Episode 1 - The dream

Monday

"I woke suddenly.  At first I thought someone must be creeping about the flat, although I know I had checked that all doors and windows were shut tight. I mused that it would take a very acrobatic intruder to get to my loggia. My flat is on the third floor of a tall building. It includes part of a covered balcony that runs almost all the way round on every floor. I can only get onto it through my living-room, and the glass door is kept locked except when I sit outside. To my knowledge, no one has ever swung himself upwards from floor to floor on the outside. Spiderman would find 5 floors too little of a challenge, and ordinary burglars would find places easier to get into.

***

"Somewhere out in the darkness someone is waiting for you. Watch out!" I repeated, echoing the words that had woken me.

“What the hell…? I cursed, got out of bed and ran into the kitchen. In the neon light things looked normal. I put water in the kettle and switched it on. A cup of tea and a browse through the travel brochure I had brought home the previous afternoon would let me forget the voice that had prophesied danger while I looked for somewhere to go next time I had the money and time to go somewhere sunny.

“But all the next day that dream intruded on my thoughts. I could hear the fortune-teller's croaky voice and see her in front of me. Her grimy, scarlet painted fingers nails were shaped like claws. She stroked the grubby crystal ball in front of her as if it were a cat. She was a fake, I told myself. All fortune tellers are fakes. All dreams are fakes.

“The fortune-teller must have been about eighty, judging from the pigment on the backs of her hands. At that age, my mother had had the same kind of worn-out, almost translucent skin, still reflecting the sandy pinkness of a redhead, though ageing had taken away the glowing auburn curls of her youth and replaced them with dull salt and pepper strands. But my mother had worn her hair tidy, not un-brushed and falling into her face, and she hadn't daubed herself with theatrical makeup, either. The fortune-teller was from another world, with her ankle-length jumble of clothing, layered without any due thought for colour. Her red muslin bandanna with its gold metallic fringe was tucked gypsy fashion into the nape of her neck.

“Last night I took sleeping pills. I did not do that often, but I did not want to dream about that woman again. It was still dark outside when I woke. The dream had caught up with me. It was like an episode out of a demonic soap opera.

***

“Did you watch out?” the fortune-teller asked.

“For what?” I screamed at her, and this time my scream woke me. I was cold and shivering. I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep by thinking of nice things. Despite the cold, I must have dropped off.

***

"I'll tell you some more, if you like," the fortune-teller offered, clasping and unclasping her hands and then pushing her palms towards me until I dropped coins into them. Quick as a flash, she put the coins into a pocket in her skirt and chanted something into the crystal ball. Her breath came faster and its sour smell assailed my nose.

“Struggling to get away from that dream. I woke, but was unable to banish the fortune-teller from my thoughts, I tried to get up, but I was unable to. I was in that stage of unconsciousness between sleep and wakefulness when the body does not obey the mind. I was forced to go on listening to the woman.

***

"You will get a telephone call," she said between episodes of groaning and moaning. She seemed to be in pain.

"It’s a matter of life and death, Miss. Can you hear the ringing?"

“You’re a fake,” I screamed. “I can’t hear a phone ringing.”

"That's all for today, Lady,” the fortune-teller said, breathing normally. ”My powers are all used up," she added and rose from her chair to the jingling of what must have been a pocketful of gratuities.”

***

At that point there were strange sounds on the recording and then silence.

***

“So what do you make of it, Cleo?” said Dorothy after they had listened to the recording together at Cleo’s cottage..

“Do you know who it is?” said Cleo.

“No. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the voice before.”

Cleo emptied the rest of the coffee into their beakers. They were sitting in front of a hastily lit log fire in the sitting-room. It was June, but not very warm. Dorothy had arrived without warning. She did not usually do that. Cleo could see that her friend was agitated. Plans to go shopping were ditched. The log fire would have calming effect.

“That noise after she had finished speaking sounded like she was not able to breathe properly, Cleo.”

