The Various Haunts of Men (Simon Serrailler 1)

‘He calls himself a psychic surgeon.’

‘Oh my God. I’ve heard of him. He opens up, he’s chock-a-block for months, word gets round about him really fast and they come from all over the country to see him.’

‘What’s he do exactly?’

‘Claims to be taken over by the spirit of some doctor who lived like a hundred years ago and performs operations … only they’re not. But people seem to think they are.’

‘Come again?’

‘I’m not sure how he does it but his reputation goes before him. He’s cured people of big things … tumours, ulcers, MS … Once people discover where he is, the queues will form and the rest of us will be empty.’

‘It won’t do me any harm … or this place.’ Stephen looked round. ‘And I shouldn’t think you need to worry, it’s different from what you do.’

‘Yes, but people choose between us, not many of them go the rounds.’ Debbie Parker came to his mind. She’d been to other therapists, she’d told him so, though all of them in Lafferton.

‘Did you hear the lunchtime news on local radio? Annie came charging in to tell me. Apparently, there was a police appeal for a girl who’s gone missing.’

‘Why, do you know her?’

‘She came to see me. Fat girl with a bad skin. Nice. Innocent sort of kid. I wouldn’t want her to have come to any harm.’

Stephen drained his mug and got up. ‘I’ve got to get my bike’s new brake pads put on before I open up.’ Stephen was strongly anti-car, though he just about tolerated the fact that Dava needed his old van to travel the seventeen miles from home up to Starly every day.

‘Do you know when this chap is opening up?’

‘The psychic surgeon? No idea. They’re doing work there now though, the decorators are in. Can’t be long.’

Colin groaned. He had read enough about Anthony Orford to know he was a serious threat to his own business. He was unsure exactly how he gained his reputation, or whether there was anything to it, though he suspected not and he didn’t think he liked the sound of it. Talking to people, getting them to relax and meditate and focus on things outside themselves, even prescribing vitamins and herbal treatments, all the things he himself did, were fine but he had never pretended to be a healer, never claimed to cure any illnesses, though he was sure a lot of people who came to see him were relieved of some stress-related symptoms. Headaches and tiredness and irritable bowel syndrome caused by tension might disappear, though he would never make promises. Cancer and heart disease and multiple sclerosis – that was a whole different ball game and pretending to perform operations on people was way out of line. It shocked him. People like that gave decent therapists like him, trying to make a living and give unhappy people a bit of help, a seriously bad name.

He finished his lunch, walked down to the newsagent to pick up the Guardian and then took his usual three-quarters of a mile detour round the town at a fast pace, which was all the exercise he could fit in during the day. As he turned into the top of the lane leading to his consulting room, he saw a black Rover 45 draw up outside. A woman and a man got out and after searching round for a few seconds, as everyone did, found the bell. Colin stayed where he was and watched as Annie opened the door, and let them inside.

He had no clients until three so what was this? He went down the hill and looked at the car. It was anonymous, and there was nothing at all on any of the seats or the parcel ledge, nothing in the door pockets except a folded road map. What kind of people had a completely clean and empty car? He put his key in his door.

‘Colin? There you are.’ Annie’s face was dramatic. ‘The police are here.’

Of course. He went into the cubbyhole that served as a cloakroom, washed his hands, rinsed his mouth and retied his ponytail. He had better be like this, ordinary in a jacket, than wearing his robe with his hair flowing. Annie had put them in his room, where the man was examining the wallcharts of the chakras and astrological signs and the woman was sitting with one leg over the other – good legs, he noted – writing something.

‘Sorry, I was out on my lunch break. I’m Colin Davison.’

He had always believed in being charming to the police, even if it was only when they stopped you because the exhaust was hanging off the van. It was surprising how often it paid off.

‘Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham, and this is DC Nathan Coates.’

Colin shook hands with them both and sat down at his desk. No point, he thought, in pretending he didn’t know what this was about.

‘I take it you must be here because of Debbie Parker?’

If the policewoman was surprised by his directness she did not acknowledge it by a flicker.

‘That’s right. How did you hear about her?’

‘I didn’t, actually, it was Annie, my assistant – she heard the news bulletin on Radio BEV and came in to tell me straight away. It’s awful.’

