Page 6

‘Well, it certainly had a party in here,’ said Hamish, putting his hands on his hips and looking over the wreckage in dismay. ‘I sense a very dense and angry energy,’ he added darkly. ‘A male energy. Let’s see if we can tell him to go. Might I have a chair, Mr Stirling?’

Mr Stirling bent down to pick up one of the four chairs that had been turned over and was lying on its back on the floor. ‘Where would you like me to put it?’

‘Wherever you can find space,’ Hamish replied. ‘Then you can leave me to my work. It’s not going to be easy, I’m afraid. But I’ll do my best.’

Mr Stirling went into the hall, leaving Hamish McCloud settling onto the chair, closing his eyes and taking some deep breaths.

Mr Stirling imagined the medium would need all the energy he could muster if he was going to get rid of this nasty presence.

He wondered how he was actually going to do it and what special talent was required.

Was it simply a case of being able to speak to the dead, or did he need to do something else?

Just as he was crossing the foyer to go to his office to check his emails, he noticed a kerfuffle at the hotel entrance.

He stopped and watched with a sinking heart as the doorman and two porters rushed to open the doors and escort none other than Mrs Aldershoff into the hall.

She cut a delicate but energetic figure as she marched purposefully towards him.

She was dressed in her usual black as if she had never come out of mourning.

A diamond brooch sparkled on the lapel of her jacket and rings glittered on the bony white hand that clutched the silver dog’s head of her trusty walking stick.

‘Mr Stirling,’ she said when she reached him. ‘Just the man I want to see.’

‘I’m afraid I have no news yet,’ he told her, irritated that she was troubling him for information so soon. Hadn’t she troubled him enough already?

Her lips twitched with impatience and she sniffed. ‘Might it have gone of its own accord?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Mr Stirling lowered his voice. ‘There’s a medium at work in there as we speak.’

Mrs Aldershoff slid her eagle eyes to those double doors across the hall and nodded. ‘How long will the medium take?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Mrs Aldershoff,’ he answered. ‘He has only just started.’ Then, reluctantly, because he knew he wasn’t going to get rid of her until Hamish McCloud had finished, he offered her a cup of tea. ‘Perhaps you’d like to sit in the dining room. It’s quieter in there.’

Mrs Aldershoff looked at the double doors again.

‘I hope he gets rid of it,’ she said and there was a tremor in her voice.

‘You know, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.

Not a wink. I think I was in shock. I was hoping to contact my father.

’ She sighed crossly. ‘If he had tried to come through, he would have been eclipsed by whatever it was that destroyed your room.’ She turned her sharp eyes back to him.

‘You know, it might not be human. It might be a demon, in which case perhaps you’d better call a priest.’

Mr Stirling was losing patience. ‘Allow me to escort you into the dining room, Mrs Aldershoff. Perhaps a nice cup of chamomile tea will calm your nerves.’

She nodded. ‘I’d prefer English Breakfast,’ she said, glancing one final time at the double doors before following the manager into the dining room.

The dining room at the Aldershoff was one of the most beautiful rooms in Manhattan.

With high, vaulted ceilings decorated in rococo trompe l’?il in the prettiest shades of dusty pinks and blues, it retained much of its original opulence.

If Mr Stirling had thought he could just leave Mrs Aldershoff there, he’d been over-optimistic.

‘Sit down, Mr Stirling.’ She waved her hand at the empty chair on the other side of the round table.

A waiter attended her and before Mr Stirling had had the chance to request tea, she had already ordered it – she was a woman who was used to being in control.

‘You know, when I was a girl, this was a sumptuous drawing room.’ A dreamy look settled upon her eyes like mist. Mr Stirling had heard this before, of course, but Mrs Aldershoff never tired of telling him, or anyone else for that matter who was prepared to listen.

‘I remember it like it was yesterday. The oriental rugs, the gold-framed mirrors and giant palms. In those days they stuffed their rooms with all sorts of treasures. Really, it was like a museum with the wealth of antiques they collected from all over the world. My grandmother, the celebrated Didi Aldershoff, imported treasures from as far away as India and China. Her favourite city, of course, was Paris. But then she did have exquisite taste. Most of the things she bought came from there. This house was the envy of New York. Even Mrs Astor was impressed.’

‘I’m sure it was marvellous,’ said Mr Stirling, but secretly he was not as impressed as Mrs Astor.

As magnificent as the building undeniably was, when compared to the great historic houses of England, a faux French chateau built only one hundred and forty years ago and crammed with objects bought to create a sense of ancestral history fell woefully short.

But to Mrs Aldershoff it was a veritable Versailles.

‘I was hidden away, of course, being just a girl. But I spied from the top of the staircase when my parents entertained. And they did entertain, Mr Stirling, most lavishly.’

