against the glare of distant street lights, stood on the pavement undecided whether to stay outside all night or return to the darkness of her apartment.

My ravenous appetite demanded satisfaction. A delicate scent of cooked herbs drew me upwind towards a wide busy junction with restaurants facing each other from opposite corners. Behind La Gare a footpath funnelled the intensifying smell of food mixed with steam and the sweat of busy kitchen staff. I waited, using the shadows of the trees and bushes to remain hidden. Footsteps joined me. A man wandered away from the safety of the main road and I dragged him into my private shadow.

A long greedy intake of blood released the tightness in my muscles and left the man prone in the dirt. His lifeless eyes watched me watching him, watching him with surprisingly little remorse. For a moment I stared at the black dots of his irises, tiny pools of eternity, and distracted by fleeting thoughts of immortality and the search for returning souls I failed to hear more footsteps until they were alongside me. Madam d’Honville stared down and choked.

“Christine. . . .” Her voice startled me. “Oh my god, I told you it wasn’t safe. Christine, you’re bleeding.”

I dabbed my mouth. Ugly blobs of blood oozed off the ends of my fingers. “It happened so quickly,” I said.

“We must call the police.” With no phone Madame d’Honville pirouetted, uncertain what the procedure was after walking into a crime scene.

“I’ll be fine, madame.” I felt taller when I stood up. Madame d’Honville’s scalp was visible through the thinning crown of her dull brown hair.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, Christine. I’ll call for help.”

“There’s no need, madame. I’ll be fine.”

“Believe her.” A second intruder, another witness to the crime, slipped down the footpath behind Madam d’Honville. Before she spoke again I tried to place the woman’s clothes in the right moment in history, but they were too old, older than any period in time I could think of. Harsh material, like sack cloth, upper arms sheathed in dull metal pitted and muddy, loose boots that stopped short of her thighs and gloves heavy enough to attract a falcon or some other bird of prey. A shawl fell away from her shoulders and the lowered hood revealed a grimy face with large eager eyes above a long heavy nose. An aquiline nose, almost demonic and I began to wonder if she was the same figure that had fallen onto my father’s car.

“Who are you?”

Ignoring the stranger’s fancy dress Madame d’Honville asked, “Do you have a phone? Christine has been attacked.”

“Christine?”

Madame d’Honville found a tiny rag of tissue paper and tried to wipe my blood-drenched chin. “I need more tissue.”

“Please, madame, I’m fine.”

“She’s fine,” said the stranger.

“She’s been stabbed in the mouth-”

“I haven’t been stabbed in the mouth. I haven’t been stabbed anywhere.” I spoke to the stranger. “He punched me.”

The stranger turned her head confused and a little suspicious. Both witnesses took a bit of persuading to reverse down the footpath to the junction. When their intransigence became too much the narrow path turned into a trap. Could this be an ambush? Madame d’Honville was too slight to be a killer, but I had met smaller women in the network. She began to soften when I became agitated. “Madame, go back to your apartment, make some coffee, I’ll be along in a moment.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Please, madame. I’ll be along in a moment, I promise.”

“I will go back, but I will call the police from there.”

“Good.”

The stranger knotted her gloved fingers and watched Madame d’Honville hurry along the street. The witch gone, just the demon to deal with.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Metze.”

“Metze? Is that your first name or your last?”

“I don’t understand.” Metze examined my mouth, lifted my top lip and carefully touched the tip of one canine tooth. “But I understand this.”

Her clothing still didn’t make sense unless Jennifer Enzo had arranged for another theatrical murder. If my father was right, if Metze was speaking the truth, Jennifer wouldn’t kill someone invited to join her group. But history suggested otherwise. She had form: she was untrustworthy, unpredictable, prone to acting first and thinking later. If anyone had an absolute power over life and death it was Jennifer Enzo and her legions of emissaries one of whom haunted me now. “Why are you dressed like that?”

She didn’t know, or she did know, but couldn’t understand the question again. Staring at her own dirty clothes she shrugged. “You can’t fight without protection.”

“Do you know me?”

She nodded. “We’re linked by time and experience, Frieda. You have a decision to make and I can help you make that decision.”

I held up my phone to take a photograph, present the image to my father and ask him if this was the demon that dropped onto his car. Metze recoiled and produced a long dagger. “What is that?”

“A phone. What did you think it was? Don’t move.”

Metze lunged, swiping the dagger across my wrist, drawing blood.

“It’s just a phone.” I gulped my own blood and waited for Metze to make another move. One thrust from the dagger, one well aimed push through my heart and everything would be over, my life, my ambitions; the gradual acceptance of my nocturnal lifestyle stopped in the blink of an eye.

She stood back two steps. “I can feel your heart rate, Frieda. I’m not a threat to you.”

“Put the knife away.” I breathed out when the blade disappeared into its long thick leather sheath.

“The need for a decision won’t go away, Frieda.”

“Decision?”

“Which way you fall. You know Jennifer wants you to join with her.”