“I thought that, too. Can you stay till Gary gets home?”

“Of course,” said Dorothy.

“That’s what comes of advertising your new venture, Dorothy.”

“I only asked Bertie Browne to put in a good word for us on Thursday.”

“And he obviously did,” said Cleo. “But his Monday Gazette reaches everyone in the district so he probably did not want to wait. That way he could catch a few readers who were not looking for an automobile but might be tempted.”

”I thought it was people wanting to buy and sell cars who liked the Monday issue. I asked him to wait till Thursday.”

“Asking Bertie Browne to keep anything to himself is pointless. Anyway, you were on the front page, so you can’t complain.”

“Squeezed between an ancient Ford and someone’s roof-rack, Cleo.”

“But it did the trick.”

“I didn’t ask him to tell people we were two spinsters looking for adventure.”

“He needs to distribute his rag and at least one client has taken the notice seriously.”

“Even if we knew who that is, how did he or she know where I live?” said Dorothy.

“Ask Bertie Browne, or better still: ask Gary to ask him. I can hear the car. He’ll come in any minute.”

“It can’t have been a cry for help, can it?. No one cried for help on the recording. All that happened was that someone put the memory stick into my mailbox,” said Dorothy. “Could that have been a cry for help?”

“The person who made the recording may not have put it on your mailbox,” Cleo suggested. “It may have been stolen or meant for someone else.”

“That’s true. It sounds like an audition for amateur dramatics. Perhaps that’s what it is. We don’t know when the recording was made.”

“We don’t actually know anything exept that someone has been having bad dreams, do we?”

“No,” Dorothy agreed. “So if it was a cry for help, we can’t do anything about it, can we?”

”I can’t think what at this moment,” said Cleo.

“Could we find out who bought it, do you think?”

“Who bought what, Ladies?” said Gary, as he came round to the back of the sofa and patted Dorothy’s head. He then moved to sit on the sofa arm next to Cleo and embraced her so fervently that Dorothy tried not to look. She was embarrassed. Gary was as openly demonstrative as she had ever seen and never experienced.

“What have you two been up to, and where are the kids?”

“Nella and Bella are fast asleep in our bedroom and the others are at your mother’s, Sweetheart. But Charlie and Lottie are there too. I was about to go shopping when Dorothy arrived.”

“You should have said,” said Dorothy. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be!”

“It’s a bit much for my mother, Cleo,” said Gary. “I’m glad Dorothy showed up.”

“She insisted and Roger is somewhere near.”

“She would,” said Gary. “To repeat my question, who bought what?”

“Listen to the recording and then we’ll talk about it,” said Dorothy. “No one bought it.”

“OK. So whose is it?”

“We don’t know. Dorothy got it by mail,” said Cleo.

“Cleo means it was left in my letter box. Someone put it there anonymously.”

“I’d better listen to it, hadn’t I?”

***

“Why did you get it, Dorothy?” Gary wanted to know when he had finished listening to the recording with visible irritation. “It sounds like a fake. Someone’s playing a joke on the Price Bureau.”

“The Price Bureau wasn’t mentioned,” said Dorothy. “Why would wanting to annoy the Bureau make someone post me an anonymous recording?”

 “Human nature,” said Gary. “You advertised, didn’t you? I saw the blurb on Bertie’s first page.”

 “So you think someone saw the ad and decided to play a hoax, did you?” said Cleo.

“Impossible,” said Dorothy. “The envelope containing the memory stick was in the letterbox before the Gazette can have been read by anyone. I get up with the milkman in the summer and it was already there.”

“You get up with the milkman?” said Gary.

“Don’t tease,” said Cleo, looking sternly at Gary.

“That’s all right,” said Dorothy. “I asked for it!”

”Do you still have the envelope, Dorothy?” said Gary. “Have you checked it for tabs yet?”

Gary enjoyed baiting Dorothy, especially when she was agitated. She did not enjoy his kind of humour though she claimed to. Or was it a reference to the fact that police work was out of her depth? She rose to the bait.

