Page 8

That night when he went to bed, he laid his head on the pillow, closed his eyes and tried to think of something else.

But he couldn’t relax and he couldn’t get Lester Ravenglass out of his thoughts.

He expected the telephone to ring at any moment and for Clayton to beg him to come to his aid.

He imagined Lester tearing through the hotel, terrifying the guests, destroying all the furniture and defacing the walls.

In the lonely midnight hours where small worries grew into giant anxieties, Mr Stirling imagined the worst and allowed his fear to feed upon it like a ravenous beast.

Alma stood by her apartment window and gazed out onto the balmy September evening.

The light was fading over Manhattan, turning the skyline pink and plunging the streets below into shadow.

In the park some of the trees were already beginning to turn, but it wouldn’t be until November that they would really start to change to the rich yellows and fiery reds for which Central Park was so famous.

She remembered kicking the leaves there as a little girl and was assaulted suddenly by the smell of damp earth and decaying foliage, and a dizzying wave of nostalgia.

There was something poignant about the memory, for that time was lost in the past, along with the innocence of childhood and the unbridled joy derived from simple things.

She realised then that she had forgotten how to find joy in simple things.

As she lifted her eyes to the sky, she found a startling beauty in the vast canopy of blue and in the pink candyfloss clouds that drifted somnolently beneath it.

Alma was sad suddenly at the thought of leaving the world.

There was no point trying to pretend otherwise.

She was ninety-eight, the sand in the hourglass was running out.

She looked back at the long road she had travelled and saw it as a ribbon meandering into the faraway mists of time, marred with flaws and errors and bad decisions, but also lit up with moments of joy and laughter.

She had lived a long time and experienced a great many things and yet, she had never dared ask herself what it was all for.

It had been easier to just live rather than to think too hard about the meaning behind it.

But she was thinking about it now. Lester turning up had really unnerved her.

He was angry. He wasn’t resting in peace, at all.

Perhaps he had been unhappy in life. If he hadn’t been happy, he probably wasn’t very nice.

And if he wasn’t very nice, had he been turned away from the gates of heaven?

Alma was scared. Might she be turned away too? She wasn’t always nice, either.

But she was trying to be nice now. She was trying to make amends. If she could only find the Potemkin Diamond then she’d be in a position to put things right. She did not want to leave the world without putting things right.

In the sunset of her life, faced with leaving behind everything that had defined her, most notably her name, she wondered what she would take with her.

What did she have? And, in a bewildering flash of inspiration, she realised that all the things she’d thought were important, were of no importance at all.

None of it. It was quite a revelation. None of it mattered. Least of all her name.

So, what did matter? Could it really be such a simple thing?

She dared not look too hard, because, for Alma, love had never been simple.

But she realised now that rather like the light at the core of an atom, love was at the core of life.

She’d been much too consumed with the wrapping to notice it, or to give it the importance it deserved.

Yes, she’d been much too consumed with the wrapping.

But she was considering love now and like a rosy sunrise, it was dawning on her consciousness with the innocence and unbridled joy of a child.

She had changed. Honestly, she would have thought she was much too old to change.

But change she had, and quite profoundly.

The cause of that change had been the devastating and heartbreaking death of her great-grandson, Joshua, who had recently died of a brain tumour.

His loss had cut her deeply and the pain she suffered because he was no longer in her life was unbearable.

She loved her daughter, Leona – of course she did, even though their relationship had never been close – and she loved her granddaughter, Gemma, too – but there had been something about the love little Joshua had given to her that had been unique.

It was as if he had come into the world loving her.

And the version of her that she’d seen reflected in his eyes had had all the wonderful qualities that she had never possessed.

Selflessness, generosity, kindness, patience, tolerance – really, the list could have gone on.

In Joshua’s eyes she’d been perfect, and, consequently, he’d inspired in her a desire to fulfil that vision.

But now his eyes were closed.

Alma stifled a sob. She pressed her hand against her chest and waited for balance to be restored.

She hadn’t been able to help Joshua, who had suffered terribly, but she could help others in his name.

If she found the Potemkin Diamond, she could help thousands of children just like Joshua and make up for all the selfish things she had done in her life.

She went into her bedroom and opened the bottom drawer in the fine walnut chest of drawers that had followed her from the mansion on Fifth Avenue to their cottage in Newport and finally to this resting place here, in Alma’s modest apartment.

Among the few treasured items that had not been sold off to pay debts and to sustain Alma in her dotage, was her grandmother’s Ouija board.

Alma sat on the edge of her bed and placed the box on her knee.

She unclipped it and lifted the lid. Another wave of nostalgia washed over her.

In her mind’s eye she saw the round table in her grandmother’s extravagantly upholstered drawing room, the candle burning brightly in the centre, Didi Aldershoff’s striking green eyes reflecting the flickering flame in dancing specks of gold.

Alma blinked and the vision was gone. Here she was now with the board and none of the skill required to use it.

Had she really opened a door for Lester’s spirit to come through and wreak havoc?

And, if she had, from where had he come?

What exactly did earthbound mean? She wished she had asked.

Just then the box began to vibrate in her hands. She gasped in fright and stared, horrified, as the board itself started to tremble inside it. She knew she wasn’t making it happen, but whatever it was seemed to be using her body, rather like the spirit had used their fingers to move the planchette.

She felt the blood drain from her face as if it was falling all the way to her feet, leaving her lightheaded with fear. The air around her chilled. It was icy suddenly, and strangely damp. She shivered. ‘Is that you, Lester?’ she asked in a trembling voice.

The vibrating stopped.

Alma’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that her entire body was vibrating with the force of it. ‘If that’s you, Lester, tell me what you want?’ she said more courageously.

The box shook again, to such a degree that Alma lifted her hands, and the entire thing bounced off her knee and onto the floor.

The planchette flew across the carpet and landed by the door.

Alma took a sharp breath. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

But everything was still. The chill disappeared and the room was warm again, as if the window had just been closed, shutting out a winter’s night.

She remained on the bed, running her eyes over the furniture, waiting for Lester to make himself known again. But he didn’t. He was gone.

Alma bent down stiffly and picked up the board and the box, and then went to fetch the planchette. There was definitely a connection between the spirit – Lester – and the board. Of that she was no longer in doubt. With shaking hands, she put it back in the box.

Suddenly the telephone rang. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She put a hand on her chest where her heart raced beneath her narrow ribcage and went to answer it. It was her daughter. ‘Hi Mom, it’s Leona. I’ve got some information about Lester Ravenglass.’