“Jennifer? Jennifer Enzo? Has she sent you?”

“They’re at forty-eight. You will complete the group. If you ask me it makes a lot more sense.”

“I’m not asking you. I’ll make up my own mind.” The phone had captured Metze’s image. “See.” Metze examined herself. “Now I have you trapped inside my magic box.”

A distant police siren approached. I travelled to Madam d’Honville’s doorstep, disturbing the wall lamp which flickered in disbelief. The siren drew closer. I glanced back down the street obscured by Metze standing nose to nose.

“They won’t leave you alone until you make a decision. I only want to help.”

“Go back to Jennifer and tell her I don’t accept help from total strangers. I want your life story before I’ll trust you.”

“You’ll find out.”

“Don’t play the Zen games with me. Who are you?”

“I’m you, Frieda. And you are me.”

The street burst into view, a sparkle of icy droplets dancing around my face. Before the police car showed up I rang my father, forgetting he had gone to bed.

“We’re not all vampires, Frodo,” he whispered.

“I’ll be home tonight, can you meet me? In your kitchen. I have a picture to show you.”

“What, tonight?”

“It’s important.”

“If it isn’t I’ll ring your neck.”

“I have to go. . . .” The police car arrived and pulled up in front of me. A single policewoman stepped out and spoke over the roof of the car. “Did you call us, madame?” Her face flashed in the light.

“No.”

She came forward. “Have you been assaulted?”

“No. Yes.”

“You’re covered in blood.” The policewoman clicked her two-way radio and confirmed the attack and location. “I’m on Rue d’Andigne. . . . Where did the attack take place, madame?”

“Down there somewhere. I don’t live round here.”

“Are you German?”

“No.” I answered quickly. “Polish.” I led the policewoman to the edge of the pavement and pointed towards the crossroads. “A path off the junction down there. . . .”

The policewoman confirmed a second location. “Chausee de la Muette. . . .” When she turned away I vanished and landed in the kitchen of my parents’ house a little too close to my father pouring a cup of tea. He jumped, dropped the cup on his foot, cutting a toe and scalding his ankle.

“Sorry.”

“What the fuck are you doing, Frodo?”

My cold hands eased the scalding pain. “I think I might have photographed your demon.”

He sat down. “What did I do to deserve this? It’s three a.m., Frodo. Your mother will have a fit if we wake her up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We both know she’d sleep through a bomb going off. Talking of which.” I put my phone down on the table. My father checked the image of Metze and skimmed the phone back to me.

“That’s not her. All this for nothing.”

“Not her? Are you sure? She might not have been dressed like this.”

“She had wings, Frodo.”

“Oh.”

“And longer hair and stark naked. She looks nothing like this woman. Where was this?”

“Paris.”

“Paris. Paris? You’ve just come back from Paris?” He shook his head and then sat up. “Stay there. I have something for you. Don’t break anything.”

While he was gone I cleaned up the broken cup and soaked away the boiling tea. If Jennifer could see me now, on my knees. . . . She was like an irresistible whirlpool sucking witches towards one of two fates: murdered by fire or left indebted to her for life.

“Listen to this.” My father limped into the kitchen. “I met one of these women when I went to look at the prop. I’m not sure who the others are, but I think one of them is Virginia Bruck.” He opened an app on his tablet and replayed a sound recording of three women talking.

He recognised the woman known as Mangusta, I recognised the other two: Virginia’s clipped English aristocracy and Jennifer Enzo’s quarantined Italian vowels.

‘Doesn’t give much away, does he?’

‘You could have stalled him a little longer.’

‘And where did you think of that name? Mangusta?’

‘I didn’t think De Tomaso would convince him. He had enough subtle clues, he knows who we are. Did you hear him talk about Frieda?’

‘She’s grown up. Well, we’ve all grown up, there’s nothing knew there. If we take him at face value she may be out of the picture, but from what you say, Jennifer, she’s mixed up with that clown in Monaco.’

‘She’s still active. She’s still active. Keep an eye on daddy until they get together. Find that dealer in Munich.’

‘I already have. Liza will keep an eye on him.’

‘Oh, and Interpol has sprung another leak-‘

The recording stopped. “That’s when it landed on the car. Blew the electrics, stalled the engine. Who was the third woman?”

“Jennifer. Jennifer Enzo. I don’t know who Mangusta is. One of the forty-nine probably. This was near Nuremberg?”

“Yes. Big house. I don’t know the owner.”

I jabbed my phone. “She visited me tonight, no clue who she is apart from saying she was me and I was her. Now do you see why the necromancy is so important? To begin with I thought it would be a good form of revenge, but now it’s an insurance against death. Kill me and I can pop right up again.”

My father wasn’t convinced. Scrolling through a gallery of film posters, I could see from the way he swiped the screen he wasn’t looking, wasn’t listening.

“What do you mean revenge, Frodo?” He turned the tablet off. “Death, necromancy, revenge. Revenge against who?”

“I want to bring Susan Bekker back from the dead. I want to kill her by bringing her back to life.”