‘Debbie was a patient of yours?’

‘I call them clients, Sergeant. I’m not a doctor. Yes, she came to see me twice. The second time was only this week. Nice girl.’

‘Can you tell me why she saw you? Was she ill?’

‘Well, as I said, I’m not a doctor. If someone’s actually physically ill and they haven’t consulted their GP, I send them straight there. If they have already been and they just need some spiritual uplift and aid with the deepest part of their psyche to help in their healing, that’s fine and we work on that.’

‘And did Debbie say she’d been to her doctor?’

‘Yes.’ It seemed better to lie. They weren’t going to know. ‘Her real problem was her lack of self-esteem. She needed a lot of work on that. I was beginning to get her to look deeply into herself and discover her true nature, her true path. She had no knowledge of the guidance she could find and she was very responsive.’

Gobbledegook, she was thinking. It might as well have been written across her forehead.

‘How’d she seem when she last came here?’ The young man, who had one of the ugliest faces he’d ever seen. He and the Debbie girl would have suited one another.

‘Well, I told you, we were working together on some of her deep-seated –’

‘Yeah, yeah, but did she seem just dead unhappy? You know what I’m saying – as if she might try and run away?’

‘If you mean do I think she was suicidal, then no. Nothing like.’

‘Do you take any details of your client’s personal lives, Mr Davison?’

He quite liked the woman. She was straight, not asking one thing and getting at another. He gave her one of the smiles that never failed.

‘Not really. I discover a great deal as I get to know them … by intuition, by meditation with them, by what they choose to tell me of themselves. I have names and addresses obviously, and any family relationships which may be inharmonious are often uncovered. I can always sense them. But bare details of parents, siblings, all that, I don’t put down.’

‘Did Debbie say anything at all in the course of her sessions which you think might give us any lead as to where she might have gone?’

He sat looking at his desk for a long time. The room was silent. Neither of the detectives moved or interrupted.

In the end, he said, ‘I’d need to meditate about it. Debbie had a lot of things that needed straightening out, stuff from her childhood that still affected her … I’m not a psychiatrist, you understand, but people recall things that have happened and that are clouding their present well-being, and meditation and other therapies help to clear them away. Debbie wasn’t happy about herself but she was getting in tune, getting more positive, beginning to see her way. That’s a very exciting time when it happens. She was moving forward.’

‘So not as likely to run away as she had been?’

‘Her way of running was down into herself, into the darkness.’

‘Did she mention any friends – anyone she was thinking of going to see?’

‘No.’

‘What kind of treatment did you give her?’ The man again.

Colin sighed. ‘I suggested she change her diet. Wholefoods, fruit and vegetables and wholegrains, plenty of organic mineral water to drink. No dairy fats, sugars or caffeine.’

‘Penance then.’ The detective constable was grinning at him. It improved his face 100 per cent.

‘It benefits most people.’

‘I bet. Anything else?’

‘Exercise. Debbie didn’t take any, or not to speak of. Again, it’s advice most people need and it’s always beneficial. A lot of what I do is to suggest very obvious lifestyle changes and at the same time we work on spiritual energies and inner harmonies.’

‘What kind of exercise?’ the sergeant asked.

‘She was too unfit to start running or even jogging, and to swim, which is the best of all, she’d have to travel to Bevham. I suggested she start by walking, going a bit further each day, good brisk walks. She needed to be in the fresh air as much as possible, preferably in natural surroundings.’

‘Do you know where she went to walk?’

‘She mentioned the towpath by the river but I wasn’t keen on that. Running water is very therapeutic but towpaths are just the sort of places where flashers and that kind of damaged person lurk. Not a good idea for a young woman on her own.’

‘Do you know Lafferton?’

‘Yes, but I don’t live there.’

‘Is there any other place she might have liked to walk?’

‘Well, obviously, the Hill. The Wern Stones up there have ancient origins, it’s a place of very positive energies. As well as fresh and a good healthy climb.’

‘So you suggested she go on the Hill?’

‘I can’t remember if I actually suggested it – I mean, that might have come from her. She lives near it, doesn’t she, and it’s the most well-known bit of Lafferton apart from the cathedral, so it would be obvious, wouldn’t it?’

‘Did she tell you she had actually been walking there? Perhaps when she came back to see you the second time?’