“Not with the milkman. I mean when he brings the milk, Gary. It’s the best time to do some gardening and I always look in my letterbox after I’ve collected the milk bottle. It has to go in the fridge before the sun or the starlings have time to get at it.”

“Starlings?” Cleo said.

“Cheeky birds that open the milk tops and pinch the cream,” said Dorothy.

“You’ll have to train the milkman to put a cover on the bottle,” said Cleo.

“First you’d have to train the starlings not prise off anything you put on the bottle,” said Dorothy.

“Is any of this relevant to what we should be talking about?” said Gary.

“I was only pointing out when the recording must have been planted,” said Dorothy, now sorry she had come to the cottage with her find.

“You’re right, Dorothy, assuming you always took everything out of your letterbox yesterday. Pinning down when it was delivered, if you did not look in your letterbox for 24 hours might even help us to find out who the woman is and if she really is in trouble.”

“Do you want to do that, Dorothy?” Cleo asked.

“Why not? It could turn into a nice mystery.”

“On the other hand, if you think it is a cry for help, why don’t we just sum up what we know so far and see if there’s any point in the Price Bureau or even the police following it up?” said Cleo.

“I’ll jot it all down, shall I?” said Dorothy, taking her notebook and biro out of her handbag.

Gary fetched fresh coffee  for them and then submitted to the routine Cleo and Dorothy had developed during their Hartley Agency days: Cleo thought out strategies and made decisions; Dorothy took notes and had hunches; Gary dealt with the official business. The Hartley Agency had to stay closed while Cleo cared for a houseful of children including the four month old twins. Dorothy and her sister Vera had thought up the Price Bureau to take its place. Cleo was amused, Gary was sceptical.

***

“Where’s Vera,” Gary asked. “Shouldn’t your sister be here, too?”

“She’s in Wales,” said Dorothy, without further explanation.

Gary wondered how the Price Bureau was going to function if Vera wandered off to Wales instead of working on it.

***

“OK. First the recording artist,” said Cleo, who would have liked to know why Vera had gone home to North Wales, but did not ask. “The speaker is nervous. maybe because she’s afraid of burglars, though her apartment is secure. She’s a light sleeper and is telling us the content of a recurring nightmare.”

“Very unnerving,” said Gary. “I’ll get some more coffee, shall I? Back in a mo.”

“You’ve just made fresh,” said Cleo.

“Hot milk, I mean,” said Gary, making off to the kitchen to avoid further speculating about an incident that seemed fairly senseless.

“What about that fortune-teller?” Dorothy said. “Is she only a figment of the imagination? The account was so real I think she must exist somewhere.”

“Typical dream content,” said Cleo. “When we are asleep, we often work through images or experiences we have had in some form. She may have changed some hated aunt into the clairvoyant, for instance.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” said Dorothy, now wishing her sister Vera, with whom she was going to run her Bureau, was at home. In her defence, Vera had gone to Wales to wish her granddaughter Happy Birthday believing that the ad for the Bureau would not appear till Thursday.

“Talking of dreams: I used to dream every night about living with the woman I wanted in my life,” said Gary, returning with the hot milk and not taking his eyes off Cleo.

“Are you comparing those dreams with my nightmares?” Dorothy said.

“Your nightmares, Dorothy?”

“Not mine, Gary. The woman’s. That was a slip of the tongue.”

“Or a Freudian one,” said Gary.

“I had a recurring nightmare once,” said Cleo, looking straight ahead. “In my dream a guy who looked just like Robert and a guy who looked just like Gary shared my bed with me,”.

Dorothy was taken aback, not knowing it was a teasing game Cleo and Gary liked to play.

“I just lay in the middle and tried to decide whose turn it was,” said Cleo, miming the to-ing and fro-ing.

“Did you… well… I’m horrified!” said Dorothy, quite flustered.

“No, I didn’t, Dorothy. Shame on you for having such thoughts!”

