‘No,’ said Laurie.
‘Could be a few days either side,’ Pat tried.
‘No, the closest birthday would be his dad’s and that was the month before.’
‘Oh, that’s odd,’ said Pat. She could sense a birthday, clear as day and it was significant. ‘His?’
‘No.’
‘Well I’m seeing a birthday very strongly and change centred around it,’ said Pat. The feeling was undeniable and even though the woman in front of her was saying no, this birthday was coming through loud and clear. Many people left her house though and their minds began to spin on what they’d been told and what it could mean, working overtime to find the connection so she wasn’t too worried.
‘Where do I look for . . . answers?’ asked Laurie.
Pat pressed the crystal, felt the hint of a thrum, an energy. She had no idea how she knew what it meant, she just did.
‘Someone you know well. She doesn’t want to talk to you though.’
Meredith.
‘You used to be very close and then you weren’t,’ continued Pat. ‘Does that make any sense?’
‘Yes,’ said Laurie with a sigh. ‘Perfect sense.’
Pat was certain that it was a woman deliberately withholding info. She recognised that sort of sigh. Women could often cause far more damage to another woman than a man could.
‘She will tell you the truth . . . eventually,’ said Pat. She made a small exclamation as the ball in her hand suddenly lost all its heat. ‘Cold. Why am I feeling cold? Somewhere cold. Does that mean anything to you? Extreme cold . . .’ the ball felt cold but clammy ‘. . . Is it snow? Were you planning to go on holiday – skiing, maybe?’
The Northern Lights. It had to be. There couldn’t be many places colder than three hundred and fifty-plus kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in February.
‘I’m seeing . . .’ Pat continued but the image was fading fast. ‘No, I’ve lost it. My head was full of colours, changing like one of them kaleidoscopes. I don’t know what that means.’
But Laurie did. It had to be the Northern Lights.
There was nothing left of Laurie in the ball now for Pat to read. That was the trouble with crystals, they held a lot but not for a long time. She flicked her eyes to the clock. Her readings were mostly short, quick-fix plasters on hearts. She rather liked this new way of working though, feeling instead of computing.
‘Right, let’s look at your object, lovey. Oh, a spent match.’ No one ever picked that one. So much simpler when they picked the bootee or the mother brooch. Pat chuckled. ‘The obvious conclusion would be to say that you feel done with, useless, as spent as the match but . . .’ she left a hanging pause ‘. . . in much the same way as the death card in Tarot isn’t to be taken literally, the meaning of the spent match is likewise misleading.’
Pat knew from the quick rise and fall of Laurie’s eyebrows that she was impressed. She took the match from Laurie’s hand, closed her fingers around it.
‘I see flames,’ said Pat, almost embarrassed at having said the obvious. ‘Which you might think I would, but it’s not fire, it’s life, it’s warmth, passion. I see an image of true love. I see cold and I see fire very clearly together in your future.’ Pat put down the match, threaded her hands together. ‘You’re going to meet your soulmate. He’s very close. Is there someone in your life already that you feel a connection to that could grow?’
Laurie didn’t even have to think about that. The men she was closest to were Alan at the Daily Trumpet, who was very married and Richard, the conveyancing solicitor, who was as gay as a box of yellow dusters.
‘I can’t think of anyone,’ she answered.
‘He’s close, very close, no doubt about that, lovey. Oh he’s a nice man, a perfect match – excuse the pun. I feel—’ Pat smiled ‘—happy.’
Pat dropped a deep, slow nod; the full stop on their session. ‘That will be one hundred and fifty pounds please.’
No wonder she felt happy, thought Laurie.
At the front door, Pat had an unexpected rush of emotion wash over her. She always tried to leave people with hope or comfort and that had been so much easier to do when she was just spinning them a load of crap. As soon as her new gift came into play, that didn’t always happen and, in this case, she’d probably left this young woman with more questions than she had given answers.
‘Seek help, lovey,’ she blurted out. From the heart this, not from any secret room in her head.
‘What?’
‘Someone you . . . like, respect, has suggested you find someone to talk to.’ A fair assumption. Everybody and their aunt had a therapist these days. And a bereaved woman must have been told by a friend somewhere along the line to find a good grief counsellor. ‘You must do that, lovey. It will work for you so you must stick at it.’ She emphasised the musts. ‘This time,’ she added, although she didn’t really understand why the codicil.
‘Thank you, Mrs Morrison.’
Laurie’s head had plenty to chew on as she drove back home. She wasn’t sure if what she had learned today made her feel better or worse. Maybe she should have left well alone as Bella told her to, but then again she couldn’t. She would be stuck in this quagmire of confusion until she found out why Alex had those statements sent to his mother, what he was doing with his money, because nothing had yet come to light. What had he been hiding? Seek help. You must stick at it. This time. It could only mean rejoin Molly’s group. Maybe, if Molly helped her galvanise her thoughts into some order, she would figure things out for herself and not need to confront Meredith. She’d do it.
*
Pat Morrison closed the door on her client but her brow was furrowed. These days she had much more of a conscience than she used to have and blamed the bump on the head for that too. It was an unnecessary complication in her life but she’d been forced to accept it as the price for her new-found gift. Sometimes what she experienced could totally freak her out. Like then. She had heard the words ‘this time’ as if they had been whispered in her ear, like a prompt. A man’s voice, she thought.
The spirits, she had come to realise, worked in enigmas and cryptic messages. Even the ones from Yorkshire. Death, it appeared, made even them leave their penchant for straight-talking outside the pearly gates along with their pit boots. How disappointing.
Chapter 18
8 September
Griff and Lucy lived in a new-build house on an estate in the village of Dodley. Lucy had been seduced into buying it by the lovely long garden, Griff by the proximity to the two-time British welterweight boxing champion Tommy ‘TNT’ Tanner. He lived next door with his wife and son and was in training for his next shot at defending the title. If he won this time, he’d keep the belt forever. The neighbours had got to be friendly over both boxing and baby talk. Lucy and Griff had babysat for them. As Lucy held the little boy, she imagined the time when this would be her own baby snuggling into her shoulder. She wondered if it would ever happen because things weren’t looking great and she was reluctant to go down the IVF route after witnessing what one of their staff and her husband had gone through with it. Five unsuccessful rounds had put such a strain on their finances and their marriage that it had ended, and they’d been a rock-solid couple.