The Gift

“You’ve got the gift,” I remember my grandmother telling me a long time ago, when I was just a girl, and when I looked at her with a frown on my face, she laid a warm hand on my shoulder and, bending slightly, whispered into my ear, “The sight, just like me, and your mother too.”

I had dreams, strange dreams, which sometimes miraculously came true. I had what I perceived as messages from dead relatives, strange things like the flickering of lights and loud banging on doors, only to find nobody was there. Once, a harsh voice told me “no” when I almost stepped out in front of a speeding car. I was skeptical about my gift until I had the dream, the important dream where my gift was truly revealed.

“Do you still think it was only a dream?” my grandmother asked as I gazed at her face, her skin soft and powdery, framed by curly white hair, a slick of lipstick, and then further down to her small frame, clad as always in one of her very much in vogue crimplene trouser suits.

I shivered as once again I recalled the oozing slurry seeping down the hill like a thick black snake to engulf the building beyond, which I knew somehow in my heart was a school. A blue sky arched overhead, and the sun glimmered a bright yellow. I heard panicked screams. That was in 1966, just a day or two before the Aberfan disaster. I relived my dream on our little black and white television set, the news announcer’s face was grim, and my grandmother perched on the settee beside me. My mum, a handkerchief to her face, sniffing loudly as tears rolled down her cheeks.

I was only sixteen with a blinkered outlook and remember turning to my grandmother, my heart beating furiously, and saying, “It’s not a gift. It’s a curse! I couldn’t warn them about this, could I?” I pointed at the television.

“Well, you must use it to help then,” she said sternly. “If you do good things with it, then it will be a gift.” I’d kept those words with me my whole life so far.

A strong male voice cut into my thoughts, “Uh, Mrs. Lane?” and this time, it wasn’t one of the voices in my head. I felt as if I’d been dragged from a dream. I hadn’t thought of that incident for a long time.

I looked up to see a tall man stooping over me. He wore thick black-framed glasses and had sparse sandy hair and a hooked nose. “Ms.” I told him, “Ms. Lane, Donna Lane.” I held out my hand and, reluctantly it seemed, he took it and, fingers barely touching, gave a limp shake. Holding his tie in place against his chest with one hand, he sank onto the hard plastic chair opposite mine. He wore dark trousers with a white shirt tucked in, the sleeves rolled up, showing freckled forearms. A jug of water and two glasses stood on the table between us.

“Detective Inspector Ian Ford.” He indicated the badge pinned to his shirt whilst putting a pad and pencil in front of him and a great square walkie-walkie to his side, its red and green lights flashing like traffic lights. “How can I help you?”

A sudden spurt of nerves rushed through me. This was the first time here, in Emsworth’s constabulary, even though my surroundings were very similar to those in Paris. The same white painted walls, a small window high up, this one splattered with seagull droppings, and the usual clanking paint peeling radiator wide enough to be used as a table, redundant at the moment, cold to the touch and a fan hummed just behind me for the day outside was hot and humid. The beginning of months of burning heat, or so we’d been told by our knowledgeable weather forecasters.

Detective Inspector Ford gazed at me intently as I hesitated. I’d helped the police before with my “gift,” albeit amidst raised eyebrows and smirks until I proved them wrong, proved myself and my talent, but, pushing all that aside, I took a deep breath and said, “I think I may be able to help you with your investigations into the case of the missing girl, Esme Palmer.”

He sat forward, his forearms on the table. He seemed eager, expectant, yet furrowed his brow, and pursed his lips, before saying, with a sigh, “Oh - I see. What do you know?” as if many people had offered help and he’d been disappointed. I could hear the faint cawing of gulls and imagined them strutting the sands like little old men, or flying, their wings outspread, great white shapes against the hard blue of the sky.

“I can see her somewhere deep in the ground beneath a trap door - you know,” I made a rising motion with my hand curled into a fist. “Sort of like a bunker. I smell earth, something foisty and damp, cold even.”

He leaned further forward, excited, “You’ve seen her?”

“Well, no, I had a dream and -”

He held up his hand palm forward, “No, please, Ms.” He glanced down at his notes, a fleeting look that perhaps he thought I wouldn’t notice. He’d forgotten my name already.

