Maureen Johnson - The Madness Underneath

“Jack Brackell had the vantage point. He saw Dawn open the window and that she was acting like someone being pushed or forced —his words—but that there was no one behind her or next to her that he could see. He also reports that Dawn shouted ‘no, no’ and then fell from the window. He ran to her at once, but it appeared that she was dead. He phoned 999 and remained on the spot. No one emerged from the building. The ambulance arrived four minutes later, declaring Dawn dead at the scene; the police arrived two minutes after that. They secured the premises. No one else was home in the other two flats. Her flat was found to be absolutely in order, no signs of struggle or violence of any kind. The case isn’t closed yet, but the notes indicate that it’s believed to have been an accident—that what Jack Brackell saw was Dawn trying to stop herself from falling. They think she probably got her dressing gown caught on the radiator when she was opening the window. The gown was long and had holes at the bottom. She struggled to get it loose and lost her balance.”

“But you think different?” I asked.

“Because of the proximity to Wexford and this detail of Jack’s, we think it’s worth looking into. I made you a promise. I told you we would keep you informed.”

“And if there is something in there,” Callum added, “we need you.”

We need you. Three little words.

“ If you want to come,” Boo added.

“Of course I want to come,” I said automatically. There was no way I was going away with Jane until I found out what this was about.

21

DAWN’S FLAT WAS INDEED NEAR WEXFORD, OVER BY Goulston Street. It was on a street not often frequented by Wexford students, but I still hurried from the car to the door, well wrapped in my borrowed red coat and bobble hat.

We searched the building first. It wasn’t a large building, so the checks were easy enough to do. Stephen gained admittance to the first apartment by showing his warrant card, while Boo jimmied open the locked door of another using a credit card. The basement was a storage area with no lock on the door. We found nothing—no ghosts.

Dawn’s was the top-floor flat, the outside decorated with a doormat with a picture of the moon and stars and a piece of blue-and-white police tape. Stephen distributed latex gloves to Callum and Boo, but when he was about to hand me mine, both he and I seemed to realize the potential problem.

“I suppose,” he said, “we don’t know if you can have these, do we?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, the scene’s been processed, and it’s unlikely anyone is going to come back to have another look. Just be careful what you touch.”

We ducked under the police tape one by one. The whole flat was thickly carpeted in a pinkish-salmon color and smelled of burning sage. The decorations were a bit wizardy—the walls had been papered in a pattern of white with small silver stars. The gauzy silver curtains, the small tables with hunks of crystals looking like strange moon fruit, the incense burners and framed pictures of astrological signs. Two widths of beaded curtain sealed off the rest of the flat—the kitchenette, bedroom, and bathroom. It was an all-in-one live and work space.

“Looks like my cousin’s house,” I said. “Except more weird. Which is saying something.”

Pictures had been removed from their hooks and neatly set on the floor, facing the wall. Three of the chairs had been turned upside down—not as if knocked over, but neatly flipped and placed in a row. A small decorative table had been set on top of another, slightly larger decorative table. The gemstones were arranged in a triangular pattern on the floor.

“Is anyone in here?” Stephen called. “Anyone at all? Make yourself known.”

That brought no response, not that I thought he was really expecting one.

We all stepped a bit further into the main room. Callum and Boo walked over to the beaded curtain. Boo drew them back and looked through the kitchen, then she and Callum stepped through and proceeded on to the bedroom. Stephen had a look at the window itself, looking at the radiator at the base, the locks, how it opened.

“No one here,” Callum said, poking his head through the beaded curtain.

“Just have a look around,” Stephen said. “See if there’s anything in there that seems off.”

I was just standing in the middle of the living room with nothing to do, so I went over to what I assumed was the reading table (it was covered in a purple velvet cloth). My cousin Diane, the one who operates the Healing Angel Ministry out of her house, loves tarot cards. She taught me to read them when I was twelve, when my parents had to go away to a seminar and I stayed with her for a week. While Cousin Diane was sure that the angels were speaking through the tarot cards, I was slightly more convinced that you just learn what the symbols are supposed to mean and make up a story. It’s actually really easy. You start interpreting, and you watch people to see if they are responding. You normally say something like, “There are three things going on in your life right now that you need to deal with.” There are always three things going on in people’s lives that they have to deal with. People will fill in the blanks for you and tell you how amazing you are. I read cards at summer camp for two years in a row. I was so popular with the cards that I convinced my junior counselor to let me skip archery and gymnastics and sit in the games bunk and do readings. I am bad at cartwheels and shooting arrows, but I am good with tarot cards.

It was odd how these cards were spread out—the entire deck on display. And there was something odd about them that I couldn’t place. Something was wrong with this deck.

“Didn’t you say she had just done a reading?” I asked Stephen.

“She had, yes.”

“How long before?”

“A few minutes.”

This wasn’t how you stored tarot cards. Usually card readers stack their cards carefully, and they often store them in special bags or boxes. They don’t just drop them all over the table.

“Can I touch these?” I asked Stephen. “Everyone who has had a reading has touched this deck, so it’s probably covered in fingerprints anyway.”

“I suppose that’s fine. Just be careful.”

The sleeves of the coat were slightly too long for me and covered my hands, so I slipped it off and put it on the table. I used one finger to slide the cards around, sorting them into major and minor arcana. The minor arcana are the ones like normal playing cards, with suits (wands, swords, plates, and cups) and numbers, kings, queens, and princes. The major arcana are the ones with the titles and the more complicated meanings—Death, Love, the Star, the Sun, the Wheel of Fortune. The major arcana are all numbered, and they go in a certain order. Twelve, the Hanged Man. Thirteen, Death. Fourteen, Temperance. Fifteen, the Devil. Sixteen…

One was missing. The Tower.

A lot of people think that Death or the Hanged Man are the cards in tarot to watch out for, but the real baddie is the Tower. And even though I didn’t believe in tarot cards, I took their significance seriously in order to do readings. The missing Tower gave me pause. I looked on the floor, the chairs. I looked on the chair and the shelves, anywhere a card may have been set down.

Boo and Callum had returned from their examinations of the kitchen and bedroom.

“Nothing,” Boo said. “It’s neat and tidy in there. This is the only room that’s been disturbed.”

“A card is missing,” I said.

“She certainly could have caught her dressing gown on the valve here,” Stephen said, pointing at the radiator. “Or she could have tripped over the cord of the floor lamp.”