14. THE CHIPPED CRYSTAL BALL

Madame Helena uses all her mystic skills to help....

Madame Helena, aka Dolly Smith, was bored. She was sitting in her regalia inside her tent, and customers in search of an insight into their lives just wouldn’t come along.

There had been the excitement of a death on the beach and not one of the policemen who had put in an appearance had asked her who she thought had done it to the darling ice cream vendor, and they ought to have because wasn’t she gifted with second sight? She hadn’t always been, of course, she’d had no idea such a thing existed until she’d bought the business off an earlier Madame Helena, and the second sight had come along with the tent, the plastic crystal ball and a fancy outfit that made the boys go wobbly at the knees. Or made knees wobble in her mind, when she was bored, that is.

“I’m on police business,” said a woman’s voice from the tent vestibule where potential punters were expected to wait their turn. “Can I come in?”

There was a certain kind of authority in the request so she had replied “of course, please do,” in her most ethereal voice and arranged her mouth into a welcoming yet beguiling smile. At least, that’s what she thought it was, though it looked more like an uncomfortable scar to anyone catching sight of it.

Trayda Sibsey and her best ever friend Angela came in and introduced themselves. It was obvious to Madame Helena that the authority must lie with Angela because her expression was one of indifference whilst the other woman, Trayda, looked as if she might want to take command but daren’t.

“I’m an ex-D.I.” Trayda introduced herself, “and this is my friend Angela. We are looking into the events surrounding the murder of David Stokesey, the ice cream man. Did you know him?”

Now was the time, if ever there was going to be one, for Madame Helena to show the depth of her second sight. It crossed her mind that it’s no good just having a tent and a chipped plastic crystal ball if you don’t have any punters, and a reputation for seeing where others can’t, of offering wisdom to the blind, struck her as being the very best way of getting the sort of reputation she craved.

“I knew him, of course I did,” she said as theatrically as she dared without, hopefully, looking in any way false. “I have known him ever since I established my powerful presence on this little site. I even warned him...” Her voice tapered off leaving a suspicion of something or nothing in the air.

“You warned him?” asked Angela, who it seemed might not be the chief interrogator after all. To Madame Helene’s eyes Angela was a pretty woman, early forties at a guess, and the white marking on her ring finger suggested she had only recently stopped wearing a wedding band. That told Madame Helena a lot, but information in the hands of spiritual guides like she wanted to be can easily go astray.

“I told him out straight,” she said, and let the words stretch out in order for them to gain even more significance than they seemed to contain.

“Yes?” asked Trayda, “you told him straight … what did you tell him straight?”

“You must understand the workings of the spiritual world,” sighed Madame Helena, “you must take your time in listening to the ether and absorbing its truth. But I see you’re impatient: so be it. I told him he would have a downfall, and that a woman would be behind it...” Then she glanced at the white marking on Angela’s ring finger, “tell me, my dear, was it you? Is that what’s brought you round asking Madame Helena about the poor fellow? He yearned after a woman, he did, I could see that in his aura and feel it in his words, I warned him, I did, that a woman would deceive him, would lead him far from the straight and narrow path, would even be his downfall. And now he’s dead...”

“What woman?” asked Angela.

“Not you, dear? Was it not you?” stammered Madame Helena, “I thought seeing as you were with the lady ex-policewoman...”

“Not me, sadly,” said Angela, wondering if she should feel outraged at the euggestion.

“Then it must’ve been that other lady, her that lives at what they call Happy Valley a mile or two down the coast. Fair pretty, she is, with legs many a man would die to touch and bosoms … men will do anything for bosoms, don’t you think? Itt is in my mind that he went with her a time or two, our Mr ice-cream man. Yes, that’s what he did, went with her, secret and naughty and where only my eyes could see through the aura of filth he surrounded himself with when he took those blue shorts of his off and became like the devil himself!”

“You mean, Mrs Hampton? Annie Hampton?” asked Trayda, “you know for a fact, do you, that David Stokesey and Annie Hampton were having an affair?”

“Torrid it was, dear lady, torrid and powerful and filled with the stench of deceit! On the beach, it was, when the moon was high and the sun in his bed, and I’ve seen ‘em at it. Both of them clawing at each other, demanding and begging… it were disgusting to look at!”

“Then why did you look?” asked Angela mildly.

“Why did I look? You ask why did I look? Because it was there, that’s why, and I wasn’t the only one to look! I heard the other as he moved around to see, the electric whir of his motor soft in the midnight air, and the gasps and squeals from the lovers louder than anything...”

“Thank you, Helena,” said Trayda, “we’ll leave you, if you don’t mind, but Inspector Richards might need to have a word with you later...”

The two women backed as quickly as they could out of the tent and into the sunny air outside it.

“What a fantasist,” sighed Angela.

“Maybe, but that’s more than once we’ve heard about Mrs Hampton and our dead man,” said Trayda thoughtfully, “it might all be nonsense, but nonsense should never be forgotten…

oo0oo

Sid Goodman was just leaving his office near the entrance to Sandy Shores when the two women walked past him. They were on their way back to Trayda’s caravan to mull over what they’d learned and maybe have a glass or two of good red wine. They both enjoyed a glass of wine in the afternoon when there was little left for them to worry about for the day, though neither of them had let that fondness get in the way of the more important features of their lives. But they were on holiday, and holidays should be enjoyed.

“Well ladies,” he said, jovially, “I hear on the grapevine that you’re having a bit more than a vacation while you’re here...”

“The local constabulary has asked me for help with their enquiry seeing as I’m not doing much and on its doorstep,” murmured Trayda.

“That young monkey of an ice cream seller… I wish they’d all scarper, burgers, merry go round, clairvoyant and all!”

“I thought they might enhance what you have on offer here,” suggested Trayda.

“Nah. It’s mainly elderly folks who come here, begging your pardon, and they’re not bothered about Punch and Judy shows! But that strip of land belongs to the church and the Reverend Candice manages it, if collecting rents once a month is managing anything!”

“I didn’t know that,” murmured Trayda, “though I supposed it must belong to somebody. So it’s a church property, is it? It’s a wonder they let it open on a Sunday, then!”

“They’ll do anything for a coin or two,” mumbled Sid, “now if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I’ve business to attend to. Enjoy your stay here and don’t ask too many questions of innocent souls, will you?”

And he stomped off.

“Surly, isn’t he?” grumbled Angela.

“He seems to be a bit upset about questions being asked,” mused Trayda, “and it crossed my mind, when he warned us, that it might not be a bad idea for us to look into him. After all, he knows the few operators on that diminutive fairground and it’s quite possible for one of them to have got under his skin.”

“Let’s go and open a bottle and think about it,” suggested Angela, “in the absence of a fella to perve at we might as well have a bottle to cherish!”

“You and your appetite for men,” laughed Trayda, “I’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson after catching your Phil at it with the redhead from Tesco’s!”

“There’s one thing a man can give that nobody else can, and I need it,” sighed Angela, winking at her friend.

© Peter Rogerson 01.04.19