“Lane,” I said forcefully, “Donna Lane. I -”

“Please -”

We spoke at the same time, our words clashing together, like somebody mixing bread dough and adding too much salt or too little flour, until politely I held back. He spoke, “Ms. Lane, we go on facts here, not dreams, not visitations from Great Aunt Maud or Uncle Henry –” He gazed at me through his thick glasses, his hazel eyes shadowed and tired as he smoothed away impatiently with the tips of his fingers, the sweat that ran in tiny rivers down his face.

“How rude,” I thought before saying aloud, “I’ve helped the police before, the Prefecture de Police in Paris. I led them to a missing girl, Marie Nowell. I helped to save her life through a dream, a gut feeling, something tangible that I could see and feel.”

We stared adamantly at each other for a split second, “And,” I added, “I haven’t got a Great Aunt Maud or even an Uncle Henry!”

He smiled ruefully and shook his head, “We have a guy here. Calls himself a Criminal Phycologist. He draws up a profile of the abductor or the killer. We go on that, and most times, it doesn’t let us down. We don’t go on dreams. I’m sorry, Ms. Lane, thank you for coming in, but -”

He made to stand up as I said even more forcefully, “It’s not just dreams. It’s messages. I’m a physic, or a medium, a clairvoyant. These things work. People like me are becoming more accepted. I know I can help you. Just hear me out…please.” I found myself standing, my palms flat on the table. I’d raised my voice, almost to a shout, the muscles taut in my neck, but I had to make myself heard in this world of dominant men. Heck, I was surprised that this room was so sparse. Surely the walls should have been decorated with pictures of “Page 3 girls.”

He sat back down and reached for the walkie-talkie. “Okay, I’ll get Baz in,” and when I looked at him enquiringly, “The Criminal Phycologist.”

Before I could say anything, he spoke quickly, “Hi, Laurie? Get Baz will you?” There was a short silence, and our eyes met again. His were shadowed through his glasses, telling me nothing. “Okay, tell him I need him now if possible. Interview room one. Oh, and tell him it’s concerning Esme Palmer.”

“Why?” I thought, “Why is he getting the Criminal Psychologist in? Huh, to make me look stupid, no doubt!”

There was a tense silence as the Inspector scribbled on his note pad. The fan whirred, yet the room grew hotter, the air dense as treacle poured onto a sponge pudding. Sweat trickled down my back, and I longed for a cool breeze and maybe a cool drink. Just as I thought that the Inspector poured us both water from the jug and passed me a glass. I drank it gratefully. It tasted like nectar, a nectar of the Gods, and the best I’d had in my life. The Inspector sat back on the chair now, relaxed, legs stretched out in front, his hands laced behind his head. The door suddenly screeched open, and a man walked in.

“Ah,” said the Inspector, sitting up straight, “Thanks for coming so quickly, Baz. Um, this is Ms. Lane, Donna Lane, thinks she might be able to help us in the Esme Palmer case.” His voice rose at the end of the sentence as if he was asking a question when he wasn’t.

The man reached out a hand and gave me a smile so charming my stomach flipped, and my face burned. “Hello, Ms. Lane, I’m Baz Brady, ah,” he hesitated briefly, “I’m a Criminal Psychologist. You know something about Esme Palmer?” I felt a jolt like electricity pass between us as we shook hands.

He sat down, a powerful looking man, his shoulders broad beneath a shirt as bright white as the Inspector’s. I couldn’t help staring at the chest hair that sprawled from the open neck. He was bald, his head smooth and round making him as attractive as our lolly pop sucking hero, Kojak, and his eyes, gazing at me so intently, were a deep brown. Stubble coated his chin and his cheeks. My face burned even more, my cheeks aflame (maybe it was just the heat and not the effect of this man, Baz Brady), and I felt breathless, inwardly quivering like a jelly. What was wrong with me?

He looked worriedly from me to the Inspector, as if sensing tension, when I said, “I’m a clairvoyant, Mr. Brady. I see things. I think I see where Esme Palmer could be.”

“Ah,” he said, with understanding now, “Hmm, well, we don’t usually work that way, Ms. Lane.” He tapped his pen against the desk.

“Donna,” I said.

“Um, Donna. I make a profile and -”

“Oh,” I interrupted, and before I could stop myself, said, “You mean you make the usual profile.” I counted on my fingers. “Number 1, he’s a loner, keeps himself to himself. Number 2, he also lives alone, seems very quiet and unassuming. Number 3, he hates his mother. Number 4, it’s definitely a man. No way would a woman murder alone. Number 5, he has pictures of his victims plastered all over his bedroom wall. Oh, I could go on and on.”

“Oh my God,” I thought,” What am I doing? They’ll chuck me out now for sure.”

Both men chuckled like comrades that worked for the blue team whilst I worked for the lowly red, as the Inspector said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it, Ms. Lane, and it works for us.”

“I saw the Aberfan disaster before it happened,” I told them quietly. I turned to Baz Brady, “And, as I told the Inspector earlier when I lived in Paris, I helped the Prefecture de Police with their investigations, most especially into the missing girl, Marie Nowell. Do you remember her?”

“Yeah, rings a bell,” replied Baz.

“We found her alive,” I said proudly, “Tied up, bruised and tear-stained but alive. Give me a chance. I can help you. After all, you’ve nothing on this case at the moment, have you?”

“We’re doing okay,” said the Inspector, turning to look at Baz, “Aren’t we, Baz?” He gave him a nudge.

“Well, yeah, yeah, of course, we are.”

“Huh,” I said, riled up now, “I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’ve any leads at all.” I looked at them, my gaze skittering from one to the other.

“Well, that’s not something we can divulge,” said the Inspector. “We’re working through our findings.”

Hands on hips, head thrust forward like an angry bull, I said, “So you don’t want my help then?”

They shook their heads slowly as the Inspector said, “Well, let’s just say, if we need your help in the future, we’ll contact you, okay?”

And Baz finished off, “Is that okay, Ms. Lane?” which at least was accompanied by a shamefaced smile.

“Do you see me as a threat or something, Mr. Brady?” I asked him.

“No, not at all,” he said, somewhere between a pained and incredulous look on his face.

“Okay,” I said, “But I really want to help. I’ll leave my card just in case either of you changes your mind.” I placed a small square business card on the table between them as, without a backward glance, I picked up my bag and, swinging it over my shoulder, walked out of interview room one, trying very hard not to slam the door behind me.

***

Fuming, I walked quickly out of the police station, out onto the stoop and down a flight of concrete steps, and onto the cobbled Emsworth High Street. The heat, quivering in the air, hit me hard. Overhead the sky shone a deep blue and the sun a bright white pulsating glow. Perhaps our clever weather men were right this time, and we really were at the beginning of a heatwave. The sea lay ahead, flat and calm as a silver mirror, a triangular shape in between the houses and pubs at the end of the street. The air smelled of the heat interlaced with salt and the greasy smell of fish and chips and baked pasties. Seagulls swooped and dived, making their strange cawing sound like somebody laughing.

The benches outside the pub The Bluebell were already full with people enjoying a liquid lunch and reveling in such a gorgeous day after a long dark winter and a somewhat tepid spring. Heart-rending music streamed from the open doorway, “I’m not in love, so don’t forget, it’s just a silly phase I’m going through.”

I hummed along to it, calmer now since my rejection from the Emsworth police team consisting primarily, it seemed, of Detective Inspector Ian Ford and, for a reason, I couldn’t define yet, the very attractive Baz Brady. My heart hadn’t fluttered like that since Pierre, and as for the rejection, I decided I should be used to it in England. The French police were obviously a lot more open-minded about my line of work. Stopping half way down the cobbled hill, I gazed proudly at the shop looming in front of me. My very own shop, its frontage complete now, and the sun glinting off its massive bowed windows either side of the glossy black door, its name The Tarot Trove written in large gold letters. At last, I could share my love of the intriguing world of the tarot with others.