Gary was amused not least because the joke had misfired. Dorothy could be just as poker-faced as he was, so one could never be quite sure what she was thinking. Robert Jones was Cleo’s ex and the last person Gary would want to share a bed with. After a mind-blowing affair with a woman who used to be a paragon of virtue, Robert Jones, once married to Cleo and still far too often in her thoughts, preferred not to share his bed with anyone.

Dorothy had taken a long time to understand what had gone on in Cleo’s marriage to Robert. She had even defended him and judged Gary to be a philanderer, in those very words.

“What a dilemma,” Dorothy said archly. “Two such nice men and they had to take turns.”

“No they didn’t!” shoiuted Cleo and Gary simultaneously.

“Got you!” said Dorothy.

***

“And now, we should get back to the matter in hand. An anonymous recording with crime potential is a serious matter.”

“Sorry,” said Gary, artificially contrite. “So you got the recording before the Gazette arrived, did you?”

“Yes,” said Dorothy. “But not necessarily today. It could have been posted yesterday.”

“That makes it hared to trace,” dsaid Cleo, “And was almostly surely the reason it was anonymous.”

Anyway, such a recording would have to be made first and then delivered,” said Dorothy. “That all takes time.”

“But whoever made that recording knew about your detective agency if that’s where it landed,” said Gary.

“It isn’t a detective agency. We just want to advise people.”

“A rose by any other name, Dorothy,” said Gary, deciding that rose was prickly. “Who could know about you if you haven’t launched your enterprise yet?”

“If we can help someone, I suppose we’ve open the shop, haven’t we?”said Dorothy,

“Do you have your trading licence?” said Gary, officiously.

Cleo frowned. Gary was taunting Dorothy again.

“Vera’s getting it on Wednesday, Gary. That’s why we haven’t started business yet, and Bertie Browne was supposed to advertise for us on Thursday so that we could start next week.”

“Who could already know about your enterprise then?” said Gary in a calming-down sort of voice, mainly to calm himself down. Dorothy was getting on his nerves.

“Only Bertie Browne, Cleo and you,” said Dorothy.

“What about the people who manage the office and see to the printing?” said Gary.

“Oh,” said Dorothy.

“But you talked to the receptionists, didn’t you?” said Cleo.  

“I only talked to one, and it was not her voice on the recording. The girl I talked to was called Daphne. She was a pale girl with a profile like a moon.”

“Like what?” said Gary.

“You know those drawings of the man in the moon,” said Dorothy. ”She looked a bit like one of them.”

“You mean a sickle moon, Dorothy,” said Gary.

“I didn’t know you were into astrology,” said Dorothy.

“If anything, astronomy,” said Gary. “When did you talk to the woman named Daphne?”

“Over a week ago.”

“Then we’ll locate her and ask her if she told anyone about the Price Bureau,” said Gary. ”I’ll get Nigel to go along there tomorrow for a little chat with Daphne.”

The brainstorming broke up on that note,. Sensing that her visit was also over, Dorothy declared that she would go home in case there were new developments.

Gary and Cleo hugged Dorothy goodbye and then went through the passageway to the other cottage, where all the children were tucking into pancakes and too busy to bother with parents. Gary took photos of the activity instead. When the little ones finally had time to attend to their Daddy, Cleo got busy clearing up and Grit declared that it had all been such fun, but it wasn’t a challenge she’d want every day.

Gary gave the Price Bureau hardly a thought and was not surprised when Cleo announced that closing down the Hartley Agency was now off the table.

“Although there’s always the Price Bureau waiting to take over,” he replied, not without schadenfreude.

“Poor Dorothy” said Cleo. “I think Vera must have thought better of the idea.”

“I can’t say I’d be sorry,” said Gary. “Can you imagine what sort of messes they would get into? Dorothy is a leap before you look type of person and I don’t think Vera could restrain her for long. I love her hunches, but would prefer not to witness the reenactments of most of them.”