A waitress brought tea for two in a pretty china teapot decorated with pink roses and green leaves, with matching cups and saucers and a small jug of milk.

Mr Stirling poured while Mrs Aldershoff reminisced.

She appeared to enjoy talking about the past a great deal more than she enjoyed living in the present, for when her mind travelled back down those old, familiar paths, her whole face softened and her thin lips quivered as if slowly remembering how to smile.

At length, Mr Stirling decided she was mollified enough to perhaps be more forthcoming about the reason why she wanted to make contact with the spirit of her father.

‘Mrs Aldershoff,’ he said when she had finished telling him about the moment her mother had given her her own personal lady’s maid. ‘Might I be so bold as to ask why you decided to try to communicate with your father now?’

Her eyes, which only a moment ago had been lost in the past, snapped sharply back to the present. She lifted her chin and sniffed. ‘You may not,’ she replied.

It was a relief for Mr Stirling when a member of his staff came hurrying across the floor to inform him that Hamish McCloud had finished.

‘Bring him to me,’ said Mrs Aldershoff as Mr Stirling rose from his chair.

‘Whatever he has to say regards me as well, so I might as well hear it from the horse’s mouth. ’

Mr Stirling reluctantly nodded his approval to his member of staff and sat back down again.

He would rather have talked to Hamish McCloud on his own, but Mrs Aldershoff was not going to allow herself to be marginalised.

A moment later the medium was shown into the dining room.

Mr Stirling could tell from his serious face that he had not been successful.

His heart plummeted and a wave of despair washed over him.

He didn’t know any other mediums. If Hamish McCloud couldn’t sort this out, who could?

Hamish shook the old woman’s hand and then accepted the chair she grandly offered him and sat down. Mr Stirling asked him if he’d like a drink and he requested a double espresso. Mr Stirling noticed that his hands were trembling slightly.

‘Is it a demon, Mr McCloud?’ Mrs Aldershoff demanded. ‘Have I unleashed the devil?’

Hamish looked disconcerted by the old woman’s directness.

‘Not a demon or a devil, no. But a very angry earthbound soul,’ he replied, withering slightly beneath her hawklike gaze.

‘By playing with the Ouija board, you’ve given him a door into our dimension.

He’s likely excited to be perceived after years of being ignored. ’

‘Is it still there?’ asked Mr Stirling uneasily.

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘Is it confined to that room or can it …’ Mr Stirling barely dared utter the words as the vision of a demon of destruction creating havoc all over the hotel took his breath away. But Hamish finished his sentence for him.

‘It can go anywhere. It really depends on its state of mind. It is imprisoned by its own thoughts, you see. If it thinks it can’t get out of that room, it will stay there.

If it believes it has the run of the building, it might make trouble everywhere.

Its reality is a mental construct and we don’t know exactly what that is. ’

‘Where do we go from here?’ Mr Stirling asked, struggling to maintain his composure. It was very unlike him to feel rattled.

‘Well, if we can find out who it is, we might have a chance of reasoning with it.’

‘How do we do that?’ Mrs Aldershoff asked.

Hamish looked pleased to be able to deliver something. ‘I did manage to get a name,’ he said. ‘I hope it might help.’

Her eyes widened and she leant forward in her chair. ‘What is it? What’s the name?’

‘Lester,’ said Hamish.

‘Lester.’ Mr Stirling was none the wiser. He looked at Mrs Aldershoff.

‘Lester Ravenglass,’ she said slowly, pulling that name out from the distant past like a long-buried treasure. ‘Well, I’ll be damned …’

‘Who was he?’ Mr McCloud asked.

Alma frowned. She hadn’t thought about Lester in a very long time.

‘He married my sister, Esme, who was twenty-two years older than me,’ she said.

‘He was an Englishman, Viscount Ravenglass, with a grand estate in Hampshire. You might know it, Mr Stirling. It’s called Broadmere.

But my sister swiftly divorced him, moved back here and that was that.

They didn’t have children and we never heard of him again. ’

‘What was he like?’ Mr McCloud asked.

Alma shrugged. She’d never met him. ‘Apparently he was dapper,’ she replied, recalling what her grandmother had told her, for after the divorce, her mother had never mentioned his name again.

‘He wore bright, flamboyant clothes, which were in stark contrast to my father, who was conservative and traditional. I remember my grandmother using that word,’ she added wistfully. ‘Dapper.’

Mr Stirling arched an eyebrow. ‘Do you have any idea why he might be so cross?’

‘None at all,’ she replied. ‘My family lost touch with him after the divorce.’ Her frown deepened. She sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. ‘Then he died. I wonder why he’s come back into the world?’

Mr McCloud looked at Alma steadily. ‘I think you’ll find, Mrs Aldershoff, that he never left.’