‘I don’t remember. I’ve a lot of clients, you know, my appointment book is full weeks on. I think she definitely said she’d been walking … and I noticed – you can tell when someone’s started to move with the rhythm of the natural world.’

‘So she never mentioned going on the Hill to you?’

He didn’t like this. He’d been open and straight and given up the time and he didn’t like them digging and digging, going on about one thing. What did they think?

‘I said –’

‘You said you have a lot of clients, yeah, right.’

The woman seemed suddenly warmer and more sympathetic as she leaned slightly forward, holding his glance. ‘What you’ve told us so far is really helpful, Mr Davison. But this is very important. Even the smallest thing someone remembers may help us. We have a major police search covering the Hill at the moment.’

The atmosphere in the room had changed. Suddenly, they were talking life or death. He could picture the line of uniformed men beating with sticks to and fro, to and fro, creeping slowly forwards.

‘I do understand,’ he said quietly, meeting the woman’s eyes. ‘I know that the Hill was mentioned as a place she might go as against the towpath but I honestly can’t remember if I suggested it or she did. Is that where she was last seen?’

‘We’re gathering information all the time, Mr Davison.’ The sergeant stood up. Her expression was closed as she came out with the bland official language, her moment of apparent intimacy with him finished.

She handed him her card. ‘I’d like you to think hard about both your meetings with Debbie Parker. If possible, check any notes you may have made. And if anything, the smallest thing, occurs to you, please phone us as a matter of urgency. It doesn’t matter if it turns out to be nothing – let us be the judge of that.’

‘Of course. I’ll meditate about it tonight after my appointments are over.’

‘We’d really appreciate that.’ The young man’s tone was ironic but when Colin looked at him, his face was blank.

Twenty-Five

‘Better, much better. Now we’ll take it just once more from the top.’

The choir groaned faintly. They had worked harder tonight than they felt they had ever worked before and it was nine thirty, time for thirsts to be quenched.

‘When you’re ready, ladies and gentlemen.’

‘Sadist,’ someone said, just audibly.

The choirmaster, David Lester, smiled.

‘Thank you. Now, Dona nobis pacem … Paaaa … cem and please remember, the word means peace … Baritones, do not boom … concentrate and … three four.’

‘Dona nobis pacem …’

In spite of tiredness and dry throats, the music still flowed out of them, inspiring them to better singing than ever. Freya had never felt so absorbed in music nor so moved by what she was singing, difficult though she found it. She listened as the altos rested for several bars, imagining how Britten’s mighty oratorio would sound when they had a full orchestra with them in the cathedral rather than just the assistant choirmaster, good as he was, on the piano.

The sound died away softly. No one coughed or stirred for several seconds. David Lester frowned slightly. They waited for him to say he wanted it again, and again …

‘I do wonder why I have to wait until pub time for you to give of your best. That’s all. Thank you, choir.’

They broke up with a clatter of chairs and music stands.

‘See you in the Keys?’ Joan Younger, who sang next to her in the altos, touched Freya’s arm.

‘Not sure. I’m whacked tonight.’

‘I heard about that missing girl.’

‘Yes. Big op.’

‘All the more reason why you need to relax.’

‘Probably.’

Freya packed her score away in the old black music case she had had since she was at school, and extricated herself from the throng. She had told the truth when she said she was tired, and she had a headache. Days like this were stressful for everyone no matter how case-hardened. She had come to the St Michael’s Singers rehearsal in spite of feeling more like a hot bath and early bed, because she knew she needed not only the distraction of the music, but the balm it poured into her and the uplift the act of singing provided. It hadn’t failed. She felt more at peace within herself but she didn’t feel like an hour of drinking and shouting across the crowded, smoky pub. She had arrived after seven thirty and had to stumble her way through her row when everyone else was already in place. David Lester had stopped and called attention irritably to the nuisance latecomers caused. Now, she walked out alone into the cool, starry night, joyful at being in the fresh air again. Her car was on the other side of the cathedral as there had been no place left when she had arrived, and as she turned the corner, away from the main west door, everything went wonderfully quiet. The houses around her were dark, but there were street lamps, old-fashioned ones like lamps from story books, from which pools of topaz light fell on to the cobbles.