All I had to do now was fill the window area and the space inside with tarot cards, glossy covered books explaining tarot and palm reading, incense sticks, candles and other paraphernalia such as jewel studded skulls, black cat ornaments and the ever-popular Phrenology heads and hands covered in their strange black writing. I couldn’t wait. “I keep your picture, upon the wall. It hides a messy stain that’s lying there.”

I went down the narrow alleyway to the side of the shop that separated me from my next-door neighbor, “Heart & Hunt” solicitor’s practice, passing all the silver waste bins lined up against the wall and, taking out a key, I let myself in through the back door which led straight up a flight of steps to the flat above. My black cat Bernie, short for Bernadette, wound herself seductively around my ankles as I stepped inside. Picking her up, I moved to the window and cranked it open. Hot air swirled inside, shaking the dust motes into a frenzy. “Ooh, you’ll wait a long time for me, ooh, you’ll wait a long time.”

Bernie eagerly ate her food as I put the kettle on the hob and got a mug from the cupboard into which I put in a spoonful of coffee, a spoonful of sugar, which I really should stop taking, and, after the kettle screeched to the boil, filling the kitchen with steam, I added water and, carrying it into the sitting room, sat down on the settee. I gazed around, taking in my new home. It was only small, just a sitting room, kitchen, one bedroom and a bathroom and of course the shop below which, crossing my fingers like a child, I hoped to be a success. “and just because I call you up, don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made.”

Taking a sip of coffee, I thought back over the sequence of events that had brought me here to this place, and the only explanation I could give anybody was that I’d run away. Yes, run away, not just once but twice now, until here I was all alone. No Pierre and no Mum and Dad, no Grandmother either, although that wasn’t my fault. She’d died just before I ran away for the first time. Bernie’s claws digging into my leg brought me back to the present, “Hey,” I said to her, “Okay, I’ve got you. You’re special. Didn’t I bring you with me all the way from gay Paree?” She purred loudly as if she had a motor inside her little body as I stroked her long black fur.

Anyway, reader, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let me explain. I’ll backtrack a bit. We went through a particularly bad time as a family (I can’t tell you about that now, but I’ve no doubt it’ll rear its ugly head over the course of this story), and Mum and Dad moved away, all the way from Emsworth in Hampshire up to the north of England.

They’re still there now, and although I’ve kept in touch over the years, I haven’t actually seen them for a long time. I was seventeen and eager to begin a life of my own, so after deciding not to move with Mum and Dad, I took off with a friend from college to go grape picking in France. They weren’t pleased, as you can imagine, especially after what had happened. I think they felt I’d deserted them, but that’s for another time.

Ah, I know what you’re thinking. Is this where Pierre pops into the story? Grape picking in France, the French name Pierre. And, well, yes, you’re right. I met Pierre more or less as soon as we’d arrived. A tall skinny French man with a shock of black curls and bright blue eyes. I was surprised that he noticed me, an average-looking English girl, my straight brown hair cut into a very fashionable pageboy and bland hazel eyes until strong light transformed them into emeralds, but I certainly noticed him and, when the season was over, my friend went home and, even against her whispered words that she thought “Pierre was not to be trusted,” I went to Paris with him.

I was eighteen when we married, and Pierre was twenty. Thank God we had no children because, after eight years together, he left me for somebody else, somebody tall and blonde and curvy. Huh, didn’t I half guess that would happen? So, what did I do? Did I fight for him? Did I shout and scream? Did I cry? No! I upped sticks and, carrying Bernie in a basket, ran away again, this time though with a sizeable chunk of money from the sale of our house in my bank account.

I changed my name back to Lane from Dupont. I never did like being called Donna Dupont. Too many “D’s” don’t you think? And I’m here, back in my birthplace, Emsworth, wondering what’s going to happen now. Maybe I should do a tarot reading to give myself some idea, something to prepare myself for, and something to look forward to.

I’m prepared to be recognized for people to stare and whisper and say, “Isn’t that Donna Lane, the girl that ran away?” But I haven’t seen one single familiar face. No old school friends, no neighbors. Maybe they all ran away too. And if you’re wondering, did I have the sight or the gift, as my grandmother used to call it, regarding my marriage when I was in Paris? Well, no, I didn’t. It deserted me then just as I